More wool applique

This might look familiar if you saw my previous post.  This is Charlotte's version of the same wool applique quilt.  When she saw Susan's quilt finished she decided she wanted hers done too. 

Charlotte used a fairly bulky wool for the sashing, it makes the feathers look alomost sculptured.  I used a cotton batting.

Margaret brought me this quilt.  She is an experienced hand quilter and had never had a quilt machine quilted before, in fact, she had never seen a long arm quilting machine.  She was so
interested to see it and watch me use it. 

Margaret wanted a piano key border and we decided on an overall pattern of feathers for the center of this big quilt.

Several quilts finished

Susan finished this wool applique quilt several years ago (wrought in 2005 according to the quilt) and I just finished the quilting on it.  The background fabric is flannel, which I have never quilted on before.  It worked real well, I used a nice fat hairy cotton thread (King Tut) which showed up well but left tons of lint all over the bobbin and bobbin area.

We considered using wool batting, usually my first choice, but ended up with cotton.  The wool applique was bulky enough that it had it's own built-in poof and didn't really need the higher loft.

This is Linda's quilt.  She didn't want real heavy quilting but did want feathers in the wide
sashing.
 
 

I stuck with the sunflower theme throughout the quilt.

The Kansas Longarm group met yesterday.  Evelyn did a program on quilting unusual fabrics, like Minkee, satin and silk.  Here she models the special vest she made to wear while she works - it has lots of pockets to keep all  her tools in.

Siriporn brought a quilt made from silk ties to show:

And Kim showed her quilt which will be entered in MQS this spring:



 

Leslie's American Jane quilt

This is Leslie's cute-as-bug quilt from an American Jane pattern.  She likes lots of quilting and wanted it to be mostly traditional. 

She says that the border just about did her in- it's made up of a zillion tiny 4-patches.

 

Leslie brought her grandaughter Shay, (or Shea?) and they posed in front of the quilt for me.

The other day when I went out to open the studio (it's in a seperate building behind our house), the lock acted stuck so I twisted it hard and it exploded!  The center core of the lock fell out and all these little springs and pieces of metal burst out and scared the dickens out of me!  Then we couldn't get IN the studio and all of Peter's tools were inside.  He managed to get it open and then made an emergency trip to buy a new lock and got it installed later that afternoon.  Have you ever seen the inside of a lock?

 

Sparky the hummingbird

Ann started this little appliqued hummingbird in a class with David Taylor.  I took the class too, and learned a lot, but my project is still unfinished.  Ann's turned out really well - she added the flowers to his pattern. I told her the hummer's name is Sparky.

She told me she wanted the fabric at the bottom to look like a rock wall, and the fabric on the right to look like a trellis.  That was fun to do.

I was concerned about finding something to do in all that blue sky area, I wanted to give the impression of movement. Luckily, Ann liked what I came up with!



My small group met at my house this week and we decided we would all work on a table runner with Kelly showing us how to make it.  She had made a bunch of them at Christmas and we had all admired them.  Here is everyone at work in my studio.  Kelly said it looked like a sweatshop.










A quilt for Autumn

Barb had me quilt this leafy wallhanging for her.  She says she has a spot in her house where she hangs a quilt that she changes with the seasons.


(So many people have asked about the pattern:  it is from Judy Martin's book, Cookies and Quilts, which is on sale right now on her website.)

I used gold metallic thread in the darker parts of the quilt and it is very sparkly in person but doesn't show real well in the photos.

I was excited to hear that my miniature Itty Bitty Boutis won a 3rd place ribbon at Road to California.  The quilts are gorgeous - check out the winners at: http://www.road2ca.com/2012winners/road/winners.html

Rita's quilt and some big artichokes

This is Rita's quilt, made as a Christmas present for her Mother-in-law.  What a nice gift!  It's a big quilt and Rita did a nice job on the piecing.

It's a busy design, so it's a little hard to see the quilting.


We bought artichokes for dinner last night and they were so huge that Peter wanted to pose with them, just to prove his head is a little bigger than they are. 

Oklahoma City Winter Quilt Show

We had a great day for a trip to Oklahoma City yesterday, it was sunny and mild and we zipped down with little traffic - It's about a 2 1/2 hour drive from Wichita.  The Oklahoma City Winter Show has lots of vendors and a small judged show.  Although small, there were some really nice quilts entered.

This hand quilted beauty won Best of Show:

 This pretty quilt combines embroidery and  beautiful quilting, it won Best Traditional quilt:

 

My quilt, Tree of Life -  with Bugs, won Best Innovative Quilt.  Yippee!

Joe and Amy Hunter are our Innova dealers and Amy is also a very talented quilter.  Her quilt won Viewer's Choice:

 

I enjoyed seeing several of Charlotte Hickman's quilts including her Daylilies:

My friend Carol Elmore was at the show doing quilt appraisals and her husband Ron was helping.  Ron is a quilter and entered one of his quilts in the show.  He makes log cabin quilts and I'm amazed how much variety he creates with that one block.

If you have every shipped a quilt you know how nerve-wracking that experience can be.  Here is a post on Ann  Fahl's blog that I suggest you read:  http://www.annfahl.blogspot.com/.  She has a scary quilt-shipping story and some good tips on shipping your quilt.


And thanks to Mayleen, who is always impressed (not always favorably) by Peter's wienie recipes, here is a website to check out: http://www.hotdogprofits.com/blog/wierd-hot-dogs-woah/,