Quilt show photos!

There were a lots of nice quilts but I know we all see the same things most of the time so I picked a few of my favorites that are unique for different reasons.

The first is an angel, but Barbara Barbara. She had a few of her painted pieces in the show, but this was different from what she normally does. Nice idea if you are interested in doing a piece for your church, lots of free angel images online.

The next few quilts were done with quilts bought from the New England Quilt museum. Love seeing old quilts and these were tops that were sold and the ladies quilted them.

This was my favorite, love the design and fabrics.

Unique quilt and great for scraps.

 The next  two are examples of quilts you can make from used clothing, especially from a loved one.

Something to cuddle in, when she misses her dad, all from his flannel shirts.

A unique way to use ties in a quilt, love the fence idea and ties could be made into other types of designs for art pieces.

This piece is wonderful, a style I would love to make. She used a resist to bleach out some color in the background. 

And for you wooly lovers, a Heart to Hand design, it was really gorgeous in person. Beautiful wools and beautifully made.

And last but not least, was a quilt made by my friend Tina. She does beautiful work and I loved how she used the graduated colors for the background and then hand stitching around the blocks, then beautiful quilting around that. I like the idea of doing hand stitching to enhance some of the designs, mixed with machine quilting.

This is just a section of the quilt, it is huge and i wanted to show the work close up. 

Crosses Wall Quilt!

Today I stained my quilt with tea, but it didn't come out the way I wanted. I wrung out the quilt and hung it on a line and sprayed a diluted walnut stain on it, to darken it more. Unfortunately it doesn't show the staining with a camera. 

After I let it drip dry on the line, I threw it in a dryer to finish the drying and it came out with a  nice crinkly look. I had to iron it to get it to lay flatter, so that took out some of the crinkling.

The idea came from an antique quilt, and I added the circle and leaves to mine. It is done with fusible raw edge and hand stitched, then hand quilted with dmc pearl cotton. For the strings, I used precut strips from a log cabin quilt, that a friend was making and she sent me the extras. I wanted to keep it scrappy and the strips were perfect, for the look that I wanted. The middle and border strips were done with Barbara Brackman's line, 1862 Battle Hymn.

The quilt measures 28" x 28".  It is darker in person with stain spots from the walnut spray.

Here is a close up of the stitching. I do a basic stitch, no thought to keeping it perfect, but I try to be something uniform;)

And here is a link to the original quilt. I really like how the strings look and think this would be fun to do with a bed sized quilt and change out the middle with a different appliqué design. A great way to use up scraps. The photo is courtesy of Quilt Museum and Gallery.

The best things in life are free!

Well almost free, seeds only cost .99 cents and it is one of the things I enjoy every day. I planted a couple of pots with Cosmos seeds and one pot is blooming with beautiful orange and yellow flowers. I love the look of the flower and you can get them in different shades and they attract butterflies. I seem to be attracting more bees, though.

The first two flowers that bloomed, came out with a yellow-orange variation. The rich colors are stunning and they are an easy flower to grow.

Yesterday, more flowers bloomed but they are more yellow and light orange shades. No variations like the first flowers, but still beautiful. The flower is real, but I made the background into an art paper on this one. I am thinking of making a border on this one and printing it out for my daughter. She likes bright and happy things for her walls.

Every day and night I have visitors hopping around my yard. Today was an older guy, sunning on the side of the yard, two older youngsters playing leap frog and a new baby bunny who is getting used to me now, so he let me take a photo of him.

And for something quilty, here is a sneak preview of the project I am working on. It is my version of an antique quilt and just the center portion. I am hand stitching it now, so hopefully I can finish it, this weekend. I also got a wood burner and plan on making my own quilt stencils, so I will try and get photos and let you know how it works out. I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend.

And yes, there is a boo boo on it, I accidentally cut in too far on the cross appliqué, but I used it anyways;) I am using some leftover fabric from Barbara Brackman and the rest of the log strips that my friend Kelley sent me.

Civil War Quilt!

I decided I needed to start my summer quilt since it is summer and I need one.
I wanted to keep it simple, so I used the technique found at Jennifer's Blog.
I was gifted a layer cake and a jelly roll from Barbara Brackman, for her 1862 Battle Hymn Fabric. I used some as the dresses in my Davis girls and the rest is going into this quilt.

Here is some of the blocks, I was playing with them and nothing was coming to me, it just wasn't working in a way I liked.


The colors are reds, blues and browns, with shirtings as the contrasting color.

So, I gave up and then went back later and started playing again. I wanted to get an idea of what I was going to do, so I can decide what other fabrics I might need for a full design. And this is what I came up with, I love how this looks. This gave me another idea from an antique quilt I saw and liked, so I will incorporate some of that quilt into this one, so this is the start and will be the middle section.

Here is the base of my quilt, I will be working around this piece and adding a few surprises;)