Whew! It’s been a
busy couple of months! Festival,
starting a new business, quilting, and new threads and backings! I’ll try not to overload you with too many
pictures or words, and keep things short-ish and sweet.
First, in my last post, I toward the end, I posted a picture
of my grey and white prairie star block for Corey Pearson. I did end up taking it apart and reworking it
so that the points match up better. And,
it’s still 6” square. Imagine that! My friend, Cynthia, also finished her grey
and white block. I must say they
complement each other rather nicely. We
delivered them to Corey while he has working the Gammill booth at Festival. I can’t wait to see what he does with all of
these blocks!!!
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| My redone Prairie Star. Much better! |
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| My star and Cynthia's star together. So pretty! |
Next, I decided a few months ago to go ahead and get a new
business name registered and started up for my own longarm quilting services
business. I don’t plan to make it a full
time job or anything even close since I still want time to work on my own
projects, time to do my regular job, and time to spend with family and
friends. BUT, I did think it was a good
idea to get it set up and ready for when someone asks me to quilt a top for
them. I have a fun logo all done, but no
website yet (or maybe ever). Ready, set,
quilt!
I did manage to start and finish a quilt top during a 2-day
bee in October. It’s a Joyce Lundrigan
All-In-One club pattern called Bezels.
I’ve NEVER started and finished a quilt that quickly, and I just love
this one! It’s definitely not my normal
style with such bright colors and modern style, but I enjoyed making it and
branching out to expand my repertoire.
It’s currently loaded on the machine, so next month I should have
pictures of the completed quilting.
It’ll be absolutely gorgeous!
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| Bezels quilt top. Hopefully, you'll get to see it quilted next month! |
As far as actual quilting, I got four quilts done in the
last couple of months. First was one by
my friend Becky, who finished a top for Omigosh, one of Mom’s patterns. I was so terrified of messing it up that it
sat for probably six months before I got up the courage to load it and take the
first stitch. I mean… all those tiny
pieces… all that time and effort… and one of Mom’s designs! What if I picked bad patterns or bad thread
colors? What if Becky hates it and I
have to take out all of the stitches? I
seriously had nightmares until it was done.
And, I was obviously being silly.
It turned out beautifully! I
think my favorite part is the Baptist Fan-ish outer border. Love it!
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| Becky's Omigosh quilt, all quilted, but not bound yet. |
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| Closeup of the corner and that wonderful border. |
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| Closeup of the blocks. |
I also quilted a community service quilt for my friend,
Jerrianne, which she put together using the Mother Goose fabrics that Mom
designed years ago. I used AnitaShackelford’s Modern Curves quilt pattern, which really gives a lot of movement
to the quilt. It will definitely make
some child happy when they receive it.
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| Mother Goose community service quilt, made by Jerrianne. |
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| Closeup of a corner. |
Next up, I finally dove in to work on the Dream Big panel
that my son picked out for himself. He
picked the absolutely brightest colored version, and brightest colored
variegated thread for me to use on it. I
used Nancy Haacke’s pattern set that she released for it in November, and it
turned out so cool looking! Even the
back of the quilt looks fantastic. Since
I used a solid white fabric for the backing, that bright variegated thread
really shows up! Now, I just need to
figure out what color binding to put on… maybe a solid black to frame it… or a
solid purple to blend in with the outside of the print.
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| My son's Dream Big quilt. It's BRIGHT! |
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| Closeup view at an angle. |
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| View of the back of the quilt. |
The last quilted quilt for this post is one that I’m calling
Snowballs and Dogs, which I quilted for another friend of mine, Georgann. I knew I was quilting a top of snowballs,
which I love, particularly done scrappy like she did this one. What I didn’t know was that she basically
made a second quilt for the backing using several different dog print fabrics,
and some positive word fabric. It turned
out so cute!
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| Snowball quilt made by Georgann. |
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| Closeup of the quilt top. |
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| The dog-themed backside of the snowball quilt. So cute! |
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| Closeup of the center panel. |
Now, how could I forget Festival??? Of course, I didn’t. I spent several days living up in downtown
Houston, taking classes, shopping, browsing, and viewing some seriously
spectacular quilts! Of course, there
were three or four quilts that were hanging, based on Mom’s designs. I think, though, that I’ll keep this part
short and just post a few pictures of some of my favorites from the show. By the way, I did not win a ribbon for Baby
Bear, but the other quilts in that category were simply phenomenal! I’m just proud to have be juried in, and the
judge’s remarks that I got back were all great!
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| A fabulous antique hexi quilt, made by "unknown." |
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| A closeup of the hexi quilt with fingers for size reference. No, we weren't touching it! |
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| Circular Infinity by Susan Michael |
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| Deuxmillehuitcenthuit by Ewa Guerin. It's hand pieced and hand quilted. Note that the center HST of each 9-patch is cheddar! |
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| Over the Waves by Setsuko Matsushima. Hand quilting, piecing, applique, and embroidery. Winner of the Founders' Award. |
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| Kora by Carol Morrissey |
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| Streak of Lightning by Amy Pabst. Talk about Omigosh! These pieces are so tiny!!! |
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| Me and Baby Bear. :) |
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| Reminiscence by Mariko Takeda. Hand quilting, piecing, and applique. Winner of the Robert S. Cohan Master Award for Traditional Artistry |
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| Hope by Ximo Navarro Sierra. Winner of the Pfaff Master Award for Machine Artistry. |
Lastly, I hate piecing backings! So, I
picked up three bolts of 108" quilt backings, all very pretty ones, and put them on the Come Quilt website for sale. Of course, I’ll use some of them myself, but I wouldn't feel right not sharing with other quilters who hate piecing backs as much as I do. LOL! I've also ordered some Aurifil 80 weight threads that we'll start carrying on the website. It's absolute heaven for applique. If you want a color that you don't see (once I get them posted), let me know and I'll get it for you!
Well, that’s all I’ve got for now. I’ll be back next month, and back on track
(hopefully) for monthly posts! Everyone
have a happy holiday filled with warmth, love, and family… and quilting.
Keep on quilting!
Jenny
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