Saturday, February 7, 2015

A stitchers Garden and meet Dimples and Harry.


As a professional quilter I can never complain about enduring a boring job, every quilt is different, from size to design, texture to what quilting my customer would like.


At the end of last year Chris gave me her 'Stitchers Garden' quilt, designed by Lynda Howell. Chris made this quilt through a class at The Apple Basket to learn the different features of her Phaff machine. As classes go this was a long ongoing 18 months long!


One of the challenges I faced with this beautiful quilt was the applique blocks have already been quilted, the backgrounds have a semi lofty stabilizer on the back side and each background has it's own 'quilting'. You will notice the above block shows wavy pin tucking, so this was my challenge, I was reluctant to do any quilting in the background. Chris agreed and we decided to just quilt around the applique's, some of these had to been quilted 1/4" away as the decorative stitching protruded past the applique shapes.


The applique background fabrics were a lovely linen, many of the other fabrics had a silver overlay.


I enjoyed 'dividing and conquering' one of the pieced borders, just to simply add another level of interest.


There is just something so pleasing about feathers on a quilt.


Straight lines never go a miss either.



Thank you so much Chris for trusting me to custom quilt  your beautiful quilt. This will not be the last you see of this design because I got given another quilt from the same class!

Last blog post I put a sneaky peek photo of a present I made for a very special who celebrated her birthday yesterday, as yesterday is over I can now share......................................Meet Dimples and Harry.


Dimples (the doll) and Harry (the rabbit) were designed by Kerry Gillespie, over at My Favourite Things. Dimples sports and linen shift and dress along with some antique buttons, Harry.............the poor fella is wearing only a name tag hanging around his neck! Notice the name tag is discreetly giving him some privacy.


I miss my special friend, I miss popping into her home for a cuppa and a natter, someone who cares for me and I for her. So when her birthday was looming and I remembered I had this pattern I knew she would love it.


There is a personal joke between her and me, you see the very first time I went to visit her at her home I was so shocked to see her hanging out her kitchen window with a rifle shooting rabbits! I saw another side to my friend one that made me laugh and feel sorry for the bunnies eating the fresh veges in her garden. Anyway when I returned home and told my husband about my visit to my new friends home he started calling her 'Gunslinger'!! So the theme of bunnies remains even though our friendship is a long distance one. Happy birthday Megan!

Here in New Zealand is a long weekend as Friday was Waitangi day. So I decided to continue with the Block of the Month I am making as a sample for The Country Yard. Still only sneak peeks until AFTER  the shops New Years Launch on 7th March.


I hope your weekend is going well, with lots of creativity and joy, thanks so much for taking the time to stop by.




20 comments:

  1. What a gorgeous quilt and stunning quilting

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  2. What beautiful quilting. Keeping it in line with a modern quilt. Stunning

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  3. I loved Dimples and Harry too. Haha shooting rabbits from the kitchen window..... All I couls think of was Ma Bear from the Hillbilly Bears🐰🐰

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  4. You are so right - quilting is never boring! Great quilting, love your gifts for your friend too.

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  5. It's great what you did with Chris' quilt - I remember the discussion prior to you getting it - so well done, awesome job! Megan will love her special gift - what a lovely friend you are :-)

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  6. Wow, that looks like a challenging one to quilt, but you rose to the occasion beautifully.
    Dimples and Harry are sure to be a very appreciated gift--so cute. : )

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  7. You made a stunning quilt even more stunning!!! And Dimples & Harry are so lovely, what a sweet gift to that special friend!
    Happy stitching, Cisca x

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  8. Gosh Leeanne that stitchers garden quilt is really beautiful, lots of lovely blocks in there. Love the quilting you did too :-) And as for Dimples & Harry, well lucky Megan I say. I dont think Harry minds too much about not having any clothes :-) Love the linen shift dress on Dimples x0x

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  9. beautiful quilt and fantastic quilting!!!!

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  10. Love the story of your friend shooting rabbits in her garden ! Your feathers are lovely, as are Dimple and Harry.

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  11. I love the quilt and your quilting, just stunning. Harry's tag is covering his dimples mebbe! :D I'm tempted to make a doll, I used to make them years ago as presents. I like what Julie did with a friends wedding dress and I'm still wondering whether it's time to cut mine up! :D I'm never going to fit in it again, I'm faaar too voluptuous these days :D

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  12. I always love looking at your wonderful quilting...
    Hguz

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  13. Just beautiful! Harry and dimples are too cute xx

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  14. Wow you did an amazing job with Chris's quilt. I bet she was very happy. I love Megan's gift and I am sure she felt very spoilt.

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  15. What cuties, and fun to make too! Always love looking at your close ups of your quilting ~ It's not to hot today ~ yay ~

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  16. What a fun post - the dolls are wonderful, and the quilting is absolutely gorgeous. Thank you for sharing your strategies with the specific traits of this one.

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  17. If I ever make a quilt I am driving up to your place to have the professional finish put to it. Hope you realise I will be staying for a while as you will need to do maintenance on it before you add your professional finish to it. Because I will have bogged it so I can stay longer. LOTS of cuppa, laughs and time with the cat, AND you. But seriously, that quilt is beautiful.

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  18. That's a very nice colour scheme in Chris's quilt. Well done both of you. Dimples and Harry are very cute.

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  19. What did you quilt with? Was it white thread -- off white thread -- different color threads in different blocks????? Thank you very much.

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  20. What did you quilt with? Was it white thread -- off white thread -- different color threads in different blocks????? Thank you very much.

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