Wedding Patchwork Quilt

What a difference a border (or two) makes. When I took the finished top over to The Quilting Loft to meet with the customer, I knew it wasn't large enough to fit onto a queen sized bed but there wasn't any material left to make it bigger. The boarder was going to need to be 10" or more to make the quilt the right size.

Fortunately, Getting to pick out material at The Loft presents endless solutions. It was fun to watch the owner of this patchwork piece pull bolts of material off the shelf and put them back. It did take bit of time but she selected a wonderful yellow and cream flower print for both the border and the back. To extend the border, we decided to add a round of the grey that we used in the top.

Although this isn't my style, I like how the borders pulled everything together and made the quilt look like it was planned to be this way all along.

Now that it is done (front and back), we'll hook up with the Long-arm quilter and get it in the queue. Can't wait to see what quilt design the customer selects.

Top with borders

Top with borders

Back and Border

Lava Meets Sky

This is a quilt I put on my Beautiful Material board because I really liked the look of it but had no desire to actually make it. Good lesson: careful what you put on Pinterest. A customer might just fall in love with it and ask you to make one.

I got the material the other day - two fat quarter bundles of solids from Robert Kaufman. Beautiful stuff. The customer wants the material pre washed - which is a first for me. And, she isn't fond of some of the colors in the bundles. So I sorted out the ones she wants to use, pinned the bundles together and washed them. It will take a bit of time to get them all ironed but once that's done, I'll start cutting.

This is a deceptive pattern. It is just 5" squares put into half-triangles. The interesting task is figuring out which two colors to put together to come out with the flow that is represented in the original quilt.

Should be interesting.

Miscellaneous projects

The Wedding Guest quilt is off to the Long-arm quilter. We were very fortunate to get to work with Angie (the owner of the Quilting Loft) when the customer and I met to make the quilting decisions. Angie recommended a customized quilt design rather than using one of the computerized one. This way, she can quilt around the writing. She's going to do a leaf design to mirror the design that's in the signature blocks. The thread is a variegated cream/wheat that will show up once in a while but mostly it will just add texture. It will take a while for it to be done but it will definitely be worth it.

The Manor Grown quilt is now ready for the Long-arm. I know I said I was going to do the quilting my self but since then, I've gotten a couple payments from customers so I'm going to let the professionals do the quilting. I got lucky and found a beautiful piece of material for the back. It was a piece left over from Christmas but isn't a real Christmas'ie pattern. It will be a great back for this one. What you can't see in the pictures it the slight sparkle this material has to it - great stuff for only $6 a yard.

Wedding Guest Quilt

After short break to allow for the Holiday festivities - I can't imagine how hectic it is to go through Christmas with three pre-schoolers and then I found out the owner of this quilt also sings and is responsible for a number of performances during the holidays; busy busy busy! Anyway, we got together this week along with the Long-arm quilter and got this quilt in line for some custom quilting. the quilting will go around the writing in a vine/leaf pattern. Should be really beautiful. It is a long queue so won't get it back until late-February or March so the quilt should be ready for Easter.

Wedding Patchwork Quilt

I can't say that I've enjoyed this quilt top but I certainly have learned a lot by doing it. I got together with the owner last week to show her what I'd gotten done so far and much to my relief, she really liked it. Since it isn't my favorite style of quilting, I was really nervous that she wouldn't like it either. Thank goodness we all have different taste.

We picked out the material for the border - a beautiful medium grey - and I replaced several of the blocks in the top with this grey so it would look like that was the plan all along. Then, to make the quilt long enough to fit on top a queen sized bed, we added a couple rows that are mostly the grey with a few of the small squares along the row.

The border will be 10 inches - a little much for just one color given that the top is so busy so I'm suggesting we place the rest of the material squares around the border at random; sort'a make it look like they are floating.

Here are a few pictures that probably tell the story better than I do:

The last section - bottom

Top is finally done

Hard to see the details but here it all is

To the Manor Grown Quilt

While I was waiting to get together with these customers to move their projects to the next step, I had a little time to work on something I'd put together several months ago. I knew I didn't have enough material to make the quilt as large as the pattern - it was for a double bed and I had enough material for a Nap-quilt. And I was so captivated by the material and pattern, I forgot to take pictures along the way.

So here is what I ended up with. I found a great piece of material for the back and plan to do the quilting myself - something really simple so it doesn't distract from the material.

Lava Meets Sky Quilt

My photographer gets paid in quilts - no surprise there. She and her daughter have been working on collecting material for a quilt for her daughter (who's just graduated from college and has moved to California to live with her boyfriend and continue her path toward being a doctor). She found a picture on my Beautiful Material board and asked if I'd make that quilt for her. Of course the stuff on that board is what I like to look at but never intended to make so I had to give myself a little pep talk before accepting the challenge.

Now I have the material - all Robert Kaufman solids - and the blog which isn't really a pattern but gives me enough so I can make it happen. Once the decks are cleared of a few other projects, I'll start cutting. This one has several hundred half-triangle squares so it might take a little while to get it just right. Something tells me, my husband and his sharp eye for color and design is going to be involved in this project.

It's always better when I have a project just waiting to get started - helps me focus and get the nearly done ones done!