Brenda's #3...Blue and white

 Here is the third of my friend, Brenda's, quilts. It is a blue and white one....very pretty. I think it is going to her sister. I did a panto on this one called Bright and Breezy by Lorien Quilting.

Quilted with Glide Hawaiian Blue on top. I didn't want to use white...it seemed too harsh on the dark blue.

 

The curves seemed to work with the sharp points of the flowers

The back is a white on white and I used Bottom Line White in the bobbin.

If memory serves, it is 64 x 80".  

Now to decide which one to do next.

Brenda's quilt #2

 This is my friend, Brenda's quilt #2.  There are numerous houses with embroidered flowers, too.

I think this is an interesting quilt. It's just a bunch of houses.....but,  each block has a word under the house.  And, usually, the window shows an example of that word.

There are so many different fabrics used in this quilt, you'll never tire of looking at it.

Drama

Empty nest. Brenda embroiders wonderful flowers, too.

Energy

Garden

Giggles

Plantings

Sew

Since the theme was houses....i gave the border a picket fence.

And, here is the wild back.

 

The whole quilt was SID....took me a while.  

I have 5 more Brenda quilts to do.....on to the next one.

Brenda's #1 quilt....snowmen applique

 My friend, Brenda, does a fantastic applique job and her quilts are always fun. She asked me recently to quilt some tops for her and I agreed.  I have 7 of them to do.

This is the first.....cute snowmen, wool and flannel applique, clever embellishments.

It is 60 x 70"...wider than it is tall.

I just basically did SID around everything and a little bit of background quilting. The hardest part was what to do in the houses.

All these blocks just make me smile. This is one plump snowman. I love her background fabric. Easy to follow those swirl lines. Snow ladies can't go on vacation in the sun.

A snowman Santa....what a big nose you have.  Check out those bead ornaments on the tree below...a quilting challenge.

 

This guy tickles me....just an old country boy....out to do some ice skating. haha   Those ear muffs were my biggest problem. Couldn't get too close to those. I worried about the paper clips but they didn't give me any trouble at all.

 

I struggled with what to do in the border since some of the dark triangles were deeper than others. So, I just went with lines...and did some curves in the white parts.

 

The backing was a grunge fabric....blue with gray.

 

It's been a while since I've quilting anything for someone else. Hope it passes inspection. My eyes aren't what they once were. Old age sucks, you know. haha

Glide threads on the top...white, dark blue, light blue, green and red.  Bobbin was So Fine navy.

There is another quilt just like this one but I'm going to do something different next and save that for later.

Are you ready to rock???

 Well, here I am....a year later. haha    perhaps I will keep this up a little better.....or not.

My cousin is a hard rock fan.....she surely didn't get that from me. haha    Her favorite is KISS.   bleck..

Anyway, she saved all her concert tshirts for years and recently asked me if i could make her a quilt with them. what's a girl to do...I said sure. haha

She wanted it to cover her couch so she could see it every day. It is 81" wide and 69" high.

I had heard of most of these bands...except for a couple.

I used gray thread because i would not be able to see black thread on black shirts. in some places it sunk into the tshirt and where i added black fabric, it shows up.

I put interfacing on all shirts, so the seams were a tad thicker than usual. I did a wavy line across all the seams to hold everything together better.

Some of the stuff on tshirts is not conducive to sewing through, so i went around things the best i could and filled in larger spaces with swirls or lines or whatever.

There is no 'theme' to the quilting...it is a mish-mash of shapes. haha

This....ugh!!   it will be the first block to disintegrate. parts of the red are already starting to come apart. 

Most of these shirts are many years old.......from the 80s and 90s. 

She wanted me to use the backs of the tshirts for the back of the quilt. I wasn't sure how it might work, but it went surprisingly well. I put interfacing on them, too.

Some of the shirts had a plain back, so I embroidered some rock sayings.

When I needed to fill in a space, I used a part of a shirt and embroidered on it.

 

This is one heavy quilt.

She chose the sayings to use after i gave her a list of them.

She had enough tshirts so I could make a quilt for her best friend also. That is next on the agenda.  sigh!!

The things we do for those we love. haha

Red and white embroidered blocks

 Lookee here....I have a finish. hahahaha

This is my sister's quilt. Took me a couple weeks to quilt it for her. I'm slow these days. I used red and white thread to match and some days my eyes could see better than others. 

If you notice, only the 2 center blocks have a dark red border all around it. and the top and bottom borders are narrower than the sides. she was making it to fit her bed. 

 

These are the old fashioned embroidery blocks that are about 16" square. She embroidered them with 2 different reds.....then sewed red fabric over the white fabric around the star.

And even added little squares of red fabric around the edges. I quilted on the very edge of all her pieces to hold them down better.  The quilting really does not show at all....not even hardly in person. 

Her border is sparkly. haha

The back is darker than this photo, but it's the best i could do. you can sorta see the white quilting here around the star and around the little blocks in the border. 

I will take it to her Thursday and she will do the binding on it. 

Red and white Glide thread for the top and So Fine for the bobbin.

Van Gogh Iris

 What a difference it makes when you learn the tricks. 

My sister got another design for me to embroider for her....Van Gogh's Iris.  It went off without a hitch. And look how straight and even that is. Look at those T pins around the frame....that is the trick.

It's quite a trick in itself to get those suckers in there.

I put 3 on each long side and 2 on each short side of the frame.

The pins are fatter than regular pins, put the "T" helps keep the fabric and stabilizer from pulling out of the frame.

35 color changes....4 1/2 hours to stitch. This one is 8x10"

 

Even after taking it out of the frame, it still is straight and not puckery. You can be sure I will remember this when embroidering large designs.

 

Thank you, Sandy for the video by John Deere with the T pin trick. You are my new best friend. haha