This beautiful, large wallhanging is up next and my customer has asked for a custom treatment on it. I am really looking forward to this one! There are pieced areas and open areas, which make for very interesting texture possibilities. Here is a shot of the pattern, minus the flying geese:

The flying geese will be stitched-in-the-ditch, as will most of the other elements. Stabilizing is the first step and I'm using YLI monofiliment thread on top with Magna-Glide classic prewound bobbins for all of that. 

It should take most of the day tomorrow to finish the SID. Along the way I'll need to baste the open areas as I go. The area below is my first design challenge. I am thinking of doing various quilting designs in the light blue areas, using a thread that blends, as well as one or two quilted designs that stand out. Still not sure yet...

It all sounds so ambitious while I'm planning it in my head! Anyone who quilts know that the planning stage for such a beautiful quilt can take days. All I really know for sure today, is that I'll be stitching-in-the-ditch tomorrow. 

God willing.

If you've never been to Fallbrook, CA you've missed a gem-of-a-town that's full of small shops. The quilt shop in Fallbrook, however, is sprawling. I have only found one quilt shop there: the Quilter's Cottage owned by Diane and Jan. There is so much to look at in this shop! One of the first things that struck me was their love for making beautiful things with fabric. Besides what you would expect in a quilt store (quilts!), they make purses and caddies and clothing and anything else that turns fabric into eye-candy.

Here is one of their displays featuring children's fabric, which I loved because of the Dr. Seuss quilt. And the children's clothing was absolutely adorable! There are tons of patterns to choose from as well:

A baby crib displays their assortment of fabric books they've made from kits:

The baby fabric room is peaceful and serene. Which I'm sure is why this guy has his own bed in there:

Their Japanese fabrics were gorgeous! This corner is one of those spots that will just draw you in and hold you there to soak in all of the beauty:

I'm not a huge farm-animal fan. My sweet neighbors up in Northern California have a rooster that yells all day long. I love the sound of a rooster, but that guy yells. Being away from him for lo these many days must've been just what I needed, as I felt myself drawn to this beautiful applique quilt:

The custom quilting was perfect and simple:

The Quilter's Cottage has at least one machine quilter that finishes their quilts, and she uses a computerized machine for doing various all-over designs. Like this patriotic design:

These adorable vintage-inspired wall-hangings were one of the cutest projects I've ever seen. They were small, so finishing them in an evening would be perfect. And they were made for the seasons, so you could change them out through the year:

The personality of this shop is warm and friendly, and it just pulled me right in. As if the fabrics and projects and notions and patterns weren't enough, I was treated to the most delicious lemon coriander bread ever! 

A trip to Fallbrook wouldn't be complete without stopping in to the Quilter's Cottage for some friendly conversation, inspiration, and goodies. To check out their store online, go to:

Quilter's Cottage

My heartfelt thanks to Diane and Jan! 

Since I'm on vacation down in Southern California, I decided to take you all along with me to the quilt shops my Mom & I have been checking out in the area.

Today we visited my Mom's new favorite: Pieced with Love, located in Murrieta:

She has a great location, with lots of parking and easy access off of the 215 freeway. But the location isn't what makes this place so wonderful. It's Sandie.

Sandie owns this shop, and has an enthusiasm that is contagious. Her warmth and friendliness just pulled me in, and her willingness to share her business secrets with me made me wish we had HOURS more to spend together.

A tour of her shop reveals the diverse selection of fabrics she has, as well as her obvious experience with making quilts:

As I strolled through her colorful shop I was really taken by the Lone Star in the photo below:

And it just so happens that Sandie has put together a kit with the exact fabrics. Which I just had to buy:

I hope you've enjoyed this quilt shop tour! Check out Sandie's shop online at:

Pieced With Love Quilt Shop

Thanks so much, Sandie, for sharing your quilt shop with us!

After researching online about the kind of quilting that would be on an Underground Railroad quilt, and discovering the "orange peel" design, I ended my day on the 16th with a version I thought I liked. 

But I found myself losing sleep over it. And that's because it wasn't exactly right. It had the appeal I was looking for, but it did not fill the space to my satisfaction. 

So, I unquilted it. 

Then I measured and drew pictures and measured again until I finally came up with an "orange peel" design that would fill the space in the black inner border. It's difficult to see it on the front of the quilt, unless the light catches it just right:

But it is unmistakeable on the back:

The key for me was to see the area in a "grid". After seeing the grid, I could envision the way I would use my acrylic templates. I used all three of the templates below to quilt the design:

And once I cracked that code, the quilting went smoothly and quickly.

It turns out that planning is everything. I know that, I really do! But for some reason when something looks so easy, it ends up not being so easy. And then I find myself going back to square one and taking the time to meticulously plan.

This beautiful half-sized Underground Railroad quilt has been such a pleasure to work on these past 2 days. The fabrics are beautiful, the piecing is easy to quilt on, and the only thing that has stumped me is the large black inner border area. There are seams in it, but not for SID. 

Since this quilt mimics a replica from the past, and since the Underground Railroad tradition is somewhat humble, I wanted to find a very simple design for the black area. Already my customer and I had agreed that the custom quilting shouldn't be dense. All those tiny pieces in each block could therefore not be stitched-in-the-ditch. So I found evenly-spaced ways in each block to bring out her piecing without over-quilting any of them.

But that black inner pieced border.... 

I auditioned 5 or 6 different designs including flower, feather and star motifs. I also tried rope and leaf borders. But in the end I was not happy with any of them. In my mind I could see an "orange peel" shape that really wanted to be in that area. My stencils were not the right size or scale. So I used my medium Petal Plus acrylic ruler to connect the pieced squares-on-point. :

I like the texture it creates, and I can already tell that when all four sides are quilted with that design, it will make me smile.

This pretty pastel quilt was originally going to have a coffee-cup quilting design on it. But my customer decided it would look nicer with a flowery design. And she was right! I used a flowery pantograph called "Floreale" by Patricia E. Ritter of Urban Elementz:

The back of this quilt is made up of pieced-together flannel receiving blankets. It's so soft and cuddly!

On the front I wanted to use a pastel variegated thread to play into the baby blanket theme. So I chose Rainbows polyester 40 wt. #807 ("Seashell"):

I paired it with Aurifil 50 wt. white cotton in the bobbin. I set my SPI to 9 and used a 4.0 needle. The tension was great! My machine just happens to love quilting on flannel, so that's always a plus.

Next up on the rack is the beautifully-pieced Underground Railroad quilt. It's a pure joy to behold! The fabrics are warm and soothing and vintage-y:

My goal for the quilting will be "less is more", so that the piecing is enhanced but the quilt will not be stiff. I may use Hobbs 80/20 batting in order to fill out the unquilted areas more naturally. 

: )

When I positioned the pantograph design to run down the center of the panel in this quilt, I didn't expect it to be so perfectly postioned. Notice how the spiral in the quilting design landed in between the 2 spirals in the panel. I did not plan this, but it was a nice touch:

Here is the finished product: 

The thread behaved beautifully on top. There were a few areas on the back where the bobbin was getting tighter as I quilted near the end of it. So I replaced the bobbins whenever they were a little more than half empty. That seemed to help. But it left a whole bunch of bobbins that are now a little less than half full. 

The back: 

Next up is this pretty pastel quilt that is going to be quilted with coffee cups. The details are still pending, but I'm looking forward to having some fun with it. It will be a gift for a special person in my customer's life. 

I have to admit that I don't always know what a quilt wants, right away. But with this quilt I knew exactly what I wanted to do the first time I laid eyes on it. Since all of that piecing is done in creams it spoke to me like a background. But with more interest than if it had been one solid piece of fabric. So I knew I wanted to treat the entire area of cream fabric as if it were one large background. What made this quilt top pop out to me were the turquoise stars, squares and tiny inner border - as well as the two special cowboy panels. In my head I could see them "popping" out of the background in a soothing way. The panels are quite serene and kind of dreamy-looking up close, and clear thread was the only way I would be able to keep them intact, and at the same time quilted.

The tension on this quilt was a struggle. I used Aurifil 40 wt. cotton on top and in the bobbin. I had several loops on the back, random of course. And every now and then there would be a little tangle on the top. None of it required re-doing, but it still bothered me. I upped the needle to a 4.5 and that did help to eventually eliminate the aggravating train tracks on the top and bottom. I usually reach for the thread lubricant when this happens, but I didn't want the thread to darken at all. So I hammered it out and called it good.

The next quilt on the rack is this very colorful panel quilt that is surrounded by borders. Lots of work went into the borders on this quilt and at first I thought I would quilt them each specially. But that panel in the middle was giving me fits. What could I do? Doing another medium meander, and then adding the extra border treatments would've been too expensive considering what the outcome would look like. The fabrics are really the star of this little quilt, as you can see:

So I firmly decided that a pantograph was the best solution. And knowing that this customer prefers quilting designs that are on the dense side, I rifled through my favorite evenly-spaced pantographs looking especially for something with a swirl. The panel fabric has some swirls in the artwork, and so I chose "A Little Bit This" by Barbara Becker of Four Paws Quilting:

And this delicious thread by Madeira, Polyneon variegated #1605:

I've paired it up with Magna-Soft spun polyester prewound bobbins in an earthy color called "Cleopatra" (#24515), which matches the olive-green on the front. I'm using a 4.0 needle and so far the tension is nice on the top and bottom.

I love the texture of this pantograph:

And the beautiful variegation of the thread against the fabrics:

Somewhere in this day I lost an entire hour. Either I read the clock wrong, or I got lost in my work. Whatever the reason was, I am now an hour behind. Kitchens are stern taskmasters - at least mine is - and now I'm hoping that my Wonderful Husband has also lost an hour is his day....

: )

Today was spent entirely on this very pretty cowboy quilt. It began with a row of SID in the turquoise pieces and border using YLI clear thread. Then I switched to cotton thread and began doing all of the meandering up until I got to the middle - where these beautiful panels are:

These panels needed quilting in them. They are kind of thick and crunchy to quilt on. But I've worked with them before so I knew they'd love to be quilted with clear thread. I outlined the artwork, and then finished with a "beaded curtain" design to fill in the open background of the panels:

To achieve the "beaded curtain" design, you would simply do this first (this is yesterday's quilt):

But then you would double back on the chalked line to make little "beads".

After a very long day, I'm happy to say that I'm more than halfway done with this quilt. This has been such a nice quilt to work on and I'm looking forward to facing it again tomorrow.