Been a very busy week this week catching up on a lot of work, but mostly on sewing. I needed to finish four quilts before I left for Manitoba. Not all of us were really busy, some of us just took it easy because they missed me on my trip to Phoenix Arizona. And just so you're wondering, no I did not go to every quilt shop I could find. As I've been telling my friends, I have too much material as is. BUTTTTTTTTTT we did find a quilt shop one night that we went into and found a Row by Row (Oh my goodness, yes, I did...) and I bought it as a souvenir of our trip. So you'll be seeing that one soon.
Getting back to my work load: I didn't finish my goal for the month (only had a week and a half to do that and I'm off again so that's it for sewing) which was my Sewology quilt. But instead I completed the following:
My friend finished the quilt that I was helping her with. It's a wedding gift for her son. She did all the 2 1/2 strips together, but it ended up a little crooked, and when we trimmed it to square it off, the quilt was shorter length wise. So we turned the quilt, added about 10 inches of dark blue, and put the "you & me" sign on it for the wedding wish of the two people.
The quilting was hearts which was a perfect choice for the marrying couple.
The next quilt is for my accountant in BC. It started simple with a panel of beautiful artwork of bears, wolves, etc, forest creatures. The plan was to make the main one on the left and using the smaller ones to go all around the main. But then I started playing with negative space. The quilting is straight line, both horizontal and vertical, then, I started to go crazy.... i added two fabric trees. The bottom square is not exactly with the panels and such but then I used the extra repeat panel to place some of the birds outside of the panel, and move them outside going towards another tree that I plaed to the left. That tree was a little bigger, and has a crow in it.
Notice the crow in the tree branch. I added some branches to make it more realistic and I also started to quilt at a angle to emphasize the branches. You can also notice the small owl in the tree. I used browns, and gold fabric to make the trees, added a bit of dark blue on one side to go with the panels, and the golds and light browns showed lighting on the one side of the tree. Loved the look of them.
Here's the entire quilt, or at least on top for you to see. I got the gold and brown fabric from Fabricana years ago, for $5 a meter (that really came in handy), and it worked out great with the panels. In the end the quilt was about 65" by 82". Very big, and I'm extremely happy with the final results. These pictures don't really do it justice but I'm happy with it.
Notice the geese and how much it adds to the effect of the 3 dimensional look. I'm so happy with the effect. 
Here's the next one, it's from Shania Sunga, you can get the pattern and kit from Dragonfly Quilting & Gifts in Cloverdale, BC. It's not a laptop but it's also going to Manitoba, for a gift.
I painted some of the tree. You can see it better in the picture below, because the fabric for the tree was so dark and so it the ocean water. so I put some yellow on the edge, and put some lines inside the fabric to make the branches look 3D
My next one is a gift for a wedding. It's a string quilt, a quilt made of strings of fabric. You can do them by color but I just randomly did 12 inch squares and then put them together and the diamonds appeared. It's large this quilt, and I'm not aloud to go on my knees so it was a challenge to get this quilt ready for quilting. I used my bed.
Notice in the corners what looks like light string? It's ribbons that I put in the corners and then I knotted them two or three times. Then I added the words on top, to make it into a wedding quilt for the couple. See the words....
Aren't I smart???!!!!!! Loved this idea and it came together in a dream for me. With four quilts to complete before going to Manitoba, I had to think fast. I was working on this string quilt for about 6 months, doing 2 - 3 a month. It was going to go on my bed for a summer quilt (no batting just the fabric to make it nice and light - but it wasn't light), but this is a much better idea.
Finally, it not a completed quilt but it's an add on to a quilt that I made my mom last summer. It didn't fit her double bed and she asked for me to make add on sections to actually add on to the quilt when I go out to Manitoba. That's what I did. Two pieces at 80 inches and then the bottom piece at 87". When I get there I'm sewing on my mother's sewing machine. It's old but it still works. Going to use Quilt-as-you-go method, it will be easy.
That's it for this session. Now all I have to do is make three 9 1/2 inch square blocks to enter a contest at the night guild and the things above will get me 4 entry tickets to the contest.
See you in two weeks with a new post and more quilting, or maybe even a painting completed. Who knows...
