Gertrude causes flooding problems

It's so sad that my local quilt shop, Borderland Fabrics at Jedburgh was flooded this week by storm Gertrude. Although Annette's quick thinking manage to save most of the fabrics, all of the carpets and some shop fittings are ruined. The shop is closed for the time being. 
I will contact any of my customers that I know I'd made arrangements with (if I have your telephone numbers). If you were coming to meet me at the shop or know anyone who intended to meet me at Jedburgh on Friday 5th 2016 can you please pass on this information, Thank you....

Here are some photos of quilts that went home during last year that haven't been shown....

This is Joanne's Swoon quilt destined to be a wedding gift for a beloved niece....everyone knows I'm a sucker for a swoon quilt....

I loved this quilt from Anna, she is a prolific piecer, this quilt had an edge to edge treatment, it looked great in this room, the fabric choices were a perfect compliment...

I am busy quilting and have quilts to show but my customers have to see them first before you do, so next post will hopefully have some photos of this years quilts....

Vibrant colours...

Before I Christmas I had the pleasure of quilting a top that had such vibrant colours that you would presume it was made yesterday...how wrong could you be.....this quilt was piece 23 years ago......in Oklahoma.

Twenty three years ago my Scottish customer was living in Oklahoma and was pregnant expecting twin babies. My customer was on bed rest and while there she and her Mother pieced quilt tops. This is her Mother's Quilt, Mother is now in her 80's.

As was quite popular back then some of the fabrics are polycottons. It's all hand appliqued, my customer chose the blue fabric for the sashings and backing (perfect choice) and finally pieced up the blocks ready for me to quilt.  These photos were taken very early morning just before Christmas in artificial light rather quickly as pick up was imminent so unfortunately the true colour isn't shining through.

Although this is an older pieced top I wanted the quilting to be contemporary to the style/colours of the quilt. I used matching Metro threads and quilted using pebbles, echoes, echoed swirls and stitch in the ditch. It was a lot of work and we were on a deadline to get it finished but it was so worth it. What a treasure trove of memories this quilt must hold.....and the twins arrived safe and sound and are now in there twenties......

Can you see the date inscription 1990-1994- Oklahoma, Fortrose.

This photo shows more of the vibrant colours

Still more December quilts to come soon.....

Adorable applique.....

Sometimes as longarm quilters we receive quilt tops which are so hard to ship home again.

My customer lives in France but shipped this quilt to me while visiting in the UK....there are many different ways to get a quilt top to me....

This is a Joe Morton pattern appliqued and pieced with Joe Morton fabrics, it's fabulous. Sue asked if I would quilt it as in the pattern but did allow me to add one or two personal touches. Sue wrote out her requests in a wonderful letter, it's so unusual these days to receive a hand written letter, it's even more unusual to receive a letter so beautifully written, it could of won a ribbon at a country show.

Anyway, I stitched in the ditch all of the blocks, the flying geese, then all of the applique. Fremotioned all of those 20 square feathered wreaths, added a feather border, echoed all of the applique and added a few veins and flourishes to the leaves and flowers.

This quilt measures around 58"x58", I used Simply Cotton wadding, Superior Monopoly for the ditch work, Metro thread for the background echo work, with extra colours for the added details.  My thread choices blended in and let the applique shine....

I love this centre square with it's pebbles and echoes....

Wonderful isn't it, I love these retro fabrics and colours and also loved working on this quilt.  Thank you Sue.

Not so lonely Lone Star Quilt

It was a real pleasure to hand back this quilt to my customer Liz, she loved it, it was lovely to see it written all over her face.

Liz said she liked feathers but really left the rest up to me. That's good for me as I get to quilt as I like but then there comes a point when you wonder if your customer will like your decisions?

This quilt is a lovely mix of oriental type fabrics with a deep rust red border to match the bedroom decor.

The quilt measures 96" x 87" and came with Quilters Dream cotton wadding to which I added a thin layer of Soft and Elegant which is 80/20.

I used cream Metro thread in the needle and bobbin in all but the red areas where I used a deep rust glide thread. All freemotion hand guided by me with a little ruler work for the feather spines......

I think this is the biggest feathered wreath to date 25 inches in diameter, freemotion handguided....

We tried the quilt on my hanging frame, it hung perfectly....

And it looks perfect in the room it was made for.....thank you Liz.....

Update... This quilt went on to win
'Highly Commended' at Festival of Quilts 2014, Birmingham, UK
Best in Show, Best Bed Quilt, and Best Longarm, at The Great Northern Quilt Show 2014, Harrogate, UK
Best Longarm, Scottish Quilt Championships 2014
Exhibited at Sitges in Spain March 2015

On the Panel...

It's sometimes difficult to know how to quilt panels but as usual inspiration only hits as I am pulling up the bottom thread.....

You can click on the photos to get a larger image....I quilted pebbles, a bird and clouds in the sky with a variety of fills in the boxes. This quilt is a sample for my local quilt shop.....Borderland Fabrics in Jedburgh 

Have a Heart.....

Remember this?

My jewel box quilt designed in EQ .....

After loading this quilt before Christmas and doing the ditch work, I had to take this one off the frame to do more pressing quilting. I've eventually got it quilted, with hearts...I never intended that...go figure.... but just in time for Valentines Day.

Terry Twists in the 'jewels' and whymsical hearts Jamie Wallen style in the 'boxes'....that's freehand hearts...no marking...every which way?  With a longarm you can't turn your fabric so you have to learn to quilt your design from all angles so when us longarmers say we are practicing that's what we mean...you got to lean to do everything from different angles. I did roughly draw out the hearts in the green border though and they got a bit of McTavishing in the middles! The white background fabric has mini feathered curls and the green background has stipple....you'll never believe that's the first time I ever used stipple in a quilt.  I left that green border till last and by the time I got to it I needed this quilt finished so I used stipple for speed but I do like the different texture it gives. The little white boxes in the border have more freemotion hearts. There's a scallopy curve with even more hearts in the red border with piano keys.....there's a lot of work in that quilt.

I really like the size of this quilt, it's 90" x 90", it's a great size on that queen/double size bed with a little room for shrinkage when washed....I recently said I don't like square quilts, well, this one is square and I like it.
I used Glide thread top and bottom and Hobbs poly as my roll was big enough but also because it's white and I wanted to keep the white fabric looking bright white.

By the time you reach the end of this post I think you will realise that I also like to take photographs...lots and lots of photographs.....

I've had a love/hate relationship with this quilt right from the beginning, then I doubted my decision to use that strange coloured batik backing but in the end it does add another dimension to the quilt and it matches my duvet and pillow cases perfectly, I'm going to keep this one for myself for a change for summer, well, my first freemotioned quilt has been on our bed for a long time, so a change is in order but I'll never get rid of my first real quilt, it will be back on the bed again soon!

Updated 15/02/2012...

My Quilt made 'Quilt of the Week' on MQResource....Thanks so much Suzanne and Jo Ann.