Blogger's Quilt Festival, Spring 2014 (Modern)

 A Modern Quilt!

 I actually made this quilt last year as part of the Art Glass Gallery Challenge with an Angela Walters panel from her Textures line of fabric. The quilt didn't really have a known destination or reason for being except for completing the challenge. So I gave it to my husband, because there were no flowers or swirls and he liked the colors. So it sits folded over the back of a chair in my living room, unless it's chilly, then my husband wraps up in it.

This past Christmas we had new family members join are Christmas Eve party; my new son-in-law's mom, dad and sister. They fell in love with this quilt. They never realized that quilts could be modern and fun and fit in with today's styles.
 

 Just recently, I received the nicest note from my son-in-law's mom asking I would consider making this quilt again for her daughter for Christmas, offering to pay for it. She knows that I have a rule that I don't sell my quilts. It's hard to ask what they are really worth; fabric, thread, batting and time!

 It takes quite a bit of time to quilt a quilt like this.

Aurifil Thread 50wt used on the quilt. Quilted with a domestic machine; Pfaff Quilters Expression 4.0

 This is the back of the quilt, I used the same color in both the top and the bobbin.

Faux Piped Binding (check out the tutorial here)

My husband has been generous and said that "we" could give her this quilt for Christmas and I could make him a new quilt. That's probably what I'm going to do. It has been quite an ego boost to have a young 30 something professional (my son-in-law's sister) really want one of my quilts.

The quilt is 54" x 63", Art Glass Gallery fabrics (Textures by Angela Walters), Quilters Dream Puff batting and lots and lots of Aurifil 50wt thread. The design is my own.

I'm linking up with Amy's Creative Side for the Blogger's Quilt Festival Spring 2014: Modern Quilts

Be sure to check out all of the fabulous quilts from around the world! They are FABULOUS!

Color Me Quilty!

Pat

Fresh Sewing Day November

This fall is flying by, it's November already! How did that happen??? Wasn't it just August? Anyway, I did finish a BIG project in October, my Layers quilt. I have to say that this was a labor of love and by far my biggest project. It took a month to quilt the blocks and a month to quilt the borders. I'm pretty pleased with the way it turned out. I entered this quilt in the Fall 2013 Blogger's Quilt Festival over at Amy's Creative Side in the home machine quilted category. Voting starts today and I would LOVE it if you voting for my quilt.

The front and back of Stratified Layers of Life and Love

I have also been working on Christmas with my mug rug collection.

I'm making mug rugs for Christmas presents. I need to make about a dozen of these little cuties and of course I need to bind five of these. I still have time.

Last night I finished FMQ the last two mug rugs I had pieced.

This one is for my boss. I work at New York Chiropractic College in the division of Institutional Quality and Assessment. We do a lot of measuring and crunching data. I thought this was appropriate.

Can you see IQA quilted in to the mug rug?

I'm linking up with Lynne over at Lily's Quilts for Fresh Sewing Day and with Leah Day at The Free Motion Quilting Project for FMQ Friday.

Color Me Quilty!

Pat

Fall 2013 Blogger's Quilt Festival

I love  Amy's Blogger's Quilt Festival, I've participated every time since Fall 2011. It is a wonderful opportunity to share, not only beautiful quilts, but the stories behind them.

For this Festival, I'm going to share my Stratified Layers of Life and Love quilt. It truly is a quilt from my heart.

Front

This quilt was made for my step-daughter and her new husband - their wedding quilt. It is meant to warm a relationship that has had some good times and some rocky times. Being a step-mom of grown a woman is not easy, nor do I expect it's easy being a step-daughter when you've lost your real mother and would like her there to share important moments in your life. But life has layers and different compartments that build up and make new connections. It is those layers and connections that give dimension, complexity and richness to life.

Love the second time around is never the same as  first love, but that doesn't mean it's not as good. This is second marriage for both my step-daughter and her new husband. They each have two wonderful kids that add layers of warmth to their new family, coming from different sides, touching new places in their hearts.

Love reaches even into the corners and borders of your life.

My step-daughter is a director of a local library and orange is her favorite color. I thought is fitting to use text fabric and multiple shades of orange for the back. Blue is my son-in-laws favorite color.

Even from the back, the love shines through!

It is my hope that my step-daughter and her new husband will feel loved when they sleep under this quilt. The inspiration and passion for this quilt deign was entirely drawn from both of them.

This is a queen sized quilt, assembled using QAYG (quilt as you go) methods, pieced and quilted with Aurifil thread and Quilters Dream Puff batting. It was quilted on a domestic machine, Pfaff QE 4.0.

I am entering this quilt into the home machine quilted category. 

Please follow the link to see and read about the other quilts in the Fall 2013 Blogger's Quilt  Festival at Amy's Creative Side

Color Me Quilty!

Pat

WIP Wednesday, Still Quilting!

When you tend to quilt the snot out of a quilt, it does take time. Spring is a difficult season to find that time with gardening, but I have tried to fit in a few hours here and there. I am making progress on my Make it Right Challenge quilt.

 My goal was to give the quilt a lot of texture. I think I'm succeeding, but looking at just the dark grey sections, it looks kind of rainy.

 And speaking of rain, my husband and I got 2 cubic yards of mulch spread on the beach garden just before the heavens opened up. We took out most of the perennials and added in a few more shrubs and trees, put down landscape fabric and edging in hopes of making this garden a bit easier to manage. I think it still looks good.

Picture taken from inside the house, it was raining.

In other news, my Elephant quilt was nominated for viewers choice at the Blogger's Quilt Festival. Of course I would love your vote for overall viewers choice quilt, but also for the Elephant quilt in the Bed Quilt category and the Koi Pond quilt in the Home Machine Quilted category.

Here are this week's stats:
In-process: (4)
Express Your Love
Layers quilt
Grandma's Quilt
Making It Right Challenge

New projects: (0)


Finished (0)


I'm linking up with  Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday!

 

 

Color Me Quilty!

 

Pat

Shameless Tease

Okay, actually I'm shameless and a tease! I'll start with the tease. I've been quilting my Make It Right challenge quilt. Oh, it is fun. I can't share the whole quilt, but I can show you what I'm quilting; slate tile and paisley, both of which are on Leah Day's 365+ designs.

the back

I want to make sure that there is a lot of texture in the quilt since a) the line of fabric is call Textures and b) Angela Walters (the fabric designer) is an amazing long-arm quilter.  I'm using Aurifil thread and Quilters Dream Puff batting. LOVE both products, they are my favorite combination, not to mention that this fabric line is in my favorite color palette of lime and teal. You won't have to wait long, I have to have it done by June 6th.

Okay, so now for the shameless part, I would like to ask for your VOTE(S) over at the Blogger's Quilt Festival at Amy's Creative Side. 

I have my Elephant quilt in the bed category

And my Koi Pond quilt in the Home Machine Quilted category

All you have to do is click on my link, then click on the word "Vote" and voila' you're done!

I'm linking up today with Leah Day for FMQ Friday, can't wait to see what everyone's been up to this week.

Color Me Quilty!

Pat

Koi Pond Quilt

This time, Amy at My Creative Side, is allowing two quilt entries into the Blogger's Quilt Festival. So, I decided that I should enter my Koi Pond quilt into the Home Machine Quilted category., since I entered my Elephants on Parade quilt into the Bed Quilt Category.

 Here are some close-up shots of the quilting, during the quilting process

 Here are some photos of what the quilting looks like on the back.

Quilt specifications: Size 56" x 76"
Thread: pieced and quilted with Aurifil.
Batting: Quilters Dream Request - a low loft cotton. It quilted beautifully.
Quilting: All free motion quilted on a domestic machine; Pfaff Quilters Expression 4.0. The only element that was marked, were the Koi (fish). All of the rest of the quilting was done freehand.

Completed in January 2013, this was really a first for me at letting go and creating this quilt in a very improv method. This quilt was so much fun to make.

You really do need to check out all of the quilts at the Blogger's Quilt Festival!

Color Me Quilty!

Pat