Raw Edge Appliqué Fairy Quilt with free motion quilting

I had so much fun quilting this whimsical fairy quilt (48" x 76") for my customer.  All the applique is raw-edge and fused.  It did not have any stitching holding the applique down when I received it.  Which is fine because I know how long it takes and how tedious it is to even straight stitch down applique on a regular sewing machine.  My customer told me that this quilt would be gifted to a young girl who would use it (not just hang it as a wall hanging).  So in stitching down the applique,  I set my stitch line in a bit to make sure the applique would stay put with washing and use.

Some of the fairies before quilting and then after quilting.

before quilting

after quilting

For all the fairies I used Superior Threads Mono Poly Monofilament clear thread .  The reason I chose this thread is because of all the different colors in the batiks that make up the fairies.   I used the clear in the top thread and Superior Threads "So Fine" 50 wt polyester thread in white in the bobbin.  The backing fabric my customer chose was a white muslin, so the white in the bobbin worked fine.  As you know when using a monofilament thread, the tension setting is MUCH looser than normal, so that also ensured that none of the bobbin thread would peek through to the top.

after quilting

before quilting

after quilting

before quilting

For the blue background areas I used a blue "So-fine" matching thread in the top and bobbin.  This 50wt thread worked well and gave the background areas lots of texture without much of the thread itself showing at all.  

For the green sashing I used a 40 wt polyester thread in a slightly darker green in both the top and bobbin because I really wanted the swirls to show.

How about some more pics.....

This was a fun quilt to free motion quilt.  I love machine quilting on my longarm.  And if you'll trust me with your quilt, I would be honored to do some free moting custom quilting on a quilt for you.

For more information about pricing, quilt preparation and some more wonderful eye candy, please be sure to check out my website, www.QuiltsByHannelore.com

Please note that I do NOT receive anything free from any of the vendors I link in my blog posts.  I do this because I get great results using their products.

Deer Tracks Denim Quilt; quilt preparation for custom longarm quilting

Seams in dire need of pressing

Quilt preparation.  So important.  This is the wrong side of a pieced denim quilt my customer prepared beautifully, except for the pressing.  This customer did everything right.  She knew that with all these intersections of blue jean denim, she stitched the seams at 1/2" so they could be pressed open.

All seams pressed open

Pressing seams open gives less stability than pressing them to one side, so instead of the normal 1/4" seam, she went with a 1/2" seam.  Smart lady.  This is a king size quilt, so pressing was a bit daunting for her, so she left that for me.  No problem on my big 4' x 8' table.

What a difference pressing makes.  Remember...  press, don't iron.  I used just a spritz of water and steam.  For more info on quilt preparation, check out my website.

Now let me tell you the story behind this quilt.  You'll love this....  This customer, Mary, is in her 80's.  And for many years she collected jeans worn by her sons and grandson.  Cut them onto 6" squares and pieced them into this wonderful top.  Can you imaging how many pairs of jeans it would take for this 100"x100" quilt?  The blocks in this quilt are well worn with mended holes, stains, scrapes, etc.  And every one of them contains a memory.  Mary made this quilt to be gifted to her grandson.  The grandson is a hunter, and a grown man, so we chose a cool deer tracks edge to edge design to quilt this with.  Check it out.  It looks like a herd of deer walked across this quilt.  So fun!  The design is by Urban Elements, and the name is, of course, "Deer Tracks".

the back of the quilt

I used YLI Cotton Variegated Machine Quilting thread in a Plum variegated on the top, and Superior Threads So Fine in black on the back of this quilt.

And for a full view of the finished top, here it is.

This is another awesome example of a memory quilt, or even a history quilt.  It's full of memories of the boys and men who wore all these jeans, and tells a bit of their history.  A fun quilt which I'm sure will become a treasure for this family.

I thank Mary for allowing me to quilt this for her.  And if you have a similar quilt in need of quilting, I would be honored to quilt it for you.  You can find more information on me and my services on my website, Quilts By Hannelore  or call me at 231-970-1340.  Thank you, Hannelore

Heirloom Roses Custom longarm quilted

Heirloom Roses Quilt Custom Longarm quilted

Lovely swirls on the back of this quilt

Such a beautiful heirloom quilt.  My customer loves little stipple meandering, so that was a given that I'd use that in this quilt.  And it was obvious that she fussy cut all the circular medallions.  So of course those had to stand out.  She also likes elegant feathers and swirls.  In fact the fabric on the back of this quilt are lovely swirls. Check it out....

a lovely swirl border design

That back inspired much of the quilting on this quilt.  Especially the outer border.  I quilted this in a 40 wt, polyester, silver thread.  It has a nice subtle shine, and is thick enough to be seen without overwhelming the beautiful rose print.

The inner border is also a beautiful swirl in pink thread to match the fabric.

Echo quilting and dense background stitching can give a 3D effect

This quilt took a considerable amount of time to quilt.  I started with quilting and ditching all the blocks using the silver thread (Magnifico Thread by Superior Threads).  This stabilized the quilt and allowed me to roll from top to bottom as needed to quilt the borders without having to reload the quilt to quilt the side borders.

The next step was to quilt the outer border, then the inner border.  Once these were done all that was left was to quilt the tiny stipple meander around the blocks.  It was tempting to just quilt the meander, but I chose to add the echo lines around all the blocks.  I thought that would give it just that bit of pop that would set off the blocks.  And as it turned out, it also gave the background of this quilt a lattice feel.  That was definitely an added bonus.


I used 100wt silk thread for this background stipple ( Kimono Silk by Superior Threads).

the block has been ditched and inside elements outlined with thread

The batting in this beautiful quilt is Quilters Dream 80/20. 

Look at the difference in these 2 pictures.  The pic on the left/top shows the round medallion after it was ditched and the features in the rose print outlined. 

the difference an echo and dense surrounding quilting can make

But look at it after I added the echo around the medallion and added the stipple to punch down the batting all around it.

 Look how that just brought this block (and all the others) to life.  What a difference.  To get this effect it takes both the contrast in the quilting and a lofty enough batting to pull it off.

The square blocks are beautiful too.  Into the larger squares I free motion quilted feathers.  Some with a swirl, some without. 

And into the little squares I couldn't resist these cute as pie little swirl hearts.  Check it out.

Echoed square blocks with beautiful feathers

Overall this quilt took about 17 hours to custom longarm quilt; or about $0.06 cents per square inch.  

It was an absolute pleasure to quilt this beautiful quilt.  This I'm sure will become a family treasure that will be handed down through the generations.  Truly an heirloom quilt.

Shown on a Queen Size bed

As you know I don't use a computer, that all my quilting is hand guided.   I love the organic feel this type of hand guided free motion quilting adds to a quilt.  And if you love it too, and have a quilt top that needs to be quilted, please allow me to quilt it for you.  It would be an honor. 

For pricing and preparation information, please check out my website, Quilts By Hannelore
Or give me a call at 231-970-1340

Thank you, Hannelore

T-shirt quilt for a young man; Hockey, Baseball, Custom Free Motion Quilting

Custom Longarm Quilting . . .  Done  :-)

The young man, the recipient of this beautiful quilt, has certainly been heavily involved in sports.  What a great gift this T-shirt quilt will be.  Every time he looks at it, sleeps under it, wraps up in it, he will re-visit all those wonderful moments playing on these teams; the camaraderie, the sportsmanship, the wins, the losses, the struggle.  All those memories.  What a truly wonderful gift.

before quilting

While sitting down with this customer we looked at different quilting techniques and decided that since this quilt is for a young adult, we would stay away from the typical child motifs for these sports.  We chose quilting the "X"s in the sashing and border along with the meandering around the screenprinting.

The "X"s look similar to hockey sticks, so without being kitchy, it still complimented the overall theme of hockey.

see the cool quilting in the blue block

There are a few plain filler blocks in this quilt, so to stay with the "X"s and meandering, we decided to do something a bit more unique with these blocks.  These techniques are taught by Angela Walters If you're interested in more like this vistit  Angela's You Tube page.  

All the quilting on this quilt is hand guided quilting.  No computer; and in this case the only elements I marked are the criss-cross lines separating the meandering in these filler blocks.  I used my presser foot to gauge the spacing for the "X"s.

sashing and block detail

The batting in this quilt is 100% cotton.  Don't know what brand as it was supplied by my customer.  But know that, if you are having me quilt your quilt, I do supply batting.  You can find out all about that on my website .

the back of this quilt

The thread I used on this quilt is  Superior Threads Magnifico Thread.  I used this in both the needle and in the bobbin.  I used a matching grey thread for the sashing and then used this throughout the whole quilt in the bobbin.  For each of the blocks I matched the thread in the needle to the colors in each block.  I think because of the extra layer of interfacing behind each block, this allowed me to keep the bobbin thread the same throughout without having the bobbin thread pull through to the top.  I am very careful with my tension, but that extra layer certainly did help.

Check out the back of this quilt.  You can see on this back that I did stitch in the ditch around all the blocks.  Ditching really does a lot to stabilize a quilt both on the longarm machine and off.

One more peek at this quilt.

one more look at the custom longarm quilted beauty

So if you like what you see here and have a T-shirt quilt top you need quilted, I would love to quilt it for you.  This quilt measures about 100" x 100".  And converted to a square inch price, this quilt cost just under $0.04 cents per square inch to quilt, about $375.  So go ahead and check out my website Quilts By Hannelore or call me at 231-970-1340 or message me using the comments section below.  Thank you for your time and consideration.  Have a great day, Hannelore

Hydrangea Quilt with Curling Amish Feather

a row of beautiful curling Amish feathers

What a beautiful custom longarm quilted quilt.   This customer loves tiny stippling (very small meandering) and asked if I would quilt this on this beautiful hydrangea quilt.  Well of course I would.  In fact that would look stunning if combined with outlining all the beautiful hydrangea flowers on this quilt.

shown laying sideways on a queen size bed

But this quilt also needed a “showboat”.  Something of a WOW effect that would be complimented by all that outlining and stippling.  So as you can see, a secondary design in this quilt is the long lines (flowing from left to right in the photo above).    And a Curling Amish Feather traveling the length of the quilt was the perfect solution.

Hydrangeas on dark background; stippling around blooms

The  outer 2 rows and the center row are mostly panel blocks that I quilted with the outlining and stippling.

For this I used a very fine 100wt thread, Kimono Silk by Superior Threads  This is a wonderful thread that all but disappears, leaving only a lovely texture.


 For the Curling Amish Feather I used Magnifico Thread by Superior Threads
  This is a beautiful 40 wt Trilobal Polyester thread with a beautiful sheen.  It lets my free motion quilting shine.  

Hydrangea block with hand guided custom quilting

For the bobbin thread I used the same as was in my needle.

The batting I used is Quilter's Dream 80/20 
The cotton in this batting gives lots of great stability for the dense quilting in this quilt.  And the poly portion of this batting gives this quilt just enough loft to make all those hydrangea blossoms puff up and have a bit of a 3-D effect.  I love this batting.  It drapes beautifully and gives the quilt a luxurious feel.

stippling around the blossoms and butterflies

These close-up pictures show why I love custom free motion quilting.  Hand guided quilting allows me to quilt around features in the fabric.  In this way my quilting compliments the fabric without overpowering it or covering it indiscriminately.

Even in the outside border I stippled around each of the white hydrangea blooms allowing them to pop up; almost burst out of this quilt.  A lovely effect.  

Outer border stippling around the blooms

 If you like this kind of custom free motion longarm quilting, be sure to subscribe to my blog.   And better yet, if you have a quilt top that's just screaming  . . .  "quilt me!"  I would be honored to quilt it for you.

There's lots more info about pricing and preparing your top for quilting on my website Quilts by Hannelore

And lastly, please, let me know what you think.  Leave a comment below.  Thank you, Hannelore

Something from Nothing; custom longarm quilting makes a difference

   

Custom longarm quilting makes all the difference

This was a fun quilt to make.  I love the difference between the “before” and “after”.

There’s no pattern. I had 3 extra blocks and bits of other fabrics left over after completing this year’s Bonnie Hunter Mystery quilt. And since I love to custom longarm quilt, I made sure there was lots of solid background fabric I could play on.

  I used my design wall and just played with it until I came up with something.  Unquilted it doesn't look like much.  But  I was looking forward to quilting all that white solid area.  I was hoping to make that shine.

Pieced top . . .  before quilting

Marking the solid white blocks and inner border

So the first thing  I did was find a stencil that would work well in that big open area.  And this cool feather border design was just the ticket.  Next . . .  grab the blue pounce pad and stencil and start pouncing.  A good trick to keep all that blue powder from falling off as soon as I pick up the quilt . . .  spray it with cheap hairspray.  Works like a charm.  Don't overspray and then wait a bit until the hairspray has dried before moving the fabric.  I did the same thing with the inner border.  I used a ribbon stencil here.  I could have totally free handed this, but this border is 4" wide, so having a guideline to keep things nice and even was helpful to me.

Adding markings for the outer borders

The only thing left was to mark the outer 2 borders.  On the blue border I decided to quilt continuous curves all around on both the solid blue portions as well as the blue and white pieced portions.  I used a piece of taylor's chalk to mark the 2" squares in the solid blue portion.

For the dark green outer border I thought I'd tie things together by quilting feathers to tie it together with the body of the quilt.  I only marked the spine for this, and later decided to only quilt feathers on the inside of the spine and fence rail straight lines on the outside.  Again tying the border together with the blocks and feathers in the body.

One of the pieced blocks

I quilted these pieced blocks after quilting the beautiful Amish feathers.  This helped me decide how to quilt them.

I like straight lines with curves and feathers, so I quilted the white areas on the outside of the star with the dot to dot lines.  Which I think added definition to the star.  On the 4 inside star pieces I put a simple swirl inside each white triangle.  And to finish it off, swirls around the border of each of these blocks.

So all in all this quilt is free motion quilted with:
- feathers
- swirls
- straight lines
- continuous curves

The back of this quilt.

I always like to look at the back of a quilt as well.  I love to see how the quilting presents itself on the back.  

To get the feathers to pouff I used a single layer of high loft poly batting

 What makes these feathers so defined is for one, the batting.  I used a single layer of Quilter's Dream Puff batting.  I am not a fan of poly batting, but this is awesome stuff.  Check it out Quilters Dream Puff Batting
And the other thing that makes these feathers stand out is all the tight density quilting around them.  In this case I echo quilted all around them.

Custom longarm quilting finished. Hanging on my longarm.

As for thread, I used Superior Threads "So Fine" thread on the back.  This is a 50 wt polyester thread.  And for the top, I used Superior Threads "Magnifico" thead on the top.  This is a very nice 40 wt polyester thread.

For a great place to purchase stencils, these are my goto places:  Quilting Creations  and Full Line Stencils
Full Line Sencils is also where I get my chalk powder and pounce pads.  Note that the white chalk powder is removed with heat, or light brushing with some scrap batting.  The blue chalk powder comes off with water.  You can spritz it with a water bottle or after the quilt is bound, wash it out in your washing machine.

And one last link to where I get the Clover Tailor's Chalk 
This is the yellow chalk I used on the outer 2 borders.  I love this chalk.  I have it in all the colors it comes in.  It just rubbs off when you're done with it.  

And one final look . . .

Thank you,  Hannelore
 Quilts by Hannelore