Ribbons won at Narragansett Bay Quilters Show

Very excited to share the ribbons my quilts have won at the show which continues tomorrow at North Kingstown HS. 

"Raspberry Spin" won a 1st Place Ribbon for Exemplary Machine Quilting - Track Mounted. This is a quilt made from a block I designed that was featured in Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks from Today's Top Designers. Quiltmaker then asked me to make a quilt of the block to which I added extra pieced borders and a focal point created by color gradation from the center. 

I always have fun designing the quilting for a quilt to further its mood or flavor. This quilt I saw as a bit funky so the quilting is more abstract than realistic in style.

 

Spiked Journey, a quilt I started in a workshop at the Mancuso Brothers show in Manchester, NH in 2012 with Barbara Barber (UK) where I learned her easily precise method of paper piecing severe and tiny spikes. Had fun collecting the fabrics for this in my favorite fabric type - batiks.

This quilt won two ribbons: 1st Place - Exemplary Piecing and 2nd Place - Exemplary Machine Quilting - Track Mounted.

I like to switch back and forth between geometric and curvilinear in quilting style for contrast and well as contrast in size of the quilting elements. Keeps the eyes moving around and within the quilt.

 

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Lastly, just heard from good friend and quilting customer Joan Taylor that a quilt I quilted for her received today's Viewer's Choice ribbon. Here are some pix of Joan's beauty. Love the color work throughout, especially the gradations she used. Congratulations Joan!!!  

The show is open again tomorrow from 10-4 with an amazing small quilt auction at 2 pm. See you there!!!

Narragansett Bay Quilter's Show - Coming Up Fast!!!

Final prep underway for the show. Busy getting the judged quilts ready to go to be hung tomorrow at North Kingstown High School, busy getting "My favorite quilting things" packed to go into Bob's Featherweights booth at the show and of course, trying to find that hanging sleeve that I never sewed on for one of my own quilts - it's got to be here somewhere, that is, if it isn't hiding out!

 So plan on coming to the show if you're within driving distance, lots of beautiful quilts, plenty of super vendors, a basket raffle, a mini quilt auction and a lecture. The show is located a couple of miles south of the beautiful historic village of Wickford, plenty of shopping, restaurants and beautiful bay views.

Here' s the poster - Hope to see you there!!!

One last quilt before the show!

Customer Angela has been patiently waiting for this quilt of fabric she purchased while on vacation in France. Love how graphic it is and I have always lusted after french fabrics - so bright and full of life.

Here's the full view.

 In the yellow center "boxed" area I echo quilted with straight lines, then in the red I quilted free-form feathers with a double spine. The white outer white areas received McTavishing to add some moment. BTW, Karen McTavish's book, the Art of McTavishing, which has a quilt of mine in it, is being reprinted, due out soon.

 The center star has feathers in the red and straight lines in the yellow to help emphasize the linear quality off the border print fabrics used. Border print in the outer border received the same treatment - repetition is a must in my world of quilting design.

 Here you can see the cloud and loop design I quilted into the outer yellow border.

I used matching thread throughout to repeat the traditional feel of the quilt itself.

A busy week of getting customer quilts done...

 
Here's Heather's beautiful big and bright chain quilt, just finished today. She included an amazing array of yellow and green fabrics,not to mention that the whites varied too. I quilted it in white thread in a "dogwood blossom" pattern using the Intelliquilter robotic computer drive on my longarm.

Here are two close-ups of the dogwood quilting pattern. It's wonderful to be able to scale the patterns in the IQ to fit with the piecing and the customer's desired quilting density. Such an improvement on paper pantographs.

Happy Easter Everyone - Closing up shop for the holidays, on to a custom quilt, Angela's, on Monday in which she used beautiful fabrics she purchased in France. I'll keep you posted.

Narragansett Bay Quilters Show

Busy getting ready for our show judge to arrive tomorrow. NQA Certified Judged Serena Vrnak will be evaluating the judged quilts next Saturday for the show on April 26 and 27 at North Kingstown High School in North Kingstown, RI. A wonderful gang of members have volunteered to help out in the judging room at the Exeter Public Library, it will be quite a learning experience for them, and fun to boot!

 Hope to see you at the show!!!

Gloria's Glacier Star

Just finished quilting customer Gloria's beauty. Lots of thread changes and lots of designs, with repetition, throughout the quilt. Very structured quilting contrasted with small scale freehand and large scale random freehand. Very pleased with the way it came out.

Applique designing with found shapes

EQ Group at Folk Art Quilts in Wakefield, RI did so well today designing applique with existing shapes from EQ7. They created all kinds of critters from the shapes I used to design my pretty pathetic little dog. We had pigs and pooches and even a purse of two. Always fun to see what creative minds come up with!