Donna’s Poinsettia Quilt

Donna of Arizona took my Poinsettia Fiesta Design (featured in The Quilter’s 2010 Holiday issue), and…

… totally ran with it, and came up with her own AWARD-winning Poinsettia quilt!  I just can’t get over how beautiful Donna’s blue poinsettia quilt looks.

Donna’s Blue Poinsettia was juried into the Pacific West show in August.  While it didn’t place, Donna was sent a ribbon with it that said, “finalist.”  Two weekends ago,  the quilt was placed FIRST at the Pecos Valley Quilt Show in Roswell, NM.

Congratulations Donna, and thanks for sharing your beautiful and inspiring quilt with us Ivory Spring-ers!

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Kathy’s versions of Poinsettia Fiesta

I love getting emails from quilters letting me know they used my designs. Kathy from Kansas sent me a picture of her version of Poinsettia Fiesta, featured in The Quilter‘s Quilting for Christmas issue. I think Kathy did a great job. The fabrics she used really convey the coziness of the season:

Kathy used fabrics from Benartex’s Noel collection to make her quilt. That struck me funny because I had used the same fabrics for my Holiday Spinners quilt. All I can say is, quilty minds think alike! :)

Thanks for stopping by. After you leave here, do drop by Kathy’s blog and say hi to her, would you?

Holiday Spinners in THE QUILTER’S HOLIDAY ISSUE

I have a second quilt featured in The Quilter‘s Quilting for Christmas issue — my Holiday Spinners!

This was a fun fun quilt to make because I liked the fabrics very much. Oh, look at the poinsettias on the fabrics – shocker! ;) (Click here to see my other Poinsettia quilt featured in the same magazine). These fabrics are from Benartex’s Noel collection. If you like black accents in your Christmas decorations, you’ve got to get some of these fabrics.

Quilt kits are available from Heartbeat Quilts. I was told by the people at Heartbeat Quilts last week that the kits are rather popular – of course, that just sent me into the clouds! This quilt, along with Poinsettia Fiesta, will be displayed shortly at Heartbeat Quilts in Hyannis, MA until early Jan 2011.

I set out to imitate the big girls’ (the longarmers) quilting using my little home domestic machine and quilted holly and berries all over the quilt. It was a bit of a challenge because with my domestic machine, there was only so much space I could see around my needle for a rather widespread motif. One of these days, maybe I will get myself a longarm… but for now, here are some snapshots of the quilting. I used Aurifil‘s Mako 50 Cotton over Hobbs‘ Tuscany Silk Batt. You may read about my take on Aurifil’s thread here, and Hobbs’ Silk Batt here.

This concludes the series of quilts I did for The Quilter this year. It’s hard to believe a year is almost over. I have had the greatest time working with the wonderful people at The Quilter. I will do a recap post of all my quilts in The Quilter for 2010 in the near future. Stay tuned!

Christmas Fiesta in THE QUILTER’S HOLIDAY ISSUE

Okay, I have a suspicion that Christmas is barely on your radar screen (or is it?)…. but The Quilter‘s “Quilting for Christmas” is hitting the newsstands on October 12th.  My Christmas Fiesta is featured:

This quilt uses fabrics from At Home for the Holidays and Hip Holidays by Henry Glass.  These fresh color palette gives a very cherry and slightly different look to the traditional Christmas green and red colors.  And I love the effect.

See what I mean?

This 36″ x 36″ wallhanging/table topper was fun to put together.

What was even MORE fun was quilting it!  I used Hobbs‘ Tuscany Silk Batting and Aurifil‘s Mako 50 Cotton threads.  Again, I quilted this quilt on my domestic machine.  The feathers were “hyper-quilted” with green and white threads.

You may purchase a kit (includes fabrics, backing and binding) for this project from Heartbeat Quilts.  Oh, by the way, the quilt will also be displayed at Heartbeat Quilts.  So, if you are in the vicinity of Hyannis, MA – do drop by the say hi to the staff and my Poinsettia Fiesta quilt. :)

Poinsettias are one of my favorite Christmasy things to include in my Christmas decorations.  What is/are yours?

Thanks for stopping by.  I am slowly working on responding to your emails/comments in the reverse order they are received.  Have a lovely day!

Poinsettia Parade: Final Sneak Peeks

Happy Monday, my Friends. I hope you have had a good weekend. I squeezed in some extra rest over the weekend because I wasn’t quite feeling 100%. But other than that, I had an enjoyable time catching up with some stitching. I will show you pictures later, but for now…. I am happy my Poinsettia Parade quilt is DONE!

This has been a really really fun project. I have loved the colors:

I seldom quilt with straight lines besides the regular stitching-in-the-ditches to secure the quilt sandwich, but I decided to do so for the blocks because I wanted the quilting to be a contrast against the swirly busy background:

I came across Patsy Thompson‘s website. Her innovative feather quilting really inspired me. So, I decided to try some of her hyperquilting, after reading one of her latest book (Feather Adventures) I have borrowed from my quilting teacher. You can see that my feathers are quilted with two colors: green and cream. I thought the effect was just what this quilt needed:

Here is a peek at the back:

These are all the sneak peeks I can show you for now until the quilt is officially featured in the Holiday Issue of The Quilter magazine. Thanks for stopping by. I hope you have a lovely week ahead of you.

Poinsettia Parade: Sneak Peek #1

Hello, my Friends!  I hope you are doing well.  Racing against the time is currently the theme at Ivory Spring.  I immediately started on Poinsettia Parade after Autumn into Winter, and here is a sneak peek for you…

I am liking it so far!  This is a Christmas project that has the traditional theme of poinsettia and colors, but with a slightly non-traditional look because of the super bright fabrics!  Stay tuned for more pictures.  Meanwhile, I am back to getting all the blocks done before the day is over.

Quilter’s World December 2009: Christmas Cheer

Happy Monday! I hope all is well with you. We enjoyed catching up with friends over the weekend. My Christmas Cheer quilt is featured in the December 2009 issue of “Quilter’s World“:

I am super pleased with the photography of the quilt! It is a “One Block Wonder” quilt made using one gigantic Storm at Sea block! The finished size is 60″ square:

The quilt used fabrics from “Once Upon a Christmas” by Benartex. I love love love the Christmas tree print fabric, and I love love love love the poinsettia print as well!

Dear friends at Rogers Sewing Center gave me the dipping bowls – my early Christmas present! How sweet is that?! They go PERFECTLY with my quilt! I am truly blessed with sweet sewing friends!

The quilting was done with Aurifil Mako 50 Cotton thread, top and bottom on my home machine. The red solid fabric was the perfect background to show off some free-motion quilting:

Thanks for stopping by. I wish you a lovely Thanksgiving Week!

Free-motion quilting is like…

… doodling on a piece of paper, except it’s on fabric. You can go wherever your creativity fancies to take you. You can doodle and keep doodling on a particular design:

Or, if you run out of design of your own to doodle, you can doodle on an obvious design printed on the fabric that is right before your eyes:

EXCEPT, with free-motion quilting, it is not so easy to un-doodle because that involves much patience in taking out stitches. So, the trick in successful doodling on quilts is to think and plan ahead and while you are doodling.

I hope you have enjoyed some of the pictures of this Christmas Quilt using Once Upon a Christmas fabrics by Benartex. As always, pictures of the whole quilt will be revealed when the quilt is officially published. This one is coming out in the December issue of “Quilter’s World“.

Thanks for stopping by. Happy Doodling! :)

260 or so sleeps to Christmas, and…

… I have a Christmas quilt to make for “Quilter’s World“. These fabrics just came in. They are from “Once Upon A Christmas” by Benartex:

I love love love the Poinsettia fabric:

I will show more pictures once I have some progress with the fabrics. Meanwhile, I wish you a lovely Wednesday. Thanks again for stopping by!