It's Friday.............................

Today is Friday and I can now share two quilts that you have seen sneak peeks of on Facebook.
First is Norma's colourful quilt made for her 19 year old grandson.

Measuring 68" x  68" Sew Soft Polyester batting Madeira AeroQuilt thread and Keryn Emmerson's edge to edge pattern "Feathered Shell". (sorry about the post shadow)
I thought I had better take a photo of the back as it's difficult to make out the quilting pattern on the busy fabrics.

Next is Elizabeth's "Boughs of Holly" a Red Button Company design. Elizabeth tells me there a lots of tiny red button's to stitch on the vine...........I love that she saved sewing those on until after the quilting!

Measuring only 20" square this wee quilt packs a punch! I wished I had taken a photo before I attached the binding. Here is a better photo of the textures.

Elizabeth used wool felt for the holly leaves which add lovely dimensions especially with the "McTavishing" heavy background filler. The leaves of course needed some veins, see the before photo...................................

                                 And for the back.......................................

Today I popped out to the garden to take photo's of two of our hibiscus flowers.

A nice splash of colour when there is little else of colour in the garden, other than green that is!

                                            While wandering who should pounce on me!

Thank you Norma and Elizabeth for sending me your lovely quilts to work on. Happy weekend everyone!

Custom quilting Crinoline Ladies.

Your patience has paid off..........................drum roll please for  Veron's Crinoline Ladies!

In between showers of rain I managed to take a photo, but there was that pesky shadow!
This delightful, lovingly made quilt is called "Forever and Always" by Bella Embroidery Designs.

Veron has a real flare for fabrics and her stitching is as near to perfect as humanly possible! As Veron lives down in Wanganui we corresponded by phone and email as to how she wanted this beauty quilted. I emailed several photo's of other stitchery/applique quilts that I have quilted in varying quilting styles, from simple ditch stitching to cross hatching through to my dense 'doodle quilting'. Veron chose my dense 'doodle quilting'.

Her motto was "if  I am going to pay someone to quilt for me it may as well be how I want it quilted".

Once I get going on this type of quilting it really does take on a life of it's own, the doodling just flows from feathers to wave type McTavishing to pebbles.

I have been completely amazed and humbled by how many have been viewing my work on Facebook!! I feel very blessed to have so much work flooding my doorstep..............thank you!

                   Borders and sashing were given my treatment of feathers and ribbon candy.

The ever present quilts requiring custom quilting grows weekly, quilts requiring all over quilting (edge to edge) not so much. The all over quilting takes much less time than custom, so from time to time for a break from the custom work I load a quilt needing all over quilting. This makes for a quick turn around for those wanting their quilts made over with edge to edge quilting.

Some of those larger applique pieces need some quilting on them, this helps secure, give texture and life to the applique.

                  To finish off this post here are some photo's of the backside.................enjoy!

              I hope you will join me again very soon when I share Veron's Dresden Plate quilt.

A winner!

Hello happy people!  I have been waiting patiently to share this lovely quilt with you.

"Affairs of the Heart" is a beautiful applique masterpiece designed by Aie Rossman, made by Ngaire, who dedicated and re- named the quilt 'In Memory of Ruth', her sister.
I was pretty excited when Ngaire asked me to custom quilt this quilt for her and when she said she would be entering the quilt into The Auckland Festival of Quilts under 'Open - small bed quilts, made by two or more people' that was another level of excitement!

Ngaire anxiously waited by the phone on Thursday hoping we would get the call to say we had won, then I got a text to say "WE WON".................pretty exciting!

The quilt measures 61" x 61" with black cotton backing and black backing this is a black beauty!

Ngaire gracefully and happily handed her beautiful quilt top to me with no real rules of what she wanted, I suggested some dense background fillers around the appliques to help make them pop and me being a feather fan, happily recommend feathers on the border as well some scrolls in gold metallic thread, Ngaire said 'Oh Yes please!"

I ditch stitched around every piece of applique to define Ngaire's lovely satin stitched appliques, then some pebbling in the very middle section, then out to the next section I did my version of "Mctavishing' as well as some micro scribbling in selected areas.

I hope I don't sound like a big ego freak, but I really love the quilting, I had so much fun! This was as perfect as a quilt can get to work on, lovely and square, everything just flowed so well.
This is the very first time I have had a quilt in a show for judging, so to come away with a win is the icing on the yummy cake of life!

the back, including the label

This was a lovely quilt let loose with some custom quilting. A big thank Ngaire.

"A Merry Christmas Garden"

I have finished quilting my BOM sample for the shop. This is a lovely design, it was a delight to make with simple straight forward instructions. Gail Pan is the designer of this Christmas quilt.
I gave myself one week to attach the last two blocks, two borders, quilt, label, hanging sleeve & bind.................remind me next time to give myself more time please! Never mind a few day & night shifts got this finished, it has now gone to it temporary home at The Country Yard.

My new fav thing at the moment is boxed feathers. You see there is a touch of stitchery in this quilt, the odd 'Christmasy' word...........'Love'..........'Believe'............'Blessings'.......................

I set about ditch stitching, orange peel, echos, dense background fillers of 'Mctavishing', pebbles & swirls. Did I say ditch stitching?? lol!!

Are you loving this quilt so far? We still have a few spaces available, pop over to The Country Yard website & sign up!

            I took the following photo as the light was fading, but it is probably my fav photo.

So there you go, a bit of Christmas as the month of March drifts away from us for another year. H I am off to work in our temporary shop at the Whangarei Quilt show at the Forum North tomorrow, if you are in my neck of the woods I'd love you to stop by & say hi.

Wishing you a happy weekend!