Today, on St. Patrick's Day, I tackled the 4 green trapezoid areas.

I knew I wanted to do something leafy. But somewhere in the back of my mind I wanted something with a swirl. I drew and redrew. I chalked and rechalked. Nothing was pleasing me. And then I found a stencil that looked like it had enough of a swirly vein that I could make it work in the trapezoid block:

I chalked a section of the vein that I knew I wanted:

Then, by readjusting the angle of the stencil I made the vein go in the directions I wanted for the edges of the block:

Using a medium green Aurifil 50 wt. cotton thread #2840, I stitched the vein:

And, because the top leaves were all going in the same direction, I continued on with them:

The bottom leaves were trickier. They swirled in the center so they changed directions. But in the end, what appeared was a swirly, leafy design that fit the space:

Tomorrow, it's on to the borders!

I get some of the most beautiful quilts to work on! This Jinny Beyer customer quilt has been on and off my machine for the past couple of weeks.

As soon as I saw this beauty, I had ideas in my mind of how I wanted to quilt it. My customer asked for a pantograph in the middle, with separate borders. That is a treatment known as "all-over plus". I looked through my pantos, but I couldn't find anything that would do this quilt justice. So I stewed about it.

Then I realized it would be about the same time and effort for me do a special quilting treatment as it would be to do an all-over plus. As long as my special treatment was freehand, with little or no SID, no acrylic rulers, and no complicated stencils I knew I could afford to do it. I called her and asked her what she thought, and she said "do whatever you want to!" I really do have the best customers.

From the beginning I knew I wanted to use So Fine poly thread for a nice, delicate background effect. If she would've asked for thread with bling, I would've jumped right on it! But this quilt is so stunning all by itself. So I decided to make the quilting thread somewhat subdued.

The border was stenciled on lightly so I could keep the feathers even. I didn't make a spine because I didn't want it to be too thready or too much work.

Then I stenciled a vein in each of the "arms" that radiate out from the center block of the quilt. I quilted the vein, and then using a very fun and easy-flowing technique, I quilted ruffled leaves all around it:

This is the point at which my machine decided it doesn't like to play with So Fine thread. Thankfully, I was able to finish the ruffled leaves and send my So Fine thread off to a new home.

I already know that my machine has a love affair with Aurifil thread. So I switched out all of the remaining colors for this quilt to Aurifil 50 wt. cotton instead. It is similarly delicate to look at, loves being in the bobbin, and is beautiful to work with. My tension became perfect again!

In the aqua/purple angular sections I chose color #5006 , which is a bit lighter than aqua. I chalked and stitched a straight line for the spine. Then I freehanded the feathers along the spine, not actually touching it:

The purple corners on this quilt are at right angles. So I chose to do a squiggly line through each strip of fabric. It created a bit of a challenge when it came to getting around the ruffled leaves. I chose color #2520, which is a nice deep purple. I love how it turned out:

Next are the green trapezoid areas. I have a beautiful green thread already picked out. But I'm not sure how to quilt it yet! Probably it will have leaves. We'll see what tomorrow brings.

This has been a busy week! This retreat quilt was quilted with the pantograph "Brush Fire" by Nancy Read. The center blocks had fussy-cut skulls with flames on them. So the obvious choice was a flame design on the quilt using Sulky Blendables #4004 "Golden Flame" 30 wt. cotton thread, which is a variegated orange/red/yellow. In the bobbin I tried my new Magna-Quilt 50 wt. cotton prewound bobbins, which were wonderful.

I love how the thread looks as it crosses the different colors of fabric:

The piecing pattern on the next quilt is called A Quick Trip, and my customer made it for a baby boy. Because of the adorable gecko border fabric, I finally had an excuse to buy Pat Ritter's "Lounge Lizards" pantograph!

How cute are these geckos??

I used Rainbows #836 "Citrus Cooler" 40 wt. variegated poly thread on top and a Magna-Glide prewound bobbin for perfect tension. Once again, I just love seeing how the variegated colors travel over different colored fabric:

Next up is this gorgeous quilt which was pieced by a customer. It's a Jinny Beyer pattern, and I love the stunning colors! My customer has requested Custom Lite, which is an all-over design in the body of the quilt, with separate border treatments. I can't wait to audition thread for this quilt!

In other news, my machine is currently for sale. I am on the hunt for another machine. You can see the ad as well as pictures of the machine in its current working condition by clicking on "Machine For Sale" under the Pages heading in the column on the left of my blog page.

After a few weeks and lots of design twists and turns, I have finally finished my customer's beautiful blue and white quilt! As you can see, it lays as flat as a piece of slate and that is because of the batting - Thinsulate polyester.

My tension dilemmas, which were caused by running out of my prewound Magna-Glide bobbins, were solved by substituting white 100 wt. silk in the bobbin. The match was so perfect I couldn't even believe it! Also, I discovered that YLI 60 wt. cotton thread prefers to be loaded at the back of my machine (standard thread loading procedure), instead of being loaded near the front with my new spool holders.

There is a LOT of stippling on this quilt now, which I love. Not only do I love the way it makes the motifs pop out, but I love the relaxing rhythm of stippling. I set my machine to manual mode at 18% speed, make some tension samples, and then just go with the flow. Saving it for last actually unwinds my brain after all the hours of trying to come up with a design for the main areas.

I'm delivering this quilt tomorrow at our Guild meeting, and picking up several more. My customers are a Godsend, literally.

Here are way too many photos, but I was loving how the light was shining in my studio today: