Snow in Summer and Midnight Stars

Snow in summer............oh yes please! There is no snow here sadly but a beautiful quilt called "Snow in Summer". It is a Kim Diehl design made by Elizabeth.

That's the before shot and here's for the after quilting shot................................................

Elizabeth made my job easy as her applique and piecing is lovely. I was naturally asked to custom quilt this pretty quilt and Elizabeth chose Matilda's Own Oh Sew Soft polyester batting.

I was keen to give the snowballs some nice movement between the outer snowballs and the inner cluster. It's nice to have some cohesion to blend and frame every design together, I did this by maintaining the cross-hatching through the central sections of each snowball. Hook feather wreaths for the outer section and some straight echoed lines for the central gathering of snowballs.

I backtracked several times over the line of quilting where the cross-hatching lines came together, two reasons: the first to 'hide' my backtracking, the second to create a 'zoom' section for the eye.

A nice detailed background fill of pebbles, swirls, echo's and the odd bit of "McTavishing". The Applique shapes didn't need much more than stitching in the ditch around them and some petals on the flower shapes.

All the quilting was achieved by hand guiding my Gammill with the exception of the cross-hatching and straight lines, I used a ruler for those parts. Because you love the back shots here are two just for you!

Now to share "Midnight Stars" with you. Made by Kerryn of The Country Yard  using two layer cakes by Moda (Black Tie) and a Moda bakeshop pattern to create a lovely sample.

This quilt is leaning on the larger size at 84" square. I used an edge to edge pattern by  Keltia Quilting called "Limetree". It's a nice soft classic pattern. Glide thread "Mocha" was the perfect thread to blend with the creams, greys, tans and black fabrics. The batting is Matilda's Own Cotton/Poly.

                Thank you Elizabeth and Kerryn for your continued support and trust in me.

Lastly I had to share Simon being an "Egg".

Away with the fairies!

Yes folks that's me all too often! I got caught out good time last week. One of my lovely customers from Wanganui dropped by to deliver me four of her stunning quilt tops to quilt. Her husband had rung the door bell, no answer so they came to the side door which was open to find me...........yes they found me in my all too familiar pose.................... quilting away with ear phones in singing at the top of my voice! Oh dear the poor souls...................they said I must be happy in my work...............yes but boy oh boy was I red faced! I am a better quilter than a singer!
Here is the quilt I was working on at the time.

Pamela pieced together this pretty quilt for her friends daughter who has just had her first baby. Pamela's friend Jeanne machine embroidered all the fairies.

I was asked to do heavy custom quilting for the backgrounds of the fairies, each colour set I quilted slightly different and of course these pretty blocks really did need some feathers.

As usual the photo's don't give you a true feel for the beauty. The fairy wings were stitched with very fine shimmering threads.

These fairies look like they are cross stitched. I added some curves and curved cross hatching and pebbles and swirls.

Pamela chose Matilda's Own 'Oh Sew' Soft Polyester and asked for the "Full Quiltme Service" ~ make, attach and hand stitch binding to the back of the quilt.

It's difficult to see on the busy fabric of the sashings and borders but I quilted simple straight lines and a swirl/feather and a mini ribbon candy for the pieced top and bottom sashings.

Thank you Pamela, I am sure your friends daughter will be delighted with such a thoughtful and beautiful gift.

A couple of weekends past I went tramping the "Bream Head Assault".............it sure was an 'assault' on my legs going up all those endless steps from Urquarts Bay! But like all steps up the view makes it all worth while........oh and the swim at Ocean Beach to finish it off!

That is the Hen from "Hen and Chicks" behind the big cargo ship. This gives you an idea of how high up you get.

Looking back at the huge rocky pinnacle with Marsden Refinery in the background.

here we are heading down to Ocean beach for a much needed swim!

 Here is the link to the Department of Conservation's info about this tramp.

Dear William

Hello and welcome to February! The year is into fifth gear already! Well it certainly is for me.
Today I share the lovely quilt Margaret made, it is a design by Michelle Hill, William Morris inspired called "Dear William".

Margaret wanted her applique to really show but also wanted some knockout quilting to complement her beautiful machine applique. After several discussions we came up with a plan.......to go for it!

So I went for it! Many hours of quilting and who know's how many metres of thread! Tiny detailed pebbles with the odd swirl here and there and that was AFTER the stitching around ALL the applique.

              Margaret chose wool/poly batting which helps make the applique and the quilting pop.

When that part of the detailed quilting was complete I moved onto the borders, which is actually one piece. The border is a busy fabric so I went with piano keys quilting and "e"'s for the outer pink which seems to frame the quilt rather nicely.

                      Back - lovers - hold - onto - your - hats! You are going to love the back!

Margaret was delighted with her quilt and said we made a good team! I am more than happy to agree with her.

On a non quilting front I wanted to share my frequent dilemma when sitting outside for breakfast, lunch and/or dinner................................

Last custom quilts for the year......................

Hello pretty people! Time to share the last two custom quilts of 2015. Both have been made by Pam and both are for two of her grandchildren...........lucky grandkids!

The first quilt was made especially for Pam's 16 year old grandson, a pattern by Cosy Quilts, called "Colour Fall." Pam chose black batting as the bulk of the quilt is black as well as the backing fabric.

I used Glide thread in black for all the quilting of straight lines and continuous curves (aka: orange peel) and of course the stipple on the borders.

The next quilt is for Pam's granddaughter. Pam used Hugs and Kisses  pre - cut hexie shapes for the hexagon flowers.

               I just adore the whimsical layout of the hexagon blocks, fun, fresh and interesting!

The sprinkling of white thread for the machine embroidery flower middles adds a nice touch. I quilted a 1/4" in from the edge of each block ( I did no ditch stitching here as the seams were pressed open) then I stitched in the ditch around the flowers, then 1/4" away from the flowers then I pebbled with the odd swirl to add some interest for the eye to roam over, using Madeira thread.

The cream sashing was the perfect space for some more swirls and the continuation of the leaves from the applique helps pull all the quilting into a lovely cohesion. Pam loves her stipple, so I did so on the sashings and borders, this time using Glide thread in a light olive colour.

Isn't this quilt lovely and cheerful. I'm sure Pam's grandchildren with love these quilts and all the love and care she has stitched into both of them is a treasure in it's self!

Back soon with the very last customer quilts for 2015!!

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.