New hat for Miss Sally !

Miss Sally my Gammill Classic

I just received my new "hat" for my Gammill. Such a cute knitted cupcake pincushion! I stuck some velcro on it and put it on top to keep pins and my swirl eye needle close by . My machine is named Sally after a good friend and quilter who passed away a few years back. She was also my first client as she called me as soon as she heard I had decided to purchase my Gammill and had me put her on the list for an applique quilt. I swear Miss Sally is quilting better with her new hat!

I am working on an applique quilt and almost done. I will show you a sneak peak as the client hasn't seen it yet.

Pineapple corner

There are many background fills, beadboard on the outside of the border and some curved crosshatching on the pineapple. I am using my swirl eyed needle to bury threads when needed and I am just about done. 90% of this quilt has been freehand and a lot of fun!

I will be sure to put up a full picture when done.(client permitting). I hope you can see the quilting as black fabric is always a challenge to photograph.

Sail Away

Alec's Sailboat Quilt

This may look like it says, "Alea" but it's for "Alec". I think it is just the angle of my poor shot! Since this is still on the frame, and it's loaded sideways, it made getting a good picture kinda tricky.

This  is for friends of ours who sail with us. They just had their first child and have been very busy! Not much sailing ! I found the cute sailboat fabric for the back and the top is a pale blue. I did something different this time. I used a variegated King Tut thread in shades of blue. It shows up much better and I really like the effect.  Sometimes matching the thread gives it such a pale look that the design is lost. Going with darker  thread is too much. This is perfect. The blues range from pale to mid blue.

This is the baby season as I have orders for a couple more. I make each quilt different and tailor it to the child. The next one is for a girl and will have a butterfly theme!

Irish Chain off the Frame Today, Whew!

This big ,90 x 104, Irish Chain just came off the frame.  Yes, every little 2 inch square is quilted. Well almost. I did a continuous curve in all the red squares and left the white ones empty. This holds all edges down and makes the white ones "pop" to emphasis the chain.

Feathered Irish Chain

My client chose a feathered design to quilt in the centers and we used a orange/gold Omni thread to pick up the color in the black fabric. I love this design in the quilt, it looks so good with the straight lines in the chains to complement it.

4 borders !

This Irish Chain is to be a gift and needed to be bigger than the pattern size. Four borders were added and a corner  nine patch. It was challenging to come up with border treatments that worked, but I think the Ribbon Candy border and the Fancy Squares really make this a special quilt.  In the nine patch I quilted a block called "Fancy Feathered  Nine Patch". Fitting

I learned a few lessons with this. I could have turned the quilt and loaded it sideways, the long way. It would have saved some time. At the time I was focused on the feature fabric, the black, with it's directional print and didn't want to end up with it having upside down quilting. As it turned out, none of the quilting designs were directional!  It's always a trade off. Sometimes if you turn it sideways the straight of grain in going vertically and not as easy to control. You can end up fighting pleats and puckers on the back. Especially with a pieced back , as this was. I prefer to load with the grain going horizontally when I can.

We chose a gold thread for this, but it would also look good in charcoal, red or even a variegated.  The batting was the clients Warm & Natural and has a very low loft for the traditional look wanted

Pretty quilt, pretty quilting! I'm sure the lucky recipient will enjoy it!.