Workshop Sketchings

Last month I took the plunge and signed up for Bethanne Nemesh's Fiesta Feathers workshop. As we all know, there hasn't been opportunities for in person workshops and my one effort with an online workshop back in 2020 was a bit of a fail (IMHO) 

Having followed Bethanne on IG for the past while, I'd been seeing her videos of quilting and how she was approaching her viewers. I was optimistic that her class would be good and I signed up, after waffling for several weeks. I'm so glad I did. We have had 2 lessons so far and although they are a lot of review for me, I've gained so many opportunities to clean up some bad habits I'd gotten into over the years. Here are a few sketches of ideas I've done.

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 I'd love to feather your quilt top.  If interested, please reach out to me and we can make a plan.

Keep stitching,

Sharon

Vitamin C Zig Zags

This was such a fun and fabulous quilt to quilt.  I connected with this quilter through Lori at Humble Quilts.  It's great to have my quilting showcased on other blogs, and it resulted in me getting to work on this beauty. 

Thread, something so simple, something that turns a sheet of pieced fabric into a quilt.  Oh how I love to see the transformation.

She loved the feathers I did on Lori's quilt so I figured when I got her top, feathers were on her mind.

And with all this open space with solid orange, what long arm quilter could resist filling it all up with feathers!

She pieced the back so there were places with a lighter print fabric to show the quilting.

I loved how the zig zag shows up on this light fabric.  The colors and fabrics were the star of this quilt, so I kept the quilting on the 1/2 square triangles simple.  Curves and loops were used on the pieced sections.

Oh, how I love how this one turned out.  Using the piecer's talents to be my guide, it doesn't get better than this. 

OK, I know, enough photos of the back.  But I really do love how the quilting showed up on the section of light fabric.

In case you are wondering, this quilt was approx. 100" x 110".  Yes, it is big!

I used Hobbs 80/20 and So Fine thread.  I debated moving away from the orange/red thread when doing the 1/2 square tri's, but since it was a riot of color, nothing would blend into everything, and I was very pleased with how the same thread worked on this whole quilt.

Click on the photos for close ups of her color/fabric choices. It is always a delight for me to get up close and personal with other peoples color/print choices. It expands my view;  gives me more confidence when doing my own work.

It was a pleasure to quilt this piece. It was so bright and cheerful to walk into my studio and see this.

How could you not smile when seeing this quilt. I hope your quilts make you smile!
Keep stitching,
Sharon

Doing it Right

Because I am a registered business with a license and I charge sales tax to my customers, I must do this once a year. Yup, I hand over every penny I collect to the state of WA. I'm not sure what happens to this money, just know it's what I have to do.

Because I have this business, I get the pleasure of working on quilts like this one. Can you say Fabulous? This is a Pam Bono pattern, Flowers in the Cabin.

Quilt measures 88 x 102. How many pieces are in each block?  Not even going to guess, I just know there are a lot of strips and squares of different widths and lengths and only the most organized quilter could keep this all straight.

That little pink square in the center is part of the sashing that just blends into the blocks.  The piecer, NT, did not want feathers, but liked the idea of wreaths of leaves.  Of course, stitch in the ditch was also a big part of the machine quilting.

I think this was a great choice and I just can't get enough of this quilt.  Leaves were quilted into the brown border as well.

French General for the back........ so nice.

This is such an fabulous pattern and one I have never seen made up.  If you have it, go for it, the results are beautiful.

It will be worth your time and effort, sorry for over posting pictures, but seriously, I L-O-V-E this piece and I'm so glad it's going on my friends bed so she will enjoy it for many nights.

Yup, this is the reason we don't by a 'bed in a bag' We make our own and this is why.

Keep stitching,
Sharon

My Next Two Weeks

This is my gal pal Norma's quilt. It's 91 x 91. It's beautiful

We've decided on the quilting, we've picked the threads.

Now I'm executing these decisions. Some days I think how nice a computer on board my machine would be. Then I get into the whole "wow" factor and I'm happy to hand guide my machine.

There will be a lot more feathers and hearts on this, I've just got the top border done.
Sharon

This and That

Spring has finally arrived here in the NW. It should hit close to 70 today. My longarm machine is in a non heated room, so now that it's not so cold, it's more inviting to go to the garage. I am anticipating a move in the next few months and my biggest priority is a room big enough to contain my longarm, domestic, cutting/pressing table and a tv mounted up in a corner for my "Workshop in a Box" dvd's that I've been buying. My newest is from Kim Bruener, I'ved only read the book, haven't even looked at the DVD. I'm sure it will be fantastic, my very first longarm class at Innovations was with her. I had no idea who she was or what I was doing. By the time I got home, I'd taken 3 or 4 feather classes and knew for sure I could never do feathers. That had something to do with trying to take 3 different techniques and put them into one method. Not a good idea! I love doing feathers, I'm pretty good at them too, but I wanted a visual just for refreshers and ideas and there is no one better that Kim for this.


Here are two of my free hand feather pieces, not bad but always room for improvement!

I follow a few other blogs and I'm loving Tues mornings. Check out this fellow quilters blog to see why. And no, I have enough of my own WIPS so I'm sorry to say I haven't been able to help her out, maybe you can!

This past weekend was busy, a quilting class, (pics and more later), up to Abbotsford, BC for the Sewing show, dinner with my gal pal Muriel. She happened to have the most beautiful quilt hanging at the show, but I didn't have my camera. Maybe she will send me a picture? hint, hint. Sunday I met up with an old friend and we went back to our old apartment. Seeing our same old curtains still hanging in both our apartments was worth the trip. Laughter, sunshine, quilting and old friends, what a great way to spend the weekend!

Stitch a bit today....

Covered in Feathers

This past weekend was time to get off my own projects and get to work on a long overdue gift for my gal pal Paula. The motivation is that she is arriving at my house in a week, so I thought I better have this done for her. It turned out great!














I used Black sateen for the outside and did all the free hand quilting with a bronze metallic poly thread and I didn't have one thread break. That makes for a more enjoyable project.