Quilts

My niece, Janssen, just helped me figure out how to label my blog posts - really very easy, but could I figure it out - nope. (Look on my side bar and you'll notice how all my posts are now organized!) Anyway, in the process of doing that I realized that when I started posting my monthly decorations I started last Feb, and hadn't put my January ones on here. So here they are - I still haven't made table decorations for June, hopefully that will happen before I go into a nursing home!

Here's the customer quilt I've worked on this week - another large custom, so it's the only one I was able to finish this week.

Quilt

For anyone who has wondered if I'm still quilting - yes I am. I actually worked all week on this beauty. It's been a few months since I've had a large, higher-end custom job and I've really enjoyed it. This was pieced by Louise, and as usual - it's a very pretty, well made top. Pretend like you don't notice that my Christmas tree is STILL up.

Quilts

Here starts the quilting for the new year. After taking 2 weeks off (one to get those fabric play houses made, and then one when we were in Idaho) I'm eager to get back to my longarm. I was surprised last year that January was a busy month for customer quilts - I would have thought it would be slow after Christmas and all, but it wasn't. I'm already starting off with a pile of quilts that some of my wonderful customers said I could set aside until after Christmas because they weren't in a hurry for them (which let me finish quilts for those who needed them for Christmas!) I do have the best customers - people really are so nice. I had two new quilts delivered to me yesterday, so things are starting off well :) Here is another from that family heirloom collection I've been working on since Fall. I was told this one is called "Sunshine and Shadows". Out of 19 of those quilts this is the 9th one, so I'm half way through. I'm glad they've been willing to just let me slowly work through them, which makes it possible to bounce back and forth between their quilts and other customer's quilts - thus keeping everyone happy!

Used the panto "Surf's Up" on it.

This next one is another heirloom quilt - polyester, so I had to custom it with a guide again to keep it from moving on me under the needle.

Here is a cute little baby quilt for a first time quilter. I've probably had 8 or so people in the past year who have said the quilt they brought me was their first one. Many of these were young gals in their 20s, so it's nice to see that the art doesn't appear to be dying out!

She asked me to sew the baby's name "Tate" in the center bottom block. Fun when quilts are personalized like this. I did a loopy meander with stars.

Quilt: Grandma's Dream

This is the only quilt I'll get done this week - took me 3 long days to quilt it. It's huge, 108" x 103", and all those little squares are 1 1/2 inches! Louise was commissioned to piece this for someone and then it was brought to me to quilt it. (Louise said it should have been named "Grandma's Nightmare"!) She told me how many hours it took her to put it together and I can't remember now what it was, but tons and tons of hours. It is a beautiful quilt though, a real keepsake.

Close up of applique blocks

I FINALLY took pictures of my quilt that I ribboned with at our local show. Been meaning to for some time and just never managed to get it done until today. There are 22 pictures here - so if you go cross-eyed looking at them, imagine what I was like after quilting it all!! I'm really tickled with how these turned out, and I completely hope that a year from now I will look back on these and think "ewwww!" That's what I think about my projects from a year ago, so hopefully I'll continue to grow in my abilities and next summer be so much better than I am now. Some day I hope I can actually take a class on longarm quilting - I'll probably learn I'm doing everything wrong!!

Eileen's signature quilt

I touched on this a couple of weeks ago (titled Undercover Quilt). I can now post on this because the quilt has been delivered and the secret is out. I have a dear dear friend, Eileen. We've been friends since high school. We sang together in a quartet, then a trio, then by college we were a duet. We were in a performing ballroom dance group together - and many musical productions. Seems like we were constantly singing or dancing somewhere together! We married men who were best friends. She was one of my bridesmaids. We've kept close over all these years even though she moved to Iowa and I've been in Idaho and Utah. Eileen is one of those angel on earth people, truly one of the sweetest people you could ever meet. The past few years she's been battling cancer. The last year has been particularly hard on her and her family. Another good friend from those many years ago, Abby, and I reconnected again recently because of what Eileen is going through. We came up with the idea of making a signature quilt to give to Eileen. Abby took over the job of contacting family members and as many friends as she could get who has loved Eileen over these past 30+ years and have them sign fabric pieces and get them all back to me so I could make the quilt. Abby came and picked up the completed quilt last week and flew to Iowa where she delivered it to our sweet friend this past weekend. This first picture has Abby on the left, Eileen in the middle and Eileen's sister, Annie, on the right. We also came up with the idea of making a scrapbook. People were encouraged to send photos and or notes back (along with their signed fabric piece) to put into a book - Abby compiled all of that.

Here's a photo of the entire quilt after I got it finished.

There were 311 leaves signed by friends. (I only managed to get about 10 of them upside down, geez!!)

Family members were in the flower garden under the tree.

In case you can't quite read it, the heart says "Joe + Eileen". The butterflies are Joe's parents and Eileen's parents, flying over the family garden.

Just a corner quilting detail. I learned a new technique on this quilt. I machine embroidered around each piece with my longarm, thus securing everything down and quilting at the same time. Worked great!

Abby and I were bugs in the garden - she was a lady bug (didn't get a closeup of that, but she's easy to find because she's red and there are only 3 red things in the whole quilt.) Here is my snail.

This has been in the works for maybe 5 months and with as many people who have known about it, can you believe that Eileen never had a clue it was going on? Way to keep a secret everyone!!! I made the quilt to fit their queen sized bed, but have learned they've elected to hang it on a wall that is visible as you enter their front door. What a sweet experience it has been. Thank you Abby for all your help and work. We love you Eileen.