Judy's Pinwheels

Judy's Pinwheel quilt hanging between the bars of my Innova

Bright crisp color against a white background 

and a simple but effective layout creating an inner border

A good example of an e2e lined up with the blocks of a quilt 

using Marci Gore's Orange Peel e2e

Batting is one that Judy likes to use... Quilter's Dream Puff 

A mid weight poly with lots of loft! 

A good alternative for customers that are not comfortable with wool. 

Thread is Omni's Bright White 

Thank you Judy! 

Quilted and picked up last week. Judy also shared the quilt she made 

in Don Linn's class at our guild's meeting last week with Don as our guest speaker. 

I took his curved piecing workshop on Friday and learned allot. 

 

Tot ziens, Jo

Two for Tina

First of two quilts made by Tina B 

Great fabrics, especially the setting triangles 

Tina used to make this nine patch set on point. 

Quilted with a new design from Anne Bright 

Bee Haven (Love the name too!)  

Quilted with the repeat of the Cone Flower and a bee in each of the background squares!

I love to do custom e2e :0) 

Thread is Omni in Green Olive from Superior 

quilted on Quilter's Dream Machine Blend 

Love the floral fabric! 

A custom e2e for the second quilt as well... 

This purple Pluses quilt is a better example of how cool a custom e2e can be set up!

Tina made this quilt scrappy

reversing the values is always a great effect :0) 

 

This one is also quilted with a design from Anne Bright 

This is Echo b2b

and a better example of how an e2e or b2b can be used in blocks

for a custom look without all the starts and stops! Yea!!! 

First time I tried out this design was on a quilt made by Claudia ~ link

 

Quilted with a purple Omni named Royalty 

Batting is a newer cotton from Quilter's Dream 

This is Deluxe, which is a little thicker than Select 

and a really nice alternative to W&N 

 

Bordered with a Grunge (love :0) as well as the backing.

I was able to trim the quilting design and use it in the border, worked great! 

Thank you Tina! 

More quilts were finished for Carol and Kelly 

Thankful for the cooler weather ! 

Enjoy your weekend 

Tot ziens, Jo

Saturday Morning Post ~ Two for Claudia

I really have been working on customer quilts in between all of the other 

'stuff' that took over my life... temporarily. Posting pix has not been a priority :0( 

Finished on my Innova are these two quilts for Claudia...

This one was a fun quilt altho, it's the one I kept cutting the batting too small!

Thankfully it was batting from my rolls and not my customer's batting.

We layered two, thin cotton on the bottom against the backing 

with wool batting on top for loft. The background fabric is pure white 

and the only thing I found problematic with Quilter's Dream Wool 

is that the backing fabric shows thru to the top with light fabrics.

The seam allowances stand out against the shadow of the backing. 

To fix this problem, I add a very thin layer of cotton batting 

like QD cotton request. Too thin by itself on a longarm frame
unless you float tops but for layering... it's great!

Below you can see a little bit of the backing, a great bird fabric

 pieced into the backing rolled onto my take up bar.

Custom quilted with a simple motif repeated in each block 

with a single version in the small blocks. Bright White Omni.

The yellow was all ruler work done with 1/4 inch stitching in Omni Banana. 

Quilt two is semi custom ~ an edge to edge with a border 

set inside of the center field instead of a border on the outside. 

 I achieved it using the Mask function altho, not something I will do again

 until ABM comes up with a better version, hopefully it will be addressed 

in the new Mach 3 format that just came out. Way too many tie offs!!! 

A get around would be to connect the ends using Art and Stitch.

 Made with a Charm Pack with fabrics from American Jane

Perfect for this baby quilt, my favorite fabric/block...

is the DOG. Very cute!

Quilting pattern is a new set by Anne Bright named Pickup Sticks

 Wool batting and Omni thread in white and Banana in the inner border

with Pearl White on the back. 

As usual, Claudia's backing is pieced... love it!!!

Well done Claudia, thank you

Enjoy your weekend

Tot ziens, Jo

Two for Cindy ~ SIC & Buster's quilt

A Single Irish Chain made by Cindy G

using blocks she won at our guild's BOM program

Fabrics are from the Downton Abby collection.

Quilted with an e2e set up with the repeat in each block. 

Another good example of a custom e2e 

 Quilted with Quilter's Dream Wool batting and Omni thread from Superior.

Design is Adora by One Song Needle Arts

The print was pretty busy so I choose a thread color that would show up

nicely on the backing

In this case, the design also worked well as it carried out into the outer borders.
An elegant feather and pearl design to complement the fabrics
with a little whimsy with a hint of a face in the design.

Last year Cindy and I both lost a furry family member.

Cindy was working on the following quilt during a Linda Ballard class/retreat

when Cindy received news that her dog, Buster passed

so Cindy named this quilt Buster Brown's Day on the Green

 

One of the prints had text that all ends with 'ful'

One being Playful which described Buster

and the reason for the playful quilting design 

Not a design I offer often as the density is pretty high 

however, decided it fit since Buster was a star in Cindy's life :0)
Lonestar by Kim Diamond
Thread is one of the new variegated threads from Superior ~ Omni V
 

 Cindy pieced the backing with some of the same fabrics from the top

to complete this fun quilt. Thank you Cindy!

Enjoy your Sunday 

Tot ziens, Jo

Happy Valentine's Day

Good to have a sweet Sunday Valentine's Day! 

following a productive week of quilting customer quilts for Leslie, Claudia, two for Carol, two for Cindy, plus quilts for the Goldie Girls including a new class quilt Goldie will be teaching at HRQ. They will be ready for pick up soon!

Among the quilts picked up this week...  

Peggy's family photo quilt 

It was pieced by her daughter, for a first quilt

she did a really good job! 

 Interesting was that this same block design

quilted on 2 different fabrics 

in the same thread looked different

Quilted with black Omni except on the white photo blocks 

with Quilter's Dream Cotton Select

Mostly using a p2p leaf design by Apricot Moon

plus a block design for the alternate blocks.

Thank you Peggy!

Also picked up were two quilts by Rose and Gloria

made to give to grands for Valentine's Day, sweet!

Thomas the Train panel and border print quilt made by Rose

 Quilted with Catrina e2e also by Apricot Moon

A second panel quilt with alphabets and animals

made by Gloria

Quilted with Animal Crackers e2e design by Patricia Ritter

Both with Omni thread and Quilter's Dream Green batting

Finished for Gloria with machine stitched binding

Cute backing fabrics too, this co-coordinating print for Gloria's

and a bright stripe on the back of Thomas the Train. Perfect!

Thank you Rose and Gloria

Fun little quilts and how perfect to give to grand kids! 

Enjoy your Valentine's Day with your family

Tot ziens, Jo

Changes for the New Year

First, some catch up from the end of last year. This is an Asian inspired quilt made by Betty D. for a member of her family going off to college. Betty chose a beautiful panel that inspired the fabrics for the Disappearing Nine Patch blocks. Quilted with Woven Wind from Apricot Moon with a gold Glide thread to add to the gold accents of the Asian fabrics. 

Betty added some very nice accents with a tiny gold and black inset border with flange. Very well done! We were also happy with how the quilting played with the panel print. 

Backed with a soft gold flannel backing. Well done Betty, thank you!
Looking forward to the wedding quilt and the little quilt is quilted :0)

A baby quilt made by Linda E.

Love how Linda used French Braids for the borders. Made from scraps with allot of pinks, it is quilted with an Antique Rose Omni thread color. We settled on a fun idea for the quilting... Fireworks and it worked! IMHO. Linda will cut the corners with 45 degree angles before added the binding for a different shape too. Well done Linda! Thank you

I am currently working on another quilt for Linda. It's made with blocks from The Farmer's Wife book and it's gorgeous! Pix soon. A close up of Fireworks quilting design...

I am very happy with my customers, which brings me to the subject of changes and making a difficult decision. I am no longer taking new customers with the goal of scaling back the time I spend quilting for others. I have such a wonderful local client base, a second decision is not to take internet quilting orders. The website will remain intact for the purpose of information and inspiration for both clients as well as fellow bloggers.

There are plans to add tutorials to the website. My goal is to give tips to other longarmers and quilters. Resources and links. It's a great business to get into and I would love to see up and coming quilters make it a success!

 Looking forward to what the New Year brings and the path it takes.

Tot ziens, Jo

"We will be known forever by the tracks we leave"

Native American proverb 

Back in the Saddle

...literally ;0) I've been looking into saddle chair/stools to use at my longarm for awhile. None of the big box stores carry them, so I had to rely on the internet to find one without being able to try it out. This one is OK but not exactly what I am looking for so my search continues. Hoping to find one with a smaller saddle so I can reach the floor easily and scoot around while I am quilting at my longarm.

Happy to be feeling better and back to quilting customer quilts this week following our trip to Texas, spending Thanksgiving with Michael's family. Came home with a wonderful head cold and plugged ears for almost a week. Can't say flying is fun anymore for lots of reasons! 

This is one of the quilts recently quilted that Karen will be putting under her tree for someone special! LOVE the fussy cutting! Lots of animals and all sorts of fun things to find...

Deer, racoon and fox

a cat and a butterfly

Love the bear!

This is the whole quilt... It's from Patchwork City by Elizabeth Hartman. Every block is different. Really cool! Karen did a fantastic job of piecing and choosing fabrics.

 Quilted with Cool Beans using an Omni thread in a green that matches the border fabric.

Great quilt. This is one I would love to make! 

Thank you Karen!

Tot ziens, Jo

"We will be known forever by the tracks we leave"