Customer quilt

This quilt went home today, so I can now share it. It was one that made me think. I didn't get to talk it over in person with the owner, but she had sent me a clear set of instructions. I like that, even though it is also a bit scary as it shows they have quite good ideas of what they want.

The backing is a lovely satin sheet, and the customer mentioned she would like this quilt to be reversible. That didn't bother me too much as I often think that quilts could be reversible even if that wasn't the idea.

She was also looking for a pattern that was organic, and not too modern.

The first two pictures show you the back of the quilt as I eventually did it, but this wasn't any of the first ideas I had.

My initial idea after reading the instructions was to put feathers all over the quilt. That would give a nice organic look to the quilt, and would be fine as a wholecloth on the back. Then I looked more at the front of the quilt. That pattern is a lot of work, could I really put an all over pattern on it. I concluded this wasn't a quilt I could work on without more information so I called the owner and talked about it.

A lot of the credit for the end result has to go to my customer. She picked up that I wasn't quite happy with the idea of the all over pattern. We were both happy it would have been OK, maybe good, but was it the right answer. She sent me off with freedom to talk to the quilt again and come up with something that would really set off the piecing.

We are both pleased with the result. The pictures don't pick up all the texture the quilt has. It has a range of different fabrics, and now it also has very defined raised areas. Of course I couldn't see the back until took the quilt off the frame. I had been a bit worried that the points where the quilting lines met wouldn't look right but it did come out fine. The thread on the back is a slightly darker shade than the fabric which means it does show up quite strongly, which is why I was concerned. If it worked I felt it would give a better wholecloth, but of course if it went wrong it was going to be very obvious. Yes those little feathers did take a very long time.

Customer quilts

Well as it turns out customer quilt. Unless you were very quick. It turns out the pictures of the other one weren't very good. About typical I guess.

At least this is the quilt I liked better. I returned several quilts over the last couple of days. It's been good to be back quilting properly after such a long break. I am now desperate to get my customers quilts done ASAP. This particular quilt is a sample for Patchwork Corner, and I suspect will be on disply at Quilts UK Malvern in just over a week.  I really loved working on this quilt, although I wasn't sure what Jenny was going to think of it. It is very different to most of the quilts I have done for her, much more me. I was very relieved to find she did indeed like it and has laready started putting the binding on.

The other quilt I tried to post a picture of wasn't quite so sucessful. Jenny wasn't sure about it. She doesn't dislike it but it wasn't really working either. It turns out to be the colour of the thread I used. She had wondered if it was the design (a new all over I was working on) but having seen it on another quilt I returned today realised she does like the pattern. It's very hard to get the thread right every time. I am not too concerned, it's a sample and she isn't that unhappy with it, but it does hilight the need talk over every detail of important quilts with your longarmer. In particular I like to know about dislikes. If there are things I have to avoid it helps to know. For example I know Jenny likes the quilting thread to blend with the quilt, and if in doubt head for grey or brown. I have other customers who like loud thread so they can see what they have paid for :) If I don't know which sort of person I am dealing with there is a lot of scope for error.

Fortunately today I had plenty of happy people and I managed to make a start on my Rhapsody quilt. I've finished the quilt on the frame and now it's time for Rockband. Yes I'm sad. So sue me.

APQS Maintenance

I've just come back from a day of learning the proper care and feeding of my longarm machine. I have had quite a bit of hand on experience with it so I was expecting to largely pick up little tips. It turned out that there was one piece of maintenance I hadn't been doing at all and if left can turn expensive. Given you are supposed to check the motor brushes every year and I've never done mine we figured it was about time. From the look on Marks face I got the impression it was a sooner rather than later kind of job. so I came home and took mine out.

The handout says they start 1/2" long and if your are only 3/8" you need to replace them. I tried measuring mine and it seemed to be 1/2" so I figured the best was to be sure was to compare it with the new one I got today. Mine is the top one in the picture. It's clearly worn, although not as badly as we had feared. This is fortunate as I have a quilt on the frame and I really didn't want to have to clean out the motor with a quilt on. I would have done it if the wear had been really extreme but I am comfortable with leaving this for another 10 hours then doing a through job. I will also finally get my gearbox done. Neither job takes long and they do make a huge difference to the machine. We got to repack Chris's machine today and it was amazing how different it sounded.

I think the best thing I got today was a kick up the backside, these jobs are quick, easy and will keep my machine giving me good service. What is my excuse for not doing them?

It 's quilted!

Well it's finally off the frame, which is a relief. I can't believe how much I have learned from this piece. I am pretty happy with how it came out especially as it was intended as a proof of concept. I am happy the the other designs I have planned will work and that they do need to be on this scale. Hmm, that's going to take a while, but I am looking forward to doing them. I won't be starting until the zippers are on though. The quilt has also gained a name, "Greek Fossils". It seems a good enough name (and the quilt hasn't argued) so that's going to stay. I can't tell you how much I am looking forward to working on something where you can see your progress as you go along and on a minute by minute scale.I don;t know how many hours went into this, and frankly, I don't want to.

I've just realised the larger picture doesn;t show much detail, the in progress posts do. Try this one, or this one.

Still progressing

As you can see I am making slow but steady progress on this quilt. It really isn't something you can rush (and I have tried believe me) it will be done when it is good and ready, not before. I think I might be half way now, but I'm not certain. I guess I won't know for sure where I am until I've done :) As you can see it has got to the point where the area I want to work on in one lump is bigger than I can see at one time. It's more frustrating when I am working on something free form, I can only see it in my head with no guides at all to compare to. It's taking more faith than most of my work, and I usually have some sort of map to work to, but hopefully it's simple enough to come out OK when it's done.

I got my copies of Down Under Quilting in the post. It's a good feeling magazine and I am really thrilled with the article in it. It is also available as a very well thought out online magazine, if you feel like saving some trees and postage.

Backside and progress

Two pictures for you tonight (this morning?) This first one is the back of the quilt that has spent the day occupying our bedroom. It is Phoenix Rising, now happily rolled up and almost ready to ship to Road to California. I love the back of this quilt because not only can you see the quilting but you can see that is was put together feather by feather, and where the feathers overlap so does the quilting. Of course when the quilt is at shows very few get to appreciate it, especially as the best of the quilting is high up. If I get a chance I will try and photograph the whole of the back, but it won't be for a while.

Here we have the quilt I am currently playing on on the frame. As you can see the feathers are growing and the background filling. It's slow work and I am now on my third needle. I haven't been breaking them just wearing them out. I also realised today that there is as much thread in this small pieces as I usually use on a double bed quilt. Given I have only quilted a piece about 12"x80" that's a lot of thread. It's also very hard work, lots of very small movements with a big machine is good exercise. I'm glad I will be seeing my osteopath next week. I can certainly tell I am learning a lot with this one, which is good as the next is already planned and I think I have the fabric to make it too. I will have a break between this one and that though as I will need a rest after this. I have several customer quilts that will be a nice change, and even pretty detailed work is going to seem quick for a while.

Current insanity

This may be one of those seemed like a good idea at the time type projects. In fact the time it seemed like a good idea might have only been the bit before I started but who knows, it may get better. There are some good points to this project, the main one being it is smaller than the one I really wanted to make. With the amount of work involved that could be claimed as a sure sign of good sense except the only reason it isn't bigger is that I couldn't find a bigger piece of fabric that would work with the idea. This is also the second take, I've already had to unpick once. Boy am I glad I found the video on skinning a quilt. It was a lot easier than any other method I've found.

I am also very pleased to be trying this idea. It is hard work and I am having to learn new skills, but it is so much better than just sitting thinking about it. It will be interesting to see how much I improve over the course of the project. I am hoping when I need to quilt the focal points I will have improved enough to make a good job of them. I have at least learned one thing I don't like so won't repeat somewhere more prominent. Now I guess I should go and do a bit more quilting on it. Tomorrow I won't get much quilting done as I will be teaching 10 others to do it down in Putney. I am sure we will have a lot of fun, and I will get to rest my shoulders.

Much quilting

It's been another one of those quilt the world weekends. Two monster quilts are now ready to return home. A third has just resisted me though. The backing isn't big enough. I am glad I checked. It was a quilt I took in during a class and I trust the maker so I didn't check the measurements. The quilt is a king size, so was going to be a tight fit on the backing whatever the case, sadly when the backing was prewashed it shrank enough that it will no longer fit the top at all. Yes it can be fixed, yes I should have checked it. Still right now I feel thwarted by the quilt. I am glad I decided to check the measurements before I started, if not when I took the quilt in.

Now I think I will tackle some of the smaller quilts I have waiting for a change. There seems to have been a run of huge quilts the last few months. Maybe quilters are doing their bit to save energy and reduce global warming. It is much better to have an extra quilt on the bed rather than turning up the heating. Speaking of which, I think it might be time to find the hot water bottle.

A run of great quilts

There are days, sometimes even weeks when I love my job, and it's all down to what quilts come in. Recently I've been really lucky and had a run of fun well behaved quilts. I can't tell you what a difference it makes to load a really flat square quilt. It's just amazing. The last one I finished tonight was the most unusual. On the longarm quilting system I load the three layers of a quilt individually. You generally can't work on one that has been tacked or partly quilted as it rucks up and gets tucks in either the front or the back. Well one came in tacked, it happens, but it looked exceptionally flat. So I tried loading it. It worked! The most remarkable thing is I am pretty sure the customer said it was her first quilt. Flat as a board perfectly tacked and with fantastic points. I was in heaven working on it. Now I just have to hope she likes what I have done with it :)

Anyway to bed, I am teaching frame quilting tomorrow so it's going to be a hard day. I still have places on my three part course 'A quilt of your own'. This course will take you through designing and planning your own quilt. Help will be offered with block choices, setting, sizes and methods of construction. I am finding more students are having a go at making something up for themselves, and this course is intended to provide the support and assistance for those trying this for the first time, or trying something more complex then they have in the past. It can be booked online at the link to the class.

Customer Quilt

This is a quilt I finished a while ago, but that I really want to share. I had just watched Myrna Fickens DVD Just do it - Freehand Design. I had also spent a play day with a fellow longarm quilter. So my head was full of new ideas. I'd had this quilt a while waiting for it's backing to come in, and I had completely forgotten what the quilt looked like, so it was a surprise when I got it out.

Somehow I had been expecting a much simpler pattern so now I had to come up with something that would fit this quilt. It's a scrappy quilt and that inspired me, scrappy quilting. I know Myrna did say not to put all the patterns on one quilt, but why not on a scrap quilt. So that's what I did. If you clock on the pictures you will get bugger images and can see some of the patterns I used.

The thread is a bright variegated so it blends in and pops up quite randomly. All the stars are unquilted so they pop up from the background. I've used a continuous line pattern. I like this as it gives a similar feel to stitch in the ditch, but with a bit more interest. It is also a lot quicker to do so I can charge a lot less for it. It is especially good for stars as it somehow seems more starry to me.

In the background I think there is some of everything. The concentric circles was a new one for me. I've tried several of these echo type patterns and I don't like any of them. This one was unintentional and I love it. It's already appeared on a couple more quilts! Funny how these things happen isn't it.

The leaves with curly bits are very much from Myrna's DVD. I've looked at the little curls other quilters do and I hadn't thought that I was accurate enough to make them delicate. However with the confidence from Myrna I gave them a go. I was pleasantly surprised. I can do it. Also if I use my normal curls in with leaves they look good too.

Something else I tried for the first time here was a rolled fern. I've done quite a few curled feathers, but not any of my spiky ones. perhaps starting with one 2" in diameter is a bit odd, but it worked. It does show how well many quilting designs scale. I could imagine this one curl on a kingsize, it would look great.

So I hope you've enjoyed taking a close look at this quilt. I hope I will be able to take some full pictures of it once the binding is on. It will also be coming up as a class at Patchwork Corner, so if you fancy making your own keep and eye on their site.

Quilting like a mad thing

Wow, it's been a mad few days. I've discovered that having too many quilts waiting (more than 10) is bad. It makes me very uncomfortable. For some reason that is the point where things feel out of control to me. So since my last post I have quilted 6 customer quilts. I feel much better now, if utterly exhausted. It's a little concerning that I still have as many to do (to say nothing of three of my own) but it feels manageable now.

To give me a bit of a break from the longarm I've been putting together a sample quilt. I managed to cut it out in about half an hour while I was waiting for a class at the shop on Thursday, and it is now ready for quilting. It's made from the "Turning Twenty - Just got better" book, and it is even quicker than the "Turning Twenty Again" which I love. Tet, who has been helping sell patterns at my talks, felt it was time for me to get samples from the other books. I have to admit he is right, but somehow it hadn't seemed urgent until someone else pointed it out. Strange how these things work isn't it. So here is the first of my samples from the other books. I am really pleased with it. The fabrics for the center of the quilt were pretty much the first 20 fat quarters I pulled from the batik display that the shop. I say pretty much as I did put one back, but other than that I just grabbed the 10 darkest and 10 of the lightest. It's a good illustration of how forgiving this pattern is. I don't think you could quite walk into the shop blindfolded, pick fabric and be guaranteed a good quilt, but I suspect even that would work out fairly often.

Also I can finally show you my Hever challenge quilt. I wasn't overly inspired by the fabrics but after they had sat on my desk for a few months I realised they reminded me of one of my screen savers. So that is what I did with them. I would like to try a similar design with circles instead of rectangles, but that is going to be such a pain to stitch, I keep putting it off.

I might be winning

Or I might be fighting the quilt to a draw. It's a close call. Yesterday my machine wouldn't play. Not at all, I guess I managed an area about the size of both hands in 6 hours. Not what I need with a deadline looming. This morning wasn't a lot more promising. However a good clean, re time, new needle and different thread colour got me going again. Dunno how I will fare when I go back to the lilac, ask me tomorrow. Still I have now made reasonable progress. I can believe this quilt may be finished in time, by the skin of my teeth. It's going to cost though, I expect to spend the weekend flat on my back of in warm baths. The very dense quilting is hard physical work. I also finished the second book today, and started the third. I am keeping to Heinlein as long as I can. So far I have listened to "The cat who walks through walls" and "The door into summer" and now I am on "The moon is a harsh mistress". If I need a fourth book, and I suspect I will, I either have to re listen to something or move to a joint project "Variable Star". It's going to be a tough call, but without the books I will go nuts doing this quilt, so I will be listening to something. For now though, it's bed time. I can't quilt anymore, my hands are shaking too much.

Malvern - Sunday

Sorry for the delay in getting the photographs up from yesterday. I've just been running around like a loony today. It was lovely to get the chance to catch up with so many people I didn't expect to see for another month. If I seemed to ignore you or not recognize you I am very sorry. I am getting better at identifying people but I've still got a long way to go.

I was thrilled to discover that the quilt is awarded two rosettes, so one can go to the quilter and one to the piecer. It was amazing to get an award for someone else's quilt, which I hadn't even entered. Certainly one of those very special landmark moments. It was also very good to win Frans award. I had really hoped I would be able to get my name on it, she was a very important influence even though I didn't know her long. Now I have to try for the Sandown one too. I also had an interesting revelation. I've won three awards for longarm quilting (I think ) and all the quilts have very similar quilting. Even more strangely, I don't feel they are that special. The first was, at the time it was by far the best quilting I had done. This one the quilting is exactly what the quilt wanted, but it's very hard to actually see. You may have noticed that none of the pictures really show the quilting. Maybe I just don't understand how the judges look at things. Whilst I don't entirely undrstand, I would be very pleased to think they choose the quilt with the most sympathetic or appropriate quilting, almost regardless of complexity.

For me there was one quilt that really stood out to me. It won the hand quilting award. I didn't have the guide with me when I saw it so I just remembered it for later. The I was distracted by the awards and found out who's quilt it was. Gwenfai Rees Griffiths. Ah! That explains a lot. Now at risk of causing offence (and I really don't intend any) what I really loved was that at a distance I couldn't tell it was hand sewn. The stitches are tiny with make a really strong quilting line, something I love about machine work. I am quite pleased I didn't photograph it though, as I would like to design a machine pattern that has the feel I remember from it. I don't know how successful I will be but I'll be interested to see what I come up with.

Garden Globes

This is a shop sample at Patchwork Corner. It is one of the two quilts I quilted over last weekend. It is made with the Floragraphix range of fabrics from In the Beginning. It's an amazing range, which I will be making a quilt from as soon as I have time. The quilt thoough was a challenge to quilt. I didn't feel I could just use and all over. It's didn't seem to add anything to the piecing. I also know that Jenny likes her quilting to match the fabrics in colour, and with this one there are a lot of colours to match. I decided the only way for ward was to match each colour in it. So there are four colours of quilting in this one. You can see that better in the picture of the back (I usually match my bobbin to my top thread). Rather frustratingly the quilting doesn't show a lot on the front, but that does seem to be the way when i put in this much work. The more time you put in the less there is to show for it.

Hopefully the quilt be be bound and on display at Malvern in just over a weeks time. It will be on the Patchwork Corner stand and if you would like to make your own version there will be kits available. If you are really keen you could even to get me to quilt it just like this one.

When I quilt I often listen to audio books, and I have found cusomers like to know what book was involved in their quilt. This one was Eragon by Christopher Paolini.

Christmas Party

Before I rave on about the party tomorrow I had to show you a bit of this quilt. I took this quilt on as my emergency quilt. I had filled all my before Christmas bookings when I got a request to do this one extra, for a deserving lady. Well When people ask nicely and tell me it is a well deserved favour what can I do? Even better the customer was quite prepared for me to finish if on the 24th and she would have sat up all night to bind it. Even better she told me to d whatever I fancied and I was sure she meant it. I loved working on it, the plaid is so soft it feels great to work on. The real treat was handing it back. She was so pleased to have it back so soon and she did like what I did. Her reaction is why I do this job, and believe me after Christmas I will be thrilled to show you the whole quilt. I was very pleased to get the squares, it let me try out continuous curve. I found it was easier than I remembered it and I think I will have to try and find more to practice on, as I might really like this technique.

So the Christmas Party. It will be at Patchwork Corner 10am to 4pm tomorrow. There will be sale fabrics, demonstrations and lots of goodies to eat. If you have ever been to a shop hop there you will know the drill, if you haven't and you are in the area come and say hello. I will be demonstrating a quick shopping bag, with ridiculously over engineered straps. they are made from the webbing I use for car restraints. I have a lot of it so you too could have a very strong bag for your shopping.

Two person quick quilt.

Last Thursday Robin decided to come up to the shop with me. He then was foolish enough to show an interest in a new range that had just arrived and before I knew what was happening he was making a sample up.

The quilt was done in a very leisurely six hours. with many distractions, well it did coincide with my Thursday night class. Most of the quilt is made from cheater fabric, which is why it is quick. It would be even faster if you weren't fiddling to try and get a perfect number of half square triangles on each side. The pattern that comes with the fabric is for a 3x3 center section, but we decided that was too big for a sample, so had to recalculate everything for the 2x2 size.

The only real patchwork in the quilt are the corner stones in the wide border, and if you are making up this pattern and you want the narrow green stripes in the border make sure you cut the squares half an inch bigger than the pattern say to. We added the outermost red border to help preserve the the green strips as well, we needed some where to attach the binding. The binding is really clever, it is made up of the half square triangle fabric you have left over. When you cut the strips for the inner border you can only use alternate rows as you need to leave a seam allowance, but the scrap is the perfect size to turn into binding. It looks really good too.

Friday I quilted it. I didn't enjoy the meander much, I never do but we like to use it on things like this as a lot of people can do it easily and it shows what it will look like the way they are most likely to choose. Personally I would rather have done tight 'Decadent swirls' but that is just me. In the half square triangles I got to try out a continuous curve pattern. It went pretty well for a first attempt, and inspired me to try a small cross hatching in the middle of the faux applique. It's a good effect and I suspect I will now use it again. Having a grid stencil does make it a lot easier.

The corner stones did stump me for a while but eventually I settled on continuing the border design with quilting. To do this I traced the leaves from the border fabric onto Golden Thread paper and added extra motifs as required. I then pinned the paper into position and stitched through it on the line I had drawn. It's a nice way of doing a fancy quilting patter with a fabric like this as there is no artistry required just trace things to fill the space. Each corner has a different design and I suspect if you don't know how it was done it would look pretty clever. The best part was that the design was simple enough to do as a continuous line on three of the corners.

If you would like to see it in person this quilt will be on display this Saturday at the Patchwork Corner Christmas Party.

Back in the blogging world

Well I have finally finished the quilt that has been talking up all my time for he last week. It was a great learning experience, but I didn't entirely appreciate it's timing. My tip is not to use recycled shirt fabrics for both the front and the back of the quilt. Using it for one seems top be fine, but both is 'interesting' to quilt. If you really must then I suggest a large needle and a very fine thread. Still the owner seemed very pleased with it and I think it looks great. Hopefully after Christmas I will be able to show you it.

Other quilts I have been working on are these three for Project Linus. I'm afraid I can't tell you who made any of the tops, I don't know, but if they are yours do get in touch and I will happily credit you.

I take tops and backings and supply the wadding and the quilting. I like doing Linus quilts as I feel more able to play on them. I know that the most important thing is to get them finished although I have to admit I have had these a long time.
The first is a t-shirt quilt and I didn't feel it wanted much from my quilting. I did use a bright variegated thread to add some life to the quilting, but I kept the design simple, 'decadent swirls'. I used this pattern on the nine patch quilt as well, as my quilting wasn't going to show.

The blue and green quilt I really had fun with, this is the sort of top I love to find in my Linus package, what a fun piece to quilt. I tried out some new (to me at least) border patterns, and found some a lot easier than I expected. I was especially pleased with the one in the dark blue outer border, of course that doesn't show up too well. This design is one I developed from a design taught by Deloa. In the plaid border there is a similar but I think less well executed design. I was less sure of it so I put it somewhere it wouldn't show so much. I don't think the small half squares show up too well either, and I was very pleased with them too. They have a different style of flower petals on each fabric but share the same center. I hope the new owners will get a lot of of them.

If you would like to help with making quilts for Project Linus you might like to join the Quilt-a-thon at Patchwork Corner next year. We will be quilting for 24hrs to make as many quilts as we can. I will be at the shop with my longarm to get tops finished, and we will be using every quick technique we can think of to turn scraps into quilts. All help will be welcome, even non sewers can be put to work ironing or making tea. If you have scraps you could donate those would be appreciate too. It will be held on the weekend of the 6th July, more details will be posted as we get closer to the date.

The quilt that sang

I guess it proves that being nice can get you the information you need. I was getting very worried that this quilt wouldn't tell me what it wanted, and the only guidance the piecer had was quilt the not blocks. Hmmm OK. I could see what she meant but I could not see how to achieve it. Part of my problem was I wanted to do something slightly different on the two styles of 'sashing'. The solution to that was the key to me working out what I needed to do.

I have feathers on the brain at the moment, and I have been wanting to do some sort of interwoven feathers. I knew I wanted to leave the diagonal lines of white squares unquilted so I had to find an alternative to the spined feather. I went for what I think of as inside out feathers, they are really just two half feathers without a spine, but they do hold the coloured section down leaving the white squares to leap up.

To make the secondary blocks clearer I wanted to join them very solidly, so the sun or flower was ideal for the job, I felt that the dense center helped hold the four corners together. I was really pleased when the owner said it is a pattern she uses when she quilts, see the quilt did know what I should be doing.

Busy Busy

Well my hand has got better, at least somewhat, so I am back quilting. I am being very careful when I roll the quilt on though. Rather foolishly I forgot to photograph that last quilt I did, but as I know the owner pretty well I hope to get a picture when it has been bound. Still I have now had time to upload the quilt you saw a couple of days ago.

Well I assumed I would now be able to show you the pictures, but blogger isn't sure about that. I will keep trying and when I get them up I will add to this post. Sorry about that. The spell checker isn't working either, so please ignore any funny spellings.

OK, I now have the full image up. I took this picture early in the morning in the workshop at Patchwork Corner. Believe it or not that blinds were down, but the sun was still streaming in. I love these crisp sunny mornings. It also does a great job of showing up my quilting. I had intended to get a picture later in the day to show it lit more evenly but of course I forgot. The quilt is a kit that Jenny produces and I think she said it had over 40 fabrics in it. It certainly has a lot, and it is a lovely scrappy quilt. It was fun spotting all the subtle variations as I worked.
Yay, and finally I have the detail picture up as well. This is a close up of the handily high lit area. It gives you an idea of the quilting pattern. I chose all over feathers for this quilt as it seemed to be the most traditional of my designs, and I couldn't see contemporary designs suiting these fabrics. I am glad that Jenny only told me afterwards that she couldn't see what I had in mind, and that she liked how it came out. Eeek! That could have gone very wrong. Still all's well that ends well, and I now have two more quilts that want similar designs so I guess it can't be bad.

On the other hand I have another quilt waiting that hasn't told me or it's owner what it wants quilted on it, and I want to get it done for early next week. Hope it gets chatty soon.

New York Beauty

Finally, I can show you the quilt I have been enjoying so much for the last week. The pattern is one by Karen Stone, as as with many of her patterns, is wonderfully spiky. This particular quilt top was made by another Karen and is a birthday present to herself. Her husband bought her the pattern and the fabrics last year, and if all goes well it will be finished in time for her birthday next week. I am so pleased it is going to a great home where it will be loved. I think it has twelve colours of thread in it. I didn't really keep careful count as I just chose the thread as I found places that needed a new colour. I didn't want my quilting to shout. This pattern can carry the glory all on it's own.

As I worked on this quilt I enjoyed the different textures of fabric in the top. Apparently my method of moving my machine if very unusual, but it works for me and I like having contact with the top. My hands tell me things my eyes don't. The plain dark green fabric is wonderfully soft, although it doesn't look out of the ordinary. Apparently it is a silk blend, so it isn't surprising it feels good.

As soon as I saw the quilt I felt I needed to enhance the spikes, so as I worked I tried to make those pointing outwards in the blocks stand out. To achieve this I quilted the spaces between them and allowed them to rise up. This had the side effect of giving each type of spike a very different feel. There are plump soft spikes and very sharp hard ones. I hope that at some time in the future someone will 'view' the quilt with their finger tips and appreciate the patterns from this perspective.

I will have to make myself one of these quilts, or at least something similar. I rather like tie idea of designing something unique, I love Karen Stones patterns, but I like to be different. If nothing else I want to scale it up to a good king size quilt so I would have to draw my own borders. I've got to come up with something, I really miss this one. Strangely even more than ones I have made and sold. I wonder why some quilts grab me so much more than others. I wish I could work that out as it would probably be a good way to create popular patterns, but until then I will have to carry on with trial and error.

Hmmmm, it seems blogger is having some problems so I will have to add the pictures tomorrow. Sorry guys, but they do say they are working on it, so hopefully it won't be long.

After several attempts it has allowed me to put up one image. This is a picture of the quilt on the frame when I was working on the first border. I had intended to take more pictures as I went along, but I got so absorbed by the quilt I entirely forgot to take the pictures. Still maybe it will serve as an appetizer until blogger starts working properly again.

Yay, finally I have the pictures up. Enjoy.