Left overs

I thought you might enjoy seeing the two little quilts I started at the start of this week.


Each of these is the tiny version of one of my patterns. The first one is the tiny version of Summer Afternoon done in pink. And the second one is the tiny version of Three Pumpkins. I make these tiny versions with left over's from fused projects. 


Nothing is ever wasted with fused fabrics.


A bit of a peek at the process.


Here is the quilt in the process of being quilted.


I like to leave plenty of extra fabric and batting around the design while I am quilting it, that way I have lots of fabric to hold on to and plenty to trim away once I am done quilting.





The design elements (flowers, leaves, stems) were outline quilted with 30# rayon thread and then the background area was stippled with 50# silk thread.





I thought you might enjoy seeing the back as well.





And finally the front.


This little quilt is about 12” x 9”





The flowers and leaves are made of my hand dyed silk and the background and binding are my hand dyed cottons. If you are interested in purchasing it for your own private art collection, contact me.


Tiny Three Pumpkins is the perfect wall quilt for fall.





I decided to quilt the background around the pumpkins with little oak leaves and swirls. I like to do this kind of quilting with a variegated 30# cotton thread.





I always sign my quilts in three places, obsessive I know, but I can’t help it. First I machine quilt 
my name on the front, then I sign and date the label, and lastly I sign the back with a black extra fine sharpie marker.



This little quilt measures about 14” x 10”. Cute isn’t it. Perfect for your studio wall or in the kitchen this fall to cheer you up.


Have a great weekend and stay cool.


Don't forget next week is my blog give away for Jane Sassaman's new book. 

Playing inside

With this terrible heat driving me inside, I am working on a few small quilts. My basement is cool and comfortable, if a bit messy.


I really wish I had a magic genie to come in every night and straighten up my workspace, just the way I like it.


I will never be that really neat person, sigh.


Anyway, I wanted to share with you one of the ways that I add quilting lines on my work if I need to follow a line while I am quilting something.


Often I like to have a drawn line to follow when doing something like these flowers. If I don’t have the line to follow the line will become to straight and un-natural looking and so it helps if I can mark the curves. I discovered these colored pencils several years ago and now use them when doing this kind of quilting on my pieces.


I also discovered just recently that these lines can become permanent. I will share that next time.

Using Derwent Pencils to mark quilting lines

Don’t forget that next week is a free give away on my blog for Jane Sassaman’s new book.


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Happy Quilting.