Old McDonald Had a Farm!

EEEE-IIII-EEEE-IIII-O! And on that farm he had a cow....

With a Moo-moo-here & a moo-moo there...

And a cockle-doodle-doo!

This darn picture still didn't post rightside up even though I flipped it!

I am very proud of how Mr. Rooster turned out.

And a cluck, cluck, there...The old hen decided to be ornery and flipped herself!

Nancy and I.

The entire farmyard.

And a baah, baah, here & and a baah, baah there!

There were no boundaries on the quilting for this one! FREEDOM! This one was SOOO fun! My adopted grandmother, Nancy, did a fantastic piecing job! Thanks Nancy for letting me play with this one! Love you!

And a nay, nay here & a nay, nay there!

Old Mcdonald had a farm! EEEEE-IIIII-EEEEE-IIIII-O!

Nancy Quilts It Up! You Go Mom!

In the last post I wrote, I realized that I forgot to mention the name of my mom! Haha! Nancy is her name! I said I would post pictures of some of her work. This lovely garden quilt was completely hand appliqued and machine quilted by mom. She has an excellent eye for color and her quilting is so complimentary to the designs of this quilt. The fact that she is an art major shouldn't surprise you. Enjoy the pics of her fabulous work!

My Quilting Coach

I love my mom. Aside from being my best friend in the whole wide world, she is the one who has taught me all the in's and out's of longarm quilting. So here's to a fantastic mom and coach! Thanks Mom. (I'll be posting some of her work soon.)

Mermaid Afloat!

I was doodling in my sketchbook the other day and decided to draw a mermaid. While I was drawing her, I kept in mind what she would look like if I was sewing her. I think it would be so cool to do a thread-painted mermaid like this. I drew her in order to get an idea of what she might look like stitched in bright colors. Just an idea...probably won't have time to fiddle with actually sewing her. Someday...

Photos, Photos & More Photos!

Barbara, I have to say this is one of the best photo quilts I have seen. I kept staring at it all week. It was fun to guess who was who. Like in the picture below, it's obvious that the three boys are the same men who are seen in the tuxedos with their dad. This quilt is truly a family treasure.

The quilting definitely needed to stay low-key and not steal the show. The dark, golden-brown thread blended well over all the reds, blues, blacks, and mult-colored border.

I had some long rectangles at the bottom corner of the quilt top. One row of big whimsey loops would've looked odd in this space. Ribbons ended up being the perfect solution because they echoed the loopey whimsey but also filled up enough of the space.

I got my brother to take this pic. He is six feet tall, that's why it appears that you're looking down at me! Haha!

Fancy Quilting...So fun!

This is a quilt which I did a few months back, before I started my blog. Debbie did such a beautiful job piecing this massive kingsize quilt. She told me the words I love to hear most from my customers: "Do whatever you want on it." So I went to town. This quilt had many large open spaces with simple fabric prints that allowed me to get a little fancy with the quilting. I played and played and did various basic quilting stitches in the many borders, and really took my time with the center of the quilt. I made the house look like a log cabin.

I sewed across the windows. The sun in the corner was fun to do - I wanted it to turn out more whimsical than realistic.

I took a chance, I tried a flower box for the first time. I was thrilled with the tulips and butterfly. The window was very large and I had quilting fairly heavily around it so I needed to be sure to quilt closely in the entire space of the window. The tulips only took up half the space, and it was still poofy above them and needed more quilting. That's were the butterfly came in.

This pic posted wrong, but that is the chimney which I made into a stone chimney. Fun! And for the sky behind it, I did a mixture of paisleys, curliques, and teardrops.

The feathers in the cream triangles turned out well.

Sailing Across the Quilt...

This one took me a while...2 days! But I loved doing it! My pictures posted backwards, I meant for the sketch at the bottom to be the first picture. Before I did any quilting I sketched and sketched several different ideas. The one I finally decided on, ended up surprising me! After doing the first block, I was thrilled to see that the sailboat looked like it was actually in motion. Carol did a fantastic job putting this top together. Thanks Carol for having me quilt your top, I enjoyed it!

The quilt was for Carol's grandson, seen here with his mom and little sister. He had not seen the quilt until now, and was very excited. He was so polite too, using all his "pleases" and "thank you's" when he spoke to me. What a sweetie!

The trick was to see if I could do the wind around the sailboat all in one pass. It worked!

I did whimsey in the sashing, waves in the sea, and meandering in the big red border.

The different ideas I thought about doing.

Meandering along...

This quilt was pretty busy. It needed to be simply quilted. I didn't want the quilting to take over.

The meandering turned out really great!

I was experimenting with my camera tonight... this was taken at night, outside looking into the workroom.

I wasn't sure how it would turn out, but I thought this was kinda cool.

A New Twist...

This beautiful quilt, pieced with hand-dyed batiks, floats on a large white background. Free-form feather was appropriate for filling in the spaces and elegantly complemented the star.

I didn't do any custom/fussy designs in or around the star, just F.F all over. Often this is just as effective as doing pre-planned individual designs. It worked beautifully to do the same design over the star as the background.

Here's the New Twist that I threw in. There are many variations that I like to do with basic F.F. This design adds a fresh look. While the quilt top was pieced in a traditional pattern, the zesty batiks on the polka dot background gave it a modern appearance. F. F. with a twist added the perfect finish.

It snapped this pic to show how gynormous this doosey of quilt was. I'd say it was a generous queen size. It took me a LONG time to finish....but it was worthwhile. I think it turned out smashing!