Beautiful Customer Quilt

I finally finished quilting Carolyn Ormond's sampler quilt.  What a stunner!

The edges are both angular and circular.  She should have fun binding it!  I decided to use white thread and do mostly background quilting to make the dark motifs pop. 

Some of the shapes were too large to be left unquilted, so I added some lines to enhance the motifs.

It was a pleasure to work on such a pretty quilt!

The mountains are starting to change color.  We had some pretty rides last weekend.

We continued to work on the landscaping.  I moved a lot of dirt and gravel around as Charlie filled in with the tractor.

Just a few steps and the Great Wall project will be finished.

We will eventually paint, stucco, or add cultured stone to the cinder block, which is now painted with dry-lock.

We were all tired after the weekend...even the dogs (we had our grand-dog Roo with us.)

Doing the Happy Dance

I did it...finished all the customer quilts that needed to get finished in time for Christmas!  Yippee! 

I loaded Carolyn's applique quilts on the machine all together, with one backing fabric. 

Usually if I am doing picture-type quilts, I like to face the quilts in the vertical orientation so I can "draw" better with the sewing machine.    But, I rued that decision this time, because I lacked just about three inches of space before having to roll the quilt to finish the bottom edge!  If I had only pinned them on horizontally, I would not have had to roll at all.  Oh, well, why should I think of something so simple when I've only been quilting on my Gammill for seven years!

Roll 'em, roll 'em, roll'em!  LOL!

I decided to use different thread colors to enhance the different quilt tops.  I would do all the red in one pass, then do the same for the other colors.  I used cherry red, pear green, iced blue, sand dollar, and wheat Signature threads.

Here is the one I call Umbrella Sue. 

I had fun with the borders on this one, adding lots of loops between the squiggly lines.  Each corner got a posie, since April showers bring May flowers!

Here are the apples and pencils.  This would be such a cute gift for a school teacher, wouldn't it?

Next, the flower basket.

I put in flower in each corner that sort of resembles the appliqued flower shapes.  I also added some little quilted hearts in the borders.

Finally, we have the watermelons and sunflower.  This one may be my favorite of the four.

I gave the flower a few friends in the background.

I used a lighter green to make some stripes on the watermelon rind.

Now Carolyn has to get them bound and sleeved in the next week so her granddaughters will have these treasures on Christmas morning.

And, guess what?  It's snowing again!

Moist Mountain Weekend-AND a quilt show

No pictures of idyllic blue skies or sun-drenched hillsides from last weekend's mountain trip. It was mostly gray and misty. Most of the rain fell during the night...an inch and a half Saturday night according to my rain gauge. But it held off enough to spend most of our time outdoors with our son and the grandkids.

My husband was lifting Lily to see a caterpillar on a tree.

Bryson and Avery are sitting in the Gator on the top at one of the tree farms.

Avery found a "mush-a-room."

The pond was very muddy and the fish were not biting, but we had fun anyway.

Before the kids arrived, Charlie and I went to West Jefferson. He dropped me off at the Ashe County Piecemakers Quilt Guild show while he did the errands for the weekend- what a man!

The show was held in the Jefferson Station venue, which affords lots of spacious room to view the quilts. There was a lot to see, between the show quilts, the display of antique quilts and home decor, and the vendor mall. I will show a few each day this week.

This show was totally "Viewer's Choice" as far as awards go. Each visitor received a clipboard and a pencil to vote for their favorites in each category. A few categories had only one or two entries, but mostly it was very hard to choose. There was no program, and the quilt-makers' names were left off of the paper labels. Perhaps that was to avoid voting by popularity? But I was pleased to see that the longarm quilters were identified on the labels. Hats off to fellow Gammill-Classic quilter Gillian Winterton of Laurel Springs Quilting, who quilted the majority of longarmed-quilts in the show.

Here is my vote for Best in Show- a lovely teal applique quilt.


I love the colors, the floral designs which show a lot of movement, the unusual sashing/borders, and the to-die for cross-hatched quilting.

It was hard to choose between the teal quilt and this coral one, which appears to be made by the same quilter.

Look at all the perfect appliqued circles.

Here are some other appliqued quilts.

Beautiful Dresden plate sunflowers with a floral applique border

This quilt had beautiful leaves appliqued with blanket-stitch and also embroidered. Look at the cool tendrils...looks like wrapped cording. I like the black background fabric that looks like faux- pebble quilting.

Autumn leaves were a popular theme in this mountain community.

Another stunning Dresden plate quilt with an applique border.Here is a nice "quilt with a view."

And some very whimsical fish.And a charming quilt with pink hearts and flowers.

I enjoyed the vendor mall, although my time was quite limited for browsing since hubby was picking me up...but I purchased this great selection of half yard black and white fabrics with very graphic prints.

More next time!