I made a set of eight place mats for my daughter’s Christmas gift. I used three fabrics from a coordinated line. I simply layered the backing fabric, batting, and front fabric and free-motion quilted the yardage on my long-arm. I used the tree print for the fronts:
I used a floral for the backs:
Here is the back side of the machine applied binding:
I had some quilted yardage left over, so I made eight napkin rings . . .
. . . and two potholders. The front:
. . . and the back:
The tree on the potholders was based on a paper foundation pattern I created in eQ8. Notice the snowflake “star” and the Christmas tree balls from the fabric selvage! Too much fun!
The light was favorable one morning and I captured these good images of the quilting on the front and back of the quilt:
A fun feature I added was a reversible binding. Orange on the front . . . :
. . . and toile on the back:
There were only three basic patches to construct the quilt top: A square-in-a-square using various prints for the center square surrounded by orange, a square-in-a-square using a constant tan for the center surrounded by various light neutrals, and two reverse image flying geese units sew together forming a square. However, when sewn together according to the pattern instructions these diamonds and stars were created.
The backing was a toile print which I carefully fussy cut to match the pattern across the three strips of backing:
Detail of the charming toile print used for the backing :
Some final views of the finished quilt:
The original pattern called for four inch squares. I needed a slightly bigger version, so I made my patches five inches. Consequently, the finished quilt measured 95 inches by 105 inches. I used So Fine thread by Superior Threads in color Mushroom. The orange corners and the tan squares were both Grunge by Moda fabrics. The colored prints were scaps of “Silk Road” by Benartex left from a previous quilt. The batting was Hobbs 80/20. I quilted this quilt on my Innova long-arm quilting machine in a free motion “fern” motif.
Early last fall (September 2016) I finished up the Swoon Quilt in a big hurry because I had ordered a new long arm. The new long arm would be too narrow to load the 115″ x 115″ Swoon Quilt, so I had to finish it up quickly. I decided to use a pantograph instead of custom quilting to make things move along a lot faster.
Some of the blocks after quilting:
You can see how big the quilt was by how it draped over the edges of my old 8′ x 8′ cutting table!
I included four extra blocks in the backing fabric to make it large enough:
To photograph the whole quilt I had to fold it into fourths.
The northwest quadrant:
The northeast quadrant:
The southwest quadrant:
The southeast quadrant:
Machine applied binding from the front:
And from the back:
In case you missed it, here is the movie of all the blocks I posted before:
I kept the quilting simple on these, mostly horizontal lines with just a few diamonds to emphasize the fabric designs. I used Hobbs 80/20 for the batting and Superior King Tut threads for the quilting. The place mats measure 15 inches by 18 inches. I quilted the fabrics with my Innova long-arm quilting machine although, they would be easy to quilt on a domestic sewing machine.
I made a quilt especially for Mimi to use when she comes to visit me in New Mexico:
This is the first bed-sized quilt I have completed on my new Innova long-arm quilting machine. Also, it is the first quilt I have ever done using ruler work only, no feathers or curves:
I ended up using the “boomerang” motif extensively all over the quilt. In the flying geese . . .
. . . and in the central blocks:
I added a little variety by using a diamond motif in the gray sashing strips:
I love the backing fabric I found in my LQS, “Quilts Ole” in Corrales, NM:
Do you have a quilt stand? They are so handy:
My quilt design was based on a design called “Elemental” by Art Gallery Fabrics.
I pieced and quilted some coverings for six throw pillows using Southwest motifs I gleaned from the internet:
I used hand dyed fabrics from Cherrywood Fabrics with a Kona Cotton gray background fabric. I had to add a batik here and there:
Brick:
Teal:
Brown:
Watermelon:
Orange:
Yellow:
I quilted the tops using my Janome 8900 sewing machine with the AccuFeed foot which is like a walking foot, but it is built in on the Janome. I used a variegated, brownish King Tut thread by Superior Threads. Here are some closeups of the quilting:
Brick:
I completed another table runner. The design is based on a table runner from Jenny Pedigo et al.’s book “One Wonderful Curve”. Jenny used six of the curved units in light colored fabrics, but my version only has five of the curved units and features my signature lime green plus a dark brown.
This is my first project on my new Innova long arm quilting machine. We recently moved from Michigan to New Mexico and simultaneously upgraded to the Innova. Here are a few pictures of the quilting in progress:
Recently, when I make a table runner or small quilt which will see lots of use, I prefer to bind by machine rather than by hand. In this picture, I have made the double fold binding, sewn it onto the front of the quilt, pressed it to the back of the quilt and glued the binding to the back of the quilt to hold it in place while I stitch in the ditch from the front of the quilt. This method usually works really
well.
Displayed on the floor to catch some of the excellent New Mexico sunshine:
My Pop Lone Star quilts use a single Hoffman Bali Pop, 2 yards of accent fabric and 5 yards of background fabric. A Hoffman Bali Pop is a package of 40 different coordinating batik 2 1/2 inch wide, width of fabric strips. This second of my Pop Lone Star series of quilts uses the “Hummingbird” color way of the Bali Pop. The finished quilt:
Corner quilting:
New Your Beauty inset quilting:
Hummingbird quilting in the background setting squares:
Feather and hummingbird quilting in the background setting squares:
“Continuous Curve” quilting in the diamonds where they meet in the center of the quilt:
View of the entire edge of the quilt on one side:
I used “Continuous Curve” quilting in most of the diamonds forming the Lone Star. However, I used a leaf quilting motif in the accent ring of diamonds and in the outside border diamonds:
Feather quilting in the background setting triangles:
Views of the quilting from the back side of the quilt:
The quilt on display in my (former) Michigan home:
My Pop Lone Star quilts use a single Hoffman Bali Pop, 2 yards of accent fabric and 5 yards of background fabric. A Hoffman Bali Pop is a package of 40 different coordinating batik 2 1/2 inch wide, width of fabric strips. This first of my Pop Lone Star series of quilts uses the “Sea Holly” color way of the Bali Pop. The finished quilt:
The background setting squares quilting:
The diamond quilting:
The border quilting:
The corner quilting:
New York Beauty corner quilting:
Accent ring quilting:
The center of the star, where all the diamonds come together:
I completed the machine quilting, binding and embellishing of The Quilt Show’s 2014 BOM designed by Janet Stone, famous for her alphabet quilts of all descriptions:
The blue background, appliqued border has pebble, fern and feather quilting motifs as well as a little grass under the sheep! I used Bottom Line in a light blue for this quilting.
All the background olive green fabric in the block backgrounds was quilted with diagonal, parallel lines in Bottom Line in an olive green.
The black outside borders were quilted in a feather/fern motif using black Bottom Line thread.
Since this is an alphabet quilt after all, I quilted the alphabet among the feather/fern quilting all around the black border as well. The letters are barely visible:
The letters are easier to see from the backing:
All the blocks have some quilting in Superior’s gold metallic thread. You can see an example in the sides and sails of the boats in this block:
The binding was machine applied and has a faux piping. The binding was sewn down from the front using the Superior gold metallic thread.
I used the Superior gold metallic thread to quilt a scroll motif in the narrow black sashing:
I embellished the entire quilt with gold colored hot fix crystals. I applied a single crystal to each small star in the blocks and blue border:
I applied a single crystal to each appliqued black letter:
Where there was some sky in a block I applied crystals to look like twinkling stars:
I gave this flower in the border a crystal choker:
The sheep have crystal eyes:
The rest of the flowers along the lower blue border:
I sewed a star shaped button in the center of each of the large appliqued stars in the blue border:
The backing is an olive fabric with black dots on it:
Some trees in the blue border:
Maybe you can see some of the other crystals and gold metallic quilting in this little video featuring each block. Turn the volume up, press the arrow and enjoy:
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