Polar Vortex

Becki made this awesome brightly colored quilt called Polar Vortex. It was made from a kit.

I used a brightly colored variegated thread called 'Rio de Janeiro' on it. It has all the colors-orange, turquoise, pink, green, purple- so it was perfect for this quilt. 

I changed to a navy thread for the narrow border of circles. 

It is difficult to see the quilting, but I did a lot of flowery and feathery, leafy and swirly designs. 

I guess the name 'Polar Vortex' didn't have much affect on me! lol. 

I guess I was more into the Rio de Janeiro vibe.

Becki used up a lot of leftover scraps and bits to make the borders with.

I did a bit of ruler work on the triangles and free-motioned a lot of it too with swirls and some c2c.

She even had enough scraps to piece a strip for the back. 

Thanks Becki! Loved quilting this one.

Marty's T-shirt

Marty made this t-shirt quilt for a graduating high school senior.

I quilted feathered swirls all over and freehand outlined the shirt designs.

Marty had embroidered a cross on one of the shirts as requested by the student. I added a few more embellishments to it.

Thanks for another fun one Marty!

Susie's Log Cabin

Next in Susie's stack was this awesome log cabin quilt. My photo accidentally got saved in a goofy filter while I was editing it, and this was the best I could do to recover it. 

Anywhoo- I quilted an all-over feather in it and a traditional feather in the red border.

I thought that if the feathers were swirly enough, it would almost look like I custom quilted it in each of the light and dark areas.

When I want all-over swirly feathers, I first stitch a large meandering spine across the quilt, then when I get to the end, I start my feathers and work my way back up one side, then back all the way down on the other side. ⇅↑

Thanks again Susie!

⇅↑

Susie's 9-Patch

Susie had a big tub of quilt tops and backs for me to quilt up for her. This big 9-patch on point was on top and got done first. 

I quilted an all-over design of feathers on the halfshell and swirls.

Can you see the quilting design??

How about now from the back? 

A cream thread on the front and back worked really well.

Thanks Susie! More from her to come.

Yuletide Cheer

Joan also made this Yuletide Cheer quilt, a pattern by Kim Diehl. 

I quilted all-over feathers in the blocks.

And quilted it similarly to the original in the book for the border. I couldn't come up with anything else better! Plenty of ruler work, but it turned out nice.

The red corners got a small feather wreath inside, although it is hard to see.

The back.

Thanks Joan- Loved this one!

Sweetie Pie

This is Joan's version of Sweetie Pie, a free pattern by Lee Holt of Bee in my Bonnet. Oh my goodness I just love this quilt! So there's lots of pictures...

After some online research for inspiration, (There was a sew-a-long so there were lots of pictures shared on Instagram.) here's what I ended up doing. A large fun and leafy feather in the cherry print border, with some little flowers here and there. The white border got some ribbon candy. The red scallops got special curved ruler treatment and red thread. 

The dresdens got some curved ruler work as well. I free motion outlined the fruits and backfilled with lots of swirls.

The backfill was fun to do as well with lots of curls, swirls, leaves and even some little cherries and berries in the mix as well. 

The flowers were appliqued onto a circle which was then appliqued onto the quilt. Someone else had quilted theirs this way and I really like how it gave the petals dimension. 

So much work went into all of the piecing, applique and embroidery for this quilt. It really deserved special treatment for sure.

The back.

Thanks so much Joan! This was my favorite quilt by far this year! It might be hard to top it. This was one I definitely hated to give back.