Things are humming in the studio

 I feel best in the morning, so I have started my days early to get a leg up on the queue of quilts. I'm making friends with my HQ, Chewie, and we make a good pair. Starting yesterday, Chewie and I were on a roll. Here is what transpired Friday.

The baby quilt repair is finished, and on its way to Colorado. I re-embroidered the missing parts and darned some rips and holes in the backing. This is as good as it will ever be.

Fresh embroidery, frames and patching

The flannel backing is also repaired.

Remember these blocks? I finished sewing them and threw them up on the design wall to study.

The Lonni Rossi fabrics are fabulous!

Meanwhile, I worked on a very large quilt for a customer. At the end of the day, it wasn't done, so Penny and I shut down the machine and left it until today.

Let's go!!

First thing this morning, Penny and I turned on the lights, the heater and the machine, ready to get a lot of work done. The first task was to finish the big quilt from yesterday.

The quilt will be a new bed cover for the customer.

Panto: Feather Flowers

The backing is a very soft bed sheet. This will be a comfortable cover, for sure!

Next up, a bevy of quilts from one customer. It seems quilters stockpiled their tops until I was back in business! I'm happy about it, but working hard to get caught up.

The first quilt was this elegant starry piece.

Panto: Phoenix

There were pretty flowers on the backing, too.

The second Quilt was replete with peacocks!

All the fabrics used were opulent with gold accents.

This is the back! The clever use of the panel here makes the quilt reversible.

Panto: Paisley Feather

I decided to move the Lonni Rossi blocks on point to see how they would look. I love it!! I fired up my EQ and designed what I am going to do with them. Adding tiny sashing and cornerstones made all the difference. Some contrasting setting triangles and a Lonni Rossi fabric border, and voila! Perfect! Now, I just have to make it...

                                                   

Don't they look 100% better this way?

Here is the computer mock up.

Sunday-Funday tomorrow. I'd better hit the sack so I'll be fresh and raring to go.

One customer...four quilts!

 Quilting has been more of a pleasure since having my injections. I was able to put in five hours for two days! I had a rest on PT day, but was back at it today, finishing the last of four small quilts for one of my favorite customers

The first one is this colorful Autumn leaves quilt.

The panto, Twinkling leaves, was perfect to give the quilt a breezy Fall feeling. I used a variegated King Tut thread in the colors of the blocks.

Add a lovely plaid to the back, and it's done!

Happiness is a warm blanket. Don't you love Linus and Snoopy!?

Panto: Bubbles

Happiness on the back, too!

This panel is called Blast Off!

The panto is also called Blast Off! How great is that?

If you look closely, you'll see tiny Saturns on the backing.

I like this simple yet effective pattern on this child's quilt

The quilt maker used more fabrics from the collection Blast Off, so used the Blast Off panto on this quilt, too.

The back has the wonderfully kookie rockets flying about in space.

My sister sent the few things I wanted from Dad's house after we moved him to the assisted living. You can imagine my horror when the postman delivered this...

How the heck does this happen?

I love the tape they put on here in Blairsville; "Received in Damaged Condition"

Ya think?!!

A three part tea cup with a steeper and lid lost the steeper completely. It was smashed to bits. Another coffee cup with my grandson's pictures as a baby was also destroyed, but I'm okay with that because my daughter in law  gifted us one just like it.

The pizza pan and Corning casserole dish with a glass lid came through okay because there was a small crocheted blanket inside and it was wrapped in bubble wrap. Amazing.

The tea cup works fine! I had my evening toddy, and now I'm off to bed.

A finished customer quilt and a day of rest

Mr Wazoo helped me load the big modern quilt for an artistic customer on Sunday-Funday. The roll of batting is way too heavy for me to lift, and he was looking for something to do to help. The quilting went along without a snag and I love how it turned out!

I don't get to quilt many modern quilts, but I know the empty space usually has intricate quilting patterns.

This quilt has loads of blank space, and some interesting pops of color.

It is a big quilt and I couldn't get it all in the picture, but I wanted you to see the colorful French braid part.

I used the panto, Bada Bing. I am loving the texture of this quilting! I think my next quilt will have this same pattern...stay tuned!

Neutral backing really shows off the quilting.

I went to aqua-therapy this morning and was feeling the effects after I got home. Sitting with the heating pad and using some Ibuprofen and Tylenol helped take the edge off the pain, but I wasn't able to work in the studio. I worked on my latest customer repair, hand sewing the new pieces over the worn ones. It will be an ongoing project for a while.

 By this time tomorrow I will have had the procedure on my back and will be recovering at home. I'm a little nervous, but I think it will be fine. I'll keep you all posted with the details. Now, its off to bed!

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.