Done

My Liberated Amish quilt is finally done!!!!  I learned quite a bit during this exercise, and I thank Tonya for the challenge and all of you for the encouragement along the way.

More details can be found on my in this post.  Happy Stitching!

Rene'

Finally Finished!!

I have finally finished my large quilt for the Challenge.  Here is the "official" portrait:

"Snuggle" 
53 inches by 65 inches 

You can see more photos over on my blog.  I love this quilt.  Thanks, Tonya, for the fun challenge.

Happy quilting,
Sharon

Finished

Night and Day Quilt Finally Finished

I finished the binding on my Night and Day quilt over the labor day weekend. I had intended to double quilt this project using turquoise and purple Aurifil thread.  After spending two days machine quilting I decided that I was happy using only turquoise.  Who knows, maybe someday I'll change my mind and add the extra quilting...

The day after I finished the quilting, I attended a local quilt guild meeting.  The demo for the night was fine machine quilting.  Our teacher mentioned that you should never cross over existing stitching when quilting.  I just chuckled to myself because I had spent the weekend breaking the rules.

Thanks for hosting this challenge Tonya.  I have really enjoyed working on this quilt and seeing all the other creative ideas everyone brought to this challenge.

Jacob's quilt--Liberated churn dash

This quilt for Jacob is his present for going away to college--even though he hasn't decided which school that will be. I decided that I should make a color scheme that a man would like, and not a bunch of mixed colors. I got the idea for the block from Gwen Marston's book Liberated Quiltmaking II. You can see more about this quilt on my blog
http://roz-counterpane.blogspot.com

Irish Words

Irish Words


This quilt is made up of Irish quotes, sayings and slang. The flower I found under Irish flowers ( sorry I do not have a name) the . It grows low to the ground and than the bloom pops up a bit like a crownf. The flower was fused on to the quilt and thread painted. I add a few beads and some dried foliage for effects. The Irish words were hand printed with a fabric marker. Machine quilting brought it together. Size is 24 inches by 24 inches.

I was apprehensive about the Irish theme in June. Being a free spirit I went into create mode. It was great fun looking everything up. There is is even a quote from Sandra Bullock and one from Gregory Peck. I totally enjoyed this challenge. I have never been to Ireland, however my Great Grandfather was born there.:)
SusanPI Ward
Quilting in Kentucky
http://artquiltssusanpi.blogspot.com/

Liberated linen wedding quilt done!

It is done - what else can I say? Now I need to get it mailed.

My Double Nine-Patch

Thought I'd show you a pic of where I am now.  I still have a 9-patch border to do and then a dark wide outer border.  Then it's on to the quilting. 

Liberated Linen Wedding Quilt

A couple of months ago I bought two pieces of vintage French linen on ebay to make a special quilt for my nephew who is getting married. He is an art history professor and had a show on the Travel Channel "Art Attack with Lee Sandstead". He has traveled all over Europe so I thought the vintage linen would be cool for a quilt.
My goal was to put a good dent in the getting the wedding quilt underway over this past long weekend and I am happy with the progress I made. I had dyed the fabric earlier in the week. The only time I left the house to plant my cannas in the front yard on Sunday evening and water them on Monday morning. I sewed Saturday from 7 am to 9:30 pm. I made three of those giant log cabin blocks and then decided that I wanted to not have so many blocks that looked alike. I made all of the blocke cutting the fabric with a rotary cutter, but no ruler. I wanted the pieces to be wavy. The only time I used a ruler was when I squared up the blocks to sew the rows together. I was thinking about just sewing the block together, but there is so much going on that I thought the quilt needed a little orderlyness. I could be wrong about that though. I think already I will make another quilt and not square up the block - hey, but that is another post!


Here is the big block cut into four.


I was also getting a pile of pieces that were too short to use that method with. It took longer to make the individual half square blocks, but I love the result. Of course, I ran out of the tan and brown fabric so I had to dye more linen and of course it did not come out the same color as the previous fabric, but that was ok. It just added more interest. So by end of day Saturday I had 19 out of 25 blocks done. The blocks measured 18" X 18 1/2" before they were sewed together.
Sunday I was up early again and finished up the blocks and sewed the top together. I dyed the fabric for the back, planted my canna rizomes and call it a day at 8 PM.


Here we are on Monday about noon all pin basted and ready to quilt. I have so many quilts pinned basted that I did not have enough pins to finish this job so I found another quilt that is mostly quilted and took a bunch of pins out of it. I guess I really need to get some quilting done!


If I would have more time I would quilt this piece using lines, but since I am in a time crunch my usual all over design will have to due. The wedding is June 18th.


I will be working on this hard every night after work and my goal is to have it done early next week. I will post the completed quilt.

Liberated Finish

Finally! I might be the last one to finish, but I'm ok if I'm last. I'm finished and it feels great. I really stepped out of my box on this project. It stretched my imagination and my skills, both machine piecing and hand quilting. Thank you Tonya, for inspiring me and for everyone's kind comments along the way. It really meant a lot to me.

I used a stack of hand dyes for the stars, some with black centers and some with the colors. The blacks I used are different brands and shades.

It's quilted with rust YLI thread, I marked the feathers as I went along. It had it challenges with all the seam allowances where the letters were.

I chose the word Thrive as I knew this was going to be a special piece for me. I never liked the word 'survivor' after dealing with breast cancer, I think 'thriver' is a better word. So my quilt says "Thrive" I think that's the only way to live. Surviving sounds like you are just getting by, Thriving sounds so proactive, so positive. It sounds like you are making things happen!
Thanks to everyone!
Sharon

Heavy metal/hard rock quilt

I needed to make a quilt that had a heavy metal/hard rock vibe to it. When I was out at Miller's Dry Good May 6th and 7th working I scoured the place for fabric that I thought would work. I snagged this flame fabric when a customer brought it to my cutting counter. I bought the 3 yards that were left. It was pretty cool and would add a little color to what was going to be a dark quilt. I also found a guitar fabric with a gray background and black guitars (forgot to take a picture, but you can see it in one of the pictures below - with the wreath design over the guitar it makes the guitar look like the end of the guitar is an ax. Very metal!) I was looking for skull fabric, but the lovely woman that is the assistant manager said in her sweet voice "we don't buy that type of fabric." I had a good laugh and the Amish women were chucking at me!


I started this quilt Sunday morning about 7:30 a.m. Here is the center. I used the Decolorant product that I bought at the Sewing and Quilting Expo in Cleveland a couple of months ago. It turned out ok, but I think I should have put the product on a little heavier. I used a stencil I had picked up cheap last year for the letters.


I decided to start out with approximately yard long pieces. I took the guitar and flame fabric, layered them (about a 12" wide piece) and double cut them, switched the pieces up and sewed them together. This was all improv piecing. I headed back into my fabric storage room to see if I could find anything else that would fit the theme of this piece. Score! I found some guitars on a black backgound, some fabric with Asian writing, and black sheet music fabric - perfect! I also had planned on using the fabric with words on it that are related to guitars so thank goodness for a stash and collecting music fabric!


All the pieces are layed out so now it was a matter of sewing and fitting them together.


Here is the top finished. It turned out 63.25" x 76.5". I had it done by 1 P.M. Sunday.


I had this gray music print in my stash that I got off the discount shelf when it was marked down again for just a few dollars a yard - its nice stuff too so I thought it would be a good backing fabric. Since I could not find any skull fabric for the front, I decided to put a strip of my "Quilting Pirates" when I joined the gray backing fabric together. I think it adds an edgyness and humor to the quilt. I had the quilt pin basted by 4 P.M. Sunday. I then went outside and did 2 hours of yardwork - weed wacked, mowed, and trimmed a tree.



After a focused week of intense quilting I completed the quilt.

Majestic Mountain - Double bed size quilt

New Quilt Started

I pulled some solid fabric strips and started a liberated Amish double nine patch

Anyone else still making Lib Amish quilts

Improv quilt is done

Stick a fork in me I am done!

Shine

"Shine" is quilted, bound and DONE!  This was my first quilt for the Lib Amish Get Together.

I can't belive it's taken me a year to get this done. I just couldn't decide how I wanted to quilt this. I finally took my inspiration from antique Amish quilts (should be a no-brainer, right?) and machine-quilted triple diagonal lines. Free-hand, of course. I was liberated enough to use my sewing machine, or it would be a realllllly loooong time before this got finished . . . hee hee!

I didn't measure anything, and I didn't stress about it. It only took me a few hours to get this done, once I got going.

 

I really like this quilt.  I think it finally came together just right.