Janet's influence - quilting finished!

Yeah!!! The quilting is finally done, and now it's washing so I can move on to painting. Yes, I'm going to add paint to bring out all those motifs that were quilted in, but not that noticeable. Wish me luck as this quilt has been, and still is a new adventure for me.

Janet's influence - quilting the "background"

I guess it really isn't the "background", since there are no appliques, or areas between blocks, so in this case, it is the areas between and behind all those flowers and other things that I've already quilted. I'm hoping that I am able to finish up the quilting today so that I can secure the edges and wash it. Once it is dry, I've got more plans in store for this quilt.

Janet's stacked skinnys in EQ6

Here's a design that I created in a custom set layout. All I've done is stretch the blocks I drew into the shapes I wanted.

Janet's Influence - sunflower quilting

I'm only showing one here, but I've really added three large sunflowers on the quilt, as well as a dahlia. Now to go through some gardening books / catalogs for more inspiration while I work on filling in between the flowers. I was hoping that I'd have more time for quilting, and it would be all quilted by now, but at least I'm making progress!

Pinwheel 10

Here's another of the pinwheel designs that I've designed. I think this one will need to be made into a larger quilt than the pinwheel swirl because of all the pieces.

Ribbon Swirl

While taking a break from quilting, and doing my homework for the Designer Pinwheels class that I'm taking from Dena Crain on Quilt University, I've come up with a design that I really like. What do you think?

Janet's Influence - a tree and a bird

The tree is finished, and I've added a little bird sitting on the branch. Since the tree runs from the top of the quilt, down to the flowers and ferns that were already quilted, I couldn't fit it all into a picture at this time, but I think there's enough showing to give you an idea of the quilting. I'm not sure what else I'm going to be adding other than some sunflowers, so I'll have to flip through some gardening magazines and catalogues for inspiration.

Janet's Influence - quilted poppies

Poppies seemed like they would be a great addition to my flower garden, so I marked some circles, and partial circles and got busy quilting them. The leaves were more difficult than the flowers, because I had to fit them between everything else below the flower heads.

I'm thinking that it needs to have a tree and bird on the left, but am also considering having the bird at a bird feeder hanging from a limb or at a bird bath nestled among the flowers.

Janet's Influence - quilted lavender

The quilt needed some lavender, and then I thought some blue flower clusters filling in here and there would be nice. I've got more ideas, some in progress, and others simmering while I figure out how-to and where to add them.

Janet's Influence - two kinds of flowers

I thought it would be best to start with some basic daisy-like flowers, so I chalked some centers and took of quilting the petals first. The centers were added next, and then I filled in the stems and leaves, chalking guide lines for the stems and leaf center lines.

Since I'm trying to imagine a garden, I began thinking about the height of different flowers, and what should be next. Since I really like coneflowers, they were the next to be quilted. This time I started by quilting the centers, and then added petals, and lastly the stems and leaves. I like adding the stems and leaves last, because they are fillers, and since I'm not really premarking the flowers, there is really no way to tell where I'll want them until the flower heads are finished.

Janet's Influence - quilted ferns

I've started quilting, working from the bottom up, in an intuitive manner. The fabrics are telling me to go with a nature theme, and I've been thinking about ferns, so that is what I quilted. The only marking was a lightly chalked central vein. The charm about the powdered chalks is that you can quickly rubb out the design with your hand if you don't like what you've drawn, and by the time the quilting is finished, it's gone. The problem is that you can't mark too much at a time.

Janet's influence - technique

I was asked if the smaller curvy pieces were fused to the larger rectangles - the answer is no. All the blocks, as well as the quilt top assembly were free hand cut and pieced with 1/ 4" or less of a seam allowance. Making the blocks, and sewing them into strips was easy, but free hand cutting the long strips was the most difficult part. If you really like this style, I'd recommend that you take a class with Janet Steadman, or one of the other teachers that use a free hand cutting and piecing technique.

Janet's Influence, a work in progress

Last year, inspired by a trip to Penn Cove Pottery on Whidbey Island, I enrolled in a class taught by Janet Steadman to learn her method for free hand cutting and piecing. Using a stack of batik fat quarters, I made lots of blocks and then arranged them with two of my son's help and both a green and red value finder. Yes, it took three people, because when I sorted using red it grouped some of the colors, and green did the same thing, but differently, and neither were particularly attractive to me. With the boys help, I was able to use both colors, as well as the real colors. This allowed me to give them choices, and see if other possibilities would work. (Of course, if I had a huge design wall, I would have laid out the blocks as they were created, and the quilt top would be totally different, but you have to work with what you have.) Since I'm still not totally happy with it, it is going to undergo an experiment of layering designs.

Right now I'm busy quilting a garden on it, considering adding paint, and am planning to post a few pictures at a time. Hopefully I'll be happy with it when it's finished.

Blue Butterfly

This past week my local quilt guild emailed that a lady had some ties she wanted to give to someone who could use them. Of course, they are great for crazy quilting, so I emailed that I'd love to have them, and she chose to give them to me! As a thank you gift, I gave her this fabric postcard. It was made by printing a picture I took at the butterfly exhibit at our local zoo on fabric, and machine quilted. Fast-to-Fuse was used in place of batting, and it is backed with a watercolor postcard.

Artistic Free Motion class begins soon!

Don't miss out, my Artistic Free Motion class is scheduled to begin on January 18 at Quilter's Threads ( http://www.quiltersthreads.com/ ). From stippling to feathers, as well as ideas to get you creating your own free motion quilting designs.