Bold Colors are Back!

My oldest brother needs to have bypass surgery next week, so I’m working on a lap quilt for him to use during his recovery.  He is an aging hippie who loves bold red colors and is also a graphic designer.  I went with another giant-scale orange peel pattern but in very loud and rich colors.  Here is a shot of it on my basting wall:

I ended up outlining the fabric color changes in the orange peel sections and I think that helps to accentuate the graphics of the fabric designs:

The centers of the orange peel blocks are quilted with simple ruler work:

The blue border is quilted with a loop-d-loop design and the outermost border is quilted with a series of arched swags with tapered channels inside:

Here’s a shot of the whole thing quilted:

Hope he likes it and hope he does great with his surgery!

Filed under Free Motion Quilting, ruler work on a HDSM. 5 Comments

Sidelined from Quilting

The month of January came and went without even a single blog post…sorry about that!  I picked up some respiratory bug that really slowed me down for the first half of the month, but I was also sidelined because of something wonderful.  We adopted a shelter dog named Blondie who has wormed her way into our hearts:

She will turn 15 years old this April and is a gentle, sweet-natured dog.  Many folks have asked us why we would adopt such an old dog and that was a big part of why we adopted her.  She lived in shelter in another part of the state for 4 years and was transferred to a local shelter here last October when the original shelter closed.  We figured she was so old that no one would ever adopt her and she was so good-natured that we couldn’t resist making a wonderful home for her final years.  She has been a wonderful addition to our family and she’s been great for me because we go on two long walks each day.  She has both Ernie and me wrapped around her little pinky (paw) and she pretty much gets everything she wants.

So, where does that leave my quilting life?  I completed only 1 hospice donation quilt in the month of January:

I really toned down my color choices on this one because I was worried my quilts might be a bit too bright for some hospice patients’ taste.  The orange peel center section was quickly quilted with ruler work:

Here’s another view that shows the texture a little better:

The outermost borders were quilted with long featherettes:

Hospice Donation Quilt #6 for the period of 10/1/18-9/30/19.

…and just one more shot of my new buddy, Blondie, as she prepared for a 9-hour car trip:

Filed under Free Motion Quilting, Hospice Quilt Project. 8 Comments

My First Orange Peel Quilt

I completed another hospice donation quilt and this one is the first orange peel quilt I’ve made.  Totally, totally fun!  This one is made with very large melon shapes so it makes a very bold statement.  Here are some other shots:

While I was piecing it, my plan was to do far more intricate ruler work inside the orange peel designs.  I ended up leaving it very basic because I thought it would be  more appealing as a snuggly/comfort quilt that way.

There is something very appealing about that bold center section, at least to me! 

The melon shapes are all quilted with a loop-d-loop design.  I just can’t see any point in working hard on an intricate design on busy printed fabrics.  I’ve already started the next melon quilt because this one was so much fun.

Filed under Free Motion Quilting. 3 Comments

Avoiding Quilting Withdrawl Syndrome

I don’t know about you, but the hardest part of the holiday season for me is that it’s stressful not to be able to work on some sewing/quilting for all the days spent visiting with relatives.  I love seeing family, but I still need some kind of quilting “fix” everyday.  There is no denying that being about to touch fabrics and run threads through them is part of my soul.  This isn’t that big of a deal if I’m traveling somewhere by car, because it’s easy to pack a big quilt and work on sewing the binding to the backside.  Traveling by air gives you less options because there just isn’t space on an airplane or at the gate to pull out a whole quilt.  These are the times that I like some hand applique to soothe my soul, but this takes some prep work ahead of time.  I’ve been on a roll with creating hospice donation quilts and this is a good opportunity to use some orphan “pieces” to make a hospice donation quilt.  I have about a million Dresden plate fans that I cut for 2 earlier quilts.  I made these using the Darlene Zimmerman plate tool shown below:

What I like about this template is that you can choose just how long you’d like your fans to be.  The millions of remaining fan blades that I’d already cut are for the longest fan blade possible.  Here’s a stack of them so you can see what they look like, and next door is a blade that has had its”tip” sewn together:

You use the wooden “turning tool” to turn the blade tip inside out with a point at the tip:

(I’m ashamed to say that yes, that is my filthy/stained giant ironing board these pieces are sitting on.  I have meant to re-cover it for a few months and this post is probably going to shame me into finally taking care of that task!)  The next step is easy, you just press the fan blade and they are ready to be sewn together into the circular Dresden plates:

This shot shows what the center 50 in x 50 in section of this quilt will look like.  I had hand appliqued that center block about a year ago, and had pieced another circular Dresden plate that I separated into 2 halves.  The other 2 halves were made this week as I explained above:

So…all this is leading up to me prepping some hand sewing that can be accomplished in airplanes and on airport layovers.  It’s hard to see in the photo below, but I’ve hand-basted each half Dresden onto its background fabric.  This will stabilize it in place as I work, and also avoid any pins with points that will make it harder to carry this project around:

It’s hard to see on the next shot, but the basting includes the edges of the Dresden as well as just beyond the circle.  This basting goes very quickly; I’m guessing that each half Dresden took about 3 minutes to baste:

The last thing I do is to roll my blocks around an old cardboard stabilizer roll.  I hold it securely with vinyl tape and I am ready for travel.  It all fits easily inside my backpack that I use as my carry-on:

Are you ready for holiday travel?!

Filed under Hospice Quilt Project. Comments Off on Avoiding Quilting Withdrawl Syndrome

Latest Quilt Finish

The one good thing about all the angst I am feeling about what’s happening in this country is that I am spending a ton of time sewing and quilting to soothe my soul.  This has resulted in me cranking our several new donation quilts fairly quickly and I am enjoying every second of it.  The quilt above is another donation quilt for hospice and it was my first experience with slashing blocks up and then sewing them back together.  From a quilting standpoint, this was the first time I’ve used circle templates to create the curve of my feathers.  I  have always admired that look of tightly curled feathers, and now I know that I also love the physical action of stitching them that way!

I’m not wild about how they spring from the center of that border, but I can live with that.  More photos:

All of the slashed blocks are just stitched in the ditch; it seemed like it would be too much to do anything else there.  The sashings between the slashed blocks just have long featherettes:  

Personally, I like the juxtaposition of the rigid linear strips against the flowing curves of all the feathers:

The outermost border is a series of arched swags with tapered channels; all stitched with my PTD 12 arc.  The stitch in the ditch was all done by ruler work using my straight line ruler:

Hospice Donation Quilt #4 for the period of 10/1/18-9/30/19:

Filed under Free Motion Quilting, Hospice Quilt Project. 2 Comments