Free Motion Friday - Design Possibilities

This little 11 by 11 quilt was designed using Island Batik Fabrics for Curated Quilts Curves challenge.  Here's my process of figuring out what to quilt.  I use a piece of plastic with a sharpie laid over the quilt top so I can see what the quilting will look like.

I was so sure I wanted to quilt bubbles in the curve.

So I kept adding more.

And more.

And more until I realized it was TOO much.

Then it occurred to me I could do spiral lines.

Awesome.  Love it.  But what to put in there?  Bubbles?  Nah.

You can see I tried stippling and wavy lines.  Eh.

Matchsticks?  Bananas?  Big Bubbles?  Little bubbles on a line.  HMMMM....

I like the little bubbles so I redrew it.  LOVE it!

And the finished quilt.

I hope you get to quilt today!

Suzy

Frieda Anderson Class

At the Minnesota Quilters Show last summer (I'll be teaching there in 2019!) I took this class from Freida Anderson.  She's a great teacher and ti was such fun.  I finally got around to quilting it this weekend.  The quilting was done in Superior Fantastic Poly variegated threads.

I had fun quilting lines on the roofs.

Water needs waves.

This is my favorite part of the while quilt!  The border was quilting in these spirals and since it variagated as well as the thread it provided such an interesting texture and visual.

Now to put on it's binding.  If I can find the fabric...

I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy

Curated Quilts Curves Challenge

I was browsing the internet and came across a challenge called Curves for Curated Quilts Magazine.  The challenge is to create a small square quilt with curves and a defined palette of colors including burgundy, fuschia, moss green, teal, and spring green.  White could also be included.  Don't you just love this combination?  I did so much I made a second quilt with the same colors....coming your way soon!

What to do?  I went through my Island Batik fabrics digging for the right colors and found some of their white fabric as well.  It's such fun to work with Island Batiks and I adore being an Ambassador for Island Batiks.

Then I doodled a bunch of little designs and eventually came up with one I liked.   Here it is all appliqued down.  Now to quilt it.  I'll show you more about my design process for this on Friday.

I used my favorite batting, Hobbs.  This quilt is with there new Tuscany Supreme Unbleached Cotton batting.  It's nice and thick and gave a lot of definition to my piece.  

I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy

Ombre Oaks - Reveal

Next week.  Next week I find out how my quilt did in the New Quilts from an Old Favorite Contest at the National Quilt Museum.  I can't wait!  Even if it didn't do well, it's still a finalist and I am thrilled. 

I wanted to keep the black simple, so I decided on undulating feathers.

Here's how I did the part close to the reel.

And some bubbles in the center of the reel.

The final Quilt.  I am so happy with how it turned out.  I'll admit the binding is a little wavy and I probably should've fixed it, but I ran out of time.

A close up view.

I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy

Free Motion Friday - Choosing a Quilting Pattern

I'm currently working on some wonky Christmas Trees.  But....how to quilt it?  I want it to look like snow.  I'm having fun drawing ideas on a piece of plastic overlaid on top of the quilt.  Here are some thoughts...

I think the extra line at the top of the trees looks.......weird.  Not quilt right.  Perhaps if the top line is darker and the bottom is white?  Hmm...

What about putting squiggles between the lines?  Eh....looks weird.

Or filling the whole area?  I love the texture, but it's still not right.  Too dense?

I'll keep fiddling around and see what happens.  Now to see if I have any fuzzy white yarn.....

I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy

Ombre Oaks Part 4

There is an ombre of fabrics in this quilt.  When I was showing it to my friend Shelli and explaining that I was going to quilt inside the large leaf, she said, "Why don't you do an ombre with threads?"  OMG!  What are friends for?!  What a fantastic idea.  The hardest part was picking out the threads in an ombre.  I really needed one more color, but couldn't find the right one.

I started with the darkest pink and did some fill work with swirls, hurricanes, and pebbles.

 Then I kept adding colors.

And more colors.

Until I finished with a light pink.

Here's a closeup.  You can really see the taffeta with the burnout in the middle top of this picture.

Here it is before I added the last pink.  You can tell that the top left is darker than the last set of  color for sure.  It's much easier to see in person.

Check out the back!  WOW.  Can you tell that there should've been one more step between the lightest and the next layer.  I just couldn't find the right color pink and I was in a rush.  The pinks are Isacord, Sulky Rayon, Glide, and a Wonderfil Embroidery thread.  Who knew it was so hard to find blue-toned pinks?

The whole thing at this stage:

And a closeup of the background fill.  I had to use something with a lot of contrast and a totally different scale.

Can you see all my safety pins in the black?  That's what I have left. 

I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy

Penguin Inspiration

 You can't take the quilter out of the teacher.  When doing an art project at school with my students, what did I do?  I drew quilting motifs first and then colored over them with crayon.  Here's mine:

My kids had a blast too....

I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy