Black Dahlia Holiday Quilt

I wasn't sure which way to word the title of this blog, It's a black quilt with a holiday dahlia -- not a black dahlia!  Anyway, this was a "practice" quilt for me.  I've never done a giant dahlia pattern, ribbon border, or a black quilt.  I wanted to make something pretty for the holidays, just in case it turned out ok!

The dahlia pattern was a bit of a challenge, once I got the hang of it, it was much easier.  There is a way to make a secondary pattern so that you see  the "petals" that I want to try next time -- hint:  light, medium, dark one direction, single colors the other direction.  Can you figure it out?

The ribbon border was fun and easy, and sewing with black thread on black fabric wasn't as hard to see as I feared!  The detail is hard to see here, but I did circles on either side of the ribbon, then straight lines 1/4" apart in the rest of the border.  The lighter black towards the center has a meandering feather pattern in it, and for the dahlia, each colored row was sewn in a long feather.

Bright Swatch Quilt

I have definitely made the shift to more modern/contemporary quilts.  They are such fun to make!

A while back, I ordered fabric and several  charm packs  from Connecting Threads.  I really love their Quilter's Candy Basic fabrics (several are on sale now), and I used a snip of each fabric to make a swatch book, so I'd know exactly what the colors are.  But, I couldn't decide what to do with all those leftover charms!  I blogged about the swatch book and my first quilt attempt here.

There were SO many different colors.  I tried sewing the squares randomly together, and that didn't work, so I tried the disappearing nine patch and liked the result.  This Bright Swatch Quilt is 40" x 45", has grey binding and backing, and  is quilted in a nested oval design that I have no idea the name of!

This will probably be a donation quilt. I make quilts for the Quilts For Kids charity organization, I love the idea that a child in the hospital will get this cheerful quilt!  I belong to the McGee's Crossroads group.

Mary

Beach Scene Housewarming Gift

My daughter has bought her first home, and I wanted to make her a house warming gift. She enjoys visiting and going to the beach in North Carolina, and so I made this wall hanging for her...

I based the design on an adaptation of Karen Eckmeier's technique that I saw on an episode of The Quilt Show, and some pictures I saw online.  

I layered the fabrics and cut each seam, then sewed the pieces together rather than top stitch them as Karen does (that worked better for me).  Then I quilted, added embroidery embellishments, fabric painted more blue in the sky and some pelicans, and added the shells.  

I loved the wall hanging so much, I made another one for me!  It's a little larger, but was done in the same way.  I also took some yarn apart and used it for "foam" at the edge of the waves.

The wall hangings went pretty fast, but I have realized I'm not a "random" person, I agonized over which fabrics to use and where to put them!

I'm thinking about doing another one with a night sky and moon.

Mary

Grand Prize Winner of the 2013 Q&N Paint Chip Challenge -- Me!

My Purple Butterflies quilt won the Grand Prize in the 2013 Quilt & Needle Paint Chip Challenge!

Back in January, I joined the Q&N Paint Chip Challenge --- my paint chip color was a red-violet.  I decided to use the Tessellating Star pattern, and wrote up instructions in this post.  After I finished the patchwork, I appliqued LOTS of butterflies onto the quilt top, then machine quilted it using a combination of echoing, flowers, pebbles and other fill patterns in a diagonal direction.

When the quilt was completed, I posted it here and sent pictures in and I won the Grand Prize!  I won a $50 gift certificate from The Quilt & Needle.

This was officially my 100th quilt, so was special to me, even before I won!

Mary

Purple Butterflies finished - Quilt #100!

After several stops and starts, the Purple Butterflies quilt is complete.   This is the 100th quilt I have made!!

Back in January, I signed up to do the Paint Chip Challenge.  Cindy sent me a red-violet paint chip as my challenge color,  and I decided to use up some of the purple fabric I had in my stash.  

The Tessellating Star was a new design for me, so I made a Tessellating Star tutorial for my blog, once I figured it out.  I didn't like the look of the quilt top, so I took some butterfly fabric I had and cut out DOZENS of butterflies, attached them to the quilt and sewed them down with invisible thread.  

I wanted to try a new technique, so I machine quilted very heavily on the white areas, and put different designs in each "star".  I sewed around the butterflies, so they stood out. 

This was a real challenge to make, I'm glad to say I've finished it, and I think the end result was worth all the effort.  What do you think?

Mary
 

5th Quilt in Series Completed!

The Star Block Quilt is finished, the 5th quilt!  This completes the series of five quilts that I made for my uncle's mountain cabin -- I hope he enjoys them!

This one was a lot of fun to make, I love the colors and pattern. The border was a pretty blue and green print that I'd been saving, and it worked perfectly. The colored areas were quilted about 1/4 inch from the seam in a simple straight line. I tried to use different colors to bring out the star design, sometimes I see the secondary pattern of squares, sometimes the stars.  What do you see?

Quilting feathers is such fun on the frame with my mid-arm - they just flow off the machine!  I put a feather border over the 2 outside borders, a feather "fill" in the large off-white blocks, and different designs in the smaller off-white blocks.  Too keep it from getting too busy, every other small block is a circle or wreath pattern.  The alternate blocks are some type of square based pattern.

The five quilts are the Forest Quilt, Scrappy Strip Quilt. Log Cabin Quilt. Purple Star Quilt, and this one, the Star Block Quilt.

Now to give my studio and machine a good cleaning, and on to the next quilt!

Mary

Four out of Five Quilts Finished -- One More to Go!

Purple Star quilt has been finished!

 This is a double bed sized quilt, the pattern is Garden Patch, and it has machine quilted feather wreaths in the light areas, and a flower/star design in the colored blocks.  Each border has a different design, a grid pattern, large meandering leaves, and a looping meander.

Number 5 left to finish!

Mary

Log Cabin Finished - Three out of Five!

Here is another in the series of 5 quilts I'm making for my uncle's mountain cabin.  I talked about this quilt top in another blog, Log Cabin Quilt Top -- this week I loaded it up on my frame and got it quilted!

I love feathers, so decided to quilt large feathers diagonally on the quilt - one set of feathers in each dark "row" and one set in each light "row".  I quilted narrow horizontal lines in the open background areas.

I really like the  look I got -- you can see it better in this closeup of the back.

I think this is one of my favorite quilts, and I didn't like it much when I started it, just goes to show, you never know what the end result might be!

Three done, two more to go!  I've really enjoyed these quilts, each is a different pattern and technique, and I used different machine quilting on each.

Mary

Scrappy Strip Quilt is Finished

The Scrappy Strip Quilt  is finished! Strip tube piecing was a new technique for me, I talked more about it in this post,   It was a great way to use up my scraps.

Because it was so scrappy, I didn't want to do a lot of complicated quilting, so I just did an allover stipple pattern.

 It's Quilt #2 of the five for my uncle.

Mary