Animal Menagerie Quilt

A baby is one of the best reasons to make a quilt! I work with Lisa at Quilt Cove. She has a baby shower coming up. 

Some super cute animals on this fabric! Check out that unicorn!!!


Yak! 


 And check out that ribbon border she did!

With a flange sewn in there, I had to quilt the borders and the body of the quilt separately, so as not to sew over the flange.


Here you also get a peek at the flannel backing.


Great job, Lisa!!!


The Bleeding Heart and Lily of the Valley are blooming all over our yard now!

Grace and peace!!! ~Nancy

Check out all the quilt stories at  Quilt Fabrication, Sew Fresh Quilts, Freemotion By the River, My Quilt Infatuation, Crazy Mom Quilts.

Connie's Grandson's Quilt

Connie's grandson is turning 7 years old and she wanted to make him a quilt. As you can see on the left roller, she used flannel for the back.

He loves all kinds of sports, so she found these sports themed fabrics and put a quilt together using simple squares.

She had a couple of personalized machine embroidery blocks made for this quilt.


His name and the year.


And the finished quilt. I quilted it using "Cinnamon", which echoes the theme of balls flying around. 

And here's a bonus--Connie sent me a video of her grandson, Ben, opening the quilt package up. His reactions are priceless! Great job, Connie! He will love it, and you, for years to come.

Grace and peace!!! ~Nancy

Check out the inspiring quilt links at Love Laugh Quilt, Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework, Cooking Up Quilts.

Quilting Pipeline

My friend, Paula, has a fabulous weekly knitting podcast called Knitting Pipeline, where she talks about knitting, and also talks about nature with an emphasis on birds, bag pipes and quilting, among other interesting topics. She will throw in an occasional YouTube vlog, as well. 

 

Her latest conversational vlog is entirely about quilting, including a baby quilt, fun new fabrics, a project bag, a teddy bear pillow, quilt books, and some needle cases, inspired by the ones I'm making. You can find Paula's thorough notes on her web site, Knitting Pipeline. You will enjoy watching Paula's vlog and listening to her podcast.

An update on the 50 needle cases I'm making for our Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes for this year--they are all assembled. Twenty-four are finished, and twenty-six need quilting, as time allows. You can find the free tutorial for these needle cases from Natalie Barnes of Beyond The Reef: Teeny Simple Needle Cases For Friendship Group.

And since we're talking about knitting, here are some scrubbies I finished recently. They're actually crocheted. I made them from tulle netting on a roll that I purchased at Hobby Lobby. The shiny style tulle is a little thicker and works better than the matte. They're loosely based on Pat's Crocheted Scrubbie pattern, with some mods. Great for home use and as gifts!

Lastly, here's a calligraphy drawing my DD2 recently drew for me. I thought it would be nice to add it to my blog. Thanks, Suzu!

Grace and peace!!! ~Nancy

Linking up to Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Crazy Mom Quilts, Busy Hands Quilts, Sew Can She.

Love Turquoise!

Kay's grandson loves turquoise!  She made this quilt for his 6 year old birthday.

              
It's all beautiful batiks that she got at Quilt Cove, the shop I work at in Eagan, MN.




Harbour Waves is the perfect edge-to-edge design for a watery quilt.

 
The finished size is 45" X 55". Perfect size for a 6-year old to wrap up in! Great job, Kay!

Grace and peace!!! ~Nancy

Check out other inspiring quilt stories at the link up at  Slice of Pi Quilts, Crazy Mom Quilts, Busy Hands Quilts, Confessions of a Fabric Addict.

A Tale of Two Quilts

                   
My friend and former next door neighbor, Mary, recently moved. She has a new set of extra-long twin beds that she wanted quilts for. 

             
Her inspiration for what she wanted was this rainbow chevron quilt photo she found online, made by Red Pepper Quilts.


From that photo I set to work. I started out with 6 1/2" squares in 5 different colorways.


This is 560 half-square triangles. I squared them up to 5 1/2", or 5" finished.


Here they are, being arranged on the design wall, which wasn't long enough to put them all up at once!


Webbed together, as Bonnie Hunter calls it: when the blocks are chain pieced together in one direction--in this case, the horizontal seams, without the threads cut between blocks. The chain pieced threads will hold the quilt together while sewing the vertical seams.

             
Quilting! I used an edge-to-edge design called Windy Meandering by Sophie Collier. It has a long repeat, looks very random, is evenly spaced and has a variety of swirls.

             
Close-up...


I used the 5 colors of the quilt for a scrappy binding.

             
Each quilt finishes at 70" X 100", standard quilt size for extra long mattresses.


Here they are finished and hanging on my longarm...


The backs, with labels in the bottom corners...

              
A close-up of the backing fabric...


And the finished quilts!!!

         
The quilts are delivered. Mary sent this photo of the quilts in her new guest room!!! Thanks for sending the photo, Mary!!!

Grace and peace!!! ~Nancy

Check out other goings on in the quilt world at Show Me Something Rainbow, Crazy Mom Quilts, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Busy Hands Quilts, Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework, QuiltFabrication, Sew Can She.

3050 Miles of Quilt Shops

                         

My friend, Wendy, visited all 72 quilt shops in the 2016 Quilt Minnesota Shop Hop, over 2 weeks time! That was in July/August, 2016. She was one of 99 participants that made it to every participating quilt shop. 

She made this quilt top from the 2016 Minnesota Shop Hop fabrics. The pattern is Marching Band by Terry Atkinson.

                

For quilting, she requested an edge-to-edge design called "Americana Flourish".  

               
The back is a pieced quilt in itself! Every shop gave out a free 5" square of the shop hop fabric, so the backing includes 72-5" squares, as well as some of the other fabrics she didn't put on the front.

              
A bigger photo of the back.

                
And here's the front, photo taken on a rather windy day! Great job, Wendy! It finishes 72" X 91". Great memory of your 3050 mile trip!

You'll find my 2016 Minnesota Shop Hop quilt here.

Grace and peace!!! ~Nancy

Check out interesting quilt links at Cooking Up Quilts, Love Laugh Quilt, Sew Fresh Quilts, Quilt Fabrication, Small Quilts & Doll Quilts, Crazy Mom Quilts.

The Latest Quilt News

Very excited here--just found out my "Tsukubai" won 1st Place Viewer's Choice at the Dakota County Star Quilters quilt show!

And my 2016 Row By Row quilt won Honorable Mention!

Now, let's get on to some quilts hot off the rollers. Here are a few quilts my clients have been making recently.

Karen asked me to quilt this giant piece of designer fabric. It is made by Marimekko of Finland.

She requested tennis ball size meandering. There is nothing more fun than meandering on a longarm! As you can see on the top roller, the backing is Minkee, which makes it super cuddly.

                     

I can relate to long quilts! This one finishes at 59" X 107".

              

Kim found this log cabin quilt top in a box. It was pieced by her grandmother, who has been gone for 26 years now. 

 The fabrics look like they're from the 40's, 50's and 60's, all leftover scraps.

             

Here's what the back side looked like, before quilting. She foundation pieced all the blocks on muslin, gauze and flannel.

Kim will be giving the finished top to her mother for Mother's Day. I'm sure the fabrics contain a lot of wonderful family memories.

             

This is Wendy's mystery quilt from Glad Creations, 2017. 

The quilting is a very swirly design called "Lovegrass".

Wendy used batiks, including the backing, where the quilting really shows up!

And here is the big picture! 

Grace and peace!!! ~Nancy

Check out all the interesting quilting links at Crazy Mom Quilts, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Busy Hands Quilts, Kokaquilts, She Can Quilt.