Clamshells

Today I have been quilting clamshells over this delightful sampler quilt and instead of holding with tradition, I continued the quilting over the pieced and appliqued blocks.

 I used a fine cotton thread in a pale shade which softens the look.

I love the affect!

 

Sashiko Art

This charming little sample of Sashiko art is made by Janelle Kapernick of Qld.

I just love that Janelle chose to use a dyed fabric to capture the moon behind the clouds. Very clever.

I chose to add curved quilting lines with directional change to mimic the changing flow of the ocean.

Japanese Blocks

I am quilting this great quilt today made by Lynne McKinlay for one of her boys to celebrate his birthday.

Inspired, I think, by her recent visit to Japan, Lynne made this quilt using all Japanese fabrics (plus a few cuttings from old shirts..... sentimental reasons).


You'll always find a dragonfly somewhere in any of Lynne's quilt. Sort of her signature and this one is no exception.

The design is one example of repeating blocks published in a book titled 'Japanese Quilt Blocks to mix & match' by Susan Briscoe.

E2E with No-Sew Areas

Here's an idea for quilting..... if your quilt includes embroidered blocks or fabric photos and you don't wish the quilting to go over these areas, you might like to consider Edge-to-Edge quilting with No-Sew areas.

Here I have quilted an E2E design over the quilt but I stopped the quilting at the edges of the fabric photo frames.
Actually I can't imagine a time when I would quilt over a fabric photo, it would distort the picture and put holes in the printable fabric.

This family album quilt was made by Christine Price of Albany Creek to celebrate a special anniversary.

The photo to the right is shows a quilt made by Dianne Orr and her friends and family is another example.




Here I have quilted the Alphabet on all the background (sashings and borders) only.










 Later I added more specific quilting to each individual block.


Just some examples of quilting techniques.

Fresh as a Daisy!

Yellow and White quilts always seem so fresh and crisp to me.



So appropriate that Jean chose a quilting pattern called Daisy Swirl. Turned out just right.

To Be Resourceful...

Having set myself the challenge not to purchase anymore fabric (yeah right, you say.) I have taken a leaf out of Mary Ellen Hopkin's book when she says to pick the scraps up off the floor and put them on the back. Well they weren't on the floor but I did use the fabric leftover after piecing, to widen the backing.
I have made two simple lap size quilts from two charm square packs, two jelly rolls along with a couple of metre lengths from the Ticklish range of fabric. For the first I used the pink, purple and aqua pieces holding over the yellow, green and orange pieces for the second.

Its all about the Pink in Quilt No 1.....

I couldn't keep my commitment for the pinks (favourite colour), I found some of the Ticklish range available in flannel and so I did make a purchase for the backing on Quilt No 1. However I stuck to my guns with Quilt No 2.

I had just enough length of one piece of fabric but the width was narrow. So joined all the scraps from the jelly rolls together to make three long strips. I interspersed a couple of other leftovers and then inserted the pieced section at the 1/3 mark across the width.

Why did I split the piece at the 1/3 mark? I didn't want any seams to fall anywhere near the edge of the quilt top because I want to avoid unseemly extra bulk in the binding. Even if I carefully plan the placement of the seams sometimes the quilting will shrink the quilt and plans can go astray and it is better to be safe than sorry.

Sorry about the yellow piece of paper there, it is a note to self indicating the top edge and how far down to position the top of the quilt so that I also miss the horizontal seams in the strips.

Oh and by the way, contrary to the suggestion I make on my website Pieced Backings I do not have all the fabric grains travelling in the same direction. The Crosswise grain of the jelly roll strips is travelling in a vertical direction  and the crosswise grain of the main piece of fabric is travelling in a horizontal direction. It's okay though because I took care when piecing and cutting, strips are straight and even, the whole backing is laying flat and I'm sure it will work well.

So next time you are thinking what to 'put on the back', try using up the scraps.... it's fun and it works!

The finished quilt.

 

What a wild quilt!

Isn’t this a wild quilt! I just love all these beautiful animal prints.

The quilt was made by Jane Bester for her son Jonathan to celebrate his 15th birthday.


She fussy cut all the blocks for maximum effect from several jungle animal prints. She made three different sized blocks and framed them in different colours to add movement, variety and interest.



Here are some close-ups:

Jane has also pieced some leftover blocks into the backing and in so doing, she has created a double-sided quilt.

When Jonathan and Jane asked me to do the quilting they said they would like the quilting to give the effect of swaying grass.

I used a pattern called ‘Blackberry’ which was designed by Hermione Agee of Lorien Quilting. It added so much movement, you can really get the feeling of the savannah. The quilting is easier to see in the above photo of the pieced back and the one of the border on the right, shows the detail.

Happy Birthday Jonathan and thank you for sharing your quilt with us.

You can see more of Hermione’s digitized and paper quilting patterns at http://www.lorienquilting.com/

A Day with Barb

Sandy Cunningham of Murwillumbah, NSW, visited my studio recently for an all-day 'watch and learn' session of longarming. What a great day!

Sandy has a different computerised operating system so I only utilised my Intelliquilter to lock a straight line of basting when necessary.

The lesson predominantly involved manual techniques and the variety of pieced borders on this little quilt made it an excellent teaching sample. I was able to demonstrate quite a few techniques and discuss certain choices in building-up the overall plan, including,

• floating the top,


• stabilising the quilt into workable sections,


• why I needed to use different techniques, and


• how to use those techniques to apply different types of quiting whilst limiting the (all too time consuming) number of stops and starts and thread changes.
  

It all worked and 'Flutterby' came together very well. Sandy said she learnt heaps!

'One Still Bird' by Annette Isager

"I call my quilt "One Still Bird", because the bird inspired the design. I began this quilt in July 2006. It was taught in a class at Vision Patchworkers in Ipswich Queensland. This is after an origional design by Sue van Slyke (Copyrite 2006) called Sue's Medallion Quilt. Sue was assisted by Audrey Mazzaracca. The quilt was tailormade as a bedspread for an old silky oak bed.










The bird was painted by a friend called Maggie. I kept the Tshirt it was on for 20+ years and was delighted to be able to include it.







I used pictures and flowers of the West Australian gum Eucalyptus caesia for a guide to the gum flowers and photocopied Gerladton Wax flowers for the guide to the flowers in the baskets.



I should be finished this quilt in October 2008 and owe a debt of gratitude to my great friend Cheryl Doblo who helped me in many ways throughout the making.



Everyone who comes to my house gets dragged in to the guest bedroom to see this quilt. I love it and am totally delighted with your work. Everyone who has seen it loves it too!



Thanks for your great work. I feel you have made my quilt an heirloom. "
Annette Isager
Booval Qld

Soon It Will Be Spring

I can't remember feeling so cold in the winter months in Brisbane. Previous winters have been quite mild, this year it's freezing! Normally we only need to use the heaters occassionally, this year they have really had a good work out.

Sure to brighten the wintery mood is such a crisp, fresh explosion of bright Spring colours. This quilt made by my good friend Suzanne Walker called appropriately 'Spring Fling' has reminded me that the start of the Spring season is only one week away!

I usually find myself looking forward to a welcomed spell from what can be a very hot Queensland Summer. This year though I must admit, I am looking forward to feeling the warmth of the sun again.

I love daisies, don't you? This is a view of Sue's quilt from the back. Lovely Sue, well done.

Betty Houston of Figtree Pocket, Qld, made her 'Blue Dandy' (designed by Barbara Campbell) after finding it in a magazine and deciding it was the one she would lovingly make and give to her daughter-in-law Patsy. Betty is 80 years young and her work in many of the finer arts is exquisite. No surprise to learn that this year Betty was awarded 'Champion of Show' along with several other awards for her beautiful stumpwork at the Embroiderers' Guild Qld April Exhibition.




Patsy's preference is a 'no fuss' style of quilting so we chose to apply a balance of straight and curved lines in alternating fashion.