Fall Festival Quilt Follow-up

First - Happy (belated) Birthday Mary~ Thursday slipped by and I missed it, sorry blog mate! Less than 2 weeks and we'll be celebrating with Jill and Susan at my house! Can't wait!


Thanks for all the wonderful comments and questions regarding our Victoria & Albert inspired quilts. If you haven't seen them, click here.

To answer some of the questions of how, and how big:

We both used traditional needle turn applique'. We both did "mirror images" of our design motifs. We did them in sections, then appliqued over the seams. We both (I think Mary did) cut away the background behind the applique. I know I did, to ease in the hand quilting.

Mary's Quilt:

Her quilt is 70" x 75". Mary used red & white kona cotton. Mary quilted hers on her long arm quilting machine in a wavy pattern. In a post on Mary's old blog, you can see where she tried out different ideas. The cupcake club helped her decide on the wavy lines, which I still think is a great complimentary design to the bold graphic style of her quilt. Mary won 3rd place at the NJ Show in 2009, which I thought was a total rip-off, especially given the competition in the category. hiss, hiss, & meow.


Barb's Quilt:

My quilt is 88" x 88". I used a variety of reproduction fabrics on a soft pink mottled toile' background. I designed the fan quilting stencil for a custom fit on this quilt. I actually measured the borders after making the stencil so they would fit exactly. I splurged on silk batting for the hand quilting. In the end I didn't think it performed any better than my usual favorite, dream cotton, request batting. It won "best applique'" at the NJ Show 2008.

I hope this answered some of the questions - thanks again for all the interest!

Barb & Mary

Quilts and Krispee Treats, oh my

by: Barb

Hello! This is a busy post, as there was a lot to do this past long weekend.

Saturday, Gwyned Trefethen was the guest at the Empire Quilters. She talked about her series of quilts and various design elements in quilting. Here are a couple of photos of her work:



And this is a fun little Witchy quilt that the woman next to me was working on (darn, didn't write her name down). Members who attended the October round table we "treated" to a kit to make this quilt.


Member show and tell:
This is a "mile a minute" quilt




There was more, but my photos were sub-par for publication.

Here are the Block of the Month fashion label blocks, that I didn't win :(



Hanna and I made Krispee Treats. Traditional, and Fruity Pebble, which were sweet and good! For some reason, fall always seems the right time to make these.


On Tuesday, Hanna and I headed in to the city for a little shopping and see the Quilt Exhibit at the Williams Club, which was a beautiful East Side Brownstone. It is a private Alumni Club and a full of interesting architectural details.









It was interesting to view these quilts in all the different halls, parlors and meeting rooms at this club.

This weekend, I'm hoping to spend a little more time sewing.

Digg This

by: Barb

Yesterday Jo Diggs was our guest at the Brownstone Quilters Guild. She was a delight! If you have a chance to see her, do.

First she shared with us a number of antique quilts. She has a particular interest in Baptist fan quilting (which I l-ove).



This Robbing Peter to Pay Paul had straight across heavy quilting. Very modern in my mind for a quilt this old. Mary did this horizontal quilting on a contemporary quilt, and it was fabulous!



Beautiful old star quilts with heavy quilting - the border was Welsh in style and wonderful.


This is a piece Jo did for an Oxymoron challenge. This is "Industrial Park". She used duct tape, and all sorts of misc. materials. My favorite part was that she brought her wheel barrow and hand truck into the kitchen and used them to paint the track marks. Is she too fun, or what?


Jo is known for her Landscape quilts. And here they are in no particular order:






Member Show and Tell:

Susan's quilt, which will be part of our quilt shows' exhibit of quilts reproduced from the NJ Heritage Project Quilt Book.


Susan's Halloween Braid


Kim's wonderful 30s' Scotty Quilt


Elizabeth's incredible Irish Quilt. Sorry, don't know the name of the pattern, but it's all straight line piecing. She did beautifully Irish stylized lettering of their family name O'Sullivan at the bottom. Sorry it's blurry - hard to hit a moving target.


Here are some pieces that I received for the mini-auction. We have almost 100 pieces - hooray!




Jo is giving a workshop today, which would have been great, but I'm off to the Empire Quiters in NYC.

Enjoy your Weekend!

Thursday Things

by: Barb

This week I have been working on a number of small things.

Here is a Doll Quilt - one of my favorite things to make. Over the course of time, I will share my collection of over 50 dolls quilts and small quilts that I have made. This one will be offered in the mini auction at the Brownstone Quilters' upcoming show next month.

I used 2" finished 4-patches


I love to use surprise backings, even on small works:


Here are 2 Block of Month blocks for the Empire Quilters meeting, which is Saturday. I just loved the idea of these designer label blocks. The guild has set up a blog, click here, where you can see a quilt made up of similar blocks. How smart are they to do the instructions on a blog with photos - love that!


And finally, here is my Asian Flower Garden Quilt (of torture). I started this quilt on a trip to the AQS show about 8 years ago. I finished it this summer. This quilt is made of 3/4" hexagons, 2,204 of them. It is all hand done. I finally put a sleeve on it yesterday for the show.



My intention was for it to look similar to an antique silk quilt. I'm "well pleased" with it.

Here is the back. I used the entire piece I had of this pretty Asian fabric. It looks a little like a window to me.


And the label. I like to do something special for the label. This little China doll I found on google images. I just re-sized it and traced it. Another great tip is to trace a motif from a fabric that you feature in a quilt. I notice that judges always comment on backs that are done well and have a surprise.


I'm also working on 2 Christmas gift quilts and I've made a prototype block for the new cupcake project, which I'll share with you soon.

Cupcake Club

by: Barb

Yesterday we had a great Cupcake Club meeting at Susan's house. We missed you Mary, and I hope this post will make you feel as if you were there with us.

Our first treat was to see her newly decorated sewing room. The wall color is so happy and bright. The name of the paint is Hibiscus - Lovely!

The bookcases are from Ikea and Susan's husband customized them with cornices and footers - he is talented! Pretty little boxes all in a row...


Here is where all the magic happens.....Owen also custom made these work tables, am I jealous? You bet! Don't you love the over sized drafting tools?


We held a big discussion about our new project. We ran to the copy story to make enlargements and swapped fabrics. I will make a report as soon as we have something to show. Each of us will do our own version, and maybe size of this project.

Susan's side porch is such a cozy room to sew. It's where she also does her primitive painting. I always feel like I'm in a tree house.

Susan made a wonderful soup, which was especially good because it was chilly day.


To celebrate Susan's upcoming birthday, I made "Gooey Carmel Apple Cake". I was too embarrassed to take a photo of the whole cake, because the center was sink hole. I forgot my gift at home, doh!
After the cake was finished, Susan pointed out that were only 3 cupcakes on the plate, like our group...:( She is not happy about that, it was just a funny coincidence. She actually made a great pouty face, but asked me not to publish that one.

Susan worked on a binding for a sample that is going to Fall Quilt Market, there was a peek of it on the design board and then did hand quilting on her V&A project. Jill made applique circles and finished the applique on the swag border for her churn dash quilt (darn - didn't get a photo, sorry, Mary). And I finished my Rug!


I was going to paint the edge of the rug, where the white canvas shows, but Susan had the brilliant idea to use a marker. Thanks Susan! I had this art marker at home and it worked great -

So her it is installed on my Family Room raised hearth. It is so nice to make something custom fit. One thing I did not count on was the slight shrinkage in the width due to the tension of the rug - next time I would add about 1/2 inch or so depending on the overall size.
Once the fireplace is turned on, which will probably be tonight, the real cats in the house are sure to find it. The kids will also enjoy the cushion when they sit to warm their backs.

Speaking of cats here are my two:
Luna, who can't be bothered while she watches Starbuck outside.
And Starbuck, such pretty boy.
Have a Great Weekend everyone!