Rainbow, primary, and fall colors!

A quilt made for a friends first grandchild.  Richard Scary, Busy town blocks and small machine free motion quilting.

I cut the striped binding on the bias and added colorful pinwheels to the corners.

I finally completed my daughter's rainbow heart quilt on the Sunshine 16.  I added green binding and quilted cinnamon rolls in each border block on my small machine.  I had a lot less trouble using the Sunshine 16, than with my fall leaf quilt.  Someone at my quilt guild said there's a two year learning curve when learning to long arm quilt.  That consoled me because for awhile I almost thought there was no hope!



My niece wants a quilt with these leaf blocks that we saw in a Better Homes and Garden quilting book.  I picked some real fall leaves and threw them down by the blocks to see if I'm getting the colors right.  Looks pretty good so far!

Fall leaf quilt -- tesselating leaves finally complete and ready to be slept under tonight!

the middle portion was quilted on the sunshine 16 but I had quite a bit of trouble.  I had to do all the sides, about a foot from the edge on my small machine with free motion quilting.  It has lots of flaws but I still love it and am so glad it's done!

I want to make some pillow cases in some of the matching fabrics with cordinating flanges.  Hope it doesn't take another year!

One of the reasons I let my daughter get a cat was so I could have quilt pictures with a pet lying strategically!  Hah!

Fall leaf quilt with tesselating leaves!

Finally I've been able to get some stipple or meandering quilting done on my fall leaf quilt that I started last fall, using my Sunshine 16.  The problems:  it seem only the King Tut thread in the bobbin works, but also increased the speed of the machine and am learning  better technique with how I move the machine.  Now I'm not really getting many loops on the back but I'm still getting some missed stitiches where there'll be a 1/2 -1 inch line of thread in spots.  Sometimes the thread breaks frequently but sometimes I can go for 10-15 minutes without it breaking.

This fall leaf quilt is made with tesselating leaves pattern.  I wanted a scrappy look using fall colors.



I really love the oranges, purples, browns and I threw in turquoise blue and some other colors for variety.  I pieced together the back out of left over fabrics.  I can't wait to finish it and put it on my bed!

Olivia's and Muriel's Quilts

This is a quilt for a baby named Olivia.  They are decorating her room in brown and pink and in the little character, Olivia the pig.  I remembered I'd purchased some Olivia the Pig fabric and so bought some fabric markers to paint in the black and white drawings of Olivia the pig.  It was fun sewing pink and brown!



This shows the detail on the border.  I wanted to put cute buttons, but worried it would be a chocking hazaard.

I also bought little dolls for baby Olivia's cousins, ages 1 and 5 and made them little doll quilts.

border detail

For the 1 year old's doll.

Muriels wall hanging all completed.



Hanging above her fireplace.

Showing the fabric painting.  I bought the fabric paint at Michaels.

Showing the detail on Muriel's wall hanging.

Other projects

Free motion quilting on Muriel's wall hanging (only 8 months late for her birthday so far)

40 inches square.  It should be very pretty when all done.  Still no time or mental prep to practice on the Sunshine -- but hopefully soon!

working on a Fenton's painting with "Up" characters for gift for the newborn twins

Learning mid arm quilting plus some older projects

Back in June practicing on my Sunshine 16

Lots of practicing back in June

Taylor's quilt -- with church sisters help, I pieced this and the following two quilts together and another sister did the machine quilting.

Debbie's quilt-- graduation gift and welcome into Relief Society

Emerald's



I made this 4th of July table runner last year before I even learned free motion quilting.  It was very hard to try and swirl and manuever without the free motion technique.

First attempt at midarm quilting on a real quilt.  I pieced together some halloween prints, loaded it up and began.  At first I was moving the machine too fast for the speed I set the machine for and ended up with loops on the back.  I was able to get more control and the tension on the back turned out pretty good from the second row on.

Close up

I tried to show the loops on the back but the picture is sort of blurry and hard to see.

I'll probably finish the border with free motion quilting and then put the binding on.  I'm anxious to do another quilt and hopefully continue to improve my technique with each quilt.

Baby quilts for twins

 I still haven't got my sunshine 16 up and running.  Too much work and projects and I want a block of time that I haven't got yet but next week should be the week to get to it.  In the mean time I did some quilting on my little sewing machine.

I made two similar quilts for twins babyshower



Boys or girls??  It's going to be a surprise!

They're decorating with an "UP" theme so I painted a picture for the room.



You can see the machine quilting on the back. 

Green and purple quilt



green and purple quilt



Here you can see the blue flower that RBD selected to put by his garden path

volunteer sweet peas

Lovely sweet peas!



cute garden shed

Cute shed that RBD and I built a couple of years ago

A little over a year ago I was a very beginner quilter. At my church, we make quilts for the graduating girls to welcome them into the women's organization. I couldn't find any cute sheets to "tie" together and embarked upon a challenge to piece together two quilt tops for the girls who were graduating, one of them my daughter and this is the quilt that we made for her. Another church lady long arm quilted both quilts and they turned out delightful! My inspiration for this green and purple quilt came from a book called "Through the Garden Gate".

Molly's quilt

My friend's mom who was a sewer, died.  My friend inherited some odds and ends of things including a puppy named Molly and several little ironing boards in different sizes and shapes.  I was lucky to receive the small ironing boards.  I wondered what I could do for my friend and decided to make Molly a quilt.

Quilt for Molly

I ordered some 10 inch squares of a collection of fabrics called "Parlour Pets" because it was cute and Molly preferred pink and purple.

"woof"

 It needed some special free motion quilting and luckily I took the class last year and love to make swirls and echos of the swirls.  This time I tried words like Molly, woof, ruff, bow wow, and even added pictures of balloons, sleepy moon faces, and hearts.

"Molly"

 My friend spoke with such love for this little puppy (Molly) who assuaged her grief  and it touched my heart.

quilt label

At my quilt guild meeting they said that quilts have a lot of history and meaning but often the years go by and no one know when or where the quilt originates and therefore every quilt should have a label.  

Sunshine 16

I'm starting this blog to celebrate my new Sunshine 16 quilting machine and frame that should arrive any day.  I am looking forward to making many wonderful quilts and want to share my creations.  I have a place to put this 10 foot long quilt frame because a few years ago when we pitched our roof, I was lucky enough to get an attic with a craft room where I spend many happy hours!  I'm so excited!  Received Sunshine 16 midarm quilting machine April 27th, 2012.  RBD (husband) helped me begin the assembly but then went on his annual weeklong fishing trip so we completed the assembly yesterday.  Instructions were a bit difficult to follow.

Sunshine 16 midarm quilting machine instructions

Sunshine 16 quilt frame assembly



Sunshine 16.  Isn't it pretty?  Made in U.S.A!!!

Now I have to figure out how to load a quilt and then learn to use my new machine.