Monday pictures

Happy Monday ... still celebrating that I made it through last week.  Everything got done, and I am just glad the week is through!  I started to write a post yesterday, wrote it all down, and then decided it was just so negative and whiny that it didn't need to be published!  My friends that know me and love me know that even though I am a wonderful person, I am a big whiner!  I do like to complain ... I just get it out of my system.  I was raised to not complain and to just go along with whatever happens.  If you love someone you just accept all that goes with them.  Well, when I grew up a little I realized that is not real life, so I took the opposite approach.  When something bothers me, I complain.  I try to do it nicely, and not be a negative Nelly, at least I don't see myself that way.  But that was just too much yesterday ... probably a biproduct of  a crazy week!

So today I decided to give you a little tour of some of the quilts I have done since I've been longarming ... let's see if I can find something I started with so you can see the progression ...

This is one of the first quilts I did on my frame ... it's called Stars by Night.  You can't see it clearly, but I have a really large all over stipple, and my stitches were so big!  Every time I walk by it at the store, I contemplate taking it home, ripping the stitching out and requilting it!

This is the first quilt I did for a friend.  It was a little rough because all the pieces were cut on the bias.  I did a small all over stipple and I think it came out great!  Sorry, but the picture isn't very good.

 This is one of the first few quilts I did on my frame.  It was a quilt I had had sandwiched for about 5 years ... I had confidence that I could just pin the quilt on the frame as sandwiched and that it would be okay ... well I did, and it was!  I actually did a cute design on this quilt and broke out of my stipple bubble!

You can see the details in this picture.

 This was a charity quilt I did for Sew for the Cure ... do you remember me mentioning that?  Every year at the store we have a wonderful group of women that sew all year long and then we also get donations for quilts, dolls, etc.  We have everything hanging in the front yard of the store, and all the proceeds in the past have gone to the Susan Komen Foundation.  This year they went to the Megan Gianotti fund to help our friend and co worker JoAnn's daughter, Megan, help fund her cancer treatments.  She has been battling melanoma and the treatments are outrageously expensive.

This is a pattern of mine called Honeycomb Stars.  I love the quilting on this quilt ... the pattern is called "dwirling" and it is a design that was created by Dawn Ramirez.  She has a couple of DVD's called Pajama Quilters.  Check out her website ... she is hilarious, and her video is fun and easy.  She shows you how to do free motion quilting and gives you the confidence to try different designs.

 This is perhaps my favorite quilt I've ever designed ... it's called French Chain because I made it with French General fabric ... the first line that came out.

 This is a quilt I did called Independence.  I always wanted a log cabin quilt that was a patriotic quilt.  This quilt I just love.

 This is one of the last quilts I did on my Juki/Grace frame combo ... all the quilts above were done on that frame.  It's called Churn Dash Charlie; I wanted a baptist fan pattern and I knew there was no way I was going to use templates for the pattern, so I freehanded it.  It didn't come out very good because the pattern is so small ... the Juki only has a 9" throat, and the quilting pattern is only about 5" wide.  It probably was one of the things that pushed me into getting a machine with a much larger throat.  I have great memories of my Juki, and I think I created some awesome quilts on it as well.  It was a joy to quilt on, and while I don't miss the small machine, I really miss the Juki machine to piece on!  Hope you enjoyed my tour ... it was so fun to reminisce with you!