I can't believe I haven't posted this yet...

Boy.... have I been delinquent.  You saw my last post was from something that happened in May and I just posted about in on July 19th!  So I will be in catch up mode for the next week or so. :-)

Here is the finished piece of Robert and me, in 'Can you see me?'.  I thought I had blogged about making it here, but it appears I never did!!!  I started the piece as part of a Craftsy class by Lola Jenkins, called Thread Art, using a picture of my son taken while on a family vacation last summer.  I made the piece at the end of 2012 and still can't believe I didn't blog about it, as I love my reflection in his eye glasses.  (Facebook friends have seen it, so sorry if you are seeing this twice.) 

You know how you have an idea of how to do something, but when it works out, you are like WOW, I like that!  :-).  This is a whole cloth quilt, with one exception.  The eye glasses are appliqued on top of his face.  They were made by enlarging the original picture and printing just the glasses on fabric, then appliqueing them down.  His profile, the hair, mustache and beard are all done via thread painting on the top only.  I then colored everything else in using Inktense pencils.  I had the top completed and quilted everything except his face back in the December/January time frame, because I couldn't get the courage to do so.  I was afraid of messing him up..  I finally got the inspiration and courage to quilt the face, then decided to make it 'not square'.  I looked at quite a few other portrait quilts online and I must say, studying them, really helped!

Anyway, here are some pics, I thought I would share..

I really love the quilting in the nose and chin area.

The face is quilted using YLI Silk thread that I had brought a few years ago when a local shop was closing.  So happy I had it on hand, as it worked perfectly for such dense quilting.  Lucky for me I have another 30 or so spools of it in various muted pastel colors!

I think I will do more portraits to get more practice on how to truly represent the faces natural contour.  :-)

Sweet Dreams

Ok, I have finished one of the three baby quilts.  I must admit, this is a pattern I did before, but once I saw the now 8 yr old with her quilt, I knew it was something that had to be made again :-).  Plus it is a relatively easy pattern from Jane Davila's 'Sew Simple Quilts' series, Book Two.

As it did the first time, I made it in soft cuddly, flannels in soft pastel colors.  The one change from the pattern that I kept in this piece, is the addition of  corner stones in the borders, vs classic solid boarders.

The quilt finishes at 43" x 56", which means that it also didn't take long to quilt.  I used the same YLI variegated thread in soft pastels that I used 8 years ago (same spool and I still have some left :-)) in the top center and a Superior Art Studio pastel pink for the boarders.  I used Superior BottomLine in white in the bobbin.  The quilting was all done free motion.  No marking the top at all, not even the spine of the feathers.

As you can see from this close-up, the thread worked wonderfully.  No need to play with the tension.  My normal .5 top tension worked wonderfully.

My curves were all smooth and the feathers just flowed around the corners with no issue.  I did not have to adjust the tension, as I switched threads between the YLI and Superior.

I hope Baby Bailey likes it.  Delivery date is set for Oct 26th, but I will be giving the quilt to the Mom to be on the 3rd, while in Virginia for my other nieces shower.  I made good progress on her quilt as well last weekend while at Quilt Retreat, but I will post those pics in the next day or so :-).