Scrappy Kaffe!

Three quilts for Cheryl are quilted and ready for trimming. Cheryl loves Kaffe Fassett prints and has been using them for some time. She used lots of her scraps to make these guys... 

Wonderful way to make a scrappy Kaffe!

Quilted with a modern geometric design ~ Mid Century by Patricia Ritter. I followed the flow of the triangles to line up to the flow of the circles in the quilting. Lots of circles on the back too. Quilted with two Fantastico variegated threads (love!) Rainbow on the front and a pink to coral variegated on the back, with Quilter's Dream Blend batting.

More printelicious fabrics...

 Another fun scrappy quilt Cheryl made with one of Theresa Wright's patterns

 Quilted with a new to me pattern with lots of swirl and pearls

Rapunzel is a design by Anne Bright

 Quilted with three different Fantastico threads from Superior :0) Fun

and the wonderful backing! Yumm

The third is a great mix of color and fabrics. The deep gold, magenta and dark brown all played well together. I had the perfect Fantastico variegated magenta thread but opted for an Omni thread ~ Vanilla Wafer. There was so much print going on, a dark thread would have only gotten in the way! The gold thread was only quilted in the center field. In the dark brown border I used a light variegated thread, Lava, another thread from Superior. It's a thread they are discontinuing. It takes a larger needle for the 3 ply and a bit of fussing with the tension but it was well worth it! Love my Innova!

Quilting design in the center field is Quill b2b, also from Anne Bright

 and a border design ~ Quill with Flower that is part of a set 

(there are 4 different borders designed to frame her Quill b2b)

 The two fabric backing is folded against the front altho hard to see. 

There are allot of prints going on in this beauty!

Thank you Cheryl!

Make the time to take some stitches because...

"We will be known forever by the tracks we leave."
Native American Proverb

Tot ziens, Jo

Big stars made by Alice

Two of last week's quilted finishes...

Big stars made by Alice

Two quilts, both large... 104 x 104 made with panels cut into diamonds and pieced by Alice into stars. Mostly oriental fabrics, these panels are birds. Love how the birds in the center of the 8 panel creates the swirl and great kaleidoscope effect all the way into the center of the star. There was allot of gold in the prints so both of these quilts were quilted with a gold Glide. 

 Close up of the birds

and the center

Quilting design is Seaweed by Anne Bright

Alice's second star is made with 8 Japanese Geisha Girl panels

She is holding string instruments and surrounded by flowers. Quilted with a floral design by Sweet Dream Studios stitched with the gold Glide thread on more gold print oriental fabrics that Alice used to make this quilt. Both are quilted with Quilter's Dream Puff Poly. A nice alternative to wool if you prefer a polyester bat, it has the same nice loft.

Enjoy your week

Make the time to take some stitches because...

"We will be known forever by the tracks we leave."
Native American Proverb

Tot ziens, Jo

A Merry good week!

All of the quilting on Karen's Merry Merry Snowmen is complete. Seven of the quilts that are on my March list came in last week, five of them are quilted this week. Yea!

A few close ups of the Snowmen

Embellishments for eyes will be added by Karen and Dottye later.

Quilting around the embroidered details was enough of a challenge ;0)

There is even a cute Snowman truck!

Most of the quilting followed how the original quilt was quilted as requested by the quilt's maker. All Omni threads from Superior were used in this quilt. Light tan, Maple, Indian Paintbrush and Black worked really well with the French General fabrics. Wool batting for just the right loft. I really had fun quilting this quilt!

Adjusting to the time change, the day seems to go by faster or is over sooner! Spring is on it's way, flowers bursting and new leaves so bright green on brown branches. Love the nice warm days and opening windows for fresh air. Enjoy your weekend in the season you are in. I am off to work on some UFOs and a new quilt project. Make the time to take some stitches!

Tot Ziens, Jo

 A little Spring added to my Juki

Merry Merry Snowmen

Most of my week has been spent on Merry Merry Snowmen

The first of two quilts made by two friends, Dottye and Karen

A few designs I came up with, however, most were followed from the original quilt by Bunny Hill Designs as requested by Dottye and Karen :0)

Quilted with 4 different Omni thread colors ~ Maple, Indian Paintbrush (red), Black and Light Tan. Perfect colors for the French General fabrics. Wool batting to give it lots of loft and definition which worked well with the layers of fusible.

Very fun quilt to work on and I get to do it again!

Love my Innova!!!

Be sure to change your clocks tonight

Enjoy your weekend

Make the time to take some stitches because...

"We will be known forever by the tracks we leave."
Native American Proverb

Tot ziens, Jo

Winter Retreating

... that's what most of the the states are longing for however, here in California, we are entering another year of drought. Springtime looks as if it's already here with many of our trees in bloom. The Star Magnolia is almost finished with new leaves emerging and the Red Bud are so pretty in pink. 

Blogging is frustrating with 80% of my blog comments bouncing. Why does blogger bounce google? Anyone know how to fix this? I do spend time reading tho, especially early mornings such as this. So much quilting eye candy!

Enjoy your Sunday. Make the time to take some stitches :) Jo

Roses for Janie

Framed Roses made by Janie. 

Soft pastel colors, all rose print fabrics
framed in solid greens. 

   Quilted with Zen Roses, an e2e from One Song Needle Arts and Digi-tech

with wool batting and a variegated So Fine #40 thread in soft greens,
#707 Wagga Wagga, funny name :0)

The wool batting has such nice loft.
The binding will also be a darker green to create a frame around the
entire quilt. It's actually not as dark a green as it looks in the pix.

After binding is added, this quilt will be ready for Janie

when she returns next week to work on Amaretto Cottage,

a quilt we have been working on together for a year. 

We are almost ready to add the final two borders and then quilting this beauty.

Also in the works are the Snowman quilts

Two customers worked on and finished this block of the month
Merry Merry Snowmen

with machine applique and hand embroidered details.

It's really cute and fun to work on :0)

 There are several snowmen peeking out of the blocks.

 This guy is up in the cornerstone of the border and will have beads added for eyes

and more embellishments will be added once the tops are quilted.

I am very happy with my Innova and how nice it handles hand guided

as well as doing ruler work. 

Enjoy the weekend

Make the time to take some stitches, Jo

 "We will be known forever by the tracks we leave."
Native American Proverb

Hot Air Balloons

quilted on a baby quilt made by Donna

A fun design by Dave Hudson

available from Digi-tech

The perfect choice requested by Donna for this quilt

Quilted with wool batting using an Omni thread

Love how the quilting shows on the Radiance fabric Donna used for the inner border

The backing is a dark brown minkee which is why I chose to use a darker thread color in Gray Slate. I also added a layer of thin cotton batting over the wool because the dark backing was shadowing thru to the top. Donna was happy with this little baby. Thank you Donna!

It's a good thing last week was productive as I can't say the same for this week. I finished a quilt last night for Janie and will post pix later with today's daylight. That makes two quilts finished this week. I do have lots more in the wings including 2 really cute Snowman quilts that I have been working on. Lots of applique and hand embroidery so they are being hand guided which takes more time to finish and fun to do! There are three more applique quilts waiting their turns, one for Linda D, Judy J and Sandy. Plus more booked until August! Annie's Star Quilt Guild's show is in November this year and everyone is busy getting quilts ready for the show.

A few guild responsibilities taken care of this week, time spent on my digital files and trouble shooting some format issues with Jessica at Digi-tech for Auto Pilot. Getting the right format that will run properly on older pre-AP designs is what we worked on. Very happy with Digi-tech. There are still designers out there that do not offer .pat format. (Note to other Innova/Auto Pilot users ~ .dxf will download onto AP and the system will reformat it into .pat however, they do NOT stitch out properly! Start and End points get changed and many do not run in one continues stitch) All of the patterns that Digi-tech offer in .pat run perfectly! They offer a great selection of designs from different designers plus digitized machine embroidery designs as well. Thank you Jessica!

Anne Bright and Sweet Dreams Studio also digitize in .pat format. These two, Digi-Tech and Apricot Moon are the resources I turn to for computerized designs. If you see a design on their websites you would like quilted on your quilt top, just ask! If I don't have it in my file, downloading and making it available for you is a cinch!  
 

 Enjoy your weekend

Tot Ziens, Jo

 "We will be known forever by the tracks we leave."
Native American Proverb