Cowboy Boots

This week I've had the pleasure of working on this quilt, which had 12 gorgeously embroidered cowboy boot blocks. The borders were trimmed in Prairie Points, with some scattered strips in the body of the quilt as well. 

In order to quilt around and under them, I pinned them back:

And then I quilted a medium meander:

I put the points back down, and proceeded throughout the quilt:

The embroidery on these cowboy boots was the most beautiful I've ever seen! 

I stitched around all of the boots, and then went back and highlighted the familiar sections of a cowboy boot. I did not want to quilt on top of or next to the decorative embroidery of the boot shaft. I considered it, but then I realized that the look of her embroidery would've been changed. And I did not want to do that. 

The blocks were finished with 2 stars in each tan area, and a squiggly framing stitch in the outer block area:

The past few weeks have been a blur. Somewhere back in time, I finished this pretty quilt using the pantograph "Pipeline" by Patricia Ritter:

The fabric on this quilt was so perfect for this thread: 

It's my favorite Madeira Polyneon variegated 40 wt., which I paired with 40 wt. Aurifil cotton in the bobbin. The stitches and the texture were really pretty:

Hidden in the middle of my queue was this gorgeous quilt with stunning Japanese fabrics:

It was a gift for my neighbor from her daughter, and the colors were amazing. I chose to do the pantograph "Lush Leaves" by Lorien, and used Glide 40 wt. Khaki thread on top for a slight shimmer. The bobbin thread was, of course, Aurifil 40 wt. cotton. 

Up next is this beautiful, woodsy panel quilt: 

The lighting doesn't do justice to the purple fabric my customer used - which matches the maple leaves in the border. I get to do a custom job on this one, and I'm already getting ideas...

: )

Three Finishes

The Twister quilt turned out really nice, and my customer was happy with the design and the thread choice. Those fabrics are amazing, and she will be binding it with the blue floral fabric.

This Buggy Barn batik quilt was quilted with the pantograph "Agave":

I had not used it before. But her quilt was just asking for it! I used my favorite combination of Madeira Polyneon variegated thread on top, with Aurifil cotton 40 wt. in the bobbin:

The bobbin thread was a pale spring green color, which is difficult to see in the photo. But the texture is quite obvious, and I love it:

Photographing with my new iPad is not my favorite thing to do. I am completely hooked on every thing about my new iPad, except for the camera. I discovered that if I breathe, the iPad moves ever-so-slightly, and ends up blurring the photo. 

Which means that this cute Zoo Animals baby quilt is blurred a bit:

My customer asked for a pantograph, and wanted the result to be "soft". In the longarm world, that means minimal quilting. If it gets quilted too much it can become "stiff". And for a little baby, we always want "soft". So with that in mind I auditioned several pantographs, realizing that only this one was exactly the right density to remain "soft" after quilting:

"Raindrops"

I used Aurifil 50 wt. cotton on the top and in the bobbin, #2314 again. The tension was completely perfect from the first stitch to the last:

I tried blogging from my iPad. It was a disaster. 

So.... from now on I will be happily Old School, and I'll keep on blogging with my familiar and obedient iMac and Canon.

: )

Echoing in the Sky

Being out of town as much as I've been this past week, I am thanking God that I was able to finish this adorable cat quilt on time. It flowed perfectly, with no tension issues. And the quilting designs that my customer chose came out just right.

After quilting the pantograph "Paws" all over the quilt - leaving the sky and appliques untouched - I set out to echo everything as evenly as possible. To accomplish this I used these tools, and kept the lines about 5/8" apart from each other:

Echoing the cats was quite self-explanatory, since I just followed their shapes. But in the expanse of sky I had to make up designs to echo. I started with some stenciled stars:

With metallic thread I double-stitched the inner star and single-stitched the outer star:

After that, it was just a matter of marking 5/8" lines and quilting them. For the echoing in the sky I chose a turquoise Aurifil cotton 40 wt. thread:

The moon was stitched inside with a pale gold metallic thread:

The cats got a very simple filling of black Aurifil 40 wt. cotton:

 I consider myself blessed when it comes to what threads my machine is happy with. I don't get to use the typical beautiful longarm threads out there, such as So Fine, King Tut, and Bottom Line. So to make up for that injustice, I get to use metallics and silk and monofilament. 

These are the threads I used on the cat quilt, from left to right: Superior Metallic silver #64; Isacord "Tar Heel" polyester; Aurifil cotton #2810; and Madeira Metallic Gold 3. With the metallics and the Isacord, I used 40 wt. cotton in the bobbin, and a 4.0 titanium needle. With the Aurifil, I used a 50 wt. lighter blue in the bobbin and a 4.0 titanium needle as well.

 Here is the cute backing fabric:

And a shot with some sunshine helping out:

Today I was able to load up this beautiful "Twister" quilt:

My guild has recently been having fun making Twister quilts. So I was happy to find this pantograph:

The actual pantograph I have only has one quiltable row, not three. Three would've been nice. Or at least two. But I could not resist using this panto on this quilt. It is just so perfect:

I'm using a soft suede brown color of Aurifil 50 wt. cotton thread on top and in the bobbin, and a 4.0 titanium needle. In fact, it's the same needle I used on the cat quilt. Gotta love those titanium needles...

: )

Moving Right Along

I've been working through the pantograph phase of the quilt design for this cute cat quilt. Keeping the paws out of the sky area required stopping and starting and traveling in seams. And a good amount of basting in the sky to keep it stable.

As I neared the end I could see that there would be some fullness in the border:

This one area had some concentrated fullness:

When I pressed it, it made folds instead of flattening out:

When fullness gets pressed out into wrinkles, they can be stitched down rather nicely. But when fullness gets press into folds they need to be hidden, and then quilted. I was able to coerce this fullness into just one fold, ready to be hidden. For this I used YLI clear nylon thread to stitch down the fold:

The fold spanned both borders and up to the sky fabric. And when it was stitched with the paws, it blended in nicely:

Voila!

The next phase of this cute quilt is the sky area. I'll be outlining the appliques, and then echoing around them in the huge expanse of turquoise sky. My thread choice is still undecided, but I'm leaning toward a blue that matches the sky so that it A) doesn't detract too much, and B) hides my quilting imperfections.

: )