Thursday, December 31, 2009

Carol's Quilts Part 2

As you can see in the previous post, the colors in these daisy quilts match the colors in the pinwheel quilts. Carol made the pinwheel quilts bed size with the matching daisy quilts as accents. They turned out beautiful for her granddaughters. I'm sure they will be very special quilts to those little girls. My favorite quilt is still the one my mom made me. I sleep under it every night.








Sunday, December 27, 2009

Carol's Quilts

I always look forward to quilting Carol's quilts. She does a beautiful job assembling them, making my job easy, and always uses rich color combinations. I recently finished these two for her. The whimsey with leaves & swirls seemed like the appropriate design to quilt the pastel, flower garden strip quilt. I had never used that design on any of Carol's quilts and she liked it very much. The pinwheel quilt took a little more time to come up with a design for. I had various ideas that would work, but knew I still hadn't found the perfect one. Carol also requested that I make sure the quilting was not too dense to ensure that the quilts would have good drape. They will be used on her granddaughter's beds. I finally decided on ribbons and used the ditches of the rows as my guide. The ribbons worked out well! Carol loved how they looked on the quilt. They added a lot of movement to the quilt, setting the pinwheels in motion. And they had wonderful drape!










Friday, December 25, 2009

Goodies from Sweden!

I was so excited when I saw a package in the mail earlier this month from Sweden. I couldn't wait until Christmas to open it. Gudrun sent me the cutest little tea cup shaped pouch. She did an amazing job stitching it together and adding wonderful beading and embellishments. AND she picked bright colors....my favorite. The best part was when I un-zipped the pouch. The pungent aroma of strawberry tea immediately filled the air. Gudrun is a very smart lady because she also included an additional hand-crafted pouch full of chocolate Santas. Mmm, mmm...they quickly vanished.

For a long time I didn't open the gift because of how beautifully wrapped it was.
These last 2 photos of the goodies she sent me for my birthday this past fall. I love the necklace she gave me, and I have the post card taped up on the bookshelf next to my bed. The postcard is a snapshot of her beautiful Island of Hono.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Ho...Ho...Ho!!!

Lana did a great job with the color choices for this fabulous "Figgy Pudding" pattern. She told me to quilt it at my discretion. I LOVE hearing those words! It took a long time to plan and rehearse the many stitch designs that I sewed in the trees and blocks. At first my creative juices were not kicking in. But after I had quilted the first pass I was ready to ROCK N' ROLL!!! AND...this quilt was the perfect way to "decorate" my blog for Christmas.

Enjoy the photos...I had fun doing this one. ***Click on photos for better view***


Don't know why this one posted sideways! Oh well...

For some of the trees, I used the motiff in the pattern of the fabric. This tree had a fabulous 3D texture after I quilted around the peppermints.


Tuesday, December 1, 2009

By the Shore...More of Kris's Quilt

Here are the promised photos. I just happened to be taking pictures of this one as the sun was setting. Perfect! Enjoy! *See previous post for more info. about this quilt*