Circles, pebbles & gingerbread kisses!

                  The long awaited sharing of the stunning black clamshell beauty is over!

True to form I have shared sneak peeks over at Facebook, sometimes it takes several days or a week or so to show you all of the quilt, this is due to the quilt being returned to it's maker.
This large (85" x 85") stunning quilt was made by Marilyn. Marilyn sure makes some lovely class samples! Marilyn's brief to me was to stitch in the ditches around the clam shells, but no quilting ON the clam shells. Then for the border Marilyn wanted circles and pebbles using a variegated thread. Sadly the photo's don't show up the fabulous thread, but I did take a photo of the spool of thread! From there you will have to trust me that the thread is lovely, it works so well with all the colours in the clam shells.

I worked at getting a variety of circular designs, each slightly different. When you are quilting on a domestic machine ( I used my Bernina 440 for over 6yrs before purchasing my long arm machine) you could easily see what you had already quilted. On a long arm machine you need to roll the quilt back and forth, even then you can only see approximately 26 inches of the quilt at one time, so I took plenty of photo's as my guide.

         Some circle designs took on a life of their own! Like this one, a bit like a face I thought?

In the background of the circles I quilted what felt like to me was 'movement'. Simple back and forth meandering, it feels like slow moving water, or moon light.

Marilyn's Clam shells have an explosion of  fascinating designs, piecing and embroideries..............................

Marilyn decided on a black batting which was a wise choice as we can run the risk that when the quilt front and backing are black, white batting's can 'beard' through. Marilyn pieced a pretty backing from a William Morris fabric framed with a beige then black solid fabrics.

If you would like to take classes with Marilyn please contact her through her website *here*.

By the way, Simon was on hand when the photographing took place.......................................

Next to share with you is Kerryn's delightful 'Christmas Inspirational Stitchery Quilt'. Made using Michelle Ridgway's Gingerbread stitchery booklet, Anni Down's " Under the Mistletoe" fabric,   Cottage Garden and Aurifil threads.

The Country Yard has put together inspirational packs which include fabrics, thread and Michelle's booklet to get you spirited along on the Christmas journey!

Kerryn adores her stitcheries to have cross hatching, to secure, to add extra texture all without taking away from her lovely stitching. For these times I always use a very fine thread.

My collection of Glide threads are growing, I have many threads I love and use often, they work well through my machine, life is too short to be fussing with 'headache' threads!

The sun going down photo, see the textures...................a pretty ribbon border on pretty fabrics!

Thank you for stopping by, enjoy the week to come.

Helen Stubbings & Kathy Schmitz fabrics

                                                 
                                                    Hello and welcome good people!
    Today I am sharing with you Fleur's pretty baby quilt and one of my own quilts finished.

Isn't this a  pretty little quilt, so soft and sweet, made from Helen Stubbings fabrics, simple piecing and simple quilting.

                         Fleur asked for simple ditch stitching and cross hatching.............done!
A photo of the back shows off the simplicity, the use of wool batting has worked well.

I am excited to share a finish of my own, my Wendy Briggs stitcheries using a fat quarter bundle by Kathy Schmitz , her fabric range "Piecemakers".

I really like the traditional style of cross hatching across the stitcheries, to do this I always used a fine blending thread. The stitcheries themselves were completed using Cottage Garden Threads and Aurifil threads.

Throw in a funky feather, orange peel, swirls, straight lines, curling ribbon and a swagged border and you have a nicely textured quilt.

        Part of the fabric bundle was a panel that I thought worked well as part of the backing.

     A photograph in front of my Wisteria bush on a warm fine spring day was pleasing.
I have had a florist friend staying for a couple of days and I thought it would be nice to have a vase of freshly "'picked & plonked in a vase" display in the guest bedroom.

         A pretty sad attempt when you see the lovely bunch my friend made me from her garden!

I love the white Protea (which she grows) nestled in some other pretty flowers and wrapped up with some grapevine.

Happy spring days to you!

Custom Quilting.................

Hello Poppets! Always lovely to have you stopping by for a visit.
 More customers quilts to share, thank you  so much to my lovely customers for trusting me with your beautiful quilts.
First are two quilts made by Pam, the first one you will recognise as this is the forth or fifth quilt of the same design I have custom quilted.

A mystery stitchery exclusive to The Country Yard. Compiled of piece work and of course stitcheries. Pam asked for Custom quilting. 

Ditch stitching, diagonal lines for the stitchery blocks, swirls for the main part of the quilt and our beloved feathers!

Words of friendship is the theme.
The stitchery below of the two sitting on the bench has me thinking of the Forest Gump film, where he says "life is like a box of chocolates................" how true!
Where would we be without our treasured friends?

Pam's second quilt is a table runner, more adorable cute stitcheries and clever piecing.

Helen Stubbings of Hugs and Kisses designed this cute focal piece for your table called " Tea for Two".

I did very simple custom quilting, stitching in those ditches again, around the teapot, straight lines for the border and a spiral square for the middle, better seen in the following photo of the back.

Thank you Pam.
Next is a happy quilt made by Stephanie as a Christmas gift for her sister-in-law.

Stephanie asked for custom quilting, she also gave me an Auriful variegated thread to be used on the cream fabrics, this threads variegation starts from a very soft lemon moving up through to a royal blue.

Lots of ditch stitching, background fill, swirls, orange peel and a celtic ribbon/rope for the border, chosen by Stephanie.

Stephanie's sister-in-law is sure to be happy when she opens her Christmas present this year!