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.