Machine Quilting: Crane Kimono

Sharon sent me this quilt which was really interesting to me. It was a panel that I quilted before, but in a completely new way that I never would have thought of!

 It's a little hard to see here because of the angle (again still getting used to taking photos in the new quilting space - the old room was square and the new one is thin and long) but the crane panel is in the middle of a pieced kimono with some more borders added around it.

 Sharon wanted the sky to be as "lifelike" as possible with clouds. There was a little back and forth trying to figure out what kind of clouds she was looking for because my first instinct was to do stylized clouds that are common in Oriental quilts. I can only quilt with the thread like a line drawing so I had to think a bit on this one how to get the look she was going for within my abilities.

 Aside from the clouds, the rest of the panel was filled with quilting to follow along the design, you actually can't see most of it and that was the plan. The other areas were filled with a variety of fillers, some based on the fabrics and some not so much.

 The moon was fun to do, I added in some straight lines and bubbles to mimic craters and shadows. It's a little artsy, but it fit within the rest of the quilt.

The other fillers were fun and defined the areas as needed, but all worked well together too. That's sometimes the hardest part of designing custom quilting - trying to make everything work on it's own yet together and not have any one part look like an afterthought.

Thanks, Sharon, for sending me this quilt to work on! It's still hard to imagine that the same panel can have completely different looking results once it's all finished!

Machine Quilting: Oriental Panel

I apologize in advance. This isn't my style of fabric so I never know what to call it. Is it Oriental? Japanese? Asian? I blame it on politically correct policies, but alas, whatever you call it, this quilt is gorgeous!

 Anne made this beautiful quilt from a kit she picked up while out of town. She loved the design, but when she showed it to me so we could plan the quilting, she didn't care what I did - but those blank areas to the right needed "something".

Instantly I had an idea in mind... But I kept it a secret so I could surprise her.

 Can you see it? I had this idea to quilt in origami cranes in those "plain areas". There were cranes in the panel and in some of the other fabrics, and I thought the origami cranes would emphasize the theme of this quilt but add in a little something special.

 I do more research before I work on oriental quilts than any other. One reason being that it's not my normal style and I have to get familiar with it before I begin.

Another reason being this is a style. It's a very specific style and there's certain designs I can and should use, and there's designs I definitely shouldn't use. This definitely isn't the quilt for feathered wreaths and traditional quilting. I mixed up the boxes on the right side with straight lines and clamshells. Some of the boxes were quilted in the ditch to tack down the pieces without adding another element. The borders of these boxes were only an inch or so wide which was too small to add in something new.

 In the outer border, I just followed the design in the fabric and it made this wonderful pebbled appearance. I also quilted in some fans and used the flat swirls and some pebbles in the light areas to keep with the organic feel of this quilt.

 The panel itself was kept as simple as possible. I outlined the flowers, leaves and cranes (they're at the top in the light areas) and filled the base of the panel with these leaf stems, again playing off of the designs in the panel.

I showed a picture of my day's progress to my Hubby and brother one night and the both of them responded the same - I can't see the quilting. And that was the perfect response. I just wanted to outline and enhance the panel. It already had so much going on it didn't need anything else. My job then was to keep it simple and tack down the quilt to make it functional to hang. It actually can be more work to keep it simple like this, but it's worth the extra energy used. Wouldn't you agree?

Thanks, Anne! This was so much fun and I love how these quilts keep me challenged creatively. Actually the week I worked on this panel and another one I will show you later this week. I also worked on a Christmas quilt, a graduation quilt and a very simple baby quilt. I love that I never know what shows up at my door and I have to keep thinking in different ways. I feel it keeps my mind fresh and it helps to think about several different styles at the same time. Sometimes I come up with unique ideas by blending styles of quilting.