Wool Applique Quilt!

This customer quilt is totally amazing!!

Jayne shared with me how much she loves doing hand work.  So, I said, the appliqué on this quilt IS done my machine, right?  Oh no, was the response, I do that all by hand.  By hand?  It's almost perfect?!?!  Although this quilt was a kit purchased from Keepsake Quilting, I have never seen such beautiful handwork.  It is stunningly beautiful!!  I was very humbled and scared stiff at the thought of being responsible for the quilting.  But Jayne is actually a very humble woman and I loved just visiting with her.

Our agreement was not to rush, but to finish the quilt with primarily feathers and pebbles.  She brought the bottom layer of batting and I added a layer of Quilter's Dream wool.  After debating, it was decided to use Superior Threads Bottom Line in both the top and bobbin threads.

After sandwiching the quilt, the first step was to stitch in the ditch of the major blocks.  Then....edge stitch around every single pice of appliqué.  Every single piece.  Uhhhhhh, every single piece!!!! Wow!!!!

Now I could begin the background stitching, flowing from block to block.  Here's what we ended up with.  Every block spoke for itself so although there are feathers and pebbles throughout, every block is quilted differently.

The half square triangles were stitched with a 1/4" curve on each of the sides of the cream fabric.  And for the outer border?  Feathers most definitely!!!  Rather than just connected feathers all around the quilt, I started at both the top and bottom and took them around to meet at the sides of the quilt.  

I have to admit that this was an enormous undertaking but this quilt is totally me and I thoroughly enjoyed quilting this beauty for Jayne.  And she is totally thrilled!!

Hope you enjoyed this one!  I know I did!  Be sure to check out my Facebook Page for all things free motion!  You can find me at Penny Olive, Free Motion Quilting Educator.

Have a super quilty weekend!

Curvy Log Cabin Bright and Bold,

I call this Curvy Log Cabin quilt Bright and Bold for an obvious reason!  It is!!!!

Isn't it gorgeous?  This is the second Curvy Log Cabin I have quilted and it's amazing how different the quilt top is depending upon the artist.  The first I did was primarily purple and white.  What a "wow" quilt!

Bright and Bold was quilted completely different.  We started out with Peg's own batting, Warm and Natural.  Then we picked out some wild thread that blended with the quilt.  Is this not awesome?!?!  

Actually, the threads blended in beautifully.  They are both Isacord, 40 weight tri-lobal polyester threads.  They went beautifully with this quilt.  We used the green in the main body and orange in the border.  

Rather than quilting each section of the pinwheel design, we decided upon an easier allover design.  In this case the quilter, Peg, chose curls as she loves them.  So the main body has curls throughout and it turned out beautifully!

Peg left the rest of the quilt up to me.  I decided to stitch in the ditch around the inner border and then had some fun with rulers on the outer.  I had pushed this design into the back of my memory but it was brought to the forefront again when I perused part of a ruler work class recently done by Patsy Thompson.  I tweeked it to fit this quilt and.......oooooooo la la!  Love it!  After marking the design, I used my trusty Line Tamer Ruler to stitch it all out.  

The corner design really makes it unique!

Finally, you probably can't see much of the quilting on the back, but is this not the coolest fabric?  I love it!

I hope you enjoyed Peg's Curvy Log Cabin, "Bright and Bold".  It is truly is a dynamic quilt!

Be sure to check me out on Facebook at Penny Olive, Free Motion Quilting Educator!

The fairy quilts!!!

The quilt I will be sharing in this post is one done by the same lady who did this little fairy quilt!  Its actual title by the artist is Fairies in the Dutch Iris.  It is  approximately 29" square and won first place in the art quilt division as well as the Judges Choice Reserve Best of Show award at the Cheyenne Heritage Quilt Show this past August, 2017.

The quilt I will focus on here is approximately 31" x 34" and I call it Fairy Hidden in the Poppies and Daisies!  This quilt was planned several years ago as a quilted wall hanging birthday gift for the daughter of the Artist.  Although I would have loved to go all out on the quilting, Rose just wanted this to be a nice wall hanging and memory for her daughter.  Do you know how hard it is to reign in your quilting??!!???!!

But I do love this!  Rose wanted to keep it simple so she only wanted to include some small little daisies that spread into the borders and a few butterflies.  She was not concerned that this quilt be heavily quilted.  

I wanted to do some really special butterflies so before sandwiching the quilt, I found a couple of lovely ones on pinterest that had no user protection and printed them out.  The printed designs were placed on my lightbox, followed by the quilt top, and I drew the designs with a blue line marker.  It was perfect!

The top was then sandwiched with Hobbs Tuscany 80/20 cotton wool.  First, each border area was stitched in the ditch.  Then I stitched around every portion of the appliqué, inner and out.  This secured it to the sandwich and gave a nice finish.  Now it was time for the butterflies and daisies.  This was great but I didn't feel like there was enough quilting.  After speaking with Rose, it was decided to add some poppies, making them part of the rest of the grouping.  GREAT!  I had already sandwiched the quilt and I'M NOT AN ARTIST!  So I spent quite a bit of time on pinterest trying to find the easiest rendering of a poppy and a poppy leaf.  It was too late to use the light box! After some practicing, here's what I came up with:

And finally, we left the the flying geese border pretty empty other than just stitching in the ditch around each block.   The outer border added swirls and some designs from the quilt itself.  

Simple and sweet but I think it turned out lovely! 

I can't seem to add videos on my blog but I did put one for doing the poppy on my business Facebook page.  You can find me on Facebook at:

Penny Olive, Free Motion Quilting Educator

Enjoy your quilting and be sure to stop and smell the poppies!

Purple with Feathers!

When Cathy brought me this quilt, I started to drool.  Well, not literally, but I imagine my eyes and face showed the enthusiasm within.  I LOVE PURPLE!!!!!  And this is a gorgeous quilt!

There was no doubt that this quilt would lend itself beautifully to feathers.  

The first thing I did was to pull out a dry erase marker and cover a portion of the quilt with my plexiglass.  Since the corner areas are different than the main portion of the quit, I decided to cover the corner and a repeated block.  It just wasn't clicking.  I like the drawing within the block, but not the corner flower nor sashings.  I needed to brainstorm just a bit more.  

I decided to take a photo of the quilt and put the whole photo on the drawing program on my iPad.  I use Procrete with an I-pencil and can blow up portions of the photo to draw in.  This is what I sent Cathy next, with several options for the sashing.  Some of the feathering is a bit wobbly due to using the I-pencil but all I wanted was a quilting plan.

Cathy was thrilled; she chose ribbon candy in the sashing except for the two small pieces by the feathered heart.  She stuck with the little hearts in the sashing there.  

I used my favorite ruler from the Quilted Pineapple to come up with the long curves, and two different threads:  a deep purple Isacord and a lavender Floriani.  Both are tri-lobal polyester threads and are great to bring the desired sheen to the quilt while maintaining strength in the fibers.  We also used 80/20 cotton/wool batting from Hobbs Tuscany Heirloom.  This would give the quilt a little "poof" in the quilting.

First, we stitched in the ditches of the main block areas, the sashing and the borders.  Then, it was time for the fun using the plan Cathy accepted.  Here is a view of parts of the quilting completed.

And finally, a completed Purple with Feathers!!

 This quilt is beautiful; the piecing is fantastic.  Deciding what to quilt in the corner area was the most difficult of the quilting but Cathy loves the hearts.  I love how it turned out!

Have a wonderful week and be sure to check out some of the quilty places on my sidebar!

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Penny Olive, Free Motion Quilting Educator