Cross and Crown anyone???

If anyone every asks you "What is Tia Curtis's Favorite quilt block?" you can tell them it is the Cross and Crown. I love it as a Barn quilt.

I love it as a simple quilt block

So what the heck…why not make it into a massive bed sized quilt? Did you know I have never made a quilt just for my bed? Nope. Not once. Now I do have a princess and the pea sized stack of quilts on my bed (all are about 70 inches square) so my husband and I fight over them and kick them off and snatch them off one another during the course of the night…but it was time for a bed sized quilt. I guess I arrived at this conclusion from quilting many many many other ladies bed sized quilts. People actually make quilts for their beds? What? Why?

I have had this puppy assembled for months, and finally decided to quilt it when I got my Lady June back from the shop.

I tossed it up on the bed as soon as I trimmed it. Yes, we are totally sleeping under it and it is not bound. I hate binding quilts…but this one I NEED to bind and soon. Lots and lots of straight line quilting MUST be bound. Seriously….soon.

So, it is not as intuitive as you would think to take a simple block and blow it up into a massive bed sized quilt. Maybe it was the linen…maybe it was the bias…maybe it was human error (that is my vote)  but in the end it was fine. I did try something I have been very excited to try. I quilted zillions of pieces of advice I have received over the years. I quilted quotes all over the aqua parts of this quilt. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the texture it created.

My handwriting is so much better when quilted! But it is crazy hard to read with this blending thread. This was really just a test piece, next time I will use contrasting thread!

All the fabric used in this quilt is linen that I dyed myself. I used 2 layers of batting (quilters dream cotton in deluxe loft and quilters dream batting in Wool) to really give the quilting a great definition (the pictures don't really show the pretty quilting. Sorry it was a super dreary day. And as a nod to going green I used one of our old flat sheets as the backing. Of course this will drive me bonkers next time I try to make the bed.

Have the best evening ever and happy quilting!
Tia Curtis

AMERICA!!!

So I have been busy quilting…trying to clear my plate a bit before some of the top secret Quilt Market projects start rolling in. This time of year and before Fall Quilt Market are my favorite times of the year. Anyway, I was on my way to pick up my kiddos from school and guess what swooped down in from of my car? A magnificent Bald Eagle! Few things make me as thrilled as seeing one of those great raptors in flight. I always feel like shouting "AMERICA!!!!" When I am lucky enough to spot one.

Sometimes they come visit our back yard and eat our poor hens. But if you have to be eaten by something being eaten by an eagle isn't a bad way to go.

One day my husband and I were in our kitchen putting dishes away or some such glamorous activity and we spotted a man in a cloak in our chicken coop. All the sudden my husband swears and dashes outside and before my eyes the "man" in the coop straightened up and spread his massive wings then preformed a vertical takeoff. It was an adolescent bald eagle perched on the door to the coop peeping in and checking our sweet (juicy) hens out. Letting them know that he would be back! Lucky for the girls that day he didn't feel like humbling himself and hopping around inside a chicken house. 

Here is inquisitive Midnight. She is the detective of the flock…no question is too tough for her to ask!

OK, I am babbling. Sorry. Lets talk quilts.

 I am pretty sure I shouted "America!" when I unfolded this patriotic quilt. April wanted me to quilt feathers around the star and stipple the rest….I may have went a bit overboard with the center quilting, but I love how it turned out.

Some nice traditional feathers around the star, and echoing lines inside the star.

Mr Eagle himself got a bit of fancy quilting too…just to dress him up a bit. I see from this picture that I need to brush off the chalk marks. 

This was a BIG quilt. 90 x 112. I like quilting big quilts.

Have a great evening folks!

Coming up from my quilt lair for a moment to show you what I have been up to

Hey there folks! I have been busy busy busy and it has been cold and snowy here!  The kids were out of school for 4 of 5 days last week due to one heck of a snow storm so we did a painting craft to make it fun, not that snow days are ever bad. I just wanted to do something fun with them. See those pictures at the end of the post and a link to the website I found the templates and instructions for in case you want to try it with your children next time they are home due to bad weather.


I have been quilting heaps of quilts too. This is a lovely Irish Chain by Jenny. I custom quilted it with a twist on traditional quilting.

I really dig the back too. Green on a natural muslin is lovely.

I also quilted a Quilt of Valor last Saturday on Quilt of Valor day.

I got carried away on this one and custom quilted it. Raylene pieced the top and back. I love quilting Raylenes quilts.

Here is a lovely Bargello quilt made from more of Shari's shirt stripes.

I love the border I quilted on this quilt. I definitely will be adding this design to my bag of tricks.

The body of the quilt was quilted with these arches.

This is Lori's Irish chain. I quilted it Classic Denyse Schmidt. I just love it.

Last but not least quilt is this feathered Star I quilted for Julie. It is made with the Downton Abby fabric collection. It is hard to tell but I quilted lots of feathers.

Here are some more peeks of what is going on in my studio. I am slowly quilting my massive Cross and Crown quilt. It is all my hand dyed linens and an old sheet for the back. I am using 2 layers of batting for this quilt. A deluxe Cotton and a wool. It is going to be so warm when it is finally finished! I love using my newly refit Gammill Supreme. It is so very nice to quilt with.

Over on the Statler is a rainbow quilt I am freehand quilting with all ruler work echoing triangles.

Here are our painted Pony Stampede. This is the project we worked on for the Snow days. All three kids and I worked on the horses. We got them painted and assembled rather quickly, but I didn't think out how I would mount them to the wall down in my studio. I solved that problem by using a blank canvas and Entomology pins. This was super fun and I totally recommend this project!

Ann Wood Card Board Stampede on Design Sponge.

Give that link a go!

OK, I need to go get the eggs before they freeze and vacuum before ladies come over the drop off/pick up their quilts.

Have the best Monday ever!!!

xo,
Tia Curtis

I taught a class and my other Long Arm is back!

I taught a class last weekend. I named it "Free Piecing" admittedly that is not the best name for a class. I need to rename it something else. I didn't mean free as in "no money", I meant free as in "free yourself from rules!" It will help next time I think up names to actually say them aloud. At any rate we all had a great time and some really great blocks were made.

 I think the most fun was had with the bird block. 2 years ago I was in a quilt bee and for my month I wanted bird blocks made. I LOVE free pieced birds. I still have a stack of bird blocks that need to become a quilt. Soon I hope! Maybe next time I will just do a "free bird" workshop? We also learned to make log cabins, shoo flies, churn dash, liberated stars and fun with various pieced borders and bias tape. It was a great class. Thank you Beth for sponsoring me! Beth has a great shop in Raytown "Show Me Quilting"

Next news is that both my Gammill long arms are up and running again! the lovely Statler Stitcher is still here doing great things.

And around the corner is Lady June!

Lady June was my first long arm. She is massive, but now with her new table and modified wheels she is so much easier to push around. We even gave her a new engine. Beth's husband Dave did the after market work on this old girl to give her some more spunk. Before her original table was very very very tall. So tall in fact that my husband made me a stage to stand on so I could quilt. I still felt like some sort of quilting dwarf or child whenever I stood at the table. Now the table fits me much better.

Emma, Stu and I have been quilting away with her on the scrap fabric I loaded up. I love the idea of quilting words and I will be doing this more on my own work in the future. I just need to find the time! Ha! Don't we all need a bit more time in the day?

OK, I need to go get ready for my quilt posse to arrive. We are having quilting day at my house. Im so excited! I love quilting with friends. If you are ever in the area or live near Leavenworth we normally get together on Tuesdays or Thursdays….about once a month. Just email me and I can add you to the distro list.

Cheers!
Tia

A moment for catch up.

Up until last year I used to always quilt and piece with my camera by my side. Depending on where we lived I would have lovely natural light to snap my process pictures. Well since moving to Leavenworth I have taken to leaving the camera upstairs and only taking my phone downstairs to my studio. I suppose it is the convince of the phone always being in my pocket. Well, since I have taken to using my phone the pictures don't move to my camera that easily (well they really do, I just have to upload them…and that takes TIME!!!) So I have quilted heaps of quilts that I have not taken good pictures of. That is sad. It is almost like they never happened!

Well, Happily I did recall to take my camera down with my with these two quilts. This lovely dresden plate quilt was made by Jen. I just had the pleasure of quilting it for her. I love quilting for Jen as she has such a glorious stash of fabric to look at while I travel my long arm from one side to the other.

I custom quilted this quilt…but due to the bad pictures the quilting is hard to see.

This quilt is a birthday present for her daughter. I love that! Happy Birthday!!!!!

Next up is a wonderful scrap quilt by Shari. This quilt was very popular on my Facebook page, but I don't know if the friends and family on my Facebook know about the almost cult following the "Scrapvomit" quilt had all over the blogs and Instagram. Heck most of my friends and family on Facebook have no clue what I really do as a day job and think I actually MAKE all the quilts I quilt. Nope. I just quilt them. I rarely actually MAKE quilts anymore just for the thrill of it. Most of the quilts I make now are for patterns or for magazines. Not that I am complaining, I love that!  Quilting is my favorite part of the quilt making process anyway, so I sure don't mind. Quilt it up!

Shari has a grand fabric stash as well. Most of the quilts I have done for her in the past have been made from mens button up shirts. All those stripes look so great together. This quilt I quilted for her is with an edge to edge design that looks quite custom. I love it. It is one of my favorite at the moment.

You can see the detail better here on the back.

I love quilting for Shari and Jen! I hope you have fun binding your quilts!

Winner of Best Modern Quilts!

Hey there! I didn't forget about the drawing…time just flows at a different speed down in my quilt lair. I choose the winner of  the magazine, Best Modern Quilts by Quilters Newsletter.

Moving FabricJanuary 14, 2014 at 1:59 PM

Love this! Tia, you are, as always, a genius!!
I'm going to find my stash of zippers right now!

ReplyDelete

I have sent you and email. Congratulations and I hope you love the magazine!

xo,
Tia

A quilt for Julie

Hey there! Here is the first Custom quilt I have quilts for 2014. Julie sent it to me and wanted it quilted similar to the one in the book (Urban Views by Cherri House). I love how it turned out. At first a was a bit intimidated by all the stop/starts for the echoing squares and rectangles, but I put on some great music and got lost in the zen of quilting such a simple and elegant quilt.

With each advance I turned the top back and clipped as many red bits as I could. The red did seem to fray quite a bit. I hate to be happily quilting along and "Surprise!!!" there is a stray thread that is totally visible through the light fabric.

This was such a fun quilt to quilt and after I got into my zone it seemed to quilt itself.

I am working on a lovely double Dresden Plate right now for Jen. I love how it is coming along. Hopefully I will finish it tomorrow.

Happy quilting folks!

Tia