One Tablerunner = 6

I've been working on our guild's "Think Spring" challenge recently. I started making a tablerunner from the book, Lucky Charm Quilts. The pattern is for a double braid tablerunner. But after I put it together, it was too wide for our dining room table! 

So I took the two braids apart, shortened them a bit, and it turned into two extra-long tablerunners and four table centers!!! 

Here are 4 of them loaded on my longarm:



Straight line quilting on this table center:



Peacock feather quilting on this table center:



Leaf swirl quilting on this table center:



And flowers-in-a-line on this long tablerunner:



Here are a few of them, with the first step of binding on:



In other Quiltland news, Denyse Schmidt is in Minneapolis this week! She is the "mother of modern quilting". She told her quilt story at the Minnesota Contemporary Quilters meeting on Thursday evening, March 30.



One point she talked about is how she has always preferred using solid fabric because they are replenish-able over the years, as opposed to prints, which are usually not reorder-able.



I love the figure 8 quilting she has done on many of her quilts and I use figure 8 quilting on quilts myself. She originally had her quilts hand quilted by Amish women in southeast Minnesota. When she turned to longarm quilters, she didn't want a pictorial quilting pattern, so she found the figure 8 quilting blends into quilts nicely and has soft, round, flowing curves. 



Grace and peace!!!  ~Nancy

Linking up to Crazy Mom Quilts, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Busy Hands Quilts, Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework, Cooking Up Quilts, Patchwork Times, Love Laugh Quilt.

Quilting Up A Storm!

There's been a lot of quilting going on in the quilt studio recently! I love seeing the variety of quilts that my clients bring me. 

This first one is my Quiltin' Cousin Sue's quilt. It is her mystery quilt from Quilt Cove, where they give out two free mystery quilt patterns a year at the monthly Quarter Inch Club. Beautiful choice of colors and fabrics, Sue!



I quilted it with a new edge-to-edge design called "Soap Bubbles"--triangles, half moons and circles. Perfect on Sue's quilt!



Check out the neat "text" fabric she found for the back: 



The next quilt was made by Sue's daughter, Katie. Yes, quilting runs in our family! Now that her BF has received it, I'm posting the full photo. Almost full photo, that is--it's 95" X 99", so I had to fold back one edge.



The pattern is called "Fractured". I quilted it with a cute edge-to-edge design called "Loopy Over You".



This is Wendy's quilt--very soft pink roses for a baby girl on the way.



The pattern is called "Labyrinth" by Calico Carriage Quilt Designs. I quilted it using "Oma's Garden", which features feathers, hearts, swirls and leaves.



This bright, happy quilt is Sharon's quilt!



She asked for "Blooming Stars" to be quilted on it. 



The big picture:



And the back:



And lastly, I have some progress to report on Mary's two extra-long twin-size quilts. I'm making them from the start.  Here's what 560 half square triangles look like:



And here are the trimmings, to get each one the exact right size!



On the design wall:



Grace and peace!!! ~Nancy

Linking up to Busy Hands Quilts, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Sew Can She, Cooking Up Quilts, Love Laugh Quilt.

Quilting With Nancy

My quilt guild, Dakota County Star Quilters, asked me to do a trunk show this month! On Tuesday this week, I walked through my quilt journey with 28 representative quilts.



The Grandmother's Fan quilt at the bottom of this photo is the first quilt I made, 37 years ago. It's a catalogue of 70's calicos! I made it for my sister to take to college. She did, and recently returned it to me for history's sake. She is an avid quilter now, as well.



I made this banner with my business name five years ago, shortly after I got my longarm quilting machine. At the time I was a home school teacher. DD2 went on a two week mission trip to Haiti, so I had a two week vacation, and this is what I made!



They laid out all my quilts on tables as the talk progressed. This photo has, from top to bottom, a quilt I hand pieced, my first rotary cut quilt, two group quilts that I made as part of the Tama Quilters in Tokyo, and my latest finished quilt--Layer Cake Lattice Plus quilt.



In my quilt studio this week, our guild has a "Think Spring" challenge and I am making a Spring tablerunner.



We just got this book in at Quilt Cove. It has projects that use "charm squares"--5" squares of a variety of fabrics. The pattern I'm basing my tablerunner off of is "Hexagon Braid" by Jenny Doan.



Here's my first braid! It finishes at about 6 feet--I like my tablerunners long! I'll make another braid and then sash and border it.



Grace and peace!!!  ~Nancy

Linking to Busy Hands Quilts, Celtic Thistle Stitches, Crazy Mom Quilts, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Love Laugh Quilt, MCM @ Cooking Up Quilts.

Layer Cake Lattice

I finished my Layer Cake Lattice quilt this week!!! Yay! The finished size is 80" X 90". You can find the pattern online here. I used fabrics from Quilt Minnesota 2016. The background is a water colored "Grunge".



I quilted it with an edge-to-edge design called "Harbour Wave", as Minnesota is Land of 10,000+ Lakes! The batting is Quilter's Dream Batting--Wool, so the quilting really shows up.



The fabrics are from the statewide quilt shop hop held every year in the summer. They are always Minnesota-themed and designed just for the quilt shop hop. Here's a close-up of some of my fabrics--Lady Slipper (the Minnesota state flower), canoe paddles, sunfish, campers.


My next quilt project is two extra-long twin size quilts that I'm making for our next-door neighbor who moved recently. We miss her! Rainbow colors, plus white background. You'll be seeing more progress on this next week.



Our DS came home for a visit this week. He brought me these AMAZING quilt gifts! A tower of 45 fat quarters and a folding cutting mat, to take on the go. Wow! Fun!



As for client quilts this week, I quilted this sunny child's quilt for Mary. The edge-to-edge design is called "Cinnamon". Yes, it makes me think of cinnamon rolls while I'm quilting!?!



This beautiful batik table topper is also Mary's. I used "Tickle" for the quilting.



Here's another colorful, fun throw, made by Mary. The quilting is a new design called "Fibonacci Lace".



And finally, our guild's quilt show is running now through March 17th. More info at our website: Dakota County Star Quilters.



Here's the super fun part: Mary Fons was our guest speaker today! Her talk at 9AM was called, "You Call That a Quilt?!", where she spoke about the 4 styles of quilting in the USA. And at 11 AM, "10 Things I Know For Sure (I Think!)", talking about observations she's made in the quilting world. She's such a great speaker--humorous, and poignant!





Here's one of her quilts she shared at the end. It's the spider web quilt pattern. She made it in an effort to use her brown fabrics. The red background she used is just perfect.



Grace and peace!  ~Nancy
 
Linking up to Crazy Mom Quilts, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Busy Hands Quilts, Love Laugh Quilt.

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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