Doug’s Finished Quilts

I realized I never posted images for Doug’s 2 quilts I quilted recently.  I will start with the Group quilt, which had Doug (High Sierra Quilt Store) to piece it, Bobbie Jarrett to applique some wonderful cattails on the quilt, I quilted it, and Lyn Baker is binding the quilt.

Here is the finished quilt laying on dining room table:

This quilt has wonderful texture quilting, and I have purposely added dimension to the cattails so they poof up nicely.  This quilt has a duck hunting theme, so look carefully for the duck hunter, and lots of ducks flying away in the quilting.   Here is the back of the quilt:

My favorite part of this quilt is the borders and cornerstone design:

The circle duck design I created to match the border design.  I took motifs from the border design, separated them, then created 2 circles to contain the arrangement.  The piano keys were done by hand using my Fine LIne Ruler.  The border design was purchased from Digitech Patterns here.  Denise Schillinger designed the duck border- which is actually a loon, but figured no one would know the difference.  LOL

Doug was very happy with my quilting, and I liked how the textural the quilting made the cattails poof out dimensionally.  It will be entered into a local County Fair next month.

Doug also creates retro teardrop trailers completely by hand.  He is a true artisan with his trailers- and is currently almost finished with his latest trailer.  Every trailer he makes, I quilt him a quilt which matches.  Here is a modern quilt with some retro quilting.  I actually used a design found here for the borders.  Once again, the border design is one by Denise Schillinger.

The design shown above is perfect for this modern quilt.  The density of the quilting will be great for the intended use- as a decorative bed quilt in the trailer.  Doug also used this fabric line to make curtains, too.

Hope you have enjoyed this preview!  Stay tuned for a really interesting quilt which I am working on now.    Hugs, Carla

PS: I just realized that this post is my 1,000 post I have written since I moved my blog to WordPress.   WordPress stats also tells me that I have had almost 1.6 million visitors to my blog since I moved the blog here!  Thanks for your visits and support!

Modern Quilt Design

Just finished a nice modern quilt for Doug, and now I am drawing designs for the next modern quilt- one by Lyn Baker.  I will most likely draw up 4 or 5 designs for her quilt using Art & Stitch program.  Here is my first one- a design for the sashing part of Lyn’s quilt:

mod sashing 1 by Carla Barrett

As you can see, this is a simple geometric design for a smaller border or sashing.  It has a nice modern vibe and will go with other parts of the quilt and designs I will be using.

Art& Stitch is a terrific program, it only took me a few minutes to import my quick sketch from Photoshop, then trace over the design using the Bezier Tool.   I first saved it in the ANS extension, then saved it with the extension used by my machine- an Intelliquilter.

Stay tuned!  Have several quilt images to share with you in the near future!  Carla

Art & Stitch: Designing a Series

As part of my ongoing practice after attending Theo & Loes van der Heyden’s Art & Stitch  workshop, I decided to show you how I drew a doodle and turned it into a series or quilting designs for my quilts.  If you are interested in learning how to do this, be sure to sign up for Theo and Loes workshop, too.

Let’s start with a doodle:

copyright 2013 Carla Barrett

Then you combined 2 blocks to make this design:

copyright 2013 Carla Barrett

Notice there is a cute little critter that emerged once the blocks combined?  I love the randomness of finding surprises like this.  Next, we will combine 2 triangles to make a block design:

copyright 2013 Carla Barrett

Now add 3 more blocks to create a large block design:

copyright 2013 Carla Barrett

We are just getting started!  Let’s make a border design to match the other blocks:

copyright 2013 Carla Barrett

How about a wreath where the critters are looking inward:

copyright 2013 Carla Barrett

Or, critters looking outward:

copyright 2013 Carla Barrett

In order for this design to stitch out without jump stitches, all I needed to do is add a transition design:

copyright 2013 Carla Barrett

Can you tell I am having fun?   By the way, my Birdy Designs are for a future post….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More Digitized Fun!

I promised I would share some designs drawn in Art & Stitch (ANS) software to practice what I learned in the workshop by Loes and Theo van der Heyden.  

In this class exercise, I started by drawing some feathers in a triangle block, then made a simple block motif by copying 4 times:

design by Carla Barrett

To be honest, it doesn’t ring my chimes yet.  So I decided to see what would happen when I copied more blocks designs together:

Yes, this block works for me now.  I like that you can take a ho-hum block design and turn it into a better design by playing with the program.    Once again, it only took me less than 10 minutes to create the block shown above.  I see lots of fun designs in my future!

Next up on my quilting table will be a lovely modern quilt by my friend Lyn Baker.  Lyn is a wonderful binding instructor and you can catch a class with her at High Sierra Quilters in Placerville, CA.  If you do not see a class on the website, but trust me, she has them regularly.  Contact Doug at the store if you need a binding lesson with Lyn.  Lyn is responsible for my huge improvement in my bindings.

Anyway, I plan to design some fun modern designs for Lyn’s quilt and then digitize them for practice.  I will be sharing my progress as I complete them.

Also, in my next ANS post, I will show you how I traced one of my birdy designs and made a quilting pattern out of the art.  Keep watching!

New Feather Worksheet Page!

Hello, I have added a new blog page to this site I wanted to share with you.  Regular blog readers know I ran a 10 part series on how to draw/quilt feathers earlier this year.  I had the bright idea to group them all together on their own blog page for easier access.  Did I mention that my lesson worksheets are FREE, too?

Here is a sample feather practice sheet:

Feather practice 6.1 by Carla Barrett

Want to visit this page?  Look at the top of the blog , but under the blog header art.  Look for the words, “Feather Worksheets 1-10″ and click on the words to access the page.  Alternatively, you may all click here to visit this page.

If you did any of the exercises- and are proud of your hard work, not to mention your stunning feather examples, send me pictures of your completed worksheet(s).  If you do not have my email, just click on the contact page and I will respond back.  I will be sharing these on the blog when I get a fair number of them.

Enjoy your week!  Carla

Art & Stitch Workshop

I recently attended a wonderful seminar in using Art & Stitch (ANS) digitizing software for quilting and embroidery design.  I loved this workshop and had a blast drawing designs using this vector program developed  by Theo and Loes van der Heijden.

As an incentive to practice what I learned, I thought I would share fun designs developed using ANS a few times per week.  To begin, the following designs were from a class exercise following directions by Loes.  (Carla note: For students who have taken my Tablet Design class, this is a similar process taught in designing wholecloth quilts).

You start with a triangle doodle design:

ANS example design by Carla Barrett

Repeat 3 more times to create a bock or motif.  For ANS users, you would select and then click on the magic square function in the program:

copyright 2013 by Carla Barrett

Next, you can then create a larger block using 4 of the blocks:

Copyright 2013 by Carla Barrett

Finally, you can also create a large Edge-to-Edge design in ANS, too:

E2E design by Carla Barrett

For those of you interested in the program I am using, Art & Stitch has a free trial download on their website here.

Let me know what you think?   Happy quilting!  Carla

 

 

 

Doug’s Quilt

I am busy working on a quilt for a guy quilting friend named Doug.  Doug owns a local quilt store and he is funny to boot!  He will call me posing as Bill Clinton, and ask me whether the Presidential library should have a condom dispenser in the bathroom or other product?  It helps that his Bill Clinton imitation is spot on.

Doug’s quilt has an overall duck hunting theme.  It also has some lovely applique cattails on the quilt for further visual interest, too.  (I promise to show pictures when finished).  I knew I needed a border design with ducks on it, so I turned to Digitech Patterns to find one.  I eventually found this loon pattern by Denise Schillinger, which fit the bill:

This pattern looks more duck-like than loon-like to me.  Loons swim very low in the water is why I say this.  Anyway, I digress….. here is the finished border design using this design.  Note that I took this picture from the back side of the quilt:

border design

Doug’s quilt has light cornerstones in all four corners, so I wanted to place a related design that would go with the border.  Unfortunately, I could not find one, so it was time to create one using bits and pieces of Denise’s Digitech Pattern design:

Obviously, I still have to add the tight piano keys to the un-quilted side of the block, but I ended up really liking this design and how it looks on Doug’s quilt.  I shared it with him on Facebook, and he was very happy.

Carla Tip: This is my quilting tip of the day- when attempting to locate a complementary design for a quilt, use bits and pieces of an existing design used elsewhere in the quilt- whether it is a stencil design or digitized design.

I am adding some other duck and duck hunter motifs within the body of the quilt, but you will have to wait to see it.  Stay posted!  Hugs, Carla

Molly’s Quilt

I finished Molly’s quilt for her awhile back, but thought I would share the photos here, too.

This was a sweet garden theme quilt, perfect quilt for the start of spring!  I knew that Molly wanted to enter this quilt in her guild show, so I did some nice quilting for her.  First, an overall view of the quilt on my table:

quilt pieced by Molly Evangelisti and quilted by Carla Barrett

Another view:

quilting by Carla Barrett

quilting by Carla Barrett

Last photo, a close up of my block design you can purchase HERE:

Block design by Carla Barrett and available at http://www.digitechpatterns.com

Now, your turn!  What have you been up to?  Happy Friday, Carla

Feather Practice- Part 10

In this Feather Practice Handout, Part 10, I wanted to share my whimsical design to use in sashings, small borders, and especially pieced borders.

featherpractice10 (right click to download)

Feather Practice Handout 10 by Carla Barrett

This design is wonderful used on girly quilts, flower quilts, and any double small border or sashing spaces on a quilt.  The mirror design looks great quilted up.  Here is where I used this design on this adorable quilt pieced by Doug Hodder.  This is the back of the quilt showing my design on the minkee fabric:

I will have to add another photo showing you the front of the quilt and how cute it looks.  Keep watching!   Hugs, Carla

Feather Practice- Part 8

Here is the 8th part in my Feather Practice Series.  This series of handouts are intended for newer quilters or for anyone wanting to brush up on feather practice.  I happen to love feathers for feminine quilts, and feel that this is a wonderful skill to have in your quilting tool box!

featherpractice8-1 (pdf)

Today, we are focusing on feathering spines or small borders.  Right click to download my PDF file.  Note that you will need a PDF reader to view this file.

Handout by Carla Barrett

The second design in the handout I have used before in my quilting.  Here is a photo from the back of a quilt, but you can see this feather being used:

For Barb Kiehn’s wonderful Egyptian Theme quilt, notice the stylized feathers in the border.  I quilted sashing sized spaces to fill with a variation of sashing #2 in the handout:

Hope this gives you additional ideas for using this feather design on your quilts.  If you use any of my handouts on one of your quilts, I would love to see the results!  In case you missed an earlier Feather Series, here are the links for each part:

Feather Practice- Part 1, Feather Practice- Part 2, Feather Practice- Part 3, Feather Practice- Part 4, Feather Practice- Part 5, Feather Practice- Part 6, and  Feather Practice- Part 7

Happy Feathering, everyone!  Let me know if you would like more of the feather series, too, by leaving a comment.   Hugs, Carla