For those of you who have been following my blog regularly, you

know that I try to post weekly. Last week I missed because I was

away on a cruise to the Bahamas with my family. Yes, I  have it

rough!!

This is where I lived last week, along with my family.

And this is where I was staying for several days. How can

you not love the sunshine? The heat is a different matter though.

You have got to love AirMiles. I had enough saved up for my

whole family to stay overnight at an hotel before the Cruise began

as well as the Air Miles  covering all of us getting onto the boat. A sweet deal

indeed.

If you have AirMIles, please check the expiry date, they now

come with an expiry date-crazy or what? My expiry date is coming up at the

end of Dec, 2015, so I didn’t want to waste or lose them. I urge you to check

out the expiry date of your Air Miles too.

Back to the important stuff.  I did promise pictures of the front of

Kerry’s “Friends of Baltimore” Quilt. And Kerry  (Simple Bird Studio)

loved her quilt, by the way. I am glad because I find it very stressful

when the owners come to pick up their prized possessions. I want

them to be happy with the finished product.

Once again, the front of the unquilted “Friends of Baltimore.”

Due to the large number of blocks(16 in total) I will show you

the first 2 rows with close ups.

Each block has a different background fill. Sees are the fill here because

the block  felt like Autumn to me.  So, I stitched in seeds in the outside

of the circular wreath.

Inside the wreath, I stitched in circles to mash down the background and

help the applique puff up a bit more. This is one of Cindy Needham’s

tricks of the trade.

You can see the seeds alot better here.

This block stumped me for the longest time in trying to design it.

In the end, I went with feathers around the base of the vase and dressed

them up a bit with some stitching inside each feather.  Straight lines

were added as well as diagonal lines to  look like an herringbone

pattern.

Kerry didn’t want any pebbling in the quilting but I had to throw in

some pebbles along the outside edge of the block. It does dress it up nicely.

 

I love the floral bouquet in this block. I wanted to dress it up so

I marked off a diagonal grid,  stitched in swirls, and then filled in

the curved grid. I love the look of this block-very classy.

As you can see, I am constantly checking out what other longarmers

are doing, scanning Pinterest, and Quilt Shows to keep up with

trends in the Quilting Industry. It does take time but it is fun to

check it out and then try it for myself.

Ah, the anchor. What to do with this one?  I thought of sailors

and what they used on the high sees. A compass came to mind and

thus the Mariner’s Compass in the block.

I also thought of rope and voila!!  McTavishing was used outside the

rope border and  circular stitching inside the block.

I love the leaves in this wreath!! It must have been very challenging to

applique though. I used another diagonal grid, marked it with an air

soluble pen and stitched out the straight lines in the grid first and then

filled in the grid.  I have some stencils on hand so it makes  marking the

blocks quick and accurate.

As you have noticed thus far, this applique quilt has alot of colors

in it. Instead of changing thread colors constantly, I chose both a clear

and monofilament thread and stitched around all the pieces  of the

applique. It is a bit shiny but not that noticable when the whole

quilt is completed. It also keeps the back tidy and no colored

threads  showing through to the backing.

In the center, I quilted in circular stitching and made some waves under the

boat. On the outside of the boat, I made circular swirls.

This boat is really going through quite a quilted storm. Glad that

the boat I was on didn’t experience that kind of turbulence. And no,

I didn’t get sea sick. After I got home though, I still felt the gentle

swaying of the boat for several days.

What a gorgeous block and vase!! I can not imagine the time that it

took Kerry to make this block alone. Again, I opted for a

diagonal grid pattern.

I marked the lines, stitched them in and then filled it with straight

lines. You will notice that even the sashing was SID and has stitching in

it as well. In the little blue triangles, I used a dark monofilament thread

because the blue polyester thread kept showing up on the back of the quilt.

After all that hard work, I couldn’t let that happen. The monofilament thread

seems magical in that it seems to transform and take on whatever color

it is stitched on.

Due to all the grid work, I wanted a different design in this block.

I took out my arc rulers and this is what happened. Yes, I know the

bird is upside down.

On the inside of the block, there is circular stitching and on the

outside I quilted feathers. You can’t go wrong with feathers.

Well, I hope the wait was  worth it. I hope you enjoyed the

blocks. Which one was your favorite?

Next week, there will be 8 more to choose from.

Have a great week.