quilts make the "big time"

My friend Dorry submitted applications for two of her quilts that I quilted to the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival in Hampton (thank you Dorry - shows I was not really concentrating!) and they were accepted - The first one is her Carolina Lilies quilt that I had posted photos of recently (hers is the one with a bright orange background). The other was Riverdance - a much smaller quilt that won an honorable mention in the Asheville show where it had to compete against much larger quilts. These would be the first quilts I've worked on to be entered into a major competition. Just being accepted in a show of this stature is an honor.

Looking Down on the Morning Fog in the Mountains

Taken from our deck this morning to remind Cheryl of home. since she is in Chicago with her family this week.

another make-up quilt

Here's yet another quilt from the Reston Block of the Month pattern by Ann Weber. You can see Cheryl's here - Ann's here - and a third here. Fun to see so many versions of the same quilt - and the quilting is not identical on any of them either. This one is by a first time customer and fairly new quilter. She made this for her mother.



The lighter colors and solid fabrics she chose show quilting better than printed fabrics, so I'll post a few more than usual -


If you click on this next picture for the larger view, you will see butterflies in the center of the yellow Mosaic blocks, as well as around the flower baskets.



One of the back where all you see is the quilting -

winter sets in...

Norris is now in full time EMT training, which will not afford the exciting photographs of Fire Academy. It's been too cold for walking about outside, so Cheryl will post some quilt photos from the last six months or so to tide us over here and there.

This quilt was a wedding gift for Rabbi friends of the customer's. The quilt is made of four log cabin blocks with a traditional hand symbol and shadow appliqued on top.



For the quilting, Cheryl's hand served as a model to create a template that she traced and then echo quilted - very dense quilting that related to the theme of the quilt.

Carolina Lilies

Carolina Lilies is one of the names for these three-flower designs chosen by the international quilt group Cheryl participates in for their last two-year project. This time the group had six members who each made two blocks for the other members and sent them away to the owner who set them into a quilt.

... except that Dorry is setting hers into two quilts. Cheryl quilted Dorrys' first quilt in November. Dorry may have finished it with binding by now. Temporarily you can see the white batting sticking out at the edges.


The quilting motifs in the setting triangles were taken from one in a book by Karen McTavish's book. They were adopted to fit the right angled triangles. Then Cheryl further adopted elements of that design to fit the sashings (orange strips) and blue cornerstones.


A closeup of this block shows the quilting on the flowers and in the background. The flower pots are made from the theme fabric chosen by the group that all of us based our quilts on.

This photo is of the back where the quilting around the printed motif of the border print is visible.



Cheryl's quilt has just been bound and the hanging sleeve added -

For a full-time quilter, it's all about the open spaces that allow pretty quilting. This is a Cheryl-Original feather motif.



Cheryl asked the group to use different colors for the flower pots. Each one is quilted with a different texture or design


The quilting shows up best on this nearly-solid colored flower.

back to work

After taking a few weeks off to work on the bed quilt and another large one for us, Cheryl is quilting for hire again. Here's the latest - colorful cats got the same paws in the sashing as a quilt from last year -

Overall, this is some dense quilting.


A closeup of the back shows the quilting in the little black cornerstones - balls of yarn for the colorful cats to play with.



The plain white back is now colorful, with orange, pink, turquoise threads in addition to the black and white. For once, Lu was not one bit interested in the quilt being worked on.

Lettuce

Yes, lettuce, growing in our garden that didn't produce very much. Although our first crop was not very successful, when the local gardening columnists told us it was time to plant that second lettuce crop in September, Cheryl tried again. (Cotoneaster growing in from the left)

The above is a closeup of one of the two survivors in the main garden area. The other green leafy plants closer to the camera are cilantro, planted at the same time.


These cilantro were planted in the front, near the rhubarb and are also looking pretty healthy after a few days under the snow.




We have a lot to learn about gardening in our little climate. These plants may all get more light in the winter than in summer, due to the deciduous trees losing their leaves.