A quilt for Yahaira

 Hey there! How are you all doing? I hope your weekend was a good one and you had the chance to thank a veteran for keeping this great nation free and brave. I did.

OK, lets chat about the quilt that I am working on right now. I am almost finished with it actually, I just need to do a bit of fill in quilting and go back and finish the spots I didn't quite know what to quilt. Yahaira sent me a beautiful star quilt top. Each star was pieced with tiny half square triangles and she wanted the quilt to be quilted in a Welsh style. I LOVE Welsh quilting. In my opinion Welsh quilting is classic, but can also be so modern and unexpected. Gwen Marston has been influenced quite a bit by Welsh quilting...you can see it throughout many of her books. I adore Gwen Marston....but I bet you already know that.

OK, so after I got Yahaira's quilt top I sketched out a really crude idea as to what I wanted to do to it. I sent it to her with a another picture of a quilt that I am working on for my own delight (but I have fizzled since I have so very many other things to finish before we move).

 I wanted to give her an example of Welsh Medallions. I think they are great and quite versatile.

 So here it is this morning....I think it is so pretty resting there in the sunlight.

 I have not quilted much in her pieced triangles for 2 reasons. The first one is that I don't want to take anything away from them and all the work piecing them. I stitched in the ditch and I may go back and add another line. The second reason is because of the seam intersections. It is a reality of quilting....the intersections are quite hard to quilt around. It is beautifully pieced, it is just tricky to quilt.

 I did some fiddle head ferns around the half medallions.

 The arced boarder was so fun to quilt.

And here is one of the full medallions. So, I am almost finished, but I have to meet my little guy for a field trip to the planetarium today. After that I should be able to finish it up....and work on some teacher gifts.

I want to talk to you about thimbles soon too! I made some leather ones and I really like them.

xo,
Tia

Julie's Space Quilt

 Hey there! Let's take a look at Julie's Space quilt. It is for a baby. I had my boys and their friends (between 3 and 11 years of age) over at the house while I was quilting this quilt and as I was quilting I decided to ask the living room full of small males to tell me some things about space.

They were very helpful and rattled off several facts.

"Space is fun!"
"Space is Vast"
"Space is dark"
and all agreed that "Space is Awesome!"

I quilted all these quotes into the blocks of Julies quilt.

One insisted that space was a desolate void where no life could thrive....I decided that was a bit of a dream crusher...so I didn't add that quote.

 I had lots of fun quilting this quilt...lots of stars and all the zig zag lines are the noises my boys make when they play space....I guess they are the sounds of space shops zipping around the galaxy.

 I even quilted some planets into the blocks.

 There is lots going on in this quilt! I hope it brings someone some Joy.

Here is a gratuitous shot of the back. These pictures are not the best...but hopefully you can get the gist of what the quilting looks like.

I am on my way to Kansas tomorrow to house hunt. Wish me luck! I will be home Sunday. I may stop by quilt market in Kansas City if I have time...I have a ticket just in case!

xo,
Tia

Mary's Quilt

Good Morning Folks! How are you doing? I hope you are good and not tired of looking at this quilt yet. I love it. I love Mary's piecing and I love how the quilting turned out!

The blue in the vines is my chalk marking pen. It will wash out. I am pretty crazy for feathery vines right now.

I did feathery vines in the white background and Welsh leaves in the blocks.

I love the back of the quilt. It is going to be so awesome when it is washed.

 

 So, I have been thinking....about straight lines. With my long arm I can do pretty straight horizontal and vertical lines, but forget it with diagonal lines. I have the rulers and a throat platform to attach to my long arm and I have tried to make them straight, but for this quilt I went with organic sketchy lines around the blocks. Personally, I love how hand drawn they look. I think I will make them my signature.

There are many many quilters who have computers associated with their machines and they do beautiful...dare I say perfect work. Not me. I am very human and so is my quilting. At this time in my life, I don't have the energy or desire to learn how to  use one of the fancy systems. I am very happy with my massive 21 year old machine. Maybe down the road I will have the drive to be more perfect, I will look into it then.

 I did two different types of leaves in the blocks. This set is a more traditional and the one above is kinda like a cocoon.

Mary's little red squares remind me of this quilt by Gwen Marston. I think it may be my very favorite Gwen Marson quilt. Her quilter went wild with the quilting, didn't she? I adore how exciting the quilting is. It is not straight or perfect, it is totally awesome though.

Happy Military Spouse Day if you are one! My husband is coming to take me to lunch...so I better get a move on if I am going to hit the post office first!

xo,
Tia

Quilting in the rain

I had such a great day today. I finished Mary's Awesome quilt! It rained all day long and for most of the time I had the garage door open so I could watch it. I love rain. Someday I want to live where it rains often. Someday I would also like to have a quilting studio somewhere other than my garage...but for now it works. I keep a nice clean garage and the vehicles are out in the driveway. I am on the hunt for a proper studio when we get to Kansas. Not too much time left! Next month we move. How unreal. I have 5 quilts to finish up before the packers come! Tomorrow it will be sunny again so I will get better pictures of this massive quilt then.

xo,
Tia

What I am quilting on now

 Hey there! Mary sent me another quilt top to do up for her. She liked my Welsh influenced quilting and wanted something like that for this quilt.  So I am going with flowy vines in the background and Welsh leaves in the blocks. Well, the Welsh leaves will be in some of the blocks, I am not totally sure what I am going to put in the other blocks. I am thinking about it while I am quilting the vines.

 Vines are really fun to quilt. All you have to do it draw a loosy-goosy line in chalk, then use it as your guide for the leaves to grow off of. I really like the results and would like to do this on some more of my quilts!

 See, just make a wavy line. I used to doodle this sort of vine stem all over my notes in high school and college. Who knew then that I would be using it again like this now? All my notebooks were all but illuminated with quilt-like designs. And I didn't even quilt back then! I think that is neat.

I do the top of the vine first and then come back and do the bottom. I also do some minimal marking in the blocks for the Welsh leaves, but I will show them later when I figure out what I want to do in the other half of the blocks. Anyway, this is a bit of my process. I hope you are having a great day!

Seven Seas Quilt for Cloud 9 Fabric

 Hey there! Here is a quilt I finished not too long ago. It is for Michelle of Cloud 9 Fabric. Her mom ( Arlette Engel) made the top, her very first quilt top, pretty good isn't it?.

 The fabric collection is Seven Seas by Michele Brummer Everett. I think it is so very adorable. The colors are fantastic. That blue and aqua are so pretty.

My favorite print was the one that Michelle and her mom used for the back. Narwhals are pretty great any day and when they are combined with flying fish they are ace. I quilted it simply with just waves. I used my Bernina to quilt this one since it was already pin basted. This simple wave design went pretty quick.

Ed Emberley Quilt

 Guten Morgin!  How are you all doing? I wanted to show you this set of pictures of the Ed Emberley Quilt I quilted for Michelle Engel Bencsko of Cloud 9 fabric. It is out of their Ed Emberley collection named Happy Drawing.  Isn't it fun?

 I did not grow up with Ed Emberley illustrations much to my disappointment now. I guess we were living somewhere exotic where he did not publish? I can't tell you how many times my little boys came out to the quilting studio to comment on different characters in this quilt. I loved watching their eyes travel over the quilt and make up stories in their minds about what was happening with all the forest animals and dragons.

My middle son, Ethan (who is 9) liked the crocodiles best. He wanted to know if Michelle had been to Darwin? I asked why? He said that She must have since she knows just what all the crocs look like lined up waiting for the slaughter house run off. They do look rather merry, don't they?

** When we lived in Australia, there was a slaughter house up in Darwin that dumped it's run off into the area waterways. Needless to say the rivers and ponds were rather dangerous places filled with saltwater crocs waiting for their meal delivery of cow hooves and legs. Well, the slaughter house shut down (maybe for it's unsavory practices??) and all these massive saltwater crocodiles were left without steady meals, so they had to disperse into the ranch land and find their own live cows to dine on. The Northern Territory News paper was always filled with stories of giant crocodiles eating people and animals.

 So, I quilted this sweet quilt with loops. Lots and lots of loops.

 I bound the quilt with fabric from the dragon print.

 I just love how fun the fabric is! Giraffes at the waterhole. Dragons and bats frolicking among the wild flowers.

Elephants, frogs and forest critters...it is all happening in Happy Drawing. Lynn made some of the cutest dresses with this line. and there are also some awesome little boys shirts made out of it as well! They will be on display at Quilt Market.