Hawaiian Dancer

I just finished this beautiful applique Hawaiian quilt for a customer named Christi. She was raised in Hawaii and made this quilt for her mother who was a dancer in Hawaii. I don't know if you call it hula dancer but she was a performer in shows featuring Hawaiian customs, music and dancing. She had lots of customs made of cotton. So Christi decided to make a memory quilt for a her mother's 83rd birthday and use pieces of the customs and photos of her mother. It is like a tribute to her mother.

I did not want to steal the show with my quilting so I did simple echo around the big petal shapes and ditchwork around the applique. I put in some fern in the foliage blocks. But I kept it simple. I really wanted to put a digitized hibiscus flower design called Aloha from Legacy quilting but I did not want to steal the show. With the applique using different fabrics and photos, the quilt had a lot going on already.


So I finished it and called her to let her know that it was done. She was excited (maybe because I have had it in my studio for 2 months...). Then I told her that I had wanted to put in the hibiscus in between the applique petals. She suddenly got very quiet and I was thinking that it was a REALLY good thing that I had not put the hibiscus flowers in there. It had sparked a memory for her. She said that she remembered as a kid growing up in Hawaii, every time her mother or grandmother went out for the day, they always put a hibiscus flower in their hair. She definitely wanted me to put the hibiscus flowers in the quilt.



I put the quilt back on the machine but had to run into town before finishing the quilting. I ran into Christi and she had printed off a current photo of her mother (who is still a knock-out at age 83), Christi and her grandson, Nainoa which in Hawaiian means "the navigator".

I hope her mother likes the quilt.

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.