Thread Tales From A Scrappy Quilter

This was a first for me and I think the results turned out very nicely.   A close friend of mine started quilting this for her client, meanwhile life intervened and she was not going to be able to get it finished.  With the blessing of her client, she delivered this to me to finish quilting.  I think the transition is fairly seamless!  All the black sashings had been stitched in the ditch and the sashing detail work had mostly been quilted.  I needed to come up with a plan for the blocks and borders and presented a few ideas to the owner.  This quilt pattern is called "Focus Pocus" and is so perfect for showcasing these gorgeous oriental theme prints.  We opted to go with a large feather wreath and border design for the focus fabrics.  Glide "vegas gold" thread blened perfectly with the golds in those fabrics.  The owner is going to finish with the darker border fabric and black piping in the binding.  Sounds gorgeous! ...

This finished just the way I had hoped for.   Nice and crinkly yet the quilting design shows distinctly.  All fabrics were pre-wased and dried.   Hobbs 80/20 batting.  The fabric I used for the binding came from my mother's box of stuff from the 70's.   It is really, really thin and she had pieced sections together to make a large back for some quilt that was never done.  Maybe she realized the fabric was too thin too.... but fine for a binding that will never be a well used bed quilt. Kadie says she really likes this one too!

This top has been made for several years, the blocks go back to a swap with Greenie's Quilting Geese back in 2003 if I remember correctly.  The quilting task always seemed a little to daunting for me using the sit down, push and pull method on the sewing machine and too limiting on my smaller 5" quiltable space on my old Grace frame.   So it has sat for many years waiting for a solution. Here are a few pics while I worked on this project.   It's coming off the frame this AM and on to the binding job (which as you will see is another job in itself!). Gosh, this was taken back at the lake house... prior to our move to FL in 2006. First peak at the work in progress (WIP) Kricket and Kadie being good little fur babies sleeping as I quilted yesterday.   I decided I should find Angie and post what she was doing and here is where I found her: Angie was snoozing on the still open sleeper sofa in my sewing roo...