Frankie's Woodland Friends

Here's another baby quilt I made in 2017, this one for my great nephew, Frankie. I blurred out Frankie's unique middle name for privacy reasons.

Most of the animals are from the pattern Woodland Critters by Shiny Happy World.

I added the turtle (for the book character Franklin) and a cardinal at mom's request.

I don't do machine appliqué often, but I did enjoy the process. I worked on one block at a time, adding to the design wall as I went.

I did not quilt-as-you-go as suggested in the pattern. 

 I love how Wendi's creatures have such character.

Emily's Giraffes

Since I have some free time while I wait for my grandson to be born, I thought I would show you a couple of other baby quilts I never posted. This is Emily's Giraffes, made for my great-niece in 2017.

The pattern is Giraffes in a Row by Lorna at Sew Fresh Quilts. It goes together quite nicely with some careful cutting and accurate 1/4" seams.

 The pink baby giraffe is Emily.

I pieced the other 3 during a weekend retreat. Several friends have since purchased the pattern!

Big sister Jackie is purple, mom is teal and dad is Syracuse orange!

(See Jackie's quilt here.)

Quilting my standard loopy swirl.

Glue basting the binding to the back allows for tidy machine stitching from the front. It makes me happy. Is that weird?

The backing fabric was purchased years ago when my LQS retired. 

EPP vs. FPP

 I presented my new lecture on Saturday. My friends at Modern Quilters of Rhode Island are super kid, funny, fun, encouraging and thoughtful! Thanks to their willingness to be my guinea pigs, I'll have an even better lecture to present to the Linsey Woolsey guild next week.

EPP vs. FPP: The Showdown 

What technique do you prefer? English Paper Piecing or Foundation Paper Piecing?

I love them both!

Photos by Leslie Lowenstein

P.S. I made my dress! It is a Cashmerette Upton Dress.

P.P.S. I'm booking now for Fall 2019 and 2020.

Raquette River Oxbow

Blogiversary post 4 of 10

I love this quilt! It depicts the oxbow on the Raquette River in the town of Tupper Lake, NY. My family has been there several times, camping, canoeing, kayaking and visiting the Wild Center. My daughter was an intern there through the summer of 2015. So this spot holds a lot of memories for us.

I couldn't wait to take a class with Timna Tarr to make this map quilt. I used a topographic map from the US Geologic Survey and had it enlarged at my local copy shop. I built my quilt from the river up. Cutting out the yellow layer was intense! What you see below is a layer of heat & bond with the mirror image of the river traced on, then adhered to the back of the yellow batik. I cut out the little ponds first with an x-acto knife.

It was a little unruly. I needed to use a light box with my map under the blue fabric to line up the yellow just right.

I changed color to correspond with the lines on the topo map. The greens were a lot easier to cut!

If you click on this picture, you might see the weird lines and texture from the fusible. Apparently, heat and bond reacts funny with batiks, which I did not know before this project. Next time, I'll try a different brand.

I used Sue Cleveland's 12 weight spaghetti cotton thread in black to quilt a line between each color. I love the way that looks! Then I used matching 50 weight to add echo texture.

We had a discussion in class about legends and scale. Without them, it's not a map, it's just a pretty picture. I had my husband do the math and calculate the scale for me.

The texture looks amazing on the back!

I had to include a flange in the binding. It's a phase I'm going through! To stitch down the binding, I used the 12 wt black thread again. I think it's a cool effect.

The free motion quilting was done on my trusty old Bernina 153.

 

Raquette River Oxbow
33.5" X 23.5"
October 19, 2018- Workshop with Timna Tarr
October 20, 2019- top complete
October 25, 2018- quilting started
October 27, 218- quilt complete

For Dave

Blogiversary post 3 of 10

Here's another quilt you haven't seen here yet.

My husband's brother is in a nursing home, so I made him a quilt. Anita's Arrowhead block is always the right choice! You can find it in Anita Grossman Solomon's book Rotary Cutting Revolution, available through her Craftsy class.

Dave's Quilt

Made in November 2016

Red IS a Neutral

Blogiversary post 2 of 10

In the Fall of 2016, Barb Vedder hosted a block swap: broken dishes blocks made with solids- any red plus one other color. 

I chose to use a pale yellow and pale blue for my blocks.

Barb mixed them up and returned an assorted pile of blocks to us.

I pieced my top on November 1, 2016 and started quilting on the 3rd.

I had just taken a Craftsy class with Christina Camelli, so I had a blast quilting in red thread. It is the neutral in this quilt, after all!

Do you see the star shaped area below with less quilting? That was a design choice that quilt judges don't like. I did it anyway!

The binding was stitched on November 5th!

The purple binding was the best choice and it looks good with the Jane Sassaman print on the back.

 Freddy Moran says every color looks better next to red!

Red IS a Neutral

32" X 32"

Started 9/21/16

Finished 11/5/16

Best Use of Color, Ninigret Quilters 2017

KKB Road Trip

Blogiversary Post 1 of 10

To continue the blogi-versary celebration, I'm planning to post 10 quilts in the next 10 days that I have not yet recorded here. You may have seen them on Instagram.

I'm starting with the quilt that I selected as my favorite finish of 2018:

Wildflower Trio.

This project started with a text from my quilty travel buddy, Sharon. She noticed that Karen Kay Buckley would be teaching in Clifton Park, NY in June of 2018. (The original text may have been in 2017!) It said something like, "Doesn't your sister live in Clifton Park?" Since I'm familiar with the area, we decided a road trip was in order. Contacts were made with the local guild, workshop fees paid, hotel room booked, dinner plans made with my sister, supplies packed, and we were off!

There just happened to be a quilt shop hop happening that week, so we hopped our way from Rhode Island to New York! First stop was  Karen's Quilting Corner in Massachusetts. 

After a sketchy but beautiful drive on backroads through the mountains, we went for a walk around and over Lock E2 on the Erie Canal!

The guild lecture was that night, but I don't have any good pics of the amazing KKB or the lovely quilters of QUILT North who welcomed us so generously.

We had the next day off (as Karen taught machine appliqué) so we did a little more shop hopping and visited the Albany Pine Bush Discovery Center. My daughter had done an internship there as an environmental educator while she was in college. Sharon was very patient with me while I played with my new camera, shooting every blooming wild lupine! 

Sharon spotted the deer far off in the aspen. This is a major zoom!

Finally, it was time to start appliquéing. Karen is a fantastic teacher. If you have the opportunity to take a class with her, do it! She has all the best tools for appliqué, so you'll want all of those, too.

I stitched on and off between other projects and finished the top at the end of September.

I was a little nervous about quilting. I didn't want to ruin all the hard work I had done on the hand appliqué. It's not perfect, but I think it's OK.

I wanted a little color in the binding, so I went crazy and did a beaded binding. I've got another little quilt to blog about where I'll talk more about this technique. Basically, there's a string of plastic pearls stitched into the piping. Every bead has to be stitched around by hand!

The corners are hard, y'all! Buy Bethanne Nemesh's book for the how-to.

The back is nothing to write home about. You can see my adequate machine quilting. Ha!

Can you see why she's my favorite?

Wildflower Trio

Workshop with Karen Kay Buckley

Pattern: Garden Medley by KKB

24" X 21"

Started June 6, 2018

Completed November 16, 2018