Machine Quilting: Feathered Star

Judi sent me this Feathered Star to quilt for her niece (I believe, it's been awhile) for a wedding present. The theme was all about snowflakes so I kept that in mind while designing the quilting.

 The blues used in this quilt were very icy and bright which made it all the better. The way the colors and fabrics were laid out made my job so much easier.

 I'm not sure if you can see in the pebbles there, but I quilted it like a snowglobe (or so I like to think). Every so often in a pebble I quilted some simple snowflakes and it just adds a bit more to an already fun texture. Then I quilted the spikes in the border like icicles. Both of these designs work well in these spaces to fit and fill these non-square shapes but they are very forgiving too - the spiky border for instance are all different sizes and widths in order to round a curve so some pieces have more down-and-backs than others.

 Here you can see more of the snowglobe quilting.

 The center is always fun for me. It's the heart of the personality of a quilt like this and it's naturally where your eye is drawn to so it has to look good. And this is where you can play and try new things.

 Basically I try to keep the quilting plan simple (if you can believe that). With a quilt like this with several shapes and areas to fill, I try to stick to a few basic quilting plans and use them throughout the quilt. Here you can see the "icicles" again in the white, some simple lines in the light blue and some swirls. The straight lines were used in several areas of the quilt and the swirls were used in the dark fabric around the outer edge of the quilt, so this brings it all back around.

 Keeping the pebbles going in a slightly new way, I stacked them to fill the other side of the spiky border.

 I really wish some of these quilts look as good in photos as they did while I was staring at them. I honestly try to take really good photos, but it's just not the same as the quilt in your face. And under your hand. So you can pet it. And squeeze it. And name it George. Hahahaha. Don't mind me.

 Here's some more photos once it was off the frame and the sun was hitting some of the fabrics.

I love this quilt! Any Judy Niemeyer design challenges me in ways some other quilts can't because I rarely encounter a square or a rectangle in her designs. It's all shapes and curves unlike any other. But in this case challenging equals fun.

Thank you, Judi!!! This quilt was fun and amazing and I hope it is being well loved at it's new home!

Lumina Feathered Star

Wanda contacted me about quilting her Lumina Feathered Star and I couldn't wait to get started. As many of you are aware (if you're familiar with Quiltworx patterns), Quiltworx offers computerized designs specific to many of their quilt patterns and they're amazing. But many, if not all of them, are super dense, super detailed designs. Wanda didn't want that much quilting, yet she didn't want to settle for just a plain pantograph over the entire quilt. So that's why she contacted me.

 Wanda was hoping for more of a semi-custom touch - my specialty! The fabrics for the Lumina Feathered Star are a ton of metallics and they are very busy. In several areas the quilting would only show up when the lighting is "just-so". So what's a quilter to do? We opt to keep those areas simplified and put the details in the areas you're actually going to notice it, like the center and that amazing satin in the border.

 Wanda requested swirls and just whatever would work to make the center pop and amplify the quilt as a whole. I thought of these fun circles in the spiked border and they worked out perfectly. In order to fit the curves, not every spike is the same size and shape, so circles are easy enough to adjust as needed so the border as a whole looks finished. Some designs may not be as forgiving and the small differences would stand out terribly.

 This quilt has ginormous pieces (for a Quiltworx pattern) so the center was played up and kept subtle at the same time. I kept the swirls in the satin and played with straight lines to emphasize the feathers where I could.

 The majority of the quilt was covered in swirls, and you can see some of the other details here in this shot. This quilt plan definitely fell into the less-is-more category. Swirls, circles and straight lines in a variety of uses are all that made up this large quilt.

I love how you can see the sheen from the satin in the spiked border here. I think that was my favorite part of this quilt. And in case you're wondering, Wanda knew satin wouldn't respond the same as a quilting cotton, so it all was backed in a super light interfacing to make it behave, yet it wasn't too bulky to interfere in the piecing or quilting process.

All in all this quilt was a stunner and I was sad to send it back home. However I know it went to a great place and is probably being loved on as I type! That's what makes my job a tad easier, knowing that the quilts I spend so much time on go to good homes where they are loved and used!

Thank you, Wanda! Your quilt was spectacular, your piecing was phenomenal and I had so much fun working on this quilt with you!

Congrats, Judi!!!

Let me set the scene for you...

You make this amazing quilt and you love it. You enter that amazing quilt into your first quilt show and you come home with the big prize winning Best of Show...

Sounds like a dream, right?

Well, I think we all need to pinch Judi to wake her up from this dream, because that's exactly what happened!

She sent me this picture yesterday with the ribbon for the Glacier Star I quilted for her last summer. Her quilt was amazing and I had so much fun playing with it, I'm so honored she shared this special award with me!!!

To see more of Judi's gorgeous quilt, you can see the original post about her Glacier Star quilt here.

Thank you, Judi!!! Congrats don't seem like enough, it's with beautiful pieces like yours that let my creativity blossom!!! Congrats!!!

Machine Quilting: Summer Solstice Deja Vu

I got an email from Lindsay one day and she was super excited to finish up her Summer Solstice quilt but was in that mood of "now what?". She sent it off to me and said she liked the original version of this quilt that I had done, but if the mood struck me to try something new or add something in, go for it. (I love when that happens) and this is what we ended up with:

 This quilt was made just like the original Summer Solstice I quilted because that quilt was featured in Timeless Treasure's booth at Market and turned into a project sheet for other shops to make into kits. It was interesting for me working with the two quilts because of the slight change in the coloring of the fabrics (the original quilt was made with advance yardage and this quilt was made with the actual fabrics from their normal release date, plus batiks can differ from run to run so that could've been it too). The tans were a bit deeper, the greens were more vibrant, the orange was a bit bolder, but it still has that same charm as the original quilt.

 The first major change I did with this quilt was play up the piecing in the border fabric. This fabric was much brighter and had more vibrancy than the original quilt, so I used that to my advantage. I kept some of the quilting in the tan areas the same...

 Here you can see the quilting better in the borders. I also made a slight change to the quilting in the orange, but not a major one...

 I did however change up the center a bit and tried a new design in the inner background of the New York Beauty blocks and I will be using that again in the future!

 With this design (and almost every quilt design that springs from my fingertips) I tried to keep it simple and relative by using about three or four designs scattered throughout the quilt so there is a consistency but you can still see each piece individually. This quilt was mainly line designs in a myriad of configurations, ribbon candy and tendrils with some swirls to calm the backgrounds.

 The other little bit that I did differently with this quilt was to use this amazing raspberry colored thread in the magenta and purple areas including the center star (pictured above). It's a much bolder choice so I had to check with Lindsay before going forward with it because some people like their quilting a little more subtle. Luckily she loved it and I got to finish up this quilt and send it on it's way and I think it turned out awesome!!!

This pattern, unlike many of the other patterns designed by Judy Niemeyer, is relatively simple and methodical. Now, many of her other designs are methodical, but not simple... Not in the foggiest... For a quilter, this quilt is basically just diamonds, New York Beauty blocks and borders. Usually Judy's designs have like 27 different elements and there's a lot more planning that can go into them. The neat thing with this pattern is depending on how it's colored and where the accents lie, I can quilt each and everyone differently to make the personality of the quilt stand out. That's how I play and get creative and end of loving my job at the end of the day.

Lindsay did an amazing job piecing this quilt. This design is almost never square and here's why... The border is pieced with several angled pieces... and the corners are mitered too. Plus when you combine that with how this quilt top is constructed (it's weird, just trust me) no matter how good of a quilter you are, there is a ton of bias edges going on and it can get wonky fast.

Any quilt with a pieced border and mitered corners can have it happen. Basically you can think of the pieced border and the mitered corners as the exaggeration of the center of the quilt. If there is any bonus fabric in the center, it will find it's way to the outside and definitely into the corners... NOT LINDSAY'S!!!

It was awesome and I had such a fun time quilting it. I want to thank Lindsay for sending me her quilt to play on and letting me share the pictures with you too! Continuing on with the trend of quilts on the blog this week, I DID NOT want to send this one back. I may just have to break down and add this quilt on my to-do list too... It just keeps growing...

Speaking of which, the next quilt I'll share added my "blizzard project" for this winter on my list and I'm going to share it with you guys, but I'm pretty sure I'm the only person crazy enough to make this particular quilt... We shall see... I can't wait to share it with you guys, but that's for another day. Have a great day and I'll be back with more awesome quilts!

Machine Quilting - Thistle Pods

Doris is at it again and made this wonderful Thistle Pods quilt designed by Judy Niemeyer.

 This quilt is simple yet complex - here's why: There are really only four elements - the two different blocks, the flying geese and the outer border. BUT, there is ample background space but not much area between the elements from all of the points... I honestly wasn't quite sure how to tackle this quilt at first, but after consulting with Doris, she said she liked the swirls I did on this quilt and maybe try those again.

This pattern is one of those that is somewhat deceiving to long arm quilters. When you see pictures it looks big, but when you see it in person, there's not as much room between those points as you hoped. It limited me on designs a bit, but I'm happy with the results and Doris is too and that's all that matters :)

 This is one of the blocks, I'm not really sure what to call it, maybe a sunburst...

 Here's the other block, a compass of sorts. That's it for the center, just these two blocks offset in rows.

 Then there are these awesome flying geese around the center. I quilted back and forth lines traveling from one goose to the next to separate the swirls on either side of this element. Remember that how the design looks on the back of the quilt can be as important as how it looks on the front!

 Finally, I quilted these tendrils into the outer border to soften the jagged-ness of all of the spikes. Oh, and this quilt does have a small extra border put on it that's not in the original pattern to make it just a tad bigger.

 Now this quilt ended up roughly around 103" square. Here's how it looks draped over the machine after quilting. It's big. I've had more and more customers coming to visit me and I realize that I probably haven't shared the best part of my "office" with you here. In the photo above, it just looks like a big room, right?

 Well, here's how it looks when you walk in from the house. I have these amazing vaulted ceilings that work so well to bounce indirect lighting onto the quilts as I'm working, or just to give some breathing room. It's one of those things that just makes me love my job and makes going to the "office" pretty easy to do.

 Alrighty, back to the quilt. so here's how one of the corners looks with all of the elements and quilting aspects represented.

 And because I couldn't stop taking pictures...

 Here's more to share :)

 And then there's the back of the quilt. I love how you can see all of the details!

Once again, this quilt was a pleasure to work with and I love working on Doris' quilts.

If you are interested in my long arm quilting services, please feel free to contact me at rubybluequilts (at) gmail (dot) com or check out the Machine Quilting Information page.

Also remember, Christmas is fast approaching so if you have quilts you would like to give as gifts, you can either reserve a spot or get them to me by November 7th (subject to change) for guaranteed Christmas delivery.

Machine Quilting: Bright Feathered Star

One of the things I love most about quilting Judy Niemeyer's patterns and the most challenging is the variety of coloring options. Judy's patterns have tons of pieces and they are very open to interpretation. Every single person can look at the same pattern and notice a different part and then make their color choices to enhance that area.

 Now, I've quilted other versions of this quilt (see them here and here), but they weren't nearly as bright as this quilt. That's the fun of it. There's so much personality in these quilts! Wendy chose light and dark versions of similar colors for the feathers and really made it pop with this dark navy almost indigo background. To reel it all in, the mixture of blue tones for the borders bridged the range of values found in the quilt.

 Wendy wanted to keep the quilting on the simple side (which I'm not going to lie, it's super hard to do with these quilts. It's so easy to go overboard with the quilting and make it super dense) and to achieve that, I kept the design elements to a minimum and kept the density a little more open than usual.

 I used a mixture of waves, feathers and plumes that are all similar enough that they work together. The goofy little triangle background area was the perfect area to combine the waves and feathers. I'll show you in a minute how I came up with this idea.

 Keeping along the same line and playing off of the design of the quilt, I used swirls and lines like what I used in the feathers themselves to fill the center.

 Now, these feathers in the corners turned out sooo good! I'm in love. They're there but subtle.

 When a quilt like this has such a contrast of fabrics it can be a challenge to pick the right thread. This quilt was a little more challenging due to the light backing. I normally don't like to use a contrasting thread on the back, but I had to use the same thread in the darker areas on the front of the quilt in the bobbin too. If I didn't, even with perfect tension, it could look off. Threads that are too dark can make perfect tension look out of whack, even when it's not. They overpower the knot between the layers sometimes.

 With approval from Wendy, she said this was going to be a wall hanging so it didn't matter what the back looked like and so I used the darker thread in the darker areas. You can see it in the feathers around the edges.

Now, to my trusty MagnaDoodle. When I'm plotting out a quilt like this with weird shapes and lots of details, I use this to jot them down and work out the layout. Sometimes it's just a little doodle that helps me get familiar with the pattern before I begin. Othertimes it's to see the mixture of designs laid out together. Here you can see the plan for the feathers, the border, the backgrounds and the one feather with a center.

Many of Judy's designs take me more than one day to quilt. Sometimes a design I quilt in the top takes me days to repeat in the bottom of the quilt. I try to take pictures as I'm going to see exactly what I did so I can repeat it, but this also is where the MagnaDoodle comes in handy. Many times these particular designs are rotated either 45° or 22.5° so I can actually rotate the MagnaDoodle to roughly match the angle I need to achieve. I've also used this with flame designs and other designs I'm used to drawing in one direction or when I could turn the paper. I can't turn the quilt.

I also know of people that use dry erase boards or large pieces of paper to do the same thing, but I kinda like my MagnaDoodle (no mess)!

Well, I wanted to thank Wendy for letting me play on her quilt. It was a joy and I love her colors. Thanks, Wendy!

You can also see more designs like the Feathered Star of Judy's that I have quilted on my Pinterest boards here. If you would like to have a quilt finished our would like a quote, visit the Machine Quilting Information page (found at the top) or e-mail me at rubybluequilts (at) gmail (dot) com.

Have a great day!

Machine Quilting: Another Glacier Star

Judi contacted me about quilting her Glacier Star for her and when she sent me the pictures, I knew it would be fun. I asked her if there was anything she wanted or liked that I've done before and she told me she liked this one Doris made. I also asked Judi what she was inspired by for this quilt. I had tropical in my brain when I saw all of the vibrant blues and purples, but Judi threw me for a curve when she said Northern Lights.

This quilt is so much more vibrant in person and it's just gorgeous. I personally have never seen the Northern Lights so this was a fun little challenge to me. But then again, you can tell I've been brainwashed by the Caribbean when that was my first thought :)

 The biggest challenge for me was the high contrast of this quilt. It went from white to black and every shade of blue in between. With that large of a contrast I have to be super careful with the thread choices I make and where to quilt.

 I quilted the majority of the quilt in a light blue and white thread. That way the quilt and the quilting gets noticed and not the thread color.

*A common mistake in quilting is that bold thread colors will make the quilting stand out more. It's actually the opposite, you see quilting much more on plain areas when the threads match. Otherwise the threads can be too powerful and that's all you'll see. You'd see thread first, quilting next, and the quilt last. You want the quilting and the quilt to work together, not fight for attention.

 I kept most of the quilting simple and organic keeping the Northern Lights reference in the back of my mind.

 I did add in some sharp lines here or there because let's be honest, in the places you normally see the Northern Lights, it can be chilly. And icy. And cold. Plus with a design like the Glacier Star, there's so many sharp lines and points that some quilting can bridge the design of the quilt and the softer designs in the quilting.

 I switched to a darker thread in the black areas and you can barely see it here. This is actually a batik called raven I think... It's black with subtle hints of blue but reads mostly black. I used a dark blue/purple thread and quilted large chains of circles throughout these weird shapes and used back & forth lines to fill the areas. I wasn't quite sure what to do so I took a chance and I like it!

 Overall I tried to keep the quilting soft and I had to add in just a touch of feathers. It just called for it. It was hard trying to mimic the look of Doris's quilt and apply those same items to Judi's because Doris's was done for Florida. Judi's is not.

 It all worked out and then I got to see the back. I love how you can see the main star and pick apart all of the areas from the front of the quilt.

In the bottom right ish of this photo you can see the chains of circles that I quilted in the dark areas on the front.

Overall the quilt went together smoothly and it turned out better than I imagined. I was worried it wouldn't have the same vibe Judi was looking for, but I'm glad to report that she loves it!

Thank you, Judi! Your piecing was wonderful and your colors are so cheerful, this was a joy to work on.

If you have a quilt you're interested in having quilted, please either e-mail me at rubybluequilts (at) gmail (dot) com or check out the information on my Machine Quilting Information page. I'm always up for a challenge.

Also, please remember that if you have any quilts you'd like for Christmas gifts, it will be here before you know it so please plan ahead. You can always call and get on the schedule if you're not finished with your project yet, but want to make sure you've got a spot reserved. I have plenty of spaces available at this moment, but it can book up fast!

Have a great day and if you're starting your weekend a bit early, have a great Labor Day!