Lover's Knot in Batik

I just finished a Lover's Knot. 94" x 104" all the richest earth-tone batiks. It was on my machine way too long, for about 8 days. It took me forever to figure out how to make the over-under of the knot's come out right.


Lots of ruler work. Deb Levy from Machine Quilter's Resource did a video a while back using a big beefy Gadget Girls Diamond ruler. At the time, I thought that the ruler was too bulky and heavy but I admire Deb's work and figure she has the best tools. So I ordered that one and the longer diamond ruler wondering if I would ever use them. Oh, yeah. Thanks, Deb, this was the perfect ruler for 1/4 SID for the knots and extended further than my normal SID ruler.

The double hearts in the center were a challenge also. I wanted continuous. I tried drawing them on paper, using funny foam, my Doodle Pro. Then I recorded the double-heart in my IQ but it looked rough, not smooth. I was having a hard time getting the parallel lines of the 2 hearts to look good. I finally took it to my PreDesign Studio. I downloaded the trial of Pre-Design a couple of years ago and then later bought the software but I just have not given it enough time to show me what it would do. This was my trial-by-fire for Pre-Design. I click-designed the hearts, refining the look over about 9 tries and finally got a smooth double heart with a hook at the end. I exported it as a .dxf and used it in the Lover Knot blocks. Loes and Theo - I finally did it. I am definitely going to be using this again and again for my design work.


I used Summers Dream in the border, one of my favs and the setting/corner triangles are Jocelyn Triangle from Legacy quilting. I used my last Quilter's Dream Puff King; Superior King Tut Flower Pot 911 in the borders and blocks, Superior So Fine 424 Chocolate for the SID, Superior So Fine 531 Siena in the bobbin.

Sunflower Patch Quilt Launches 2010

I have always referred to applique as the A-word. I love to look at it but my big hands just could not manage anything so dainty and beautiful. Then a friend taught me Pearl Pereira's freezer paper method of applique. I started with something simple, rounded and scrappy.


Orange is my favorite color so it was fun to find every shade variation of orange in my stash. 144 petals. I will be keeping this one so I decided to use Quilter's Dream wool batting. The quilt is only about 55" finished so perfect for the recliner.


This is all free-hand and ruler-work. The outer border is that circle, hook, fern feather I learned from Carla Barrett. I stretched a serrated leaf into the green parts of the border and double-lined the blue parts of the border. Ricky Tims blues are in here. Love those denim soft colors.




I have seen this quilted with big sunflower leaves in the background but I decided to use small leaves to enhjance that loft. I pebbled the centers of the sunflowers. Here are some photos. Thanks for looking.

Happy New Year 2010

This is going to be a great year. That is my hope anyway since I know what the raod behind me has been like. LOL.

Did you watch the Rose Parade today. We watched the HGTV network of the parade, no commercials. Those floats always amaze me. But my favorite part has to be the Natural Balance dogfood float. They had snowboarding bull dogs on their float. It was a hoot watching those dogs. They were having a blast on that board, some of them actually moving their legs down the side to get them going.

Happy New Year to you.