Some customer quilts, It's been a while....

It's been a while since I posted any customer quilts, there have been a few, if I missed taking photos of yours it's just because life can be a little hectic sometimes, there is a lot to fit in.

If you have finished your quilt and have it bound you can always send me a photo and I'll include it on a future blog post...

This is a supersized king, all log cabins in pink and cream, Morag added appliqued freeform flowers to add a little interest. The edge to edge done with Quilt Path is Florence, it flows nicely with leaves and swirls with a cream Metro thread.

 This is another huge quilt, my customer Diane chose Happy Times with a white thread, lovely turquoise, pinks and a soft green, destined for a gift that was greatly appreciated. This photo was taken by Diane after the quilt was bound and gifted.

Vivid greens and browns with cracked ice type prints for this stunner. Liz chose Chocolated Leaves by One Song Needle Arts for the edge to edge or pantograph design. Glide thread in Linen in the needle and Glide gold in the bobbin.

I'll be back soon with more updates.....

Auld Years Night.....

We've been just about washed and blown away here in the Scottish Borders these past few weeks, the rest of the UK has been just as bad and in some cases worse.  We didn't suffer from power failures and managed to cook the traditional roast turkey with all of the trimmings and stayed warm and dry to boot. The river did burst it's banks again and the river side fields flooded.

I manage to quilt up a couple of pantos on the beanstalk quilts...I use my Quilt Path computerised system. I will be transitioning to use Quilt Path for customer panto quilts in 2014. The first of the beanstalks was quilted using 'Daisies' by One song Needle Arts, this is a lovely fresh design. The beauty of using the Quilt Path system is the opportunity to change the density of the quilting. I quilted Daisies quite close but some of my customers may like it less dense......myself I like more dense quilting.

The second of the beanstalk was quilted using 'Florence' by Apricot Moon, this one is more open, this was a good exercise to show the difference achieved by changing the size of the designs.

                               

All now bound and gagged.....

I sent this little quilt to Linus, simply quilted with the 'Wildflower' panto by Willow Leaf Studio, plain gray backing fabric with a fleece roll from Ikea....makes a lovely cuddly quilt for a little one....

I started a bit of crochet work on this shawl....I'm loving the grungy colour of this slubby wool.....it's laying on a little quilt I made up to use as a backdrop for my rosettes.....

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I've been intending to do this for a while, it's been a good project and shows my rosettes off really well but isn't in your face as it's above the door and isn't really seen when walking into the room.As I was pinning up the rosettes it was good to reflect over the past three years to see how much I have achieved.  It's amazing to think I only started to quilt in 2010 and never entered a quilt into a show until November 2011 when I won 3 firsts.  2012 brought my first Best of Show.....and 2013 brought a second.....I've left a little space in the middle row for a Blue rosette that should come home soon with my purple wholecloth....I've missed that quilt...

Clearing the rosettes from my little shelf has left more space for my silverware too....It was great to reflect over the past year and think about friends old and new.  I hope that you find some time to reflect over the past year and plan a path for the year to come.......here's hoping that it is good in some way for all of us.....Happy New Year to You and Yours......

Contrasts....

I'm missing but very much in action quilting, getting caught up with deadline quilts but can't show any just yet till they are picked up or delivered to my clients.

I've been on the phone on a few occasions to call centres in Mumbai, well, at least somewhere in India, trying to get some help with my abominable broadband connection. I could only get a connection on my iPad, it must be able to connect to a weaker signal, although it still wasn't possible to do much, couldn't upload photos or download attachments, definitely couldn't book a courier parcel collection. I was lucky at times if I could open my emails???? On Friday, I spoke to a young Lady who promised she would help....I told her I wanted to believe her but had been suffering with this problem forever it seems.  We have never had a fast broadband connection but we can usually get by. Unfortunately since our telephone line was struck by lightening in July we have had intermittent problems with the line here in our valley. After the lightening strike I installed a new router, here was where the problem was found. This new router has a dual band connection so that it can switch to which ever signal is the best but the router needed to be adjusted by the broadband technician and switched to auto.  It is amazing what can be done over the phone line, just a shame that it has taken so long.

So, I worked on clients quilts during the day and while I couldn't surf the internet in the evenings I made a pact with myself to finish a few UFOs before I move on to drawing up and finishing a couple of quilts that I really want to get to.

First up was this lone block that has been pinned to my design wall for what seems like years. It's a feathered star block that I pieced in the traditional way a few years back, the block didn't get pieced into the quilt I was working on. I decided to de-construct it a bit and add some paper pieced inserts....trust me to try paper piecing with such small pieces. The finished top is only 18 inches square.

It is interesting to see the finished result. The feathered star was pieced some years ago and may not have been pieced well but the paper pieced sections definitely have sharper points, I like the more precise piecing.


In contrast the next quilt top was started in a class I took at FoQ, Birmingham, it's kind of a slash and burn (err...learn) type technique, supposed to be liberating....do you have any 'PIGS' (projects in grocery sacks)? I found this one as a complete quilt kit, it had very little work done to it apart from maybe four sewn strip sets. A couple of evenings and the quilt top was done. Strangely though there was enough cut fabric to make nearly another top, I had to cut more background fabric but I even had more of that too. So that's two beanstalk quilts.

So there are now another three projects waiting for the longarm.....

Next to get some attention are these colourful strips sets....I can't remember what was intended for these as they seem to be 60 degree diamonds so maybe I'll be inspired by them????