Could Be An Arizona Quilt

Well it certainly has been a long time between posts!!!  A lot has happened-my daughter got married to a wonderful guy (happy), my mother passed away (sad) and we built a home in Arizona (happy).  Life should be settling down now.

This is a quilt I did for Joyce last summer.  It has a wool and a cotton batt which I think gives it just the right amount of definition. I used So Fine threads.  Lots of ruler work but I was very happy with the results.  I think this would look perfect in my Arizona house but darn her she wanted it back.  I suppose I should put this pattern on my ever growing list of tops I want to piece.  That list never seems to get any shorter.

Arizona Christmas

Well we are finally (at least almost) settled into our new home in Arizona.  I am enjoying the sunshine and the mountain views.  My husband is a water man, but there is something about craggy mountains that really appeal to me.

Before we left I was quilting like crazy to finish up all the commitments I made before we really started this journey of a second home.  It is kind of nice to take a break from customer quilts to work on some of my own projects.  The Cowgirl Christmas is one of the pieces available in my Etsy shop (LarkEmbroidery.etsy.com).  It is so much fun to get back to embroidery.  I am always amazed at how many designs there are out there.

I also found this cute Santa wearing blue jeans and twirling a lasso.  How sweet is that?

 

Here is what the top of the lasso looks like.

Santa too is available on a tea towel in my Etsy Shop (LarkEmbroidery).  I figure that someone could pair him up with a package of chili mix and they would have a pretty nifty hostess gift.   I think I feel a Cowboy Christmas theme happening.

Now that we are settling into a routine, I should be posting more regularly.  (At least that is my goal).

Bye for now.....

Joyce's Quilt

 Joyce created this piece and has entered it in the Cal-Co Quilter's Guild show "Quilts in Bloom." The show is July 9 & 10 at the Marshall High School.  The hours are 10:00am-4pm daily.  The admission fee is $7.

 The top and bottom colorful borders were a challenge to show texture.  I quilted in a pattern that I thought had an Art Deco look, but didn't show up well.  I ended up frog stitchin' (rip it, rip it) that and going with these two designs.  I think it took me longer to rip out the stitching than it did to quilt it in.  In figuring out what to quilt, tried to get the look of rain and keep the look of the windows.  The colors of the city fabric are so rich.  I think turquoise/teal has become my new favorite color. 

 To get more texture I used Hobbs Cotton on top of Hobbs 80/20.  I like that combination of batting when looking to add definition and a bit of weight to hang well.  I used a number of So Fine threads to do the quilting

Hope you had a wonderful Fourth of July.  In the last week I got to see both my daughter (who lives in Charleston, SC), my son and his family (Beaufort, SC),  and fit in a weekend of camping.  What a great week and a half. 

Anniversary Quilt

 

 Cheryl pieced this quilt for her parents' anniversary.  She did a wonderful job and I am sure that her parents will appreciate it. 

I used one layer of Hobbs 80/20 and So Fine threads to complete the top.  Still working on my photography skills.  Sorry that the pictures aren't a little brighter.

Trying Something New

Been a little bit busy around here lately.  I had a number of quilts that needed to be done before I head off to Charleston for a visit with my daughter.  Rita brought me this quilt.  I used Hobbs 80/20 and SoFine threads. I wanted to do something different in the second border so I came up with a jigsaw puzzle pattern.  The quilt is primarily made of batiks and I wanted to try to mix up some dense and less dense quilting. 

In the large half square triangles we talked about some curved crosshatching.  Even though I like that look a lot, I wanted to do something a little unique.  I put in a couple of curved lines and then finished off with feathers and straight lines. 

In the open spaces I created boxes that each had a design of their own. 

There was a lot of ruler work on this quilt and I always seem to underestimate how long it will take me,  but I was happy with the final outcome.  Sorry the pictures aren't better.  I am still a work in process when it comes to taking pictures. 

Balance

Lately I have been trying to balance Lark Embroidery along with my quilting schedule.  Sometimes it seems a bit overwhelming, but I love the creative outlets both avenues present.  I worked on this piece for awhile.  I was uncertain about the size of the text in relation to the burp cloth, but now that it is done I think it was the right choice so I went ahead and added it to the LarkEmbroidery.etsy.com shop.   

Quilting on the other hand has been crazy.  I am so lucky to have such prolific quilting customers.  Since my recent quilts are for shows, I can't share those until after the judging. 

We are heading out for a weekend in our RV.  I don't even care whether it rains or not.  I look forward to just sitting.  Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Hope you have a wonderful weekend.

Trying your Hand at Free Motion Meandering

Recently read a blog entry on edge to edge quilting.  It was written by Gemma at prettybobbins.com.  (Sorry, but I can't seem to get my link to work tonight, but this is the web address)  She goes into detail how what looks like an easy way to quilt really has its own sets of skills.  So true!  Quilting with an edge to edge pattern can be affected by the piecing, batting choice, thread choice, and thread tension just to mention a few considerations.  As a long arm quilter I get customers who drop off quilts with only 1-2 inches extra backing per side and then I struggle to not bump into my clamps as I near the sides.  Luckily I learned from a Sharon Schamber DVD a solution to that problem. Per her directions I made a set of "sides" that I pin on the edge and clamp to those.  It is a bit time consuming to pin them on and off with each roll, but it saves the jiggle in a pattern that bumping into your clamps can cause.  I also use them when I am doing custom work and my extension plate is in danger of bumping the clamp.

 You can see that my extensions are showing their age, but they have been helpful.  The yardstick helps to elevate the end of the quilt; otherwise, the additional weight tends to pull it down. 

These issues also come into play when you are doing a free motion meander which is often favored by newbies.  Then with a FM meander you need to take into consideration uniformity.  You want to work at keeping your spacing and size of swoops to be the same.  When I first started I quilted a sample piece (about 25 inches by 40 inches) and divided it into three sections.  In each section I did a different size meander.  The first block I quilted with tight meander.  Second square I quilted a medium meander  which I have since named the Joanne Meander after a sweet customer of mine that uses that size on all her quilts.  Finally the third box was a more open meander which makes for a softer top.  I would use that sample to show a customer sizes that they could choose from and then when I quilted I would lay that piece over the top bar and reference it as I moved along the top.  It was very helpful in keeping me mindful of the pattern size I was trying to achieve.  If you are not careful it is not uncommon for the size of a meander to change slightly as you move across a larger quilt and really isn't noticeable until you stand back and take a row all in. That's not a fun moment.