Thread Tales From A Scrappy Quilter

I really enjoyed custom quilting Sally's "My Enchanted Garden" quilt.   Pattern by Grechen Gibbons.  Her wool and traditional applique was impeccable with lots of detailed embroidery embellishments.  She also had hand stitched her applique with a layer of batting underneath for a trapunto effect.   Sally requested 2 layers of batting, I  used  Hobbs 80/20 on the bottom and Quilters Dream wool on top.  Lots of dimension in this quilt.   Such fun blocks!  I wish I could make a quilt like this of my own someday.   I just love it.                                   sorry for photo overload!   Lots of photos on my phone, hard to tell the duplicates or if photos were too similar so I just loaded lots of them.   Thanks Sally for letting me quilt for you!  

I had a few hours to spare on Friday, finished one on Thursday and was waiting for a new backing to arrive for another large quilt.   I needed something fast that would be on and off the frame in a few hours.   I don't get many like that!   But I had a little 45" quilt for my guild's charity work to be quilted so that was perfect for the afternoon. This is a cute little "coin" type quilt.  I liked the fabrics.  My mind immediately started coming up with some ambitious ideas about quilting but I quickly reigned those in because it had to be finished that day and it was already the afternoon.  The backing was a solid kona gray.  I layed out a gold thread on the top, but I didn't want gold on the gray back.   I love a gold on those Hoffman Oriental theme fabrics but also felt it might be too bright for the amount of black that was in the top.   I audtioned Grays, golds, black, even a nice blue variegated.   In the end, I opted for blended on the front and deci

We went camping as usual over Spring Break and brought along one of Mick's friends as we often do.    Cooler than normal weather and an injury had a big impact on our week.  I had bronchitis and something going on with my ears, hubby commuted every day to work plus I think I got a spider bite that still hurts.  It was a nice break but it was difficult!   Too windy most days for my sewing set up outside.   I had to set up in our very small pop up camper each day.  Mick and Anthony went out a couple of times on the boat with Uncle Vic plus had kayaks, bikes and all the activities at the center.  We ended up at the local ER on Wednesday with a badly sprained hand from a tether ball injury.   Between the injury and a cold front, we packed up Saturday and returned home.  Too cold to even sit outside!   Oh well,  we still had fun.  Until next time!        

Kathryn sent me  her amazing version of Fire Island Hosta Queen for custom quilting.   The fabrics are amazing!  She added piping and some inset accent borders to what is already a beautiful pattern by Judy Niemeyer.  I hope you like it Kathryn!                 The peacock feathers were challenging fabrics to work with.  My first choice would to have been to do something peacock related in all of those sections.  I did quilt a peacock feathery spray into the leaf shape but decided to stay traditional with the outer borders.  Its hard to discern feathery shapes over the fabric.  But also not possible to mark a grid on these fabrics either for really detailed designs.   Geometric designs usually show well with busy fabrics.   I aligned with the piecework in the arcs and stitched a beadboard in the interior peacock and I think it works well.  The next dilemma, how to incorporate a design that goes into the light spikes and fills that border.