Linda's Feathered Star Quilt

When Linda first brought her Feathered Star Quilt for quilting, my first thought was "Oh my, how do I get myself into these situations?"  It is gorgeous and I wanted to do it justice!

I think it turned out lovely but it all started with Linda's ideas, plexiglass and a dry erase marker.  This is the process I follow almost every time a quilt comes in:  draw!

Many times it's just a brainstorming process and in this case we simplified the quilting in the blocks in the bottom photo substantially.

The quilting was done with 50 weight Aurifil thread and Hobbs Tuscany 80/20 Cotton/Wool batting.  The main thrust of the quilting was feathers and beautiful ruler work with Linda Hrcka's rulers from The Quilted Pineapple.  

I think it turned out beautifully!  I'll let the quilting speak for itself.

Linda is an awesome quilter and I am honored each time she trusts me with her jewels!  This is definitely one of them!

Enjoy your weekend and check out some of the quilty spots on my sidebar.  Hope you get to quilt soon!

Feathers on Rose-Colored Lamé

When we recently moved into our new home, I found this pile of fabric while organizing my new stash cabinet:

I'm pretty sure this is a very sheer lamé fabric that was purchased at a garage sale thinking it could be used for a whole cloth quilt.  The first question was what kind of needle to use.  So I resourced my awesome Bernina Q20 Facebook group.  It was suggested that I back, or stabilize, the fabric and use a ballpoint needle and give it a try.  After several months, I finally remembered to pick up a pack of needles while at the sewing store.  

First up, a test on a small piece of silver lamé with a sweet little feather:

It was so exciting working with something new, that I completely forgot to stabilize the fabric but I was thrilled with the results, using two layers of batting.  

So next, a whole cloth quilt on a beautiful piece of light rose colored lamé:

I wasn't too worried about this being perfectly symmetrical but I did locate and market the horizontal, vertical and diagonal points of the cut fabric and began working from there.  Here is the resulting center section:

That center section was completed primarily using these two rulers/templates from Linda Hrcka with The Quilted Pineapple and some gorgeous Floriani thread:

Not knowing exactly where it would lead, I ended up with this circular design:

There was still quite a bit of unquilted fabric so the circle was squared off with scribbles in the squares around the design and a grid was added behind the main design using my Line Tamer Ruler. from Four Paws Quilting.

Then, because it still looked a little empty, I added a little floral motif in each corner area using the grid, and echo'd it.  A small crystal was added in the project center and in the center of each of the four floral designs.   It was then bound with a teal colored piece of Cherrywood fabric.  The result? Feathers on Rose-Colored Lamé:

And the back:

This experiment with Lamé with fun and very easy.  I had no problems stitching with it, even with that heavy scribbling.  So if you are adventurous, try a piece of Lamé!

Have a great quilty week and try something new!!!