Daphne's 70th Quilt

It was nearly two months ago now, but I realised I hadn't put up Daphne's 70th quilt on my blog to show off.
My mum and I made this one together. Daphne is my mother in law and my mum is also good friends with her. I'm lucky to have two lovely ladies like these in my life. and even luckier that my mum is as crafty as me (well actually I'm as crafty as her ... I grew up with her knitting, sewing, embroidery all around me, so it's no wonder it finally rubbed off).
My mum's speciality is machine embroidery so we planned this quilt to have my applique skills and her embroidery skills combined.
I think you will agree the result was gorgeous and Daphne loved it too.

Looking at the dress she is wearing that day ... I think we chose the fabric well. :)

On Norm and Daphne's bed

 The applique centre

One of the rose appliques on the first border and also showing the cross hatch, nouveau rose and stipple quilting

Showing off mum's machine embroidery and the pebble quilting I did around it.

Sorry for the photo heavy post ... but I felt like it needed to be done.

I'm currently quilting the nouveau roses on a customer's quilt with feathers in the borders. I'll take a picture when it's done.

Jennidee

Kimonos

I've just finished quilting a Kimono quilt for a Textile Teacher called Cathy.
She brought the top to me with a story of how it was supposed to be the backing of another quilt for her aunt. So it was basically one large panel with printed kimonos and black borders had been added. But when she took it to the quilters the backing wasn't big enough so she bought another piece. Then she decided she would put the kimonos with more wadding and backing to make a whole new quilt, but ran out of enthusiasm for the project and decided to bring it to me.
So it became the first quilt for my new machine and frame (a Handi Quilter system).

I quilted a kind of curly paisley design around the kimonos as a stipple to make them pop out. And around the black borders I did large peacock feathers.
She was very happy with the result.

The new machine was a scary decision as they are very expensive. But my hand was forced really by the fact that my old machine wasn't performing. It would sew fine for about 12 minutes and then large loops started to form at the back (without me changing any settings). I tried once to have it fixed and it performed well for two quilts and then started playing up again. So it was upgrade ... or fold. I've decided to carry onwards and upwards.

Next week I'll be adding a Qbot to my set up and computerised patterns will be offered to customers.

So wish me luck.
Jennidee