A Contemporary Baby Quilt: Double Circles

I love circle quilts, I've sort of got a touch of circle mania.  I've got a couple (or four) others in the works.

This one is a baby quilt that I have listed on Etsy.  https://www.etsy.com/listing/110564921/fun-toddler-baby-crib-quilt-double?ref=cat1_gallery_35

The circles were done using the freezer paper method to form the circles.  The circles were first basted in place, and then top stitched to make them very secure.

Baby quilts need to be tough . . . it is always my hope that baby quilts get lots of use and love and dragging about.

The plaid is the backing fabric . . . and a close up of the quilting.

I've never been into 'baby' fabrics.
I like doing baby quilts with grown up fabrics.

The little green tea cups fabric is one of my favorites in the quilt.

Gee, it's cute.
I love making cute things.

Another Etsy Quilt: Batik Double Pinwheels

Sold, on it's way to it's new home!   https://www.etsy.com/listing/109743592/handmade-contemporary-batik-cotton-baby

This is the second double pinwheel I've made.  The first one was a Christmas present for my sister-in-law.

I like the border of double pinwheels around a field of pinwheels.

Close up of the fabrics on the back

Close up of the quilting

Another close up showing the variety of the fabrics

Crumpled up on the couch . . . how the quilt looks
when you go get a snack during a commercial!

My Quilts: Artichoke Garden 1999

There used to be artichokes in my garden, but they didn't make it one winter.
But I've got an Artichoke Garden quilt.
The colors remind me of the colors when artichokes bloom.
I learned with this quilt that blue is a zippy color to add to a color pallet.
It was unexpectedly very pleasing.

One of my favorite borders - rolling spirals.  The body of the quilt is pebbles and feathers, the first time I had tried doing either.
Although the quilting looks like a first effort, I still love it.

This is the last FMQ quilting I did on the Bernina, all the tugging and adjusting wore me out.  And the resulting jerky spots in the quilting were disappointing.  It was shortly after completing this quilt that I got the Pfaff GrandQuilter.

The back . . . one big artichoke.  Really it's just a bear's paw
with a log cabin-ish paw pad.

The thin sashing is what really makes this quilt I think. And the blue sky fabric.
The darker green fabric meant to represent leaves and stalks,
also has a picket fence sort of look.

This quilt was designed in EQ5.

Magna Doodle: How to Teach Your Arms a Free Motion Quilting Pattern

Magna Doodles . . . they are not just for the kids!

It's one thing to have a FMQ idea for your quilt, it's another thing to execute it as it is in your mind's eye.

I used to use lots of paper 'teaching' my hand the motion needed for FMQ.  The magna doodle saves me paper and it's an easy erase for starting over.

Tessellating Hearts . . . easy and fast

Practicing helps to figure out what you need to do (or not to do) to turn
the pattern when you come to the edge.  The bottom right turn above is not a good turn.
Need more practice.

FMQ is actually not about the hands, it's about the arms.

When teaching yourself to FMQ, 'draw' with your arms as if they and the quilt are one.  Your hands are only what connect you to the quilt.

If you FMQ from your arms instead of your hands, the stitches will be much smoother and more even.

Flowers and Leaves

Practice helps show you where you may have gaps at the quilt edges,
like at the top and the bottom left corner.

Feathers . . . I find feathers very difficult to 'learn'.

As our penmanship is unique to each of us,
so I think is how we 'write' FMQ feathers.
I would like my feathers to look like someone else's,
but they always seem to look like MY feathers.
Feathers remain a skill in progress for me.

Quilt Show . . . Inspirations

Some of the quilts shown at the 2012 APWQ quilt show.  I love them all.

Heirloom Quilt
by
mother and daughter, Jetty Morton and Kathy Johnson

For me . . best o' show . . because I want to make one just like it

Detail of Heirloom Quilt

Charming embroidery around edge of each plate

My Lively Flowers
by
Loretta Ockwell and Krista Moser

Stunning example of 'Lime green is the new neutral'

My Lively Flowers detail

My Lively Flowers . . . mo' detail

Enchanted Garden
by
Cathleen Miller

The composition is so striking

Enchanted Garden detail

By the way . . . it is all hand quilted

Slowly Succumbing to the Elements
by
Judy Leslie

Baby in Hand
by
Jennifer Day

Baby in Hand detail

Paving Stones Barcelona
by
Kathie Kent

Paving Stones detail

The 844
by
Lynne Pillus

The 844 detail

My quilt taste definitely moving towards modern 

The 844 more detail

Balance
by
Bonnie Brewer

Depth
by
Bonnie Brewer

Focus
by
Sharron Schoenfeld

Focus detail

(Still trying to figure out who the artist is so they get due credit!)

Love the quilting!

Moonglow Anemone 2
by
Carla Stehr

Vintage Roses
by
Barbara Polston

Detail of roses quilting bouquet . . . pretty, pretty, pretty

Hexagon Quilts, The Guest Room, And a Photo Shoot

When I say I get to indulge myself in pink in the guest room, I mean it!  The carpeting was in place when I bought the house . . . don't know if I would be so brave as to select pink carpeting, but I am very glad it is there.  And the walls are as pink as the carpet . . . that is my doing.  If you get disoriented, you'd think you'd fallen into a tub o' raspberry sorbet.

I've been struggling with lighting and getting good pictures of quilts.  I'm paying attention to white balance and color setting on the camera, but that can compensate only so much for getting the lighting right.

So I made a 'photography lamp' . . . an antique pole lamp that I never got around to restoring and a clip on light from the basement.  It helps.  And it is so me, the queen of make-do, right-now and it-didn't-cost-anything.

The pic above is the edited photo.  The pic just below is the original which I was quite tickled with because it's my best shot yet for my efforts . . . but the color wasn't right, it was a little crooked and I didn't think about the things under the bed showing.

The original photo with notes on the fixes.

The editing on this photo was done with ArcSoft.  I especially like the Straighten tool since many of my pics are just a bit off level, and the Clone tool.  Cloning lets you get rid of things . . . like boxes and area rugs under the bed.

The guest room has two twin beds so I better like the quilt pattern I'm doing since I have to make two of them!  This set of quilts is a suite of quilted things . . . I keep sewing until there is next to nothing for scraps.

Each bed has an applique house pillow.  And a nap time hourglass quilt.

Pillow sham used up a bunch of scraps.  I love the little throw pillows . . the design is driven by what there is for scraps.  That's how I play the scrap game, trying not to cut more fabric . . . I think I'm channeling the thrifty sensibilities of my grandmother's.  They left their indelible mark.

And each bedside table has a little hexagon topper from the hexes that were left over.  The loopy meander quilting is the same quilting I did on the quilts . . . it goes fast and is cute.

. . . and a runner for the dresser

Quilted curtains that I made years ago, early in my quilting life.  I love this little dormer area . . . you have to bend over to walk into it.  Sometimes you remember not to hit your head.

A glimpse of the bed on the left.  The little wicker chair that was a Christmas present from Papou and Yiayia one year . . . each of the cousins got one.  I'm so sentimental about these little things, it is why I have a bit too full house.  It sometimes makes me crazy, but not crazy enough the part with the memories of  Papou and Yiayia, and Christmas and the little wicker chairs.