Tuesday, January 09, 2007

Garden Window

It is supposed to feel like you are looking out of the window into your garden.

This quilt pattern is by Liz Porter, right out of the July/August 2006 Fons & Porter's Love of Quilting magazine.

http://www.fonsandporter.com

It is supposed to be 84 x 101 but I want to use it on my Kingsize bed and I want a nice drop. Liz's pattern calls for 2 large print florals, one light and one medium. I could not find any big florals in 'light' that I liked. So I got this big orange floral with some blue accents. I picked up the blue accents from the orange and used a blue Fusions print as the other side of my 7 inch half square triangle. The pattern is pretty simple but after 3 rows, I got so excited when I started to see the pattern take shape on the design wall.

I am completely clueless about how to quilt it. I want to follow the garden view with maybe, diagonal feathers, but an all-over with Baptist Fans would also look nice, too

Twirling Stars


On the machine and in progress. I decided this one needed the "full float" so
no bunny ears on the corners
I love the stars in this quilt top. They look a bit like Ohio Stars but the points are different. The quilt is mostly white with blue and white florals in the 9-patches and stars. The back is white muslin. It belongs to an avid quilter with the endearing grandmother's nickname of Mema; well, her real name is Betty but almost everybody calls her Mema. She is certainly not old enough to be my grandmother, though.


I planned to use white thread on it but it almost 'glowed' when I puddled it onto the quilt. So I tried Signature's cotton thread color Parchment. It looked great. So Parchment it is with prewounds bobbins of Parchment from Signature.

Mema had planned to quilt the top herself and had already marked it for cross hatching. Then she saw a quilt I had done with cross hatching at the local quilt shop and decided to give it to me. The markings look like pencil, I sure hope they come out.

I struggled with what else to put in there. The on-point pattern is done in rows. That is, one whole row is 9 patches followed by a row of twirling stars, etc. I think it would have had more interest if the blocks had been alternating. I found a motif that looks great for the stars. So if I put a motif in the stars, there will be an entire row of that motif. I don't want to use different motifs in each star to make it more interesting because I think that will clutter up what is a very serene quilt top.

I found a sweet little rose stencil for the setting triangles. And I plan to use some simple feathers around the corners interspersed with the cross hatching. I do not plan to use any SID; I think that would make it too blocky. I want the cross
hatch to flow as much as possible from the edge, thru the feather border, thru the rose setting triangle, past the star and into the 9-patches. I have it in my mind how I want it. Now I just need to translate that to the longarm.

Saturday, January 06, 2007

Coffee Quilt with Zigzag pattern



Santa Claus brought me a couple of new Circle Lord templates. One is the feathers which I have planned for another quilt and the king size zigzag. I just finished his quilt using the Circle Lord Zigzag template. I love it.

I know that the Zigzag has lots of variations but for this first one, I just wanted it to be simple zigzag. This quilt is a bit busy anyway so simple suits it.



The zigzag gives it such a clean ordered presence; your eye can rest and predict where it is being led. Though the fabric is busy, the zigzag seems to settle or mellow out the quilt. I had some left over big prints so I fussy-cut those to piece into the black back. I think I almost like the back more than the front.



And then I went to www.perfectborders.com to get the 'mug-shot' of steaming hot coffee border pattern. That really set off the quilt.

Now it's off to Mema, the Queen of Binding. I have given up on putting on the binding. I am just no good at it and well, Mema is much better. She does my binding and I do her quilts. It's a good arrangement. I have one of her quilts on my machine now. Here's a sneak preview....

My life has changed in the last couple of years - some bumps, I retired from quilting, and then I moved to Texas. I'm anxious to see what new adventures await me in the next phase of my life.

About Me

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Ramona, California, United States
I started quilting when a quilt shop opened in our little town in January 2004. I have been hooked ever since.

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Books I"ve read lately

  • The Help (Kindle)
  • The Appeal by John Grisham
  • Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
  • Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
  • To Kill a Mockingbird (again) by Harper Lee
  • Bleachers by John Grisham

This is called Fruit Cocktail

This is called Fruit Cocktail
It is all batiks