A Quilty Week!

This is Karen's first quilt to take to a longarm quilter--very bright and happy! I enjoyed quilting it.



The back has these nostalgic  words all over: homemade cherry pie, stacks of quilts, mason jars, clothes on a clothesline, strawberry jam, forget-me-nots, make do or do without, chickens, jumping rope, milk bottles, flour sacks, calico shirts, etc.:



She chose "Blooming Stars" for the quilting. A very modern, fun rail fence quilt.



Mary made this elegant table topper out of batiks!



She chose Asian Gingko for the quilting. I love it--reminds me of the streets lined with gingko trees all over Japan.



I'm just putting a corner peek in of this quilt I quilted for someone else this week, as it's a special gift for a lucky guy who hasn't seen it yet. I quilted it with a new edge-to-edge design called "Loopy Over You". Super cute quilt!!! And so many special fabrics!



On Thursday night, Dawn Cook-Ronningen spoke at Minnesota Quilters. What a fabulous talk! She spoke about the history of hexagon quilts and showed us many hexagon quilts dated from the early 1800 through recent history.

I thought it was interesting that the Quakers made their quilts from silk and wool, as they were abolitionists and did not want to purchase cotton from plantations. If you have a chance to hear her speak and see her quilts, don't miss it! This is one of her photos:



In my own studio this week, my Quilt Minnesota 2016 top is pieced. I will add a border. The pattern is Layer Cake Lattice available here. I added sashing, inspired by this one that Eleanor made.



Here's a close-up of some of the Minnesota-inspired prints. The sunfish were especially colorful and flew out the quilt shop doors!



With March here, spring is on it's way! Here's one of my butterfly quilts. I taught women in Tokyo and Yukigaya how to make this quilt, so there are about a dozen similar butterfly quilts hanging in churches there. Looking forward to the butterflies!



Grace and peace!  ~Nancy

Linking to Crazy Mom Quilts, Fort Worth Fabric Studio, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Busy Hands Quilts, Sane Crazy Crumby Quilting, Cooking Up Quilts, Love Laugh Quilt


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Dog Days!

Here are the client quilts I got to quilt this week. The first is a cute Christmas jelly roll tablerunner that I quilted for Phyllis. It's quilted with "Feather Frond". She made it as a gift.



Next up is another tablerunner, this one for Kay. It is a Judy Neimeyer pattern called Winter Wonderland Tablerunner.



She requested custom quilting, which I did using dot-to-dot quilting, pebbles in the background, ribbon candy on the borders, outline stitching, plus stitch-in-the-ditch.



This next pretty kaleidoscope quilt is also Kay's.



She chose "Flirtatious" edge-to-edge quilting on this beautiful throw. It shows up nicely on the back, too.



For my own projects this week, I am excited to report that I finished this travel iron caddy!



I made this from a free pattern I found online here. I had some silver iron board fabric leftover from re-covering my big ironing board recently.



The buttons are from Japan, given to me by my dear friend, Yokii!



I finished up these 10 hanging towels that I've been working on for several weeks. I buy the towels in packs of 10 from Costco. They're extra thick and large and the whole pack costs around $12--great quality for a great price.



I leave my hanging towels doubled layered and crochet the toppers on using crochet cotton for the first row and worsted weight yarn for the rest of the topper. I attach buttons for the drawers that have handles. Ours have knobs, so we don't need the buttons. But I give many of them out as gifts, so I always add a button.



I decided to start a quilt of my own this week using the layer cake I bought during the 2016 Quilt Minnesota Shop Hop. I thought I better get going on it before the 2017 shop hop rolls around! I'm using the Layer Cake Lattice free quilt pattern from the Fat Quarter Shop. It's simple, fun and shows off the unique prints!



Our Dakota County Star Quilters quilt show continues to run until March 17th at the Dakota County Historical Society, in South St. Paul. My husband and I went this past week. Here's a photo of a row of colorful quilts. The heart quilt is made by my quilting cousin, Sue!



And last of all, Friday night ended our 9th day of caring for our "grand dog", Lincoln! He's gone back home now. We sure had fun with him. He can do many tricks! And is super cute!



Grace and peace!  ~Nancy

Linking up to Crazy Mom Quilts, Fort Worth Fabric Studio, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Busy Hands Quilts, Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework, Love Laugh Quilt, Cooking Up Quilts, Celtic Thistle Stitches

Valentine's Week

Happy Valentine's day! Well, belated! My small quilt group in Japan, the Tama Quilters, does "summer homework" every year. One summer we each made 6 heart blocks and swapped them with each other. This is the quilt I put together from that summer.



This heart is made from the end of bobbins of thread saved over 3 years. I save them in boxes at either end of my quilting machine and the boxes were finally full and I had to empty them out. My most commonly used color of thread is khaki, so I was glad it came out this colorful.



I quilted this cardinal quilt for Jane this week. It's a throw she wants to keep for herself. I quilted it in cardinal red thread and the "Flirtatious" edge-to-edge design.



This quilt is my sister, Bonnie's. Love the indigo fabrics. The pattern is Follow the Leader by the Modern Quilt Studio. A modern quilt calls for modern quilting, so I quilted it in Figure 8s. Denyse Schmidt, one of the original modern quilters, has most of her quilts quilted in Figure 8s.



And here's a little tabletopper I also quilted for Bonnie. More Figure 8s! I love quilting them.



I made more of these cute needle cases this week. We are making 100 shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child this year: 50 for boys and 50 for girls. So we're hoping to make at least 50 needlecases for the girl's boxes by November, which is collection week.



I added patchwork to a couple of dish towels this week. Our DS requested a few more, after I gave him one for Christmas. The one I gave him previously had hand embroidery. I switched to patchwork, thanks to a tutorial by Crazy Mom Quilts.



And our guild's annual quilt show started this week Wednesday. The Dakota County Star Quilters quilt show runs until March 11, 2017. It is being held along with the Minneapolis Modern Quilt Guild, so our theme is "Modern Vintage".



This green quilt is a quilt I made in the past year using a 15 degree ruler. The heart quilt to the right is made by my cousin, Sue. And the quilt behind mine in solids is made by Amanda Jean Nyberg, Crazy Mom Quilts.



These are two of my 16 quilts in the show. They're both made from jelly rolls.



My cousin, Sue, also made this beautiful quilt using mainly Tula Pink fabrics. I quilted it for her with one of my favorite modern edge-to-edge patterns, Marmalade.



Here's another one by Amanda Jean Nyberg.  She has a great new book out called "No Scraps Left Behind".



And both of these quilts are made by Sunny Klein, one of our guild members. The circular quilt is the Minnesota state flower, the Lady Slipper. Beautiful!



Grace and peace!!!

 Linking up to Crazy Mom Quilts, Fort Worth Fabric Studio, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, A Quarter Inch From the Edge, Busy Hands Quilts, Cooking Up Quilts, Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework, Love Laugh Quilt, Let's Bee Social

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