Bloggers Quilt Festival–Fall 2012

Thanks to Amy of Amy’s Creative Side for sponsoring the Bloggers Quilt Festival again this fall.  Jump over to her sight and take a look at all the other quilts on her Bloggers Quilt Festival.  I think there is voting too so take a look at that information too.  The quilt I am going to show you is the latest miniature quilt I finished this summer.  I call it “Silk Refrain” and it measures 11 1/4 x 10 1/2”.It is made of 100% silk fabric that is woven with one color of thread going horizontal and another color going vertical.  If you enlarge my close up photos below of this quilt’s details you might be able to see the different colors of the woven fabric.  I believe this type is called Shot Silk.  When the fabric is viewed from different angles it changes color and it has a beautiful soft sheen.  Because this fabric is shiny it is very difficult to get good photos of the quilt but  I think if you click on the photos I post to get larger versions you might be able to see the details more easily.I purchased this fabric in Paducah, KY at the 2011 AQS show from one of the vendors and I knew when I bought it that I wanted to do a whole cloth quilt from it.  I wrote about the making of this quilt on my blog Nebraska Views starting Friday Aug. 24, 2012 through Aug. 30th. I quilted it with YLI #100 silk thread using my Bernina 730 sewing machine using the BSR (Bernina Stitch Regulator).  The BSR really aided me when quilting this quilt as I wanted a smaller stitch and a regular sized stitch which the foot helped me to achieve.  I set my stitch length down to 1.8 so it has pretty short stitches.  I also used the walking foot for the straight line skinny border.  I tried doing those straight lines by sight and free hand but they looked really wobbly so I un-stitched them and re-sewed them using the walking foot.I usually use a thin batting like Thermore for my miniatures but decided to try wool batting this time.  I wanted the design areas to puff up a little and didn’t want to try to trapunto on this small of motif.  It really worked great and I have another whole cloth silk miniature in the process of being made using the same silk fabric but a different color and am using the wool batting in it too.I entered this quilt in the 2012 Nebraska State Fair and it won first place machine quilted miniature and 1st place miniature over all.  I was super thrilled to say the least.  Enjoy looking at all the quilts on Amy’s Creative Side…just scroll to the bottom and click on the individual photo links to the fabulous quilts!

Quilt Stats
Entry Number:  405
Designed, Pieced, and Quilted by:  Me
Technique: Wholecloth
Size: 11 1/2” x 10 1/4”
Category: Doll/Miniature Quilt

Until Later,
Lynn

Bloggers Quilt Festival 2010

 Amy from Amy's Creative Side is hosting a Blogger's Quilt Festival.  Go to her website and look at all the quilts entered from quilters around the world then post one of yours on your blog so you can get in on the fun.  This is not a contest but a quilt show.  Now you can see and read about the quilt I am "entering" in this Blogger's Quilt Festival.

Farmer's Nightmare 2001

10" x 14 1/2"

 Now you all might wonder why the name Farmer's Nightmare for such a pretty looking quilt. As I was thinking about this Boyds Bear doll bed that my husband gave me for Christmas one year I wanted to make a quilt that reflected what he does. He is a farmer....so I thought about crops he grows, cattle he raises, typical dress of a farmer, etc. What I settled on was making a quilt that reflected some of the pests he fights each year.

 

My original idea was to do a "redwork" inspired quilt with bugs and weeds he has to deal with yearly in the crops he raises so I sat about making a list of possible candidates. I had no problem coming up with lots different weeds and asked him about what bugs he has to fight for his crop health. I had quite a list when he finished telling me but the problem was most of them were in the larva stage and that means they would be fat worms - YUCK! I did not want to put any of those on my quilt so looked only at the weed list and I had enough to make the number of blocks I wanted to make.

 

It was decided then........... an all weed quilt.

 

I proceeded to draw simple line drawings of the different weeds then transferred the drawings to Solvy and pinned the Solvy to my white fabric. Using my sewing machine and red thread I stitched the designs. I lowered the feed dogs on my machine and used an embroidery foot. I ended up going around the lines twice to make the lines show up - one line of stitching was not enough for the impact I was looking for.

 

After the designs were all stitched on over sized squares I trimmed them to size (2 1/2" unfinished) and finished piecing the quilt then machine quilted it in white thread.

 

 Now for the list of weeds.

Row 1. (left to right) cocklebur, dandelion, lambsquarters

Row 2. pigweed, buffalo burr, bindweed

Row 3. shattercane, puncture vine, sunflower

Row 4. velvetleaf, milkweed, black nightshade

Row 5. musk thistle, ragweed, foxtail

I had to laugh when I got this quilt top finished my husband wanted me to print a scan of it. He wanted to take it to the elevator to ask his farming buddies to id. the different weeds. That was a real compliment to me as John hardly ever says anything about my quilting other than - That's Nice!

Lynn