Mastering the art of McTavishing

Back in March, I saw a photo of Karen McTavish new McTavishing desing on Instagram. I totally fell in love with it, and I had so much fun trying out the quilting design on the quilt I made for Helen Stubbings. 

Karen was so nice and gave me some tips how to do it, and she told me that she was about to make a new book with this design. I've used my version of it in a few client quilts, and it is for sure my very favorite background filler!

It's perfect for quilting areas around appliquèd pieces. Either in just some areas, or on the whole quilt.

This is a quilt made by a lady in my local quilt guild. It's a gorgeous wallhanging made by using the paper piece method. 

 Yesterday I finished the beautiful quilt made by another lady in my quilt guild, and I have to admit I just love it! I had so much fun quilting this too!
It's a pattern by Sue Daley and it's called "Sunshine lollipops and rainbows". 

Some photos from the quilting progress:

I spent almost 30 hours quilting this, and about 14 bobbins of Superior's So Fine thread. I used the same thread on top too.  

I took some better photos in daylight today, so the design shows up better in these:

I just love the colors of these fabrics. So happy and bright! I think this blue one is my favorite :oD

I just love the look of the back! 

If you like this quilting design and want to try it out, you can preorder Karen McTavish new book over at On-Word bound books. And if you do so before June 4th, you'll receive a signed copy! I can assure you I've already made my order :oD

Karen McTavish new book includes TWO detailed DVDs of Karen teaching the process, step-by-step, of adding and using McTavishing in your quilts. Contributing quilters are longarmers (stand up quilters), domestic machine quilters (sit down quilters) and hand quilters.

So this is also a book for those of you who quilts on your domestic sewing machines :oD

Wish you all a great and creative weekend,

Laila

Been quilting again :o)

I have finished a beautiful quilt made by a lady in my local quilt guild. She delivered this quilt to me before Christmas. I got to load it up on the longarm frame this weekend, and finished the quilting on it. I used a panto she wanted called "Marbled feathers" from Lorien Quilting. I used wool batting and Aurifil thread. This is a large quilt, so I didn't get to take a photo of the whole thing. I think it looks very nice, and I hope the owner will like it too :o)

 Close up of some of the blocks:

I have also quilted a beautiful quilt made by another lady in my local quilt guild. We went to a class together to make this quilt. The quilt is called "Leavez" by Jane Mullen. I just love the red/cream colors.
It's quilted using "Angel wings" panto from Lorien Quilting and Aurifil thread. She wanted cotton batting, and it looks so soft.

 Close up of some of the blocks:

 I quilted and binded one of my own quilts a while ago. Just haven't got to take a photo of it before now. I finished the top months ago, but haven't got to quilt it before because of the moving.
It's quilted using a panto called "Fantasia" from Lorien Quilting. I love the texture of this pattern, and it really looks nice with the wool batting. Used Aufifil thread on this too.

Close up:

Our two cute furballs are really fun creatures. And they have a kind "big brother" that offer them his jacket to cuddle in :o) Pretty cute!!

Wish you all a great and creative new week, with lots of sewing and quilting!
Laila

New year ~ new opportunities :o)

Happy new year to you all! 

I am so excited to start on a new year. Feels good to know a new year with blank pages is ahead of me, with lots of opportunities :o) I really hope this will be a good year, and a creative year :o) 

I have been able to enjoy some fun in my sewing room this week. I prepped a beautiful quilt for some faux applique and colourque. This is a design by Helen Stubbings, and I'm using her technique and design from her book "Faux applique". It's a miniature quilt I will play with while working on other projects. 

I didn't have the patience to finish the table runner I was thinking I would quilt on the batting and backing that was at the end of the quilt I finished longarm quilting. Instead I put on a practice piece and tried the panto called "Continous Baptist fans" by Lorien Quilting. It's not at all the easiest pattern to follow, but it looks so great and it was really fun to play with. Will definitely use this on a quilt soon. 

 I have a few client quilts that I have had waiting for quilting for a long time. I finally felt ready to start on one of them the other day. This is a beautiful wallhanging, and I did some custom quilting on it using both rulers and freemotion quilting. I have to admit that I am satisfied with my work on it, which is not often I am :o) 

 This is the rulers i used for the curves.

 and this is some of the other rulers I use for straight lines and around appliqued pieces.

This is a photo from my working progress.

Detail photos of the quilting:

I love the back of a quilt when it's finished. The texture is just so cool!

I used wool batting for this quilt, and it makes the quilting to show nicely :o)

I really hope the owner will like what I did on her quilt :o) 

Wish you all a great weekend :o)

Laila

I've missed Blogland!

I've really missed Blogland! Haven't written a blog post for such a long time!

I'm so happy Spring finally came, and with the nice weather the last days it looks like  Summer is coming now :-)

Captured this photo in my brother's back yard a week ago. Looks like there will be lots of  blueberries this year :-)

I've been doing some sewing and quilting since my last blog post. This is a new Belle Wave quilt using Moda fabrics. Scraps from my scrap bin. Quilted a freemotion pattern on it, and since I used wool batting it really shows up. My friend Kathy did show me how to do this gorgeous pattern :-)

I have been quilting some client quilts too. This one is Astrid's beautiful batic quilt with gorgeous colors. She chose the panto pattern that looks like fire flowers. Perfect for this quilt.

The next quilt is a top I quilted for our charity group. I didn't know Astrid made this, so when I did ask her to add the binding, she told me she had made this and would love to finish it :-) Freemotion pattern on this one.

This is a Buggy Barn quilt also made by Astrid. She wanted me to quilt what I felt was right for this quilt, and I figured this would look great custom quilted. I'm so glad she liked it!

 This is the back of the quilt. Love to see the texture on the back of quilts!

This is a lovely quilt made by Sølvi, and I quilted this using freemotion quilting. I know this quilt has a special story, and I'm so glad she liked it.

I got to finish another quilt today, but have to wait till tomorrow to take some photos. It's a large quilt, so I need help from Hubby to hold it up for a photo shoot :-)

Happy sewing,
Laila

Long time no see... but I'm still here

It's been so long since I wrote my last blog post. I've been sewing a little bit, and also got to do some longarm quilting. I've quilted three different client quilts in March, and here is a close up on each of them:

 The first one is a quilt made by Rønnaug, a lady in my local quilt guild. She made a smaller version of the last mystery quilt by Bonnie Hunter. Love her fabrics. Quilted using a pantograph pattern.

 The second is a quilt made by Sofie, she had used a lot of yummy fabrics in her quilt. This one is also quilted using a pantograph pattern.

The third one is made by Kirsti, and it's made with gorgeous fabrics. Also quilted using a pantograph pattern.

Lot of my Blogland friends are also friends of mine on facebook. One of them is Nicola, and she had a PIF over at facebook a while ago, which I signed up to. She sent me a lovely book, and a handmade toiletry purse. I just love the gorgeous fabrics she used! I didn't have anyone signing up on my PIF at facebook, so I guess the right thing to do is to make a nice parcel to ship over to Nicola :-)

I have an Instagram profile, and lots of yummy stuff to look at over there, and lots of ideas and inspiration. I found the profile of a talented lady, Steffani, and just fell in love with her version of the Tula Pink quilt called "Dreamweaver". I bought the book by Tula pink and some of the fabrics a while ago, but since Steffani is a quilt shop owner of  Country fabrics and quilting, and made kits for this special quilt with fabrics from several of the Tula Pink lines, I just had to ask her to ship a couple of them over to Norway.
She also sent me a photo of her version of the quilt. Yummy or what???

Since I have made some of the pieces for the quilt with the fabrics I bought a while ago, it will not take long before I've got enough blocks to finish this quilt. 
Steffani has a blog too and you should check it out :-) She is a talented longarm quilter too :-)

I haven't been sewing as much as I used to for a while. I've had a few things to deal with that kept me busy. Sometimes life happens, and sewing is not on top of the priority list. 
I have been making a few blocks for the "Winter Bloom" quilts I'm going to make. I'm working on two of each block, so the plan is to make two quilts. We'll see if I'll be able finish them both at the same time, or one now and one later :-)

Happy sewing,
Laila