Last week saw  me hard at work.  I managed to finish 3 quilts for customers.  Two belonged to Linda.  The black strippy quilt was stitched in the ditch along each strip and then a background filler was used in the black border and sashing areas.

But my memory is playing tricks on me, as I thought that I had taken a photo of the finished quilt but I didn’t. Sorry! I did manage,however, to take a photo of the Black and White Quilt that Linda made.  She did a great job enlarging the quilt, by adding strips along the outside edge and then a larger border.  The border was square and flat so that made my job easier.  We decided to do an overall swirl design called “Blowing Wind,”  a panograph by Willow Leaf Studio.  They have great  pantographs that you  can purchase.

Penny also had made a quilt that was a little out of her “comfort zone.”  Again, the borders were flat and square. What more can a longarmer ask for?

I love the 4patch pieced border on this quilt.  Pieced borders are so much more interesting than  a solid color  border.

I have also decided to show you a preview, however small, of the wallhanging that I have just finished.  Can you guess what upcoming competition it is for?

Also included today, is my  collection of small art quilts -8″x8″- that I began several years ago.  I had this brainstorm to make small art quilts so I could try out different techniques in areas that I was curious about.  The plan was to make one small art quilt per week …….for  a whole year!

Well, that didn’t last long.  What began as a seemingly good idea turned into a nightmare-just kidding!  Currently, I am half way done but I didn’t realize the cost of buying new supplies nor the time  it takes to make a small art quilt.  I still am aiming at completing all 52 of these but time is at a premium.  Here are several of the first ones:

This is my second small art quilt.  The first one is bad so I skipped it.  This one uses a Lei plastic flower as the center.  Ribbon is stitched all over the white background and black yarn is machine couched all around the purple Lei. Beads have been hand stitched in the center to complete the piece.

This fish is made using Susan Carlson’s approach.  Pieces of fabric are glued down onto a background fabric and then a black tulle is placed on top of all the pieces.  This helps keep the fabric pieces intact and you don’t have to do any zigzag stitching or blanket stitching around each individual piece of the pattern.  I then stitched the whole art quilt as I wanted to and it was done.  Notice that none of the edges have a traditional binding added to them.  This was another pre-requisite, no traditional binding allowed.

Most of the edges are finished with a zig zag stitch.

Well, this about wraps it up for another week.  I hope you have a great week!  See you next week,

Ruth