More quilting and a day closer to back relief

 I am plugging along with the six quilts from my customer, and can see the end is near! Number four was a colorful batik jelly roll, and made a nice backdrop to the elegant quilting.

I like the colors here. The turquoise sets off the sunset colors in the rest of the quilt.

The panto had a paisley and feather vibe, which was a perfect foil to the backing of peacock feathers.

This backing fabric is lovely! Too bad she didn't pop for enough fabric to have the feathers going up instead of across the back. Be careful with directional fabrics on backings! You'll need extra to get the motifs going the right way.

I worked on the baby quilt repair for a couple of days (and evenings!) and I have the top as far along as it is going to be. It is still a tad baggy, but looks soooooo much better. After trimming all the threads, I assessed the back and see it needs some patching. I put it aside for now, and will come back to it shortly.

Here is a midway picture. I forgot to take the before picture, so there are already six frames sewn on.

You can see that the frames have covered the worst of the worn through spots, and the bagginess is really obvious.

All the frames are on and I have cleverly (ha ha) hidden some of the bulk under the frames as I went along. I also stitched around the little quilted motifs (where cornerstones would be) and took in more of the bulk there. I smoothed fabric out toward the edges, and re-sewed the zig-zag finish the maker used, hiding the folds under the stitching. It still has some baggy spots, but is much better.

The zig-zagged motifs are really cute, and got lost in all that bagging of the fabrics. I flattened them out as best I could and stitched over the new folds of fabric.

Not perfect, but now you can see the squirrel!

Quilt five of the six quilt project was this chilly selection of fabrics. I thought the fabrics exuded winter so I used a wintery panto and thread selection.

This jelly roll of frosty batiks makes a sharp contrast to its purpose...to keep someone warm!

The backing was a low contrast leaf fabric.

Panto: Fresh Snow, in silver Glide thread.

It is always exciting to get a package, and I was thrilled to get my Elsie Campbell book of string quilts. I love her use of color in quilts, and have several pins of her designs on my Pinterest account. I made one of her patterns after seeing the actual quilt from her book Squares and Triangles when I was visiting Amish country in Pennsylvania. There was an exhibit of her quilts upstairs in a fabric store, and I was hooked. I bought the book and made the quilt. Today I got Elsie's book, String Quilts, and am itching to make two of the patterns in the book.

Here is the book. All the quilts are beautiful!

This quilt makes me  very happy. I would love to make it.

This one is the one that made me buy the book. I have to make this quilt!

This is the quilt Elsie made, and it was in her book. I saw it and my heart beat faster. 

This is my attempt to make the pattern from the book. I really enjoyed making it and still enjoy it on my guest bed to this day.

I am pleased to say I finished number six of the jelly roll quilts. My customer came today and I am on to the next project. I have a repair in the works as well as a large modern quilt on the longarm. I'm loving the quilting pattern on it, and will be showing you when I finish the quilting.

The last of six very nice quilts for the customer's family.

The panto is Posy Feathers

Another great backing, too.

This sums it up, doesn't it? After a haircut tomorrow, I'll be back in the studio.

I love quilting and hope to do it for years to come.

I love aqua therapy!

 If I have to do PT, I hope it always includes aqua therapy. The pool at the Wellness Center is warm and calm, with only a few early morning swimmers doing laps while I am exercising. My therapist, Laurie, is a perky, slim girl who is always happy and encouraging. Being a longtime water baby ( I have been swimming since I could walk) I have thoroughly enjoyed my time in the pool. I'm feeling a little better and definitely stronger.

On the Homefront, I can still do only one quilt a day before the pain is too debilitating. I think that's okay, and I am slowly plowing through the line of projects . Here are the quilts from the last few days.

My friend, Linda, brought a family heirloom in to be repaired. Seems a puppy found one corner of the quilt delicious and chewed it completely off! I started by un-picking the back-to-front binding and cutting two pieces of closely matching solid fabric for the new corner.

I stitched the front piece along the original seam

I pressed the long edge of the back triangle under and hand stitched it on, then carefully trimmed the old , damaged part off, added a triangle of batting, and restitched the binding.

I hand quilted the corner like the other corners, and gave the quilt a wash and dry. Voila! Good as new!

My quilting isn't as tiny and even as the maker's, but it looks okay front and back.

The original label took a beating, too, so I scanned the photo of Nina (the maker) and printed it, (and the details of the quilt) onto EQ printable fabric.

It came out very nice, and I was happy.

This quilt is wonderful. Obviously, Nina was a master at precise hand piecing and quilting.

All those little diamonds, all perfect. Aside from one tiny hole and a place along the side where the top fabric came loose from the binding, the quilt was perfect. A quick stitch up of the flaws and the quilt is ready to go home and be used for many years to come.

On Sunday-Funday I quilted this project someone in my evening guild made.

Its a charity quilt, so I used a loose stipple for the quilting.

I'm sure some child will love the bright colors!

I had just enough of this swirly black fabric in my stash to piece the backing.

I bound it by machine, and it is ready to donate.

Yesterday, after PT, I quilted number three of six jelly roll quilts from the same customer. This one is dark leafy batiks.

I used a panto called Leafy Vine with King Tut variegated thread. It really popped on the darker colors.

The backing was this batik.

In the morning, we got a call from the dog groomer who had a cancellation and would take Penny in the afternoon. I was thrilled, because she was looking more bear-like by the day! She always smells so fresh after a groom! Pretty girl.

Before: Our messy, woolly bear of a dog.

After: A streamlined, smooth and fluffy girl!

I started working on the next repair, and realized I hadn't taken a 'before' picture. Rats! I forget this step all the time. The quilt was Granny made and has been used by two generations of little ones in the family. Granny sewed the pink fabric to the backing (with a thin batting) then sewed the embroidered squares on with a small zig-zag. She quilted the corners between the squares with a zig-zag stitch through all layers. The quilting is made up of motifs of animals from the squares. Because there is so little quilting, the blocks were worn through wherever there was a wrinkle in the underlying pink fabric. The middle square was totally shredded and had to be replaced. I traced the motif from the same patterned block and. hand embroidered it to match.  There are two of each design in the 12 block quilt. I used off white So Fine thread to close the many tears in the blocks, and re-sewed the edges of all the blocks, carefully smoothing the excess fabric toward the edge, pinning it in place, and zig-zagging it down. I have a white with tiny pink flowers fabric, similar to the backing, to make small frames to go around each square and cover all the frayed and worn edges. I think it will work well and reinforce the quilt for many years to come.

Thankfully, there was a block to use for a pattern to re-make the missing one.

Here is my block, sewn in and looking good. I sure wish I had taken a picture of what it looked like to start with. I'll take a couple of pictures of where I am today, and what it looks like when I'm finished.

Now, I'm back to the studio and  jelly roll quilt number four...