Thursday, October 25, 2012

Bonnie's Quilt all finished!!

First off, quilt stats. I took 29.5 hours to quilt this, I used 2 layers of Hobbs 80/20 batting (for detail to pop) and I used a gold Magnifico thread and a cream Glide thread. I have to say that I love both of the threads I used, this was the first time I tried out Magnifico and I was thoroughly happy with this thread.

Bonnie pieced this special quilt and she did a beautiful job, I love how straight the quilt was.  It is so much easier to work with a straight quilt.  The colors are perfect for this beautiful fall season.  Here is what the pattern is called and a little more info on the quilt in Bonnie's own words:

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"The quilt is from the book Log Cabin Quartet, by Trudie Hughes. The pattern is called Shadow of the Bear. This quilt was challenging because of the small triangles. The pieced border re-uses the smaller paw that is in the bear paw blocks. The half-square triangles finishes at 1 inch. The log cabin blocks are off center and they create curves and movement in the quilt."

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This first thing that came to mind as I was deciding how to quilt this particular quilt was the straight lines in the cream fabrics.  I felt like these lines would help to focus the center of the quilt.  I love how they turned out.

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 I couldn't decide which pictures to leave out, so I will just put them all in here.  I love, love how this came together.
  
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I decided on fun oval shapes in the corners instead of the continuous lines I used for the rest of the quilt. I had a lot of fun quilting this "first time" stitch for me.

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To soften the quilt I used my free motion swirl feathers in the darker log cabin fabric strips. I loved using the gold thread on these colors, I think gold is my favorite go to color for a lot of quilts.

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For those of you that are new to my blog, I free motion quilt on my A-1 long arm quilting machine.

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I love this picture! Half inch quilted sections always take a long time, but the finished result is always worth it!
 
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These straight lines ended up being about 3/4 inch apart, it worked great using the seams in the blocks as guides for my lines. I marked the lines before I quilted and used my straight edge ruler to get the straight lines just right.

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The free motion feather swirls were continued in the borders.

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A super simple stitch for the inside of the bear paws.

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The square effect with the straight lines, I love it!

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The free motion feather motif in the triangles are so fun! The original plan was to continue the straight lines through these triangles, but I decided to go with the feather motif to balance the quilting designs.
  
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I really hope this post isn't picture overload, but it has been while since I have shared a quilting project and I just cannot get enough of this quilt.
 
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And the back...

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Thank you Bonnie for using a plain and simple quilt backing, makes it so much more fun to see the quilting.

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Love ;-)

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Love the corners of the quilt more....

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The goal has always been and will always be that the back of the quilt looks as good as the front. I sure hope I have accomplished that with this quilt.

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Thanks for sticking it out through the end of these pictures. It feels so great to get this quilt finished! On to the next one!

Saturday, October 20, 2012

Road Trip!

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Me, my honey and my sparkly peach shirt took a road trip this week. We had a fabulous time!

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First stop, Panguitch - a small Utah town about two hours northeast of here. I love that there is quilting inspiration everywhere I go.

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This is a monument to the Pioneer Men who used their quilts to travel across snow to get food from a neighboring town.  It is a touching story and it always makes me cry to think about it.
 
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Read all about it :-)

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Close up of the detail of the quilt. I think sculpting a quilt would be way more difficult than piecing one!  :-)

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And the infamous Butch Cassidy has made his appearance here too.

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After a walk around the cute old town and a fantastic dinner, Clint and I drove to Bryce Canyon.  We have both lived in Utah our whole lives, but have never been to Bryce Canyon National Park.  It was so beautiful - and we didn't get the chance to see the whole thing. These shots were taken as we were driving and I wish we would have had time to stop.  It seriously was so beautiful.
  
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So, naturally next year we plan on taking the kids to see this. We can not wait. Isn't the earth so beautiful? The diversity and scenery everywhere we go is just so amazing.

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We arrived at the hotel for a quilt quild trunk show and my cute honey was so helpful bringing in all my quilts. It was kind of funny because the place was packed and we were walking in with a bunch of quilts and I don't know if Clint would admit it, but I think maybe that was a little embarrassing for him. He's a good sport.

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Me and my sparkly shirt with my quilts. I can not believe I made all these and I don't even have half of the quilts I have made in this group. I wish I would have kept a list of all the quilts I have made.

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And me talking about how I got started quilting..It was a great group of ladies, they treated me so well!
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Talking about one of my first quilts, Checkered Flowers - still one of my favorites!

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Me trying to figure out my quilting path, it's been a long time since I quilted this quilt, so it was a challenge remembering what I had done.

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I think the best part of what I do is being able to share it with quilters who appreciate the time and effort that quilts take.  I always get nervous to do presentations, but it is so much fun and the nerves usually leave when I get to meet other quilters.  I really had a fabulous time!  Thanks for letting me share.  Have a wonderful weekend everyone.  

Monday, October 15, 2012

Winners and some quilting..

When I said (last Monday) that you had until Friday to win my giveaway, I meant Monday - today - right, sorry about that. I had someone remind me today that I didn't post the winners and I just have to apologize - I feel like I am doing that a lot lately. 

So anyway, the winners of the giveaway are first, Barb from Nana Barb's Musing and the second, Gene Black. Congratulations! We will send you out one of your items from your favorites list, just email me your address at judi(at)greenfairyquilts(dot)com

 So, this is what it looks like under the machine right now. It is coming together.
under the machine 


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Such a cool picture of the back.

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And, this is a fun and different way to quilt between straight lines. I haven't done quilting like this before, so it has been a fun stitch. I can't wait to finish this up and show you the whole quilt. So, I'll keep busy quilting... have a fabulous week everyone! 

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Checking in...

feather motif 

I feel like I am not getting much done as far as quilting is concerned, but there has been some progress on this quilt.  I will post more pictures when I can, hopefully I can finish this soon! But, for now I am at the computer finalizing everything for my book to pass on to the editor - so excited! - that's why I have been absent from my blog and I may be absent a little longer, I hope you will forgive me!  Have a fabulous week.  You still have time to enter my giveaway

Monday, October 8, 2012

GIVEAWAY TIME!!!!

So we have had handfuls of new Moda lines come in to our shop over the past couple weeks, and it's time for us to give some of it away!  This will be very simple - all you have to do to enter is tell us what your 3 favorite items are on our website, and two winners will win one of their favorite items! 

This giveaway will end Friday night.

Click here to visit our shop!

Also, be sure to check out our Jelly Rolls - they're all on clearance for $26.95!!!


Friday, October 5, 2012

I can't believe it's October.

 These two little handles pretty much sum up my quilting in September.  Clint told me not to plan on getting any quilting done in September and he was right.  

  We took a family trip and discovered that this little monkey is super talented...he's excellent at sucking on his big toe.

 These two are super strong...

 Daddy holding the boys hands is priceless...

 Me taking my sister on Tower of Terror was a blast, especially since this was her first time at Disneyland, ever...

 Dragging a stubborn, almost two year old boy can be exciting - or darn right frustrating. 

  Burying kids in the sand - awesome!

 This kid telling me he wants to go on Thunder Mountain with me, too cute...

Getting my Dole Whip Float is a dream come true, especially because it was so hot and it seemed like everyone was there - I even saw this girl  :-) 

 
 I realized that inspiration for quilting can be found anywhere. 

 Awesome ceiling tiles. 

 And, finally home to get a quilt on the racks.  The plan was to start quilting, but then this happened...

Instagram - judiakagreenfairy
Catching up with orders after we're gone can be crazy.

So, it's busy around here and I promise I will get some projects going, believe me, I have some serious quilting envy right now and I just want to quilt!