Tag: quilt

An update – and a new toy!

It’s been a bit since I posted. After the Yellow Daisy Festival bonanza, I have been concentrating on commissions. But even better than that – I upgraded my quilting frame! I’m so excited. I was able to pay for it up front with nothing but funds I’d earned through quilting. This weekend I’m going to finish my current commission top and give the new frame a go.

It’s a Handiquilter Studio2 Frame. My previous one was a Little Foot 5′ frame. This new one is 12′, so I will never have to juggle around a large quilt ever again. I spent most of my quilting time just rearranging those large quilts around on that tiny frame. I’m also proud that I built this all by myself. I just love working with my hands. Any women’s construction companies around Atlanta? I’m your girl!

By the way, the older frame, the 5′ Little Foot frame, is up for sale. Message me for more info if you’re interested. It’s great if you’re wanting to start out with a mid-arm machine. It fits a HQ Simply 16. Thankfully, my machine fits the new frame beautifully.

My Little Foot 5′ frame. It’s been partially disassembled in this picture.

Here are some progression pictures with the completed frame at the end.

Online Market Quilt Showcase 9 – Science, Firefighters, and Boy Scout Quilts

The Yellow Daisy Festival Online Market begins on Tuesday, Sept 8th. In celebration of this, I’m making some posts about the quilts I have ready to go. Each day I’ll feature two or three quilts and tell about their process and what I like most about them. These and other quilts can be found in the Quest Quilts shop on this website or in my Etsy shop.

These four quilts are rounding out the kids’ quilts series. The firefighter quilts come in two sizes. One is 4′ x 5′ and the other is 4′ x 4′. I always thought they would make a great set for an older sibling and a new baby. They feature firefighters and fire engines that have a sort of vintage look. Again, I rather like the non-cartoon look, especially in quilts for younger kids because I feel like they’ll outgrow them slower. Of course, these would also be good quilts for…you know…actual fire fighters. I tried hard to make these fun without being overly childish.

I actually have two of the Boy Scout quilts as well. These are neat because they have smaller details in the fabric. Look closely at some and you’ll see the Oath. My favorite fabric on these quilts is the knot fabric, but the merit badges design is a close second. They have flannel on the back, and I thought they might make a great cover while on a camp out. I played around with the mosaic design here and ended up liking the effect.

I’ll admit something about this science quilt – I thought it would have sold long before now. I just love it. All the periodic table and elements and lab equipment and formulas are so neat and quirky. I love how it could be for a small child but just as easily for a chemistry major in college. I added a matching bib as well because a cute little STEM baby is perfect. The blue flannel backing makes is extra cozy.

Online Market Quilt Showcase 3 – silhouette quilts

The Yellow Daisy Festival Online Market begins on Tuesday, Sept 8th. In anticipation of this, I’m making some posts about the quilts I have ready to go. Each day I’ll feature two or three quilts and tell about their process and what I like most about them. These and other quilts can be found in the Quest Quilts shop on this website or in my Etsy shop.

These quilts were made using one of my favorite forms – the silhouette. I’ve used it for many quilts before these, and I just love it. The idea that you can convey detail and form with just an outline fascinates me.

The wine quilt was one of two that I had made, but the other one sold rather quickly. This one can be draped across a couch or even hung on a wall with the proper curtain hardware. It features a wine bottle and white wine glass silhouette with complimentary wine-themed fabric. In the black area I kept up the theme with a vine quilting pattern. I love this style of quilt and think it would fit in nicely with any wine-enthusiast decor.

The next silhouette set features the often overlooked viola. I like having a silhouette inverted set and think it lends some fun and style to any decor. This set already has a hanging sleeve attached to each hanging. These are meant specifically to be wall hangings. They would look great in any musician’s home or in a school orchestra room. The cool blue, green, silver, and gray tones help it maintain a gender neutral look.

Girl Scout Quilt

I made this quilt based around some green and pink Girl Scout badge fabric I had. I was experimenting with color and such. It did end up looking busier than planned, but I like it. It was also bigger than planned as it came out to a twin size once I added the outside pink border. I ended up going for a pink flannel-backed satin backing. It feels so sleek and smooth!

Kayak Quilt

This was a special commission for a dad as a Father’s Day present/late anniversary gift. The couple met while kayaking, and she wanted to give him something special in honor of that first meeting.

Funny enough, there isn’t a whole lot of kayak in this kayak quilt. I found a picture of a canoe going down river, and I really liked the first person perspective. And they met in the spring, so I decided to use greens to make the hill foliage instead of autumn colors.

The water was a neat task, and I knew I wanted to make it unique and have a cohesive-yet-scrappy effect. Using two different shades of navy blue and adding in lighter accent blues, I was going for a watery movement effect, and I gave it an overall unity with a horizontal quilting pattern.

The hills are an element I am particularly proud of. I mused a while over how to approach them. In the end, much like the water, I just dug in and started cutting and let them lead me where they may. When it came to quilting them, I decided to do a different quilting style depending on which shade of green I was on. I even tried to create an evergreen effect for the darker greens.

They weren’t quilted yet when this picture was taken.

The kayak element at first was nothing but a red triangle, and I added an inner line and black strap to help create the look found with most kayaks.

Overall, I am very proud of this one, and I know it’s going to a home where it will be loved. This client and I have worked together on commissions before, and she is fantastic at getting me to try new styles!

The completed work!
The unfinished top – known in the quilting world as a “flimsy.”

Boy Scout Lap Quilt

A while back I made an Eagle Scout Quilt, and I had a fair amount of the Riley Blake Modern Scouting fabric leftover. I wanted to try something different, something a little more chaotic and less predictable. It’s been a while since I’d gone with a mosaic design. I also had varying amounts of the fabric samples left, so I added in some solids to balance out the patterns. Overall, it was fun and took very little work up front with the planning. I just cut out squares of 9″, 6″, and 3″ and arranged them as balanced within each square as I could.

It has a green flannel backing. And in the end, I had enough to make two!

img_6271img_6272img_6273

img_6270

Theater T-shirt Quilt

This quilt was fun and a definite break from my usual mold. We divided the shirts into color families. I knew the some of them had rather big designs, and I wanted to make sure nothing “cool” was left out. For some of them, I just cut the central image in half and made sure each was still in. I rather like the crazy-quilt-shadow-box combo.

A fun bonus is that the white section is excellent for signatures! And can I begin to say how much I just LOVE the neat green and gold scroll design on the backing fabric?!

img_6277

img_6274

Doll Quilts

I’ve been sitting on this project for a while because it would give away a surprise. However, I learned that the gift has been bestowed and was given permission to post away!

I played around with the notion of doll quilts for 18″ dolls and came up with these after finding some diamond cuts left over from a previous project. I’m thrilled they’re being put to use, and I can’t wait to see what all I can come up with on down the road!

I am loving the central star design, but I don’t think I’m ready to make a quilt bigger than this using it. I’ve enjoyed the more traditional look of them, though. They’ve been posted on Etsy already. You can find them by clicking here.

Wine Silhouette Quilts

Update – there are a couple of these now listed in the shop! You can either purchase through this shop on this site OR through Etsy.

Click here to purchase through Etsy.

Disclaimer – I LOVE silhouettes. I am fascinated by the idea of how something so simple can convey so much, especially with people. I’ve experimented a lot with them in previous quilts: Star Wars lightsaber duels, Disney Princesses, Hocus Pocus, Darth Vader, Luke Skywaker, and Rey and BB8. From there, I began playing with jelly rolls and making some half-and-half images: guitar quilts and viola quilts.

I’ve had a wine-themed jelly roll for a while now and finally figured out how I wanted to approach it. I’m proud to say I free-handed the wine bottle and the wine glass. I added a burgundy border around them to make them more lap quilt size instead of wall quilt size. One of them was claimed pretty quickly, but the other one is still up for grabs.

img_6057img_6058img_6059img_6060

Zombie Pinup Girl Lap Quilt

I’d seen this really fun fabric in the Halloween fabric section at JoAnn’s.  It has a soft green background and features retro pinup girls with a slight twist…they’re zombies! It was hilarious to me! However, it was also some of the more expensive quilt fabric I’d seen, especially for JoAnn’s.  Well getting close to Halloween, most of that seasonal fabric went on sale, and at 60% off it finally was at a price I didn’t mind paying for it.

44a72202-75d3-4a2e-af4c-af27c62a2c67

I decided to work in a soft light pink and a bright hot pink as a nod to fun “girly” colors and lipstick shades.  Since all the figures were different sizes and scales, I knew I’d have to do something that allowed for plenty of variation and didn’t rely on straight lines.

img_5642

At first, I just focused on the blocks, getting the figure outlined with plenty of space to play around in.  The smaller squares came as a result of the fabric’s price.  It was so pricey that I knew I didn’t want to waste any, so I started cutting out smaller images from the spaces between where I’d cut the original girls: faces, manicured hands, sassy shoes, and a brain burger were all isolated.

img_5646img_5645

I liked the idea of bold black lines separating all the images.  I was thinking of some of those older shows and how they would have thick black lines around the words or on the poster itself. Something like The Creature from the Black Lagoon or Attack of the 50 Foot Woman.

Image result for vintage movie postersImage result for attack of the 50 foot woman

The result of all that black trim was a retro cinema feel with the smaller pieces actually looking like film strip!

img_5644img_5643

I went in to this quilt with only a vague idea of what I wanted, and I am so thrilled with how the end result looks.  I love it when a quilt helps design itself and surprises me.

img_5641

 

%d bloggers like this: