Thursday, May 28, 2015

How To Quilt A Man Quilt

Women like all sorts of flowey fussy designs. Men not so much. Trying to come up with a masculine design for a quilt took a bit of thinking. I wanted clean crisp lines. My friend Mel asked for leaves as the recipient of the quilts loves the outdoors. I finally came up with the plan of the oak leaves in the brown squares, and the acorns in the blue squares. Everything else is just straight line ruler work. This only looks simple to do. It really took quite some time to do all the stitching in the ditch and get all the ruler work done.


 Closer view of more detail.

 There is a sheet under there to protect it from the ground and I guess it is peeking out of the lower right.
 Detail of the quilting.

Closer yet.

If you would like me to quilt for you please contact me thru my e-mail.







Sunday, May 24, 2015

Fiber Arts Fiesta 2015

 I was very thrilled to win a ribbon at Fiber Arts Fiesta with my Improv piece which I have not named Echos of Spring. I attended the Fiesta yesterday and saw some beautiful things in all the categories. I wish I had taken more photos but then I would have spent my time on that and not enjoying the sights, products and friends I ran into. I really enjoyed a variety of things. I test ran a sit down Phaff quilting machine.................I just loved it and could see using something like that for smaller quilts. I also test drove the Innova Longarm which I really like. My favorite thing was the Brother Scan n Cut. I think I am going to save up a bit and buy it. I was so impressed with what it can do. I also bought a stuffed dragon pattern and am looking forward to making one or three of them.Here are a few other quilts from the show:

 







Monday, May 4, 2015

Going Crazy

 I have been taking an online crazy quilt class taught by Kathy Shaw HERE. She does an amazing job with her lessons. Her instructions are awesome and the best part................she does these for free. I have done my share of crazy quilting before but I learned so much that my time was very well spent doing this beginner class. I would recommend her classes to anyone that would like to try this form of needlework, or those that want to hone their skills. Above is my finished class project.


 This is the bottom half. I learned how to do quite a few different ribbon techniques. I love the spider web roses and the irises were really fun as well.


There were lots of great techniques to embellish the seams. My favorite is the row of hydrangeas along the top right. I just love the look of those.