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 

Happy 10th Anniversary!

This blog is 10 years old today! I'm sorry I've been neglecting it since I started using Instagram. I'm going to try to go back and post about the finished quilts that haven't been recorded here. Check my Instagram feed to see what I'm working on.

In honor of the Blog-iversary, I selected my favorite quilt from each of the last 10 years. Click on any photo to see the original blog post. Enjoy!

2018

Wildflower Trio- (to be blogged about soon!) 

2017

Geese at Julia & Fred's Wedding

2016

Little Lucy

2015

Engineer's Wife

2014

25 Years

2013

Emerald Selvage Spiderweb

2012

Chris & Jamie's Wedding Ring

2011

Nonna's Garden

2010

Math Geeks, Unite!

2009

Geese in the Forest

Wasn't that fun? Let me know if your favorite didn't make the cut.

Geese at Julia and Fred's Wedding

This quilt is going home to North Carolina soon so it's time for a blog post. If you follow me on Instagram (if you don't, you really should!) you saw it coming together last year. 

Made for my daughter and her husband, Julia selected Judy Niemeyer's pattern Geese at My Wedding. Julia insisted on a double wedding ring and she loves flying geese, so this was a perfect fit. Oh, but the pattern was written for a table runner, so some recalculating had to be done to make it queen size. Only a crazy mother of the bride would turn this pattern into a queen size quilt!

Let's start at the beginning: fabric selection. (November 2016)

The first ring! (February 2017)

I really had to be organized with this one!

I managed to get two rows assembled for the bridal shower. (March 2017)

Aren't they the cutest? (April 2017)

The top was done at the end of July and machine quilting started in early August. This quilt has it all: walking foot in the ditch, free motion, and ruler work. 

Since this quilt was for my daughter, I went all out and learned how to add a double piping to the binding. I highly recommend tools and classes by Susan Cleveland. (September 2017)

I don't block every quilt, but I always block the important ones. The big ones almost completely cover the area rug in the living room.

Julia came home for the Ninigret Quilters' show to see her finished quilt! (October 2017)

Picked up a couple more ribbons at the Narragansett Bay show. (April 2017)

And now for the detailed beauty shots!

A secret parachute was stitched into one corner for my airborne son-in-law!

Their names and the date are quilted in.

Their puppy had to check it out before it goes home with them!

Geese at Julia and Fred's Wedding

88" X 88"

Started November 2016

Completed September 2017

Total working time: 235 hours

Pieced and Quilted by Tina Craig