Midsummer Night's Dream

I can rest on this one . . . a great summer quilt

I was inspired by Jenny Doan's YouTube tutorial on her Irish Chain Quilt.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHfIXnk_W4A

Simple Irish Chain

getting the layers loaded on the quilt frame

Lots of 2.5" scrappy strips (leftovers) to build this queen size quilt 90 x 102

One great thing about loading a quilt is--it forces me to stop and super-clean the studio floor so I don't draw up crazy lint and threads.

My Feather Bouquet edge to edge free style is relaxing to stitch

I used up the last bits of some of these scrap fabrics.  

Some of those fabrics I'll really miss--like the Robert Kaufman "hidden cove", a watery blue with fish swimming 'round.  Sliced up into little sections, only parts of fish show up here and there.

The nine patch finishes 6".   On a field of crisp white, I'm happy having so much negative space to quilt to show off the feathers, interrupted by 2" chips of color.

A full day's work to long arm quilt, and less than a week to piece. 

When presenting a variety of color, I sure rely on basic color wheel to make quick decisions, but not too obvious, and expectations of a random look.

 No problems quilting this one--I used Glide thread, and 100% cotton batting.

Rolling it off the frame

Swirl sequence of the Feather Bouquet design

Light streaming from the south full glass doors.

Quilt looks great.

I took lots of pictures of the free style quilting.  It is fun.

I flipped up the bottom, so you can see the backing with panel insert.

View of the backing

I finished the quilt just as we lost our precious little dog Rainie.  

I wish it were all a dream.  Jon and I miss her so much.

Falling Triangles Quilt and Goals for 2015

My goal for 2015 is to build 15 queens size quilts, using larger chunks of fabrics (leftovers) from other projects.

Falling Triangles Quilt is my 7th this year as we begin the month of June . . .

 I pieced the Falling Triangles while visiting my mother in May.  My Mom has a wall mounted quilt in her dining room.  I used Mom's wall mounted quilt as a design board--to pin and review finished blocks.

Assembly:  I selected and sewed 4 blocks together--as it was easier for me to keep each triangle rotating in the correct position.  

I took this photograph after completing the first row of long arm quilting, featuring my own free style edge to edge Feather Bouquet design.  

At the left of the photo is the take up roller bar--where you can see the backing fabric of gray and white chevron with turquoise center panel wrapping around the take up roller as I roll and advance the quilt to stitch the second row.

This photo shows all the layers loaded on the quilt frame.  After stitching the first row, I stopped, and pulled the quilt top to the side so you can see the polyester batting.  

To the right of this photos--I did a stitch test sample on the extended margin of the backing.  

The extra margin of backing fabric is great for testing thread tension, gives me a moment to see how the loft of the polyester batting will behave before starting the quilt, and most important the extra fabic margins (left and right) are need to attach side tension clamps.   

On the right--I am doing test stitches on a scrap piece of fabric. 

My Feather Bouquet free style design is stitched right to left.  Begins with a graceful S stem that finishes in a loose spiral, then back track to build feathers.   Two days work to long arm quilt, and a third day to add binding, turn binding, and hand stitch.  

I was inspired to make this quilt after reviewing Jenny Doan's Missouri Star tutorial on the Falling Triangles Quilt.  I hope you will give it a try also.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnQ1ajB8iK4

Tip:  I use Heavy Duty Spray Starch to prepare fabric for cutting and during assembly--makes every cut, every bias seam behave perfectly and finish accurately.