Fish quilt

Quilted with the Simple Fish pattern...

Animal panel quilt

Quilted with wavy lines.  I like the simple/clean lines of the quilting design- I think it helps to not take away from the detail on the panel.

Big Red Barn goat milk lotion

My good friend, Shanna DeHoogh, makes goat milk lotion, and I am carrying some for sale here in the studio.  If you are looking for a little gift for someone, or just for yourself, pick one up!  It's very moisturizing and absorbs well without feeling greasy.  Chloe and I love it.

She raises & milks her own goats, and then turns the milk into soap & lotion.  Learn more about her products at her website:  brbgoatmilksoap.com

Pinwheel quilt

Quilted with the "Triangles" pattern.

Monday, March 16, 2020

Wondering what to do at home while you wait out the virus? 

Make a quilt! 

I am still open for business as usual.



The latest quilt, quilted with the "Wild at Heart" pattern. 

Rainbow colors quilt

Quilted with the Square Spiral pattern.  This quilt is made of all flannel, with a solid black flannel backing.  The batting used was the Quilter's Dream Midnight Black batting- a very good choice for dark backings to avoid light batting fibers from pushing through & showing on the back.

Triangles quilt

Quilted with the Champagne Bubbles pattern.

T-shirt quilt

Quilted with the Slope Intercept pattern.  

Animal quilt

Quilted with the Animal Stripes pattern.  

Leaf quilt

Quilted with a free-hand swirling wind pattern.

Fleece quilt- triangles

I made this quilt from scraps of fleece that were laying around.  The triangles are cut with a 60* triangle ruler.  It went together really fast (the fleece was surprisingly easy to work with on my Pfaff sewing machine), and it's super soft & warm.  

Since the fleece has quite a bit of stretch & thickness, it can't be quilted on the longarm.  I am planning on backing it with flannel, and the doing a tacking "X" stitch on my sewing machine in the middle of each triangle to hold all the layers together.  Kind of like tying, but I don't want the loose yarn ends that happen with that method.  

The quilt is about 57" x 69".

T-shirt quilt

Quilted with the Slope Intercept pattern. 

Denim quilt

I finished putting this together today.  A simple 9-patch + rail fence pattern made from recycled denim.
With the heavier denim, I like to keep the quilting pretty simple & not too dense.  This isn't quilted yet, but I am thinking about a simple X through each block, and flannel for the back.  A very thin batting will help to cushion the thicker denim seams.  All the seams on the quilt top are pressed open, which helps to reduce bulk.
The 9-patch squares are cut at 3.5", and the rail fence rectangles are 9.5" x 3.5".  Super quick to put together.  If you want to make one for yourself, look for denim that is a bit lighter weight, the super-heavy men's work jeans can be too thick to work with, depending on how to you want to quilt it.

The pattern to make this quilt can be found in the book "Scraps & Shirttails" by Bonnie K. Hunter, on page 98.

Gray/yellow quilt

Quilted with the Last Leaves pattern, in a light gray thread.

Triangles quilt

Quilted with the Triangles pattern, in a fun turquoise thread.

T-shirt quilt

Quilted with the Pac-Maze pattern with gray thread.

Flat borders

The most commonly seen problem with quilt tops is getting extra fabric in the outer borders. 

Here's a way to avoid that, and have borders that lay flat.

https://myquilter.blogspot.com/2018/12/tips-on-how-to-apply-borders-correctly.html

If your outer borders do not lay flat, then they will need to be removed & fixed before quilting to avoid sewing down the extra fabric as a pucker.  

Winter quilt

Quilted with the Midnight Sparkle pattern:

Here's a very good example of how to do a pieced backing....  It isn't always possible to center backing elements perfectly, so this is a good layout- plus it adds visual interest to the back of the quilt.

Farm Girl Vintage by Lori Holt

Quilted with the Midnight Sparkle pattern.  The piecer is going to add the buttons for eyes & other details now that it's quilted.  Very cute!  Every block is different, and some small triangles are less than an inch finished!  

Hexagon quilt

I often get asked if I have time to work on quilts of my own.....  Here's a few pictures of something I've been working on.  It's a super-scrappy hexagon quilt, all machine pieced.  The hexagons are about 2" from point to point.  After doing hundreds of them, I've come up with a pretty good method for matching points on all those Y-seams.  It's been fun to work on- I put on a new row here & there when I have time.  No pressure to worry about running out of the right fabrics!  :-)

I am hoping to have a twin-size quilt when I'm finished.  Right now it's about 55" x 65", so I'm over half way.... so far there are 1131 hexagons in the quilt.

Methodical pressing will cut down on bulky seams: