Do I have to give it back?

Ashley, from Yellowknife pieced this beautiful hexagon top.

When I received it, I laid it out on my design wall and had a good thinking session.  The photo below shows what a quilt looks like when I receive it -  it is flimsy...a flat sheet of fabric. 

There was a lot of negative space in here...and a lot of beautiful piecing to showcase as well.  

 I did continuous curves in the hand pieced hexagons ...

 I did some ribbon candy,  c's, and wishbone quilting.  I also stitched down all the seams of the little 2''squares.  You can see what a difference it makes in texture...the right side strip has been stitched in between each square. The left strip, not(this is an in progress photo)   Love the extra pouf personality you get with this!

In the large empty spaces,  I quilted....

swirls, pebbles, uturns,

hexagons of different sizes, 

hexagons with different fills.

This quilt measures 84'' x 88'' 

Batting  is Hobbs 80/20 

I used SoFine 50 in cream,  super bobs in the bobbin

Quilted on my APQS machine.  

How do I tell my client I don't want to give it back?   

In the studio...

 

Linda brought in a few amazing quilts for me to work on this week -   I love the bold batiks anchored by the black sashing on this one.   We chose a pantograph pattern called Dazzle, and a fuchsia variegated thread by Aurifil.   

Better shot of the pantograph design Dazzle on the backing...

 The thread colour by Aurifil just sings on this top -  it melts right into the variety of colours, and then on the black sashing you see pops of the colour.  Love the colour choice!

This batik beauty was quilted with a looser overall design using leafs and swirls.

This design was fun to work on after a lot of dense quilting earlier on in the week.

 Tamara brought in this lovely batik quilt - Willow Stonehenge -The Pond pattern.   I quilted a long wavy grass texture in the darker areas, and a watery meander in and around the lily pads to represent the pond.  I used an incredible thread by Glide called Fool's Gold -  it is kind of a metallic army green and it really goes well with those brown and taupe batiks.   Need to order more! 

 I have learned that brown quilts are almost impossible to photograph!  I find it really hard to get the lighting right to show the quilting!  

Neutral quilt with modern style...

Beautiful modern quilt pieced by Linda.  I love the neutral colours she chose.   

It was pretty easy for me to see how I would want to quilt it -  emphasizing the piecing and the contrast of light and dark....and Linda was all for it.  

 I densely quilted the inner white areas and the border, using a variety of simple fills like u-turns, swirls, pebbles.   This photo doesn't show it but  I also quilted down the centre white diamond shapes and stitched between the blocks for more definition. 

 The outer border of this quilt was a scallop print. It was carefully pieced with perfect matching edges.  I just quilted along the lines to give it some texture.  

 Clamshell fill

 swirl flower fill

 a mix of swirls and pebbles I like to call jewelled swirls.

 swirls

 Backing -  I also stitched the ditch area of the outer blocks to show definition of the piecing and stabilize the fabric some more.  

Karlee Porter - Graffiti Quilting Class

Karlee Porter RussianMosque quilting

This looks like it will be a good and inexpensive class to attend.  It's a half day workshop, lunch optional for $50!   or  $75 includes lunch and a trunkshow.  

Saturday May 2 -   morning or afternoon session at Bow Bench Retreat just south of Calgary.

Karlee is a modern quilter and her work is inspired by urban graffiti artists.   You can view her website at www.karleeporter.com

This class will be great for machine quilting practice on a home sewing machine or a long arm -  she does much of her work on her HQ16 sit down machine such as in this video: 

If you are interested in attending this class,  contact Deb at LoopyD Quilting..her contact info is at the bottom of her webpage :-)