Dorothy's Square in a Square in Indigo and White

This is Dorothy's indigo and white sqare in a square. She wanted "stripes" or lines in the sashing and spirals in the squares. I put spirals in the corners of the sashing, too. The border is from a stencil with curves. Dorothy wanted white thread which worked well in the sashing and the muslin back.

This quilt required some long arm magic since the sashings were not completely straight. The machine was locked in a line so the stitching was going to be absolutely straight. Unfortunately, the straight line of stitching really emphasized the uneven sashing. I ended up shoving poly batting under the roller where the line seemed to wander. This artificially raised the quilt sashing so the line stayed straight within the uneven sashing.





And the back...always my favorite.

Sally's Southwest Quilt

I love the colors in this quilt. All that rich brown, turquoise and rust are just so warm looking. This a a class project. I even did one myself...well, I haven't finished mine yet. The back is a watery looking batik with browns, corals and turquoise. I plan to do Sally's quilt completely custom.

Sally wanted me to use a Star variegated thread. The owner of the LQS warned Sally that it would not work in my longarm. But she wanted brown and there are so many browns. I'm going to give it a try. Then, I found that Superior's Champagne prewound bobbins were a perfect match for the back of the quilt. Warm and Natural poly is Sally's batting of choice.









I perused the internet for ideas on southwest figures. She wanted geckos. I think she meant lizards. So I stylized some motifs for the blank spaces in the quilt. I made a lizard, a Kokopelli flute player, a thunderbird and a Petroglyph-like sun. A friend found a Deb Geisler panto border with the zigzag design for the outer border. I think I will also work in some Circle Lord spirals at the corners. I will free-motion the rest. I think that I might use some accent thread in turquoise and coral to highlight the motifs, like the feathers on the thunderbird and the zigzag stripe down the Kokopelli garment.

Update: There was no room for the thunderbird, though I will save it for the future. And my camera died before I could get picture of the Kokopellis. I will try to get a shot when she gets the binding on it.

Belle's Patriotic Quilt

I quilted a similar patrotic quilt for Belle a couple months ago. It was for her father, he is retired navy. This one is for her son, who will be graduating from U.S. Navy boot camp next week. She wanted the same type of quilting as I did on her fathers.

I used the Circle Lord to make three concentric circles in the 4-patch blocks and I used my new CL Star template to make the templates for the big patriotic blocks. I used Perma-Core Navy blue thread on the top and Superior So Fine Dark Blue prewound bobbins. The backing was red with writing on it. It is always a pleasure to quilt for Belle. She is a precise piecer. Her seams are consistently 1/4 inch and she presses her quilt so well that even Stitch in the Ditch (SID) is easy to do.