Fall quilt

I just finished working on a fall quilt.  As I showed it in some of the quilting groups online a lot of questions were ask. I thought I would give a brief explanation of how I came up with this quilt.

First of all I love to go to http://www.digiwebstudio.com/store/   
  I get most of my clipart from here   I take the clipart and resize using photoshop to the size I want.  I usually print it off using black and white.. I  flip the image so I can trace the parts I want and I trace them right on to heat and bond light.  I do use a light box for this. I was lucky that my grand son bought me one for Christmas and I love it.    I put all the pieces on the fabric that I want mostly scraps. and cut them out .. I then print off the image again the right way still in black and white not flipped and use it to place  the pieces on the fabric.  I use the blanket stitch on my Janome  for most of the applique. I am not very good at hand embroidery so I try to do all  that I can with my machine.  I made a stitch library of all my stitches at different sizes so that I know which one to use.  I use a light tearaway stablizer under the applique and I cut my squares just a little bigger than I want them so I can cut them to the perfect size when I am ready.   I used graph paper to fiqure out my quilt layout first but had to readjust when I added sashing. I do have EQ7 but still have not learned  how to use it.   I really hope this helps.  I have thought about writing  patterns for these quilts but am not really sure how to go about that yet.  I may try it though.   Have a nice day.  . 

Learning needle turn

I have been busy learning FMQ and Needle turn applique.  This pattern is from http://www.p3designs.com/gallery/  It was a free pattern on her Yahoo Group. I thought this would be a great one to tackle.  I learned that using glue was the best way for me to turn the edges. I did use some starch on some of the pieces.  The one thing that I found was when I used the invisible stitch to applique them down I missed some parts and they were raised. I used fmq  to go totally around  2 of them  and then I tried Invisible thread on the next one to go around and it was much better. Since I am new to FMQ  I did a lot of practicing  on each square.  This one goes on my bed as I know how many mistakes are really in this one.  Since there are no quilt police at my house  no one will know how I made so many mistakes. Lessons learned now I plan on doing another needle turn and I will make sure that my pieces will be all the way done. May have to put on magnifying glasses but I will conquer this technique. I love applique  both ways but my favorite is fusible  and blanket stitching.  

Owl quilt

I know it has been a long time since I posted.  I just didn't have it in me.  I  have been  quilting and learning new things this past year.  My latest project has been an owl quilt that I designed the  appliques for using clipart from http://www.digiwebstudio.com/store/ I showed it on a few groups that I have been following and have been asked for the pattern.  I have never written a pattern but I am going to try and see what happens.  I am getting ready to design another one but here is the owl quilt.

This was a quilt as you go. The layout is from the class I took with Leah Days Butterfly quilt along. I used a lot of her designs to quilt it and other designs that I found on the internet. I have taken Craftsy classes with Angela Walters, Leah Day, Ann Peterson and others to learn to free motion quilt.  I still have lots to learn about this and I practice everyday. Here is the back of the back of the quilt.

I hope to show you some other quilts in the next day or two that I have been working on,.