Heart Quilt Wall Hanging

I had the opportunity to quilt this fun jelly strip heart quilt a few weeks ago. 

My customer gave me free range on the quilting. I had fun sketching this one out. 

I used a light pink thread, which is a little difficult to see in these pictures.

AND .. Since you can see it a little better on the back ...

 I loved quilting this one!

Sometimes it's hard knowing what to do on someone else's quilts (or even my own). This time, it came really easy to me. LOVE when that happens!!! If only it would happen more often :)

Um, Hello February!

WOW! The last couple of months seem like a blur. I was surprised to see the last post I did was to wish you all a happy Thanksgiving. The holidays were busy, as usual. Although, looking back, it doesn't seem like it anymore :) My boy's grade did a production of the Nutcracker. This was the 28th year for his school! Even more amazing -- the teacher that started it all is still running the show. I helped teach the Penny-Whistles their little dance. The kids practiced everyday for 6 weeks. All the kids did amazing! Plus, it was so fun to watch!!

I haven't done much sewing in the past couple of months, but I did manage to make a Christmas dress for my girl. I still need to take pictures of it. Shortly after Christmas, I got hit with Asthmatic Bronchitis. Basically, the bronchitis is causing me to have asthma. I have never had asthma, so this has been new and sometimes scary. I have been to urgent care 4 times in the last month, 2 of which were because I could not get enough air. The scary part! There were a few times during a coughing fit that I truly felt as though I had forgotten how to breathe, and maybe I was doing it wrong. I had to think about every breath. I'm currently on a pretty high dose of prednisone, keeping my breathing in check, and making me a bit more productive.

I have been able to quilt a few things the last couple of weeks. Pictures coming soon!! Of course, I do have something to show you today too :) A customer brought me these adorable Valentine's table toppers.

I love these scrappy hearts. They are all appliqued for extra cuteness! 

I stitched around each heart, next to the edge.

Squiggly lines going through the hearts. It was nice and relaxing. 

To switch things up a bit, I changed the direction of the lines on the second top.

I don't know about you, but I am fully inspired to do some Valentine's sewing!

That's it for today. 

I'll be back soon with some quilts and that Christmas dress I mentioned :)

Backtracking

I haven't been to good at keeping up on the blog lately. I've either been procrastinating or forgetful, or both. I think today's quilt falls into the 'both' category. I kept putting it off. I didn't want to spend the time downloading the pictures off my camera, not when there were other quilts, dresses and shorts to make!

And then I forgot about it.

When I found this quilt on my camera a few days ago, it took me a moment for me to remember when I quilted it, and who it belonged to. My husband's aunt made this quilt, and asked that I quilt it for her, giving me free range.

I quilted feathers down the strips, surrounded by bubbles with curved lines in all the sashing. 

I did a ribbon in the checkered border and large stipple on the outer border. 

The texture on this quilt is amazing. I love how it looks in the crisp morning light. 

Snowman Wall Hanging

This weekend, I filled the SD card in my camera. While I was searching through all the pictures to see what I could delete, I re-discovered these photos of an adorable snowman wall hanging I quilted a couple months ago. 

The only request was to have snowflakes quilted in the white hexagons at the bottom. I used a light teal thread to help the snowflakes pop. I really love how they turned out. 

2014 Challenge Quilt

I was going through the old camera again, and realized I never blogged about this quilt. My husband's aunt made this for her entry in a charm challenge at the quilt shop in her town (yes, there is only 1!). I was asked to quilt it after the contest. I love how it turned out!

She backed it with cuddle fabric and doubled the batting.

I love how the detail really pops on the cuddle.

And, makes my quilting look WAY better! ;)

Despite the beauty of this quilt, it did not win this year :(. But now she has a gorgeous quilt to cuddle up under. I think it's still a win!

Jungle Baby Quilt

Last week I machine quilted this adorable jungle themed baby quilt. 

These elephants are my favorite! I had so much fun quilting around each elephant, and did a little swirl from trunk to tail to connect them. 

A row of feathers in the strip of red. I also used red thread, which really shows up on the back :) 

Here's the back of the elephants.

In the center, I quilted a bunch of swirls. I really felt like my swirling skills improved with this quilt. 

The 2 rows next to the center where lined with ric-rac. I lined the ric-rac then did this fun design in between.

Just look at those feathers! I love the pop of color!

Can you see the little bits of frost in the background? It's been pretty chilly here this past week, and we even got our first little snow fall! It wasn't much, but I'll take it :)

I don't know about you, but I'll be spending some time behind my machine today :)

Got another little quilt to finish before the end of the week.

Hope y'all have a great day!

Busy As A Bee

In the past week and a half, I have sewn 2 quilt tops (1 for a tutorial - coming soon!), 3 quilt backs, finished 2 Halloween costumes, pin basted 3 quilts, tied 5 quilts and machine quilted 1! Needless to say, I've been quite busy lately, and I may have neglected all social media because of it.

Over the weekend, I had the opportunity to machine quilt this fun Halloween quilt for my husband's aunt. It's called 'Witches Celebrate'. It is the free pattern for the Witch Hazel fabric by October Afternoon.

She gave me free range to quilt how I wanted to. I knew exactly what I wanted to do with the majority of the quilt as soon as I saw it. The only part I really had to think on was the maple leaf. In the end, I decided to curve around each seam and filled in the curves with lazy eights. Quilting so small in the corners was a little tricky.  

The pumpkin was easy. I simply made curves to make the ridges in pumpkins and filled a few with ribbon candy. It was my first time doing ribbon candy. 

I love this witch! As soon as I saw it, I knew I wanted the witch to have hair. Although it doesn't show much on the quilt top, I did long skinny angled triangles to look like stringy hair. Swirls in the face and zig zags mixed with straight lines in the hat. 

I left the cat alone, since it was appliqued. I did trace around it, then stippled in the background. I did piano keys in the inner border and long swirls for the outer border. 

The thread blended pretty well on the top. Luckily, the backing was all white, so you can see the quilting really well. - - not sure if that's good or bad for me :)

I loved the corners in the inner border. For the piano keys, I followed one of the skinny black lines, but the corners I fanned out to turn with the border. I love the texture in this border; I love running my fingers over it to feel all the bumps. Kinda like I used to do on my Dad's piano when I was a kid.

I still have to take pictures of the Halloween costumes I made, and of course the other quilts that are waiting to be finished. I was hoping to have my tutorial quilted before posting, but I may take pictures of the top and show it quilted later. 

Thanks for stopping by! Hope you have a nice day!

Brick Quilt

My friend made this adorable brick quilt for her little girl. This is the first quilt she has ever made. 

Isn't it beautiful! She did such a great job! 

Over the weekend, I quilted and bound it for her. It was a pretty rainy weekend here, which gave me the perfect excuse for staying inside to quilt :)

I quilted it with an all-over meandering rose pattern. I had so much fun with this pattern! It was so easy -- and relaxing. Before I knew it, the whole quilt was finished!

I love the wavy petals, and the texture! Oh the texture! 

Just look at all that yummy texture!

You can hardly tell, but I doubled the batting. It was so thin, it needed a little extra for fluff and warmth. 

After a quick wash, it now has that scrunchy-soft homemade feel to it.

Finished at the right time, too. It's starting to get a little chilly here. 

This quilt will be perfect for the coming months :)

Stars & Stripes Quilt

About the middle of July, My husband's aunt asked if I would machine quilt this beautiful Stars & Stripes quilt for her. She gave me free range on the quilting, too. 

I wanted the stars to look they were bursting. First a little stitching in the ditch around each star, then I did some straight line quilting from the point of the star to the center, then echoed to the center of the 4-patch.

I made a free motion feather wreath in each of the corners.

And also added some feathers in spaces that surrounded the center star.

I filled the remaining spaces between stars with pebbles and swirls.

I outlined the stripes, then did some wavy lines through the 'white' stripes to add a bit of texture.

AND, here's back...

I had a lot of fun with this quilt. There were a few mess-ups, and a little unpicking; 

but overall, I think it turned out pretty good :)