African Ladies

This lovely quilt was pieced by my friend, Brenda.  It is 70x85, made of a multitude of browns and creams.  Haha...I just noticed a piecing mistake smack dab in the middle. Two 4 patches are turned the wrong way. 

Do you see the boo-boo? hahahaha

The back is several pieces put together....

with a narrow red strip on either side of the middle fabric. With all these seams, we decided to load it lengthwise. Since it was a panto, it was ok.

 

You have to look closely and focus to see the African Ladies in this busy fabric. It is pretty cool, i like it.

Thread was Glide Sand for the top and Bottom Line #638 Copper for the bobbins.

The panto was Plush by Lorien Quilting.

Because the quilt and the panto were both non-directional, loading the quilt lengthwise and having the design run up and down instead of sideways worked out just fine.

My Leather Horse

OK...the quilting is finished and it is trimmed.  I just need to get some leather glue to put on a 'binding' and make holders for the top. i am really liking it.

I think i'll add those little curtain type loops to hang it with.

This is kind of exciting...haha

I added more grass and color to the flowers and fringed the bottom.

Those background little loops is murder on the hands and eyes.

I'll quit bothering you with this now.....but i love it....hahaha

Quilting on Leather

I have been admiring Cathy Wiggins quilting on leather. I have a DVD ..... a calf skin from the Uncle Johnny stash

....and leather needles (finally, the correct ones).  And a pic from a Dover book to try....

I cut my calf skin into several pieces so i could practice. My first needle purchase wasn't the correct needles....they fit the domestic machine. So, i did a bit on the Baby Lock machine....didn't like that.  So, i put it on the longarm and just used the regular needle.  It worked...kinda....but the thread broke several times. and my choice of color thread didn't have enough contrast to see it well.

So, now i have the proper needles and decided to put it back on the machine and go over it in black .... and some colors.

Here is what i have so far. It's kind of rough because i am just stitching over what i did the first time. i went over it several times.

A close up of the horse

I used gold for the flowers and they still don't show much.

And tried some white and gray for the mountains and sky....not too thrilled with that either.

The horse stands out....i put extra batting under him.

But i have tried and i see that it can work......so, the next piece will be better.

I am thinking i need to go back and do some background fill....like Cathy does.  what do you think?  And it needs some sort of 'border'.  I shall keep this piece to remember what my first leather piece looked like.

Fractured Diamonds

Another UFO out of the to-be-quilted cabinet. I finished piecing this on May 14, 2014. Not sure where the pattern came from. It started out as 80x100 and is now 78x98. My first inclination was to do a panto on it, but thought the pattern was too pretty for that. It's pretty scrappy, except for the light green squares that match the border.

I never found a path across without many stops and starts and multiple backtracks. Seems like every other line was a back track.

Every row was 4 passes.....for the CC, and then for the feathers and SID. happy to be finished with this one.

This took 19 bobbins....more than i have used on a quilt in a long time.

The back is a muslin

If you see anything i missed, i don't think i want to know. haha   i looked at it 3 times.

I had a few thread goobers on the back also but just can't get too excited about them. 

Top thread was Glide Jade and bobbin was So Fine brown. Binding was a brown stripe.

I might need a smaller one next. 

Thread Illusions

The blocks on this little quilt were done on the embroidery machine....it was pieced last December. Did you ever see an embroidery design online and think...that is cool....so you buy it.  It was one of those impulse purchases. If you don't get dizzy embroidering the blocks, you do get dizzy quilting them. Don't know when i would ever use this again. 

But it will make a cute table topper....or wall hanging. It is 32" square

My background flowers are representative rather than exact. haha

Hearts weren't too hard

I was worried about the hexies until i remembered i had a ruler.  yay!!

Ovals are harder to draw than you think.

I chose to square off the corners on the rectangles....otherwise they might have looked like ovals...or something.

Pretend all the background are squares. haha

I couldn't quite wrap my head around these stars...so this is the 'LOL' block.

Teardrops aren't too bad.

The back came from the stash. A pinkish-reddish print.

Top thread was Glide white; bobbin thread was Bottom Line Taupe. 

In hindsight, the binding might have been better as a cream instead of the bright white, but so be it. This was one of those practice pieces that I seem to do a lot. It could be used for anything. Heck, if you love your dog it could be a dog blanket.

Ebony and Ivory

This quilt is made with another pattern from my friend, Marilee.  As her pattern testers, it was our class project in 2013. I finished piecing this on November 27, 2013, so it didn't marinade in the to-be-quilted cabinet as long as some have.

Her original pattern has embroidered flowers in the alternate blocks where I have the toile scenery fabric. Had I done the embroidery, i might STILL be working on it. haha

It is 74" square.

I did a LOT of ruler work....there is SID around every block

It came off the frame once so i could work on other things.

All these fabrics came from the same fabric line except the little scenery squares. On one of the selvages that i still have, it says The Cumberland Collection.

But, the real time came in quilting the border

I took it off the frame and turned it to do the opposite borders. 

The back is a mottled gray. I used this fabric for the binding also.

Wish i had used black for the thread on the back, it would have shown up better.

Threads were Glide Silver for the top and Bottom Line Ivory for the bobbin.

This was a fun quilt, but i am happy to be finished with it.