Antique Embroidered Bunnies & Duckies

 

Norene found this quilt top in an antique shop and had me machine quilt it up. 

 

 It has some pretty adorable hand embroidered ducks and bunnies.  I quilted feathers all around and filled in the blocks with swooshes.

 

 

 

I'd say it turned out pretty darn cute!

WIP Wednesday

 

Jann made this throw quilt for a relative battling cancer.

 

 

Here is the back where you can see the quilting. 

 

 

And here is another project I've been working on.  I somehow ended up with several orphan blocks, odds and ends, left over bits and pieces from a few different people.  (Anyone recognize a block or two?)  It's very... uuhhh, unique?? 

 

I came across this Call for completed quilts for Quilts Beyond Borders a while back and decided to use these bits up for this charity.  I have never donated to them before, but how could you not want to after seeing the pictures of those happy kids with their quilts.  Anyway, they are in need of 500-600 completed quilts by July 12th!  They have a few recommendations on the size and require that you bind by machine.  See the link for more details.  I hope they make their quota!  depending on how quickly I can get my act together, I might make another...we'll see.

 

But here's the project I've really been working on.  A Christmas quilt!  It's a triple 4-patch using 1.5, 2.5, and 4.5 inch squares.  It's very scrappy.  And very addicting to work on.  When I should be doing a million other things,  this is what I gravitate to.  So far I have 36-8 inch blocks about done, but I still have a little more Christmas fabric left, so the plan is to keep cutting til it's all gone!

 

 

And I'll leave you with this shot of (get this!) and old shower curtain Norene had me quilt up into a table topper.  It was very satin-y and drapey and was concerned how well it would quilt up, but it turned out beautiful!

 

I am linking up to WIP Wednesday.  See what everyone else is up to!

 

Jane's Patriotic and Halloween Quilts

 

My Aunt Jane made these two small quilts and had me quilt them up for her.  This one is obviously very patriotic and scrappy.  I love it!

 

I quilted an all-over swirl and star design.  For some reason I had it in my head to make the stars the non-crossing-over way.  Which is a lot trickier to do let me tell ya. I thought they would be more visible this way, especially after echoing them too.

 

 

I noticed that sometimes here and there she used the wrong side of the fabric as a light.  That is a good trick Aunt Jane!

 

 

 

And here's her Halloween quilt!  Isn't it adorable?!

 

 

Naturally I thought of a feather spine for the borders, so I made it funky.  As for the center I made a swirl with spikes echoed around them. 

 

In the stars in the corners I quilted spider webs, but I failed to get a picture of it.  Argh!  Ah well,  Aunt Jane loved them both!  She sure has a lot of festive prints in her stash huh?

 

 

 

 

Adventures in Thread Painting: Numero Dos

 

This is the second thread painting block I did.  This one had a wild and funky vibe to it. 

 

There's a lot of going over and over and over, and should I go over it again?  Yes.  A couple more times ought to do it.  It was pretty fun actually!  There is a lot of changing thread colors, so trying to figure out what all to do in which colors was a little tricky.  And although it is hard to tell, I did fill in the background in black.

 

 

 

Thanks for the fun change of pace Mom! 

 

Both of these wallhangings are going to be in a silent auction at the Muscatine County Fair with the proceeds going towards the county 4-H Programs.  I hope they bring top dollar!

A little adventure in thread painting.

 

My mom made this funky flowered little wallhanging and wanted me to quilt it.  So I got a little adventurous and did a little thread painting.

 

I hope you can see some of the detail.  I even added a butterfly. 

 

 

I used the boldest threads I have in my collection.  Not a whole lot to choose from, but I think it turned out pretty good for my first go.  Mom is going to add some beading and buttons to it and really jazz it up even more. 

 

Reptile Rumpus

 

Gina had me quilt up a yard of flannel for a baby gift.  Isn't this print adorable?!  It's called Reptile Rumpus.  I used a silver colored thread. 

 

And this was the back.  I did lots of vining leaves along with some large pebbles to fill in the cracks and crevices. 

 

 

 

These are my two blocks for my May do. Good Stitches group.  Sarah made up her own tutorial for this Rolling Diamonds block.  She requested that we use a white or mostly white fabric for the outer background and a black, or mostly black fabric for the center background.  The rest was up to us, but preferring something with high contrast.  So this is what I came up with!  I will say that making square in a square blocks is a little frustrating in that they came out a little small.  But I altered my stitching line a little for the second  block and it came out better.  And of course I made little bonus HST's that will end up in my growing pile of tiny-not-squared-up HST units that will get used for something...someday...

 

Carol's Blue Embroidered Quilt





Carol's husband embroidered these beautiful blocks while she puts them together into a quilt.

 

 

 

And I get to quilt it!  The border I kept pretty simple- a loop-di-loop- while in each block I basically outlined the design and echoed the scalloped border. 

 

 

Here is the back where you can see the quilting really well. 

 

Another quilt that I hated to see go! 

Jessica's fancy snowball quilt, and LRRH

 

Jessica made this super fancy snowball quilt. 

 

 

I quilted an all-over feathered paisley and swirl design. 

 

 

Looking good.

 

 

 

She also had this super adorable baby quilt!   Love that Little Red Riding Hood and those little foxes...

 

 I did a super echod swirl and an extra large loop-di-loop in the border in a silver thread. 

Norene's Log Cabin and Sunset Jelly Roll

 

Norene made these two quilts.  The first was this yellow log cabin.  She requested flowers and swirls in the cream areas and meandering in the yellow.  I probably would never have thought to quilt it that way myself, but I just Love how it turned out!  Oddly, this is the only picture I got of it so you can't see the whole quilt.  Blog fail!  She had the log cabins laid out in diagonal lines and had a narrow red border with a bigger yellow border on the outside.  Just try to picture it... :P

 

*Oh! I remember why there's only this picture now.  The light was shining through the patio door onto the quilt which was perfect for a close up shot, but left half of the quilt in the dark.  So a wider shot was going to have to wait...but I apparently forgot and it went home with Norene before I remembered.  Aren't you glad you know that now??

 

Anywhoo.  Now here's this one, made from a jelly roll and looks a lot like a sunset.

 

 

I quilted a breezy free-flowing fiery design in the center.  It was pretty fun to do!

 

Big bubbles in the border and meandering around the prairie points.  I only caught a point once!

 

 

Thanks for letting me quilt your tops Norene!

QCR QAL: Blocks are all done!

Here are the last two blocks of the QCR QAL: #11-Drunkards Path and #12-Spools.  These are my scrappy versions.

And here are my official versions.  I was worried that I wouldn't have enough fabric for the last block.  So when I saw how scrappy the spools were, I had to chuckle.  I could make that work easy-peasy.

Taa Daa!  Here are all the blocks together!  I just laid them out in the order they were made-from what I could remember without looking it up.  I love it!

And the scrappy version.  I'm happy with this version too.  I'm glad that I decided to make two versions as I did make a few adjustments here and there before doing the "real" blocks.  And now I have another quilt!  A couple of my most favorite blocks would have to be the log cabin and the star (the #10 one).  But I do like them all!  

Now-the hard part- how to put all these pretty blocks together??  Jenny made up a really neat curved border to put around each block.  But I don't have enough fabric left to do that with my official version.  So maybe the scrappy version??  mmmm.  maybe not...  I guess I could actually BUY some fabric to do it, but I'm not sure what I'll do.  What I will probably end up doing is stashing my blocks away and wait to get some inspiration from everyone else in the Flickr group.  :)  

Linking up to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced!