Quilting In The BunkHouse

Saturday, March 6, 2010

Forest Sampler Quilt

For the past week, this quilt has graced my frame. Every time I walked into the studio—there it was, flowing over my quilting frame, straight and lovely, showing off it’s beautiful piecing and yummy fabrics. I wish it did not have to go home. *sigh*

I took some photos in the early morning sunshine.

Center of quilt.

Front

Back

Front

Back

Front

Back

My ironing table is where the morning sun shines through the glass door.

Front corner

Back Corner

I often machine bind quilts for customers. I have some customers that always have me bind their quilts. I never hand sew bindings---even for myself. I think the last hand sewn binding I did was back in 2005. I sew the binding on the wrong side of the quilt, turn it to the top and topstitch it down, catching the backing all in one pass. I use my old well-loved Bernina virtuosa 163.

Friday, March 5, 2010

Babies & Barbed Wire.

Baby quilts are always fun to do. Here are 3 recent customer quilts.

Fun prints, fun colors, fun design!

Cotton top and Minky back.

Close up of freehand quilting design.

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Cute Western print fabrics. Dang! I was wishing I had a couple of "Cowboy" pantograph patterns after receiving this quilt top, hmm.... I wanted horses, hats, boots, cows, cacti, etc. I stared at this for a while and looked at the details in the prints for inspiration. Hmm . . . there in the yellow . . . was that . . . . ? Yes! Barbed wire. Eureka!!

Now, for most of you, seeing barbed wire in a piece of fabric might not stimulate the creative juices, but for me it was the deciding factor in this quilt. I knew that this quilt was for a new baby boy born into ranching.

Yellow barbed wire print with my "barbed wire" quilting.

Minky back with strands of "barb wire."

The whole pasture full of barbed wire with a lasso around the perimeter.

I have a small collection of Barbed Wire and I quilted my interpretation of what is called Burnell Four Point: Two twisted-strand wire with four-point barb. Patented June 19, 1877 by Arthur S. Burnell of Marshalltown, Iowa.

History of Barbed Wire

My collection is mostly from around my childhood home: a 3rd generation ranch where my great-grand parents settled. There are a couple of pieces from 2 other local areas, but all of it came from within 75 miles of where I grew up in Southern Idaho.

Here is the Burnell Four Point in the center.

I started this collection when I was in high school. Who knew that 40 years later I would be "quilting" barbed wire. Just goes to show you that life sure is interesting!

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Then came another Western fabric quilt top: one big log cabin design with horses, hoseshoes, hats, boots and stars. Dang! I was wishing I had a couple of "Cowboy" pantographs after receiving this quilt top. Hey, didn't I already say that? When will I learn! This quilt was needed quickly, so I didn't have time to order patterns and wait for delivery. I played up the star prints in the fabrics and went with an all over star.

Cotton top and Minky back . . . so cuddly.

I would guess that 95% of the baby quilts customers bring to me are backed with Minky. There are times I want to curl up in a finished quilt, they are very inviting!

Oh, by the way, I ordered my "cowboy" patterns and I will be ready for the next western fabric quilt. But you know, real creativity begins when we are challenged to stretch our minds. As my 7 year old grand-daughter told me, "Grandma, you have to learn to think outside the box!" Yee Haw!

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Note to Self . . .

Wow. That was a terrific design idea you had at midnight. But it is going to take all the next morning to pick out all that stitching.

Next time: draw it on paper, or chalk it in, or sleep on it, or forget it . . . but don't quilt it all the way across a queen sized quilt!

Sheesh . . . how many times to I have to tell you this . . .

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Some People Have Watchdogs

This Great Horned Owl has been in our yard all winter. He has 3 favorite perches. Tree #1, Tree #2 and his most favorite place is the top of the power pole. We have shoveled snow and walked back and forth all winter and he has faithfully watched us as we came and went. I wonder what he is thinking?

It is snowing--we have about 3.5 inches of new snow today. Just enough to freshen up all the old crusty, starting-to-get-dirty snow.

Here he sits between the house and the studio. I look for him everyday. Everyday he is in one of his 3 perches. Watching and waiting for spring.

I hope he is getting plenty of mice! According to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, the Great Horned Owl is the only animal that regularly eats skunks. Who knew? We have a skunk around here that comes out every week to 10 days. I hope my watch-owl is watching.

Earlier Quilts

Since I am new to blogging, I thought I would back up once again and post a few of my more recent custom made quilts: for family, for friends, and for customers.

I made 2 of these flannel quilts....almost identical, but the red and blue are reversed and the binding is cut differently: one straight the other diagonal.

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More Flannel

Front

When I got all the blocks up on my design wall, I found that I had transposed the two colors on 3 of the "snail trail" blocks during construction. After making 3 more blocks for the front, the mistake blocks were sitting there . . . glaring at me from the end of the table. "I'll show you," I thought. I used them on the back along with all the other scraps from the front.

Back

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Flannel and Minky

What a great combination for soft, huggy blankies!

Front

Back

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This is the 3rd Memory quilt I have made. The other two were photographed with my old polaroid if you can believe it! That was before I started journaling with my digital camera . . . umm . . . it was before my digital camera.