Your Houston Correspondent Reports....

well I have been here in Houston for a few days now and have spent a little bit of time over at market.  For the past two daysI have Started both mornings by looking at show quilts. 

  I did take an amazing video which shows you the vast areas it shows cover and the startling emptiness of the Aisles. however I don't seem able to embed that in this post. You'll just have to take my word for it.

fortunately I have lots of photos of beautiful quilts to show.  descriptions of the quilt and who made it will be in an accompanying photograph of the information posted with the quilt. 

I first wanderedby some Japanese quilts, and was taken by the lovely quilting on some of the pieces, 

the hexagon piece above, had an interesting fill on the top and bottom edges, 

there was a great show by the Modern Quilt Guild, 

here are some closeups of some of them...

I really loved this one, and the more I looked at it, the more details stood out, 

the quilting, 

the quilting, 

and the quilting ! 

also, those black and white parts were pieced and very cool.

as you might have noticed, I am very focussed on the quilting part of quilts right now! 

 Having our longarm Lucey around has really opened up a world of possibilities to explore.

but here is something pretty cool, a life sized crocodile! 

In the next post I will report on the Carolyn Friedlander exhibit,

(by the way, I apologize if some of the photos are blurry) 

Quilt show this Sunday

The Saskatoon Modern Quilt Guild is having a quilt show this Sunday in Saskatoon, so if you are looking for something colorful and fun, why not go???

I know that the members have been working hard to complete many new projects to show,

For our part, we will be sponsoring the category of mini quilts again!   Minis have been quite popular for the past couple of years. I like to see them on instagram,   this is an example --- see how cute they can be? 

  I think they are fun to try out new techniques, or when you need some instant gratification of a finished project. 

Maybe I should turn some of my ufos into minis 😉,   

 Oh yes, I will have a quilt in the show too!  Remember my epic english paper piecing project from last year, the New Hexagon Millifiore Quilt?   It is indeed finished, and will be there.  I had to buy a longarm machine in order to quilt it!  (joke!😃),  well, sorta,...  

It was a lot of fun to quilt, to plan the quilting I ended up using vinyl placed over the blocks and a dry erase marker to try out patterns, 

truly, I had such a good time making this quilt, from start to finish...

put a frame on it

this is my motto for today: "put a frame on it".

earlier this spring, I acquired this lovely frame at a garage sale for one dollar. I like the black painted wood even though, or perhaps because, it is a little bit beaten up.  I also find the gold accents quite delightful. They appeal to the magpie part of me that likes shiny details.

when I decided to try the techique of embroidering on to a motif printed on fabric, I decided that this project would finish up in this particular frame.

The Tim Holtz fabric that I chose had three large butterflies printed on it. So I made sure that when I cut the piece of fabric these butterflies would be centered within the intended frame. Also, I cut the fabric pieces large enough so that it could be mounted within the frame.

I have spent several happy hours embellishing these butterflies. I used a combination of machine free motion thread painting, together with some simple hand embroidery stitches.  The machine stitched areas are quite flat, while the hand embroidered sections are more dimensional and raised.

I had put a backing of fusible fleece behind the fabric, and although I started out by embroidering within a hoop, I soon found that this stabilizer on the back was enough to keep the thread from puckering the fabric,

this morning, I started to do some free motion quilting In the background around the butterflies.

then I decided that the whole thing would be improved if I added a little frame in the stitching.  upon reflection, I like the idea of adding frames, or borders and I think it will be fun to hand embroider a few more,

if one frame is good then several frames must be better, right,?

Dresden Plate Monster quilt

Well, after a concerted effort, today i finished the machine quilting on this monster... 

(You probably know that feeling where you've got so many different projects on the go that you just have to try to finish something!  It's been creeping up on me and I am going to try to get some of these projects finished off before the year end!)

I know that Ive blogged about this quilt quite a bit in the past, but its not very often that I tackle a king sized quilt, and this is the first one that I have ever done the quilting on.  it took a long time!   (plus I did it in add-on sections)

Anyway, even though there are puckers and erratic stitching, it is now ready for the last stretch, the binding.   I will need to go buy something for that, and I am thinking about going with a medium blue or that green thats used in the dresden plate locks..   It might come down to whatever is available. 

Maybe I will get this one done before Christmas! 

ABCMenagerie

Finished!   

this is a quilt I made using the fabrics ABC Menagerie by Abi Hall for moda,

my friend Patti did some over the top free motion quilting on it!  

iIn the borders, she did pebbles, with inserts of other designs for added interest,

the frames around each of the alphabet letters each got a different design...

amazing, n'est-ce pas?

i can just refer to this quilt to get ideas for free motion quilting...

the gray fabric in the quilt is a shot cotton by Pepper Cory, and it really shows off the quilting

okay, i know that there are a lot of photos here, but they are all so adorable!  

this is really a special quilt

i have written up the pattern for this, and we have a few kits at the store, but you could use the pattern for other kinds of fabrics as well, i think,   it finished at 68" x 78",