Pink and Gray Baby Quilt

Recently a return customer asked for a pink and gray baby quilt. I love wearing pink and gray but had never made a quilt with this combination.

I was lucky to find this adorable pink, gray and white fabric with animal babies and their moms at Seacoast Sewing and Quilting in Biddeford, Maine. I picked the remaining fabrics to coordinate with the print.

Hand quilting done:

• Outlined the larger animals
• 1/4" lines outside each seam
• Stitched through the checker boxes

Finishing a Quilt -- Delectable Mountain Quilt

Center of quilt

This lovely quilt arrived as a partially finished top with extra fabric, directions, a template, and the finished size desired.

To achieve the size, I needed to make and add 6 strips of the delectable mountain rows before the plain white borders.  Considering different machines and people made this top, the assembly went smoothly.

I picked a soft pink double wide backing fabric so there would be no seam.

Hand Quilting:

• White thread used on 1/4" echo around each white mountain.
• Pink thread used for 1/4" echo around each pink mountain, four feathered hearts in the white center, a heart in each small white square, a large feathered motif in the four corners and a continuous swirl around the border.
• 42 hours of hand quilting

Binding:

• Made a double binding starting with 3" wide medium pink fabric ironed in half.

Side view

And with the Hand Quilting...

Pink and yellow appliqued 1930's butterflies with hand quilting

Baby quilting from earlier post completed.
Hand quilting included one echo line, using matching thread, inside and outside each butterfly and 2" cross hatching in each plain square.
Binded with matching yellow fabric.

Vintage buttons

My trusty 1980 sewing machine and buttons to sort.

This is about one-third of the buttons I needed to sort.

While in NY I visited a well organized and lovely estate sale. I am always looking for vintage sewing supplies, fabric, buttons, lace, thread -- really anything to do with sewing or quilting.  So I was thrilled to find a bag of buttons.

Most of the buttons I use for projects or sell at my booth at Antiques USA in Arundel, Maine.

2015 Annual Genesee Valley QuiltFest

June 5, 2015

Each time I visit Rochester NY there seems to be quilt related events to check out:  interesting quilt shops, quilt shop hops.  This visit I was fortunate to attend the Annual Genesee Valley QuiltFest at RIT. So many beautiful, well made vintage, new, pieced, appliqued, and art quilts.  It took us 4 hours to see all the quilts and visit all the vendors.

Applique butterfly baby quilt

 Sandwiching baby quilt

Pattern:

In my continuing search for vintage quilt patterns and applique pieces, I find interesting design and color choice inspiration for quilts.

I made a plastic template from a vintage fabric butterfly I had found years ago.

Sandwiching

My sandwiching method includes: washing and drying the hard wood floor; taping the backing fabric to the floor; smoothing the batting on the backing fabric; smoothing the quilt top and safety pinning in place.

Quilting Plan:

Hand quilting with matching thread

Butterflies:  outline and 1/4" echo in muslin, 1/4" inside the butterfly

Yellow squares:  2" crosshatching in yellow thread

Border:  2" piano keys around quilt

Craft of the week - Clothes pin bag

I have always enjoyed hanging my laundry outside to dry.  After my last clothespin bag could no longer be used,  I couldn't find a sturdy one locally.  

I made this one with a plate mounted rope hook, 4 recycled buttons, a heavy cotton/linen dish towel and some quilting thread.

Vintage Amish Wool Wall Hanging

Adding quilting lines

Vintage Unfinished Project

When I received this project, it was sandwiched with a lovely vintage beige cotton backing, soft batting  and the heart quilting lines marked with one third quilted.  The rest of the project was not marked for quilting. 

Deciding on the type of additional quilting to add.

I added feathered scrolls to the large open spaces and cross hatching to the black inside border.  I repeated that design element into the empty pink area.  One inch cross hatching inside the feathered heart and two inch cross hatching outside the heart.

Quilting and finishing

Hand quilting done with black thread throughout.  This is traditional for Amish projects of this time.

Binding done with black wool.  Front of double binding sewn by machine with the back sewed by hand.  

A sleeve was made from the excess vintage cotton backing.  One edge sewn into the top of binding and bottom hand sewn in place.

Wool

Don't let wool intimidate!  This was my first wool project and it was a joy to work.  It was soft and quite easy to manipulate.  I would welcome another wool project!

Off to its home

This project is back to its owner in Scarborough, Maine.

Completed with black wool binding and sleeve

Wall hanging with echo quilting

 Wall hanging in process

One of my favorite customers mailed me this small top to quilt.  She often requests that 'I do my thing' with the quilting design.  Both of us love echo quilting so I include echo quilting lines in most of her projects.

As with all my projects, I start quilting in the center of the piece.  I outlined the women and their dresses in matching colored thread.  The square surrounding them is quilted with matching gold, black and tan thread using the fabric designs to determine the quilting lines.   

The echo quilting was done in the beige crescents. using beige thread and in the rust and black fabrics next to the crescents.

Using thread to match the fabrics gives the illusion of movement in the piece without the distraction of another color in the thread.

This project was sent back to its owner for binding.

Navy blue traditional quilt

Even after 34 years of hand quilting, there are more techniques, colors and patterns to try.  This navy blue and off white traditional piece is hand quilted with off white thread.  I typically match the thread color with the fabric so this was a leap for me.  

As I began quilting, I wasn't convinced there would be a great outcome.  As I worked along, I was pleasantly surprised with the off white thread on navy.  The effect is striking.  The hand quilting becomes a more dominate feature of the quilt. 

This customer quilt will reside in NH with a couple of the nicest people I have met through my quilting work. 

Tumblers - a modern version of a 1920's classic

 I first saw a modern tumbler quilt at the Ivy Thimble in NY during a trip to visit my daughter a couple years ago.  We bought some fabric at the shop to go along with her living room color scheme. 

To make the tumblers I started with an 8" square and  cut from the corner 1"  in  on two parallel sides.

Hand quilting included 1/4" on each side of the vertical seams.  I marked each of the borders with a simple wave pattern template and a sliver of soap.

I completed the quilt in time for her 28th birthday. 

Squeaky

 Thirteen years ago I offered my daughter a cat for her 15th birthday.  We went to the local animal shelter to check out what they had for adult cats.  I had never seen so many cats in one place.  Quickly we narrowed our choice down to Pepper, a petite young adult.  Betsy named her Ferris. 

This little cat talked constantly.  She talked in  a high pitched squeak.  Soon she was Squeaky to me.  She followed me around the house doing laundry, dishes, chores  (no chore was too boring for Squeaky) and she became my little pal.

Squeaky loved quilting.  When she was young, she would sit next to me and watch every quilting stitch.  She would sit next to the sewing machine as I sewed bindings.  Unlike many cats, she didn't try to grab the thread  or fabric.  She just watched.  She loved  a freshly ironed quilt top.

As she grew older, she slept during much of our quilting time.  The top picture was taken two weeks ago.

 She died last Wednesday, April 24.  On Thursday she was buried in my side perennial garden  near a lilac shrub. 

Purple and Gold Wall hanging

This customer wall hanging before being shipped to the owner for binding.  The gold fabric and batik were very tightly woven and it was challenging to echo quilt. 

The batting was wool.  I've worked on two or three projects with wool batting this year.  It is soft and easy to needle.  The only drawback has been the batting beards through the fabric.

The project may be shown at a NH quilt show this autumn.

Echo QUilting

Echo Quilting

This customer mini quilt was the first of three flower wall hangings.  All 1/4 inch echo hand quilting. 

Sea Glass Quilt finally finished

This quilt began with receiving the batik fabric as a present.  I pulled the  three major colors of the batik.  I didn't want to take away from the beautiful batik so I chose solids. The colors reminded me of  the local beach and sea glass. 

I started with 10" squares of the batik.  I used a dinner plate as a template for the curved pieces.  The curved pieces were hand appliqued to each side of the square.  The squares were then machine sewed together.  I added a 2" inside border and the 8" wide border.  I used what little I had left of the batik for the binding.
Approximate size 65" square.
Hand quilted with matching thread.

This was enjoyable quilt to make.  The different types of work (applique, piecing and quilting) keep me interested in the project.

This was one of the three quilts I offered to the Thornton Academy Annual Auction.  My contact person picked a hand quilted baby quilt with vibrant-colored fish on an aqua sea background.

Before and After Quilting

 The first photo is a piece of a mini wall hanging.  The 1/4 inch hand quilting was just started.

The second photo shows the echo quilting completed on two triangle sections.  Hand quilting done with matching purple thread.

...And with the hand quilting added

I matched the thread to the fabric.  Quilting lines echo seams 1/4, 1/2 and 3/4  inch.  Applique pieces were quilted around the edge and 1/4 inch.

For the fish in the ocean, quilting lines were used to create movement of the water.  The fish, star fish and coral were defined with quilting lines.  The thread color matches the fabric.

Summer Wall Hanging

This is the corner of a beautiful group project. I am hand quilting and binding the piece. I am using 1/4" and 1/2" echo quilting to give some movement to the sand, sky and water areas.

Later I'll show a close up photo of quilting lines.

Tumblers

This is the beginnings of a large wall hanging. I began with 6" squares. I've cut a dark two " inner border and six" outer sage border.

The colors - sage, navy and beige.

This is a great stash buster project.

Feathered Circles

This vintage red and muslin quilt top was completed with hand quilted feathered circles in the 7" blank squares.