Circles Quilt - Heavily Machine Quilted!

I can't believe I made this quilt in twelve days!  But then again -- that's probably more than 100 hours.  I am a bit obsessive with my quilting, and tend to spend all day in my studio when I'm working on a project I really enjoy.  

Autumn Circles

The beautiful fabric was from The Fat Quarter Shop.  Birch Autumn Harvest, by Jason Yenter.   I love the feel of this fabric!

I used Strips'N Curves acrylic templates for the quilt. I've had these templates for years, and this was the perfect time to use them again. I didn't have much trouble with the curves, and the piecing went pretty quickly.  

Autumn Circles Detail Top Left

I blogged about another similar quilting project, White Wholecloth Quilt where I was excited to use some of Cindy Needham's techniques in a white quilt. (Her Craftsy class  Design It, Quilt It: Free-Form Techniques is excellent!) 

Light and shadow make a big difference in heavily quilted quilts, once I got that from Cindy, my quilts looked a lot better.

Autumn Circles Detail Bottom Left

I used a light weight grey thread in the machine and bobbin, Gutermann Miniking, and quilted on my mid-arm Juki on a Grace GMQ frame.

Autumn Circles Detail Bottom Right

The back was off-white.  If I were to do it again, I'd probably make the back a light blue or grey, but it does show off the quilting!  The hardest part was knowing when to stop!

Autumn Circles Back

I'll be putting the quilt in my Etsy shop Mary Manson Quilts later in the week, but it will be hard to put a price on all that work!

I hope you enjoy my pictures! 

Mary

White Wholecloth Quilt Finished! Help from The Quilt Show and Craftsy

Ever done a whole cloth quilt?  I thought this would be great fun, and a good sample of the work I can do on the wedding dress quilts that I make.   And I finished it!  

Before I show more pictures,  let me describe the process for making the quilt.

Several months ago, The Quilt Show had a series of videos by Sharon Schamber. After watching them, I went to work and designed the pattern for this quilt.  It's a fun creative process, you draw out 1/8 of the design, then copy to make 1/4 of the design (so everything is consistent).  Then enlarge, and mark on each section of the quilt.

But the actual quilting was just not working .. not enough contrast.  I just wasn't happy with it.  so I stopped quilting it.  

 

Then I took the Craftsy class Design It, Quilt It: Free-Form Techniques with Cindy Needham.  This was a really good class, the first few lessons covered the basics, a good review for me, and I got a few new tips.  Then the designing started!  After this class, I was able to finish the quilt, and look how it turned out!

Guess What This is!

I finished SUCH a fun wall hanging!  Can you tell what it is?

Here's a hint -- think pixelated!  Ok, so take a look at the next picture -- do you see it now?

Craftsy Celebrating Memorial Day by Donating to Vets

Have you taken a look at the Craftsy site? They have all kinds of online classes, projects, even supplies!

And, this Memorial Day weekend, Craftsy is honoring the brave men and women who have served in the US Armed Forces. For every class sold this weekend, Craftsy will donate a portion of the proceeds to benefit a veterans' organization. 

Select classes will be on sale up to 60% off!  Take a class, or consider gifting a class to your favorite service member!

Check it out! In addition to quilting classes, there are classes in cake decorating, sewing, knitting and more.

Happy Memorial Day!

Mary