Another Completion

The baby quilt is finished and tucked away, awaiting the imminent birth of its new owner. I was amazed at how this flew together and the joy I had in making it.

I really wanted to quilt it with free motion quilting on my machine rather than stitching in the ditch. I decided to play with enlarging an idea I had used for a challenge project in my guild. I am quite pleased with the way it turned out.

Now, on to other projects!

Complete at last!

Finally, after so many months, I have completed Scents of India.

In retrospect, I am glad that the embroidery module quilting did not work. I feel my 'freehand' free-motion quilting really adds to the quilt. I am finding that I really enjoy using beads to enhance a work. My final step was to glue some actual seed pods from the Star Anise into the center of the map of India.

Next step for this quilt will be an appearance in our local guild's bi-annual quilt show.

Next step in Anise Quilt

After abandoning my idea of using my Bernina embroidery module to quilt, I went ahead and quilted my Anise Star art quilt freehand. Here is a glimpse of how it is turning out.

I plan to now add the beaded stars that I was playing with a few weeks ago. I also played with gluing some of the actual anise star seed pods to the quilt using some bead glue. That also seems to work .

What is also interesting is that I brought it in to show my friends at the Bobbin Case last week.  As I was paying for some thread I was picking up, I had the piece rolled inwards and laying on the counter.  The owner of the shop, Linda Fellows, and I both simultaneously noticed the backside of the piece. The quilting pattern looked really attractive. I think I will have to recreate my design in another piece using contrasting thread on the front!

Back of piece

Latest Comfort Quilt

I finished quilting my latest donation to our Love and Comfort Quilt Project on Friday. It still has to be bound but I suspect I can get that done by our next meeting.

I used the flower piece that I blogged about in mid-October. I try to keep my comfort quilts very simple and then use the quilting as an opportunity to work on my free-motion quilting. I also decided to try angling my machine while I was quilting - a tip I mentioned in my last blog entry. With the angling, I found it much easier to maneuver the quilt on my machine.

The flower was definitely the most fun part to quilt. For each of the blocks, I used a contrasting thread and played with designs. While the pattern is very straightforward, I think the quilt will brighten someone's day!

Hope everyone has a good week!

Floral Explosion

I have finished my latest art quilt - Floral Explosion. This grew out a fat quarter that fascinated me. I collected some fabrics that worked with it and went from there. After a brief respite while I contemplated thread work and quilting, I resumed work on it and have been progressing all summer. I kept wanting to call the piece Explosion but somehow wanted flowers or forest acknowledged. This morning the title, Floral Explosion, seemed just right.

Comments are most welcome!

Here is some detail on it.: