It's Been a Busy Week In Quiltland!

It's been a busy week in Quiltland, quilting for others, and getting ready for our guild's annual quilt show.

First off, I quilted and bound this antique beauty for Kay this week. It was made around 1940 by her grandmother. The indigo and bubblegum pink combo is so cute!!!



A lot of feedsack prints in this quilt, also:











I used wool batting and meander quilted it, as there was 5" variation in the width of the quilt. The wool batting filled it in nicely and it came out flat and square in the end. It will be a family heirloom that will be cherished by many generations.



Next up is this wilderness animal quilt I quilted for Jane. She made it for her 23 year old grandson, who wanted a quilt of his own for the cabin.



It's made of flannel, in great guy colors:



Here's another one I'm currently quilting for Jane--a jelly roll race quilt. I'm quilting it in an edge-to-edge design called "Fern Meander":



In my own studio, I sewed hanging sleeves on 14 of my quilts, getting ready for our guild's annual quilt show. This is what my 16 quilts look like (2 already had sleeves), folded and ready to take off for the show :



The Dakota County Star Quilters quilt show runs from February 15 through March 17, 2017. We have invited the Minneapolis Modern Quilt Guild to join us this year, therefore the theme of the show is "Modern Vintage".



We spent much of Saturday setting up the 120 quilts at the Dakota County Historical Society. Here's an overview, with setting up still in progress:



And lastly, I'm including a photo of my finished En Provence Bonnie Hunter mystery quilt hanging at the show. The final link-up for this mystery quilt is going on at Bonnie's website Mystery Monday Link-up Finale. Go there to see a number of fantastic takes on this quilt. And thank you to Bonnie for such a fun quilt get-together/sew-a-long!!!



Grace and peace!!!

Linking up to Crazy Mom Quilts, Fort Worth Fabric, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, TGIFF, Busy Hands Quilts, Sew Can She, Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework, Love Laugh Quilt, Cooking Up Quilts, Patchwork Times, SoScrappy, Bonnie Hunter Monday Link-Up

A Snowman, Teddy Bears, & En Provence

This week I custom quilted this cute snowman quilt for Tracy. It's 54" X 76". The quilting includes random snowflakes, wavy lines, figure 8s, pebbles, swirls and other personal touches.



Isn't he a happy snowman!!!



I love doing figure 8 quilting like I did on this guy's scarf!



I sewed the border on my En Provence Bonnie Hunter mystery quilt and it was ready to go on my longarm! I quilted it with an edge-to-edge called "Marmalade" and used wool batting.

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DD2 delivered 84 teddy bears this week to Mother Bear Project. This is about 4 months worth of crocheting for her. She is well over 450 Mother Bears in her lifetime. I made one of these--my number 189. Too busy quilting these days!



This week I got to hear Barbara Brackman speak at the Minneapolis Institute of Art! I won my ticket as a door prize at Minnesota Quilters in January. Her talk was titled "Cut From the Same Cloth: Dry Goods & Quilt Design". It was super interesting--about quilt history and trends, including why we want to get rid of our current fabrics and start over with the newest styles.

She signed my copy of her book, Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns, including over 4000 quilt patterns. Love this reference book! It's out of print, but an e-version is available now.


And last of all, I sewed the binding on my En Provence mystery quilt!!!!! It finishes 88" square. It took me 7 hours of hand sewing on Friday night. During that time I watched Monsters University, Spirited Away by Miyazaki, Cars 2 and some YouTube videos by dani izac, who went on the World Race in 2016.



Here's a peak at the backing--I used 3 Japanese prints from my stash, chosen for their colors.



Grace and peace!!!

Linking up to Crazy Mom Quilts
Confessions of a Fabric Addict
TGIFF
Busy Hands Quilts
Fort Worth Fabric Studio
Sew Can She
Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework
Love Laugh Quilt
Patchwork Times
Cooking Up Quilts
Em's Scrapbag
So Scrappy

A Japanese Craft + 3 Quilts

I lived in Japan for 24 years. That's where I met my husband and where we raised our children. Part of our hearts are still there, in Japan, with our Japanese friends. We received a gift at New Years from one of those dear friends, Hiroko Sueoka of Hikari City. She is very talented in the craft department and is often sending us beautiful things she's made.

These are "Hana Kago" translated as "a basket in the shape of a flower":



Each one is made from many colorful origami papers.



She included detailed instructions on how they are made and some pre-folded papers, as well as some extra origami papers.



Here's some of the different designs she's made. They look to be published in a book:



I finished the binding on my Lego quilt. It took about a week, since it's 97" square:



And here is a baby quilt I quilted for Tracy this week. It features these adorable woodland animals:



I quilted it with a pantograph called "Butterfly Garden". It has butterflies, leaves, swirls and hearts.



The back has all kinds of loving words on it--very sweet:



And quilt number three is my En Provence quilt. I finished assembling the blocks and put on the final border this week:



I did make some changes in mine. For comparison, here's Bonnie Hunter's original En Provence quilt:



Grace & peace!

Linking up to Crazy Mom Quilts, 
Thank Goodness It's Finished Friday, 
Confessions of a Fabric Addict,
Busy Hands Quilts
Love Laugh Quilt
Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework
Sew Can She
Kathy's Quilts
Patchwork Times
Em's Scrapbag
Sew Can Do

4 Quilts

I've been working on 4 different quilts. The first is my Lego quilt, also known as Momentum, made from leftover 1 1/2" strips. I'm working on flipping the binding. It is 97" square.

 

Next up is Wendy's beautiful quilt. It's all batiks. I quilted it with an edge-to-edge design called "Americana Flourish". The pattern she used is by Glad Creations Quilt Block in Minneapolis, called Birds In the Air.



This is Julia's quilt. She modified a Jacob's Ladder block and sashed it, with colors to match her bedroom. We decided on a simple meander.



And my own next big project--putting my En Provence Bonnie Hunter mystery quilt together. I have many more units and blocks to go, but hope to get working on it, now that my Lego quilt is together.



Linking up to Crazy Mom Quilts,
Busy Hands Quilts,
Fort Worth Fabric Studio,
So Scrappy,
and Confessions of a Fabric Addict.

Grace and peace!

Sew Many Scraps

Ever since Christmas, I've had my momentum going on my "Lego" quilt and have the binding sewn on the front--almost finished! Here it is on the design wall, still being rearranged and short 9 blocks:

It's made from 1 1/2" strips I've been accumulating for years. After sewing, the strips finish at 1" each. I squared up the blocks to 12 1/2", finished to 12". 

I started by choosing 60 different fabrics for one block--I tried not to duplicate any fabrics within each block. Then sewed them into 12 strips, and arranged them on my mini design board. Here's a block in progress:

At the beginning I had more strip choices, so the blocks were color coordinated, like this aqua and red block:

And this yellow, orange and pink block:

22 blocks have "color" words on them, and are to different degrees color coordinated:

My newer fabrics are brighter, so when those got used up, I had to dig back into some older scrap strips. That meant rearranging quite a bit on the design wall, to get a good mix up of bright and dark blocks. Here it is, arranged and sashed on the design wall:

Next up, quilting. I chose to quilt it with "Figure 8" quilting in light grey thread:

And here is the quilt--binding is yet to be finished. 97" X 97" finished, 3500+ pieces:

Now that my design wall is free, I'm going to get back to work on my Bonnie Hunter En Provence mystery quilt. I'm making a few slight changes, and have several more parts to make:

Linking up to Bonnie Hunter's Mystery Monday Link-up
Confessions of a Fabric Addict
Love, Laugh, Quilt

Grace and peace!

Sayonara 2016! Yōkoso 2017!!!

Welcome 2017!!! My friend, Paula, of the Knitting Pipeline Podcast, did a review of her knitting projects for 2016.  What a great idea! So here's a review of the quilting I've done in 2016:

Client quilts quilted:  77
Charity quilts quilted:  5
My own quilts quilted:  24
Total quilts I quilted in 2016: 106

Of my own 24 quilts, here is the breakdown:

1 Queen size quilt
7 Twin/throw size quilts
3 Baby quilts
10 Wallhanging/Mini quilts
3 Tablerunners

I have quilted 301 quilts since I first got my APQS Freedom longarm sewing machine in June, 2012. Number 301 was a client quilt I quilted on December 31, 2016.

Two of my quilting highlights in 2016 were, winning 1st Place Viewer's Choice at our Dakota County Star Quilters quilt show in April, for my Bob & Weave quilt--made and quilted by me, from Strip Your Stash, by Gudrun Erla:



And getting Honorable Mention in the Modern Category at our Minnesota Quilters quilt show in June, for my Tsukubai quilt--my arrangement of Tula Pink's 100 Modern Quilt Blocks, quilted by Angela Walters: