Lori Holt 'Cake Walk' Quilt

Lori Holt 'Cake Walk' Quilt

Recently I have had the pleasure of quilting another of Wendy's lovely quilts.  This quilt has been gifted for an 18th birthday present.  It is a pattern by Lori Holt called 'Cakewalk'. 

Lori Holt 'Cake Walk' Quilt

It involves a bit of piecing and a bit of applique and is a great quilt to showcase some of your favourite fabrics.  In addition you can decorate the cakes and cupcakes with your favourite ribbons and ric rac.  

Lori Holt 'Cake Walk' Quilt

With such a special gift we decided to use custom quilting to showcase the cakes by stitching in the ditch and decorating the cakes with different quilt patterns to add to their individuality.


Lori Holt 'Cake Walk' Quilt

Some of the fabrics featured hearts, so to add interest to the background filler I scattered it with small hearts.  Once the quilting was done all that was required was the binding and some further decorative additions.

Lori Holt 'Cake Walk' Quilt - Reverse

On the reverse you can really see the custom work.  The stitch in the ditch around the cakes and the applique really gives the quilt structure.  Custom quilting always takes longer, but some quilts are made for it!

Linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts 

Easy Street Bonnie Hunter Mystery Quilt

Easy Street, Bonnie Hunter Mystery Quilt 2012

Will you be joining in Bonnie Hunter's Mystery 2015 Mystery quilt, Allietare?  It starts over at Quiltville.com on Friday 27th November 2015 and usually runs on until New Years Day 2016. Easy Street was my first mystery quilt with Bonnie back in 2012.  I loved the way it turned out.


Easy Street, Bonnie Hunter Mystery Quilt 2012

I even pieced the back enlarging one of the blocks and using up some of the fabrics I still had remaining.  But since January 2013 it has been tucked away waiting to be quilted.  So before I start on the 2015 Mystery quilt 'Allietare', I thought I had better get it quilted.

Easy Street, Bonnie Hunter Mystery Quilt 2012

Here it is on the frame ready for quilting, using Hobbs Polydown as the wadding and ready to be stitched in a tan thread.


'Royal Plumes' Pantograph by Judy Allen

I chose one of the more complex patterns I have in my digital pantograph library called 'Royal Plumes' by Judy Allen.  This particular pattern takes a long time to do, but does has a beautiful feathery flourish.


'Royal Plumes' Pantograph by Judy Allen

You might just be able to see the Royal Plumes pattern as it was on the frame.


Easy Street, Bonnie Hunter Mystery Quilt 2012

So Easy Street is quilted (Celtic Solstice is still waiting!), making way for Allietare.  I love my Easy Street as it reminds me of the wonderful time I had making it over the Christmas period back in 2012.  It will be sure to be out over the festive period this year.
Will you be joining in the 2015 Mystery Quilt?
 

Rail Fence Quilt - Quilting to the Max!

Rail Fence Quilt, November 2015

I have been busy quilting secret Christmas gifts for customers which I haven't been share with you, but this week I have been quilting this Rail Fence quilt by Anne. It is a quilt for her guest room in her favourite blue colours.  At 97" x 97" it filled up my APQS longarm quilting frame to the max, so not a quilt you would want to squeeze under your domestic machine!


Dragon Wings Pantograph by Apricot Moon

She wanted light quilting, so she chose a delightful all over edge to edge digital design featuring a dragonfly motif called 'Dragonwings' by Apricot Moon, one of my favourite designers.


Dragon Wings Pantograph by Apricot Moon


It was backed with Daisy Tea Dyed extra wide fabric by Nutex,  Hobbs Polydown as the wadding, and stitched with 0842 Gold Isacord.


Rail Fence Quilt, November 2015

I was able to do a quick turnaround on this one, so Anne should be able to get it on the guest bed in time for Christmas. 

Kaffe Fassett Chevron Quilt

Kaffe Fassett - Zig Zag Chevron Quilt

I have recently managed to fit in quilting one of my own quilts.  I made this Kaffe Fassett Zig Zag quilt over a year ago and have now finally stitched the binding on.


APQS Millennium Longarm Quilting Machine

From seeing lots of Kaffe Fassett quilts, I knew that whatever quilt pattern I choose it would be almost invisible amongst the bright and busy prints. 


Kaffe Fassett - Zig Zag Chevron Quilt - Dewdrops quilting

However, with a plain shot fabric on the back, it would be seen there so I chose the 'Dewdrops' digital pantograph, which has a lot of movement in it.


'Dewdrops' digital pantograph by Patricia Ritter



'Dewdrops' digital pantograph by Patricia Ritter

 Linking up with Freshly Pieced

Hen Party Quilt

Hen Party Quilt - Quilt Room Pattern

Sometimes when a customer brings a quilt for quilting it can take a while to come up with the ideal quilting solution to ensure that quilt is made to look its best.  However, when I saw this quilt with chickens, I immediately thought of this 'chicken wire' digital pantograph by JoAnn Hoffman.


'Chicken Wire' Pantograph by JoAnn Hoffman


Wendy hand stitched this quilt using a French General Dessert Roll using a pattern 'Hen Party' by The Quilt Room.

'Chicken Wire' Pantograph by JoAnn Hoffman

The back was also pieced using some of the French General fabric that was left over from the project.  I think the 'chicken wire' pattern gives a great all over pattern on the reverse as well.


Hen Party Quilt - Quilt Room Pattern

Once it was quilted, I returned it to Wendy who is now busy stitching on buttons for the eyes.

Longarm Quilting - Custom Mattress Protector

Quilted Mattress Protector - Longarm Quilting

Something a little different today here at Fabadashery Longarm Quilting.  Instead of quilting a quilt to go on top of a bed, I have been asked by a customer to quilt some plain white cotton fabric and wadding to be made up into a mattress protector for a custom sized bed.


Pattern ' Raindrops' by Lisa Calle

It has been quite fun to do as the plain white has really showcased the quilting pattern.  This particular digital pattern is called 'Raindrops' by Lisa Calle.

Project Linus Quilts - October 2015

Project Linus Quilts - Wales 2015

Over the past few weeks I have been using my longarm to quilt some charity quilts for our local Project Linus group.  I have accumulated quite a pile to take along to the next sewing event.

Project Linus Quilt

At the last Project Linus day in May, Ruth, another volunteer, and I collaborated on a few quilts of our own, using the fabric that had been donated to the project.  It is only recently that I have managed to fit them in for quilting.


Boltz by Kyla Trammel

I enjoy doing these charity quilts as they are an opportunity to try out new patterns and increase the choice available for my customers.  On this quilt I used a digital pantograph with a robot on it called 'Boltz' by Kyla Trammel.  It turned an ordinary square block quilt into a cuddly fun quilt, especially with the fleece we put on the back.


Boltz by Kyla Trammel

Another quilt we made featured the 'Sock Monkey' character.  It is certainly not the usual type of fabric that I choose, but innovating on the day led to this cutie.  This was quilted using a 'Popcorn' digital pantograph.


'Sock Monkey Quilt' with Popcorn digital pantograph

 

Christmas is coming ..... Flurry Quilt by Kate Spain



'Flurry' by Kate Spain - Long arm quilting

Are you ready for Christmas?  Some of my customers are already making the most of my longarm quilting service to get ready for the Christmas season.  This quilt pattern and fabric range is 'Flurry' by Kate Spain and was made by one my customers, Wendy.  Isn't it gorgeous?  I love the bright, modern Christmas fabric she has used for her quilt. This 'Flurry' quilt pattern is available for FREE as a PDF on the United Notions website. Kate Spain has a new Christmas holiday themed fabric range for Christmas 2015 called 'Jingle', which would work just a well.

'Flurry' by Kate Spain - Long arm quilting


With such a bold quilt design, the quilting needed to enhance it.  To keep the Christmas presents special I outlined each one with stitching and quilted each one with its own individual decoration.  The border was also given a custom quilting treatment.  To keep with the seasonal theme I quilted a pebble background filler in white thread so it looked like snow.  The quilting background texture also helped the presents stand out a bit more.  The wadding is 80/20.


'Flurry' by Kate Spain - Long arm quilting



Customers are starting to reserve long arm quilting slots in the lead up to Christmas as they prepare their quilted gifts for friends and family.  If you are making a quilt as a gift for Christmas that you would like me to quilt, please get in touch.

Joining up with Crazy Mom Quilts & Whoop Whoop Friday!

Angela Walters 'Athena' quilt

Angela Walter's 'Athena' quilt

A customer has recently sent me a photo of a quilt I custom quilted for her a few months ago.  Like many of the quilts that pass through my door it has a story attached.  This quilt was a gift for a good friend who had personally chosen the fabric, but not particularly colours or designs that my customer was used to working with.  I think she did a great job. 


Angela Walter's 'Athena' quilt

The fabrics were quite modern and graphic.  For the quilting, I tried to keep with that theme.  Feathers and flowers were not the order of the day.  Instead I stitched around each of the blocks and the cornerstones and used my longarm quilting rulers to add further parallel lines in the sashing.  In each of the blocks and along the border I used a digital design.  The combination of stitch in the ditch and block designs worked with the structure of the quilt pattern, whilst giving the quilt a light quilting all over, ideal for daily use on a bed.  My customer reported back that they were delighted with the quilt and looking at the photo what a great match with their bedroom walls!

Angela Walter's 'Athena' quilt

The majority of the fabrics come from the range 'Athena' designed by the American quilter, Angela Walters.  This was of particular interest to me as Angela was over in the UK this summer and I was going to be attending one of her quilting workshops, which incidentally was brilliant!

'Idaho Lily' Kim Diehl Simple Whatnot - Quilting Ideas

'Idaho Lily' Kim Diehl Simple Whatnot 28" x 28"

A few months ago I made a small quilt which was part of the Kim Diehl Simple Whatnots series called 'Idaho Lily'.  This week I took time out between customer quilts to get this small quilt quilted on the longarm quilting machine.  I had been mulling a few ideas over in my head and decided that I would use a combination of longarm ruler work, free motion patterns and a few digital patterns.


'Idaho Lily' Kim Diehl Simple Whatnot 28" x 28"

A key part of the design are the traditional lilies which were hand appliqued onto the quilt.  I wanted them to stand proud giving them a similar effect to trapunto.  To help achieve this I used Hobbs Polydown wadding, which has a good loft, between the fabric layers.

DeLoa's Appliguide - Longarm Quilting Ruler

Firstly, I used my longarm rulers to stitch in the ditch around the key elements of the quilt.  I used a straight ruler for the borders, but for the applique shapes I used this nifty little 'Appliguide' ruler available at Deloa's Quilt Shop. Slipping the longarm machine hopping foot into the hole allows you to follow the edge of detailed work more closely, and this is the first stage of getting that trapunto look.  Next I used the rulers again to do a continuous curve pattern on the half square triangle border.  They were only 1" square, but as always, the devil is in the detail.

'Idaho Lily' Kim Diehl Simple Whatnot

To make the flowers pop out further I then did some free motion stitching on the cream background using a 'clamshell' design.  There are occasions when free motion stitching is the only way to ensure that you get into all the 'nook and crannies' of a quilt and is a great technique if there are areas of a quilt, like applique, which you don't want any stitching on.  The texture this gave to the background, against the texture-free applique was just the effect I was looking for.

'Idaho Lily' Kim Diehl Simple Whatnot - Quilting Ideas

To finish off the borders I used some of the digital designs available on my APQS Quilt Path system. I was aware that any complex work on the borders would be competing with the busy fabric patterns, so I chose the corner block design because it echoed the pattern of the leaves on the applique and supplemented the border design with some further ruler work.  All that is left to do is to get the binding on and give a label.

VW Camper Van Quilt - Longarm quilting with Cuddlesoft / Minky

Mk1 VW Camper Van Quilt

This VW Camper Van quilt was a fun quilt to do.  It was made as a gift for a VW Camper loving teenager, so I imagine it is going to get some heavy use on camping trips.


Camper Van fabric designed by Victoria Louise, Craft Cotton

The main camper van fabric is  designed by Victoria Louise for Craft Cotton and using the Mk 1 VW camper van motifs on the fabric a larger applique pattern had been designed to add a focus to the quilt.


Double-sided Cuddlesoft fabric

On the back of the quilt was a double sided cuddlesoft / minky fabric.  Oh boy! This was one of the best quality fur fabrics I have ever felt.  The double-sided cuddlesoft gave it a wonderful depth of softness, which might have been enough for the quilt, but on this occasion we decided to put a lightweight polyester wadding between the top and the back to make it more substantial - after all it was for a teenager. An alternative may have been to add layer of cotton flannel instead of the wadding.  This provides a foundation layer to a pieced front and a knitted backing and is soft enough to keep the cuddly character of the cuddlesoft fabric.  But as with all quilts, it depends on its future use and the clients preferences.

Double-sided Cuddlesoft fabric

Anyway, this fabric was great before it was quilted, but once it was on the longarm machine it was transformed (Pattern: 'Ginger Flowers by Hermione Agee).  It felt great and looked amazing. It really showcased the quilting pattern, adding interest to the back without dominating the camper van theme on the front.

Mk1 VW Camper Van Quilt

As Cuddlesoft / Minky is essentially a knitted fabric it does have a bit of a one-way stretch in it and this was something that had to be given careful consideration when mounting it onto the longarm quilting frame.  Also when it was stitched, the pile from the cuddlesoft did sometimes pop through to the front, so the colour combination may also be something to consider if choosing it for backing your quilt.  I would imagine that this would subside with use and a wash.

Project Linus UK - Festival of Quilts 2015

Eye Spy Charm Square Quilt

I love spotting all the different fabrics in an Eye Spy quilt.  This one had dogs, food and aliens in it!  This is another special quilt destined for Project Linus UK (South East Wales).  At this stage we don't know who it will be for, so it has been quilted with a 'Starlets' pattern, so that it is appropriate for a range of recipients.


Pattern ' Starlets' by Patricia Ritter



Pattern ' Starlets' by Patricia Ritter 

If you are interested in getting involved with Project Linus UK, they will be at the Festival of Quilts this week, from 6th - 9th August 2015, at the NEC, Birmingham.