owl on linen

owl on linen, a photo by nanotchka on Flickr.

Ive been making some new owl pictures for my etsy store this week. I like to put them on a nice linen background and use some of my favorite quilting prints for their bodies. My stock of vintage buttons work great for the eyes. I give them detail with a little free motion thread painting. all of the frames that I use are vintage and re-purposed. Now back to my quilts!

ready to quilt

ready to quilt, a photo by nanotchka on Flickr.

My daughter had her choice of my fabric stash and chose the stack of Blossom by Urban Chics for Moda for a quilt! After pouring though some of my favorite quilt books she picked this Whirly gig design from Kaffe Fassetts Country Garden Quilts. I made it larger than the pattern and the finished quilt will be about 96 X 96! I hope she likes it! It's ready to quilt and then will be on it's way to Memphis!

 It's always fun to try out a tool tool!  I found this handy "Curve Master" machine foot at the Puyuallup sewing show in the spring.  It makes it super easy to do those dreaded curved pieced blocks that everyone loves so much right now!  It has adaptors that make it work for just about any machine you might have in your sewing room.  It worked perfectly without any adapters on my Viking Designer SE.  My project of the week is a great whirly gig block from Kaffee Fassett. 

 505 pieces cut for three different sets of blocks that will give me a finished 96" X 96" finished quilt.  The blocks will be 10" finished, then I will add sashing and a wonderful border.  The fabric collection is  Blossom by Urban Chics. 

I have 24 blocks of the 36 finished and ready for the circular center applique.  This will be a slower part of the process.  Now I need to gather the outside of the circles and pull that in to fit the cardboard template, then  I can press the perfect seam allowance of each circle before it is appliqued!  I think the finished result will be well worth the time!

value quilt quilt-along

value quilt quilt-along, a photo by nanotchka on Flickr.

This is Quilt #6 of my 23 unfinished quilt tops! I made this quilt last year for the value quilt along. I challenged myself to use fabrics from my stash on this one! This fabric is all Marimeko prints from Finland that I purchased in the early 80's or late 70's! It was interesting working with such vibrant and bold patterns to co the quilt along.

quilting on my longarm

 One of the first quilts to come off of my new Innova longarm quilting machine!  This is one of my favorite scrappy quilts, just perfect for a man I think.  This is one of 23 quilt tops stacked and waiting to be quilted.  I will be posting them as they are finished and I think you will be surprised at some of the less "traditional" quilts.  I love to explore new patterns and designs as well as using unexpected fabrics in my quilts.  What a shame that these lovely cottons from Texas are no longer being made after over 100 years of making some of the finest cottons in the U.S.A.!  Another mill lost and gone forever.

 I decided that this quilt just needed a nice geometric edge to edge quilting so that the detail of the piecing could shine!  I used  a little of every piece of Mission Valley that I could find!

 This scrappy quilt called for a scrappy binding!  Watch for a tutorial on this fun binding for a "stash" quilt.

This is actually the very first quilt that I quilted on my new longarm.  This is a special quilt that I was in the process of making for my mother for mother's day when she passed away in April.  Now that it is finished it will be given to a very special friend.