Quilters Show and Tell

Bluhm Homage

Submitted by elizbowm.

This quilt, entitled 'Bluhm Homage' is the result of an intensive 2 day class with Irena Bluhm, hosted by our Gammill Dealer in SE Michigan (USA) in 2008.

We started with a blank slate, used Blue washout marker to place main design elements (graciously shared by Irena, from an extensive library of her designs), quilted those in, then backfilled with freehand background(s) of our choice.

Dark gold So Fine thread was used for the main elements of the quilt, and a cream So Fine for the background quilting.

We were sent home with our masterpieces, and instructions for using colored pencils to add color to our wholecloth projects. What a great twist on wholecloth!

Chelsea is a Princess

Submitted by peppermintpatcher.

Peppermintpatcher is a professional pattern designer and you can see more of her work on her blog and buy her patterns on her website.

I have designed a range of quilts incorporating children's photos under the name Imagine That... quilts.

This is the first one that I did for my niece Chelsea. It is called Chelsea is a Princess.

Chelsea was so excited to see it, she just loves it. Her reaction prompted me to keep going with these little designs.

Poppies for Linda

Submitted by Elenor Goode.

The quilt featured in today's post was made by my mother Elenor Goode for my 40th birthday. The Nancy Pearson designed poppies are hand appliqued with the borders machine pieced. Over 220 hours of hand quilting completed the quilt, which won Best Amateur Quilt at the Victorian Quilters Quilt Showcase in Melbourne in 2002. The quilt is used every day and takes pride of place on my bed.

 

Dad's Strippy Quilt

Submitted by Lyn Duhig.

This quilt was for my step-father's 80th birthday in October 2007. He had been in a nursing home for a few months so this quilt is a single bed quilt and intended to make his room more 'his'.

One of the strips is pieced autumn leaves alternating with quilted feathered wreaths with back-ground cross-hatching. This is the same design (though on a smaller scale) as the quilt I'd made Mum a few years earlier and had been on their bed - it's the first quilt that I 'showed and told'.

The other strips were in colours that I thought wouldn't mind the hospital laundry regime (if that happened ... so far it hasn't) - lots of khaki/beige. Then I put the lengths of print and plain up on the design wall and tried other plain strips, ending up with the purple and gold and small amounts of black.

Then came the fun bit - lots of different feather designs for the quilting, plus some outline quilting around the all over print.

James's Quilt

Submitted by Lyn Duhig.

James is my nephew - Luke's older brother (so this quilt comes before Luke's quilt - see Jan 14 - not a lot of logic to the order that I'm providing my 'back catalogue' of quilts).

This quilt started life as a couple of packs of novelty squares and is an 'I spy' ('Eye Spy'?) quilt.

It was supposed to be an attic windows type layout, but I was less than successful in achieving the optical illusion necessary.

Which was very disappointing after doing all those 'Y' seams.

But I did have fun doing the freehand machine quilting - lots of outline quilting of the novelty designs, with stippling or other fillers.

Rebecca's Quilt

Submitted by Lyn Duhig.

Rebecca is Josh's little sister - see Jan 16 for Josh's quilt and it's story, including how I came to have left over quarter circles in novelty prints.

So it seemed logical to continue the theme, use the left-overs and have some continuity between the two quilts.

   

I chose two different colours - purple and yellow - and a different layout for the blocks - square instead of on-point - for this second quilt.

And my quilting had become more ambitious between 2002 and 2004.

This was my 'feathers phase', so Becky's quilting is much more formal with feathered wreaths in the circles and some more feathers in a cross shape for the remaining spaces.

The label follows the same basic layout as Josh's, but I particularly chose a fairy print, and the other print is the border print from Josh's quilt.

Mum's Quilt

Submitted by Hillingdon Quilts.

I designed this quilt for my mum and finished it in 2003.

It spend just over a month on her bed before being bundled up and stashed in the linen cupboard. Why? Her two best friends, cocoa and cuddles the puss cats, slept on it and she was worried it would be damaged or the filtered light would make it fade. 'MUM!!! Get the darn quilt out and enjoy it on your bed or I'll take it back......'

At the moment it's at my place because I can't bear the bare unquilted areas any longer. I need to do some background work.... There's lots of needle turn applique, a checkerboard border and pieced star blocks across the bottom row.

Josh's Quilt

Submitted by Lyn Duhig.

This quilt, for a girlfriend's first child, was based on a design from a magazine called 'Quilts for Kids'.

The original intention was to separate the novelty charm fabrics into darks and lights and to make each quarter circle block from one dark and one light, alternating positions. But I think I must have too many 'mediums' because this didn't work.

So (after lots of unpicking) I instead used the alternating lime green and bright blue fabrics and only half as many charm prints.

The quilting on the resulting circles is a simple spiral, with the curves continuing out into the corners. The yellow setting triangles got suns, and the borders were quilted in a totally unstructred meandering, included some 5-point stars and Josh's name.

The label was made from 4 quarter circles, echoing the front design, with freehand machine embroidered details on the plain segments.

 

Loose Roos

Submitted by Lyn Duhig.

This was a commercial pattern designed for use with hand-dyed fabrics (though I also used some commerically printed fabrics with a hand-dyed appearance).

The background is pieced, then the roos, fence posts, wombat and the bits of the windmill were applied using fusible webbing and then hand blanket stitched in place.

The fence 'wire' is jute string, also hand stitched in place at intervals. The words are stitched in chain stitch.

For the quilting I chose to stipple in varietaged green in the 'cultivated' areas - where there was green grass around the windmill and inside the fence. I used a spiral design in variegated beige/pink/gold colours for the 'outback' areas.

For the sunset sky behind the windmill I used graduating horizontal lines in a metallic thread. The backing is an Australan print of eucalyptus leaves.

The wallhanging was given to an Indian couple on the occasion of their marriage. I had worked with Padma and Naveen overseas, and they had also worked and lived here in Australia - a delightful couple, and I loved that their's is a 'love match' rather than the more typical arranged marriage.

L is for Luke

Submitted by Lyn Duhig.

Luke (Lucas) is my nephew - now 2.5yo, but he only got this at Christmas this year - I'm still miles behind in my quilts for family children!

This quilt started life as a black & white alphabet panel I bought at Stitches & Craft (Melbourne) a couple of years ago and a Moda jelly roll of bright children's prints - I think it was called Aliens.

I cut the panel into it's 30 blocks (26 letters and 4 hearts). Since the jelly roll strips are 2.5' wide, the main part of the quilt pretty much designed itself, with just the addition of black and white 4-patch at the intersections of the sashing. Then I cut all the rest of the jelly roll strips into the same length pieces as the sashing and sewed them all together to make the borders.

At the end I had two printed alphabets left over from the panel and a length of the pieced border fabric, so I found or bought 4 different bright pieces of homespun and pieced the back, with some machine embroidery added for the labels pieced into the back.

 

Quilting was also easy - in the ditch, plus freehand outlining following either side of the black & white border on the alphabet blocks and around the letters and hearts. If time had permitted I would have liked to outline the designs too ... perhaps Luke will let me have it back some time to complete that??

Skating on the Pond

Submitted by One of a Kind.

This quilt is an original, hand painted, thread painted, applique, and machine quilted. It represents Skating on a pond when I was young. I painted the sky and the buldings, as well as part of the skaters. I thread painted the trees in the town and the two trees in the foreground.

 

Waverley Patchworkers Gift Quilt

Submitted by peacebypiecestudio.

These photos are from gift quilts I have quilted for Waverley Patchworkers. Other members have planned, cut, sewn and distributed the quilts for quilting and then the binding. A real team effort.

It amazes me how much variety I see as these quilts come to me. I feel humble as I complete the top and I am left to decide what the tops needs, sometimes edge to edge and other times it's a custom job.

The quilts when completed are shown at our meetings and to see them from a distance is truely very pleasing. I just hope the recipient enjoys their gift as much as I've enjoyed being a small part of a great team.

Jim's Japanese Quilt

Submitted by Lyn Duhig.

I bought a beautiful piece of fabric on a visit to Tokyo and didn't want to cut into it, and didn't know what to do with it.

On the last day of 2007 a dear long-time friend died, and he had been the one who had ignited my interest in Japan long before I got to visit there, so I decided to use this precious piece of fabric to make a quilt in memory of Jim for his wife, Shirley.

I found a mottled pink to use for the border, and outline quilted the designs in the fabric then chose a border design that seemed a bit Japanese - a Baptist Fan type quilting design. This in turn led to deciding that the edge had to be scalloped to match the edges of the quilting.

The label was printed from the computer onto cream fabric so it could include photos of Jim and Shirley, and it seemed to harsh a contrast to the backing, so I constructed an envelope with a button and tassel closing with the label hidden inside.

I gave the quilt to Shirley on the last day of last year, on the anniversary of Jim's death.

 

Country Applique

Submitted by ascotintennessee.

A few years ago I taught a class on hand applique using blanket stitch. We were doing a country type theme and I supplied all the fabric, templates and floss. I had a lot of squares left over that I either gave away or turned into other projects. Eventually I made this wall hanging and finished it toward the end of 2008.

The hearts are hand appliqued using blanket stitch and cream embroidery floss.

The fleur-de-lis is done in burgundy floss and is a running back stitch.

It will be staying at my house ..... for a change ..... and is currently destined for my sewing room wall.

 

Coloured Quilt

Submitted by Waterfall Manor Quilts.

The fabric used is Sheridan bedspread fabric, beige and silver colours reversed on the other side, silver and beige.The outer borders were turned over from the back to the front and the middle section quilted, coloured and over quilted with metalic thread.

This quilt recieved a second prize last year at NSW guild quilt show at Darling Harbour. I was inspired by Tracey and Helen's Daisey Dance quilt many years ago and decided to give the coloured pencils and pastel a try out. I was too stingy to by a pattern from Tracey at Mittagong conference and just played with fabric medium and Derwents and chalk pencils, heaps of fun but very time consuming. I also love bling and the hot fix crystals just give it all a lift.

Mamelodi - Winter

Submitted by Lyn Duhig.

This quilt and it's quilting is based on (copied from) a quilt in Lee Cleland's 'Quilting Makes the Quilt' - a square in a square pieced design with freehand quilting - circles and stippling - that extend into the border.

Lee's original was in lovely cream and pink, but I wanted something more bold and found the ochre, black and gold print and combined it with a mottled black.

The quilting is in a gold metallic for the concentric cirles, plus black stippling.

I started the quilt top at a sewing retreat in April 2006, and then in June 2006 was sent (with no complaints) to live in South Africa for six months for work. The name came from there. Mamelodi is the black township on the outskirts of Pretoria between where I was working and living. Winter in Pretoria on the high veld is the dry season - very cold mornings, lovely sunny days with clear blue skies, so the vegetation is dry at this time of year, and the soil is this red ochre colour. Because it's so cold in the mornings the people waiting for buses light fires to keep warm, and these sometimes become grass fires that leave a patchwork of ochre and black.

I finished the top and the quilting in 2007 after my return to Australia and Kinglake, and the quilt won a minor prize at the Whittlesea Agricultural Show in November 2007.

Santa Wallhanging

Submitted by Denise.

A friend had this Debbie Mumm hanging in her house for the holidays and I liked it so much I made my own. Denise

 

Jayna's Choice

Submitted by Babsy.

I needed to do a quilt for Jayna, 6, next. She is a sweet little girl with a lovely smile. I had a Strawberry Lemonade [by Moda] jelly roll; a simple strippy quilt evolved. I backed all these quilts for the grandkids with flannel. It keeps the quilt cuddly. Again, Myrna Layton did the custom quilting.

 

Joey's Choice

Submitted by Babsy.

Grandson Joey wanted a black quilt. I thought that was a little 'dark' for an 8 year old. I looked through my stash and started gathering the brightest fabrics I could find. A variegated rail fence evolved and of course, only black would do for the borders. It set off the bright colors and hopefully will satisfy a small boy's request for black.