I'm Still here! Still quilting.

Hi There!

It has been a long time hasn't it? So much has been going on with my family and so much quilting has been going on as well. About May my husband decided to take a job down in San Antonio. Needless to say that meant a move, putting the house on the market, making renovations, selling the house buying a new house, packing all our stuff up, selling our absolutely awesome flock of hens, saying good bye to friends, making new friends, saying farewell to the best quilt guild in the world, and getting a heap of quilts quilted. Some of that did happen. Most of that happened actually. I did send my husband to Texas without me to try on the job and city and see if he actually liked it before moving us all back to Texas. We did make a ton of renovations to our house and we put it on the market. I packed up almost my entire studio and most of the house, sold and gave away so much fabric and sewing machines and just STUFF. I quilted my entire rack of client quilts, I wrote some quilt patterns, planned so many classes, trunk shows and workshops for next year and we said goodbye to dear friends. But.....then we didn't move. Turns out we were not fans of a massive city and my husband wasn't a fan of the new job, so we stayed in Leavenworth, Kansas. I got to experience all the emotions. I got to start taking a new blood pressure medicine. I can't find half my stuff that is still packed up in the garage and I am still trying to catch up on the whirlwind that was this summer. It was hot and stressful and so so so productive. If you follow along with my Instagram feed you will know some of the madness we have been putting on ourselves.

I am just going to show some pictures of the quilts I have quilted. Please ask questions if you want to see more of them...heck some of them I may have shown before. If so they are pretty and you get to see them again.

 I quilted this one to be cut up and made into bags. I made 6 bags out of it already.

This is Lori's version of my BOEOM quilt. Isn't it cute? 

One of my own quilts got in the mix. This is a class sample for a couple classes.

I really love this quilting I did on Konda's quilt. Sometimes it takes a long time to figure out what I want to quilt on a quilt, but this one was so fun and easy. I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it.

Another or Klonda's quilts. I love this black on black quilting. so puffy and wonderful.

This was a neat one. I quilted the lyrics to a couple Wicked songs on this quilt. The texture of my handwriting makes a neat element.

And I have been raising these clowns. They have grown up so much. Seems like just yesterday they were little. I think they are my best work really.

OK, back to work! If you saw something you want more info about just let me know in the comments or email me.

Cheers!
Tia

Some more awesome quilts I got to quilt. Yay!

Hey there folks! 

I hope you are all doing great. I have had the pleasure of quilting some pretty great quilts lately. Oh heck all the quilts I get to quilt are great. Here are 3 custom quilts I finished recently.

Facts:

• I quilt with a 30 inch Gammill Optimum that has a Statler Stitcher.
• Most of my Custom quilting is done freehand but I do like to use the Statler when the quilt calls for it.
• 2 of the 3 quilts in the post were quilted with Quilters Dream Wool Batting. Wool really makes the quilting pop.
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The first quilt is a Metro Rings quilt that Betsy made. I used grey thread. What really makes this quilting pop is the little narrow 1/4 inch borders I defined the blocks with and the wool batting. I really love how this quilt turned out. I have wanted to quilt a Metro Rings quilt for a while and I was so excited to get to work on Betsy's fabulous quilt.

I was a little stumped on the wide border, so I quilted in a big fat free hand feather.

This quilt had lots of ruler work. My favorite rulers are my own half circle rulers and The Quilted Pineapple rulers. I love them and I think I used ALL the rulers on this quilt.

Next up is Laurie's wonderful Neighborhood quilt. I had a blast quilting this one. It is a good example of my Feathers, Lines and Swirls style quilting.

I used a silver So Fine #50 thread on this one and a blend batting. I was going for clouds and wind in the background and all the little houses are quilted a little different.

Gwen made this awesome Flamingo quilt. There was so much wonderful background to quilt! She wanted me to do my Feathers, Lines and Swirls technique on this quilt as well. I just love it. The pictures aren't awesome. I didn't have the best light.

This quilt also had Quilters Dream Wool batting and So Fine #50 thread. I used white thread in the background and a peachy orange thread for the flamingos.


So there are some of the quilts I have been quilting away on. I got to spend most of yesterday unpicking bad tension stitches from a quilt and moving it to my other machine. Everything was going awesome and then it wasn't.

Have a great day folks!
Tia

Some Quilts I Quilted for folks

Hi There!

Way back in June I taught 5 classes at the Kansas City Regional Quilt festival (KCRQF). It was so fun! There was a crazy amount of work to get ready for it (and for my first class I was really nervous and totally forgot to show my samples. Whoops.) I was also working on client quilts right up until the end. As always before a class I decide that I need a last minute quilt to add to the mix. 

I decided to do another Quilt as You Go on the Longarm quilt. Thats right! An entire twin sized quilt quilted and pieced on the longarm. Is the word long arm or longarm? It is my job, but I don't know which version is the proper one.  Anyway....I found working on this quilt to be such a treat to myself. It was a really soothing break from class prep...but it was class prep!

I sort my scraps by solids and prints, then I resort them according to color. I pulled out all my solid scraps and made kinda log cabin blocks with them on a big piece of backing fabric.



I was just going to do straight lines, but it gets too boring for me so I ended up adding in some more quilting textures.

I absolutely LOVE how this quilt turned out. This is a class I am teaching, so if you are curious about it get a group together and invite me to come teach. You will love it.

I even added in some Welsh style borders!

So now, lets look at some quilts I quilted for folks.

I quilted Lynn's Llamas with my favorite Feathers, Lines and Swirls technique (this was one of the 5 classes I taught at KCRQF and I am more than willing to teach you too. Again, get a group together and invite me to your guild) There was so much beautiful negative space so I filled it up.

I especially love the fur on the llamas.

I quilted one of Latifah Saffir's quilts for quilt market. The one right behind us. I even went to quilt market! It was so fun to walk around and meet all the wonderful characters from the fabric world and it was so great to put faces to names I have been emailing with for years. Latifah is the sweetest lady!

I quilted this awesome Star quilt for Pam. Pam always chooses the best colors. I want to copy this quilt exactly. It is quilted with an e2e named Serpentine.

Here is one of Sharon's quilts. I quilted a Baptist fan on it. I never get pictures of all the e2e quilts I do. The machine quilts them so quickly they are out the door before I know what happened. The custom jobs hang around a great deal longer so I feel they all need to be documented.

I quilted Jenifer Dick's Scissors. She wanted jagged lines and jagged lines were fun to do!

This was a special quilt I quilted for Carol. It has names and special words quilted into the background. Her brother recently passed away and the quilt is for her father.

I also quilted Lynn and Sandi's challenge quilt for KCRQF. This was weeks of work, but I get terrible pictures of it and you can barely see the quilting

Last up today is this fun quilt I quilted for Taylor. Taylor rescues vintage quilt blocks and uses them to finish the makers vision.  This was a fun quilt to work on. Traditional style quilting takes so much longer than more modern quilting, but boy is it worth it.

I have a million other blog posts to type up, so check back. and type a quick comment to let me know you are there. Being an artist working from my home studio can be lonely work. It is nice to know you are there.

Have a great day!

Tia