I Love Quilting Feathers

Today I am working on another beautiful quilt by Janet Sansom.  My instruction from Janet for the quilting in the pink ‘v’ shape was to treat it as one area, and to incorporate some kind of curling feathers. 

I decided to let Janet’s embroidery design be my inspiration, and I started by chalking in my design ideas.

These were the tools I used to mark the chalk lines.

Once I was happy with the design outline, I took a deep breath and started quilting.

I am happy with how it looks.  And I really enjoyed the creative challenge.

I will show you the whole quilt when it is finished.

Creating a Quilting Design - Tutorial

This is a close up of the fabric in Bronwyn’s quilt which I showed in my last post.

I used this fabric as inspiration for the quilting design in the setting triangles of this quilt.  You can see there is a mixture of flowers, swirls, leaves and paisley shapes.

I started by sketching some ideas that came to me from looking at this fabric.

Then I incorporated them into a triangle shape – a few pages of sketches were discarded before getting to this stage.

When I found something I liked, I was ready to load the quilt.  I marked the shapes and basic lines with chalk to see if I liked how it would fit into the area I was working with.

Once satisfied, I took a deep breath and started quilting.

It was a little intimidating to work with such a high contrasting thread as it shows every little wobble.  Once I got started though, it was a lot easier than I thought.  I even found that one line of stitching was not strong enough, so in some places I went over the stitching line twice to make it stand out even more.

How would you quilt this?

Because I quilt for customers, I am lucky to see different quilting designs on a wide variety of quilts.

The colours and fabrics are cues as to what quilting would look good on the quilt, combined with some important questions to ask the customer -

Who is the quilt for?
How densely can it be quilted?
Is it going to be washed and used a lot or be mainly decorative?

The answers to these questions help me determine the best quilting for each particular quilt.

A week or so ago I posted about an article in Machine Quilting Unlimited (click here to see the post). I always find it interesting to see the same quilt quilted in different ways.

The quilts in the magazine were beautifully and heavily quilted.

I asked myself - how would I quilt this snowball design if my customer asked for a light custom quilting, it was made in pinks and she was planning to give it to her five year old grand daughter?

I came up with some ideas and roughly sketched them.

I like the single daisy with leaves and swirls the best. Which one do you prefer?

So I challenge you – how would you quilt this if it were to be given to a young girl?

If you want to have a play, feel free to download this blank design and print it out.

If you decide to post your sketches, please leave a comment saying that you have done so for anyone else interested in having a look.

Have fun with it…..

Machine Quilting Unlimited

When I get a spare moment, I have been reading the latest Machine Quilting Unlimited.  I really enjoy this magazine and look forward to my copy turning up in the mail.

In the May edition it has an article called “A Quilter’s Challenge”.

They had six well-known quilters quilt the same simple snowball quilt top - each quilter completed the quilt in their own style.

I really enjoyed seeing how the same quilt could look so different due to the different quilting.  Whilst I liked some more than others overall, each quilt had aspects that I particularly liked.

My favourite was the one done by Ronda Kae Beyer.  I especially liked what she did in the border, and the curved crosshatching really gives the quilt movement.

Stephanie Patterson’s version with freehand feathers on all the white also really appealed to me.
 

I was wondering if anyone else gets this magazine, and if so, what are your thoughts on the quilts in this article?

Feather Options

Yesterday (Friday) I did a workshop with Jane Monk on Zentangles.  I really enjoyed it and I will upload some pictures soon.

This weekend I am babysitting my nephew Xavier.  Right now he is having his afternoon nap.  He has been asleep for over three hours, and I want to wake him up to play some more.  I am sure all the mums reading this would be thinking WHAT????

Anyway, whilst he has been asleep I have been playing with my brand new Bamboo Fun tablet. 

Last week I was given a stunning quilt by one of my long time and favourite customers.  (The quilt was made by her sister, and is beautifully pieced).  She wants feathers in the pink diamond area made of hexagons.  But how to place the feathers she left up to me.

Here are three options that I am considering. (I am still learning how to use the writing pad, so the feathers are a bit wonky, but you can get the idea.)

I like options 1 and 3 the most, as option 2 looks a bit messy or overdone to me.

What I really like about option 1 is the balance it has.  I am concerned with option 3 that the curved cross hatching might take over a bit.

Comments are welcomed.

Option 1

Option 2

Option 3

I might go check on my nephew, and make a bit of noise. :-)