Finished Applique Quilt

I thought I would share the finished applique quilt that I did for Jill. Her request was to quilt it allowing the applique work to be showcased. I feel I was able to achieve this goal and still do some cool quilting. Here are the pictures:

and a close up of the block design:

The quilting is cool, yet not overpowering. The block design brings the eye in, making the applique work more important. The focal points are the flowers, but the quilting supports it nicely, in my humble opinion.

I used 2 stencil designs to support my freehand work- I mentioned the scroll work by Karen McTavish and the Block flower (one of my favorites!) is by Barbara Chainey, available at StenSource.

If you are heading off to the Long Beach Quilt Show, be sure to look for this quilt hanging in the booth called, “A Designing Woman.”

Off to load the next one…. Carla

“Elegant” Quilting

After looking at Jill’s quilt, and knowing she wants a simple understated quilting treatment, I decided to use the word “elegant” as my quilting inspiration. I remembered seeing a lovely design from a Karen McTavish book (from a few years ago) and remembered I had picked up a stencil of this design along the way, but had never used it until now:

It is hard to see since I quilted dark gray on black. Here is another view before I added more quilting:

Now here’s my own freehand to complement Karen’s stencil and fully fill out the space:

Subtle, understated, plus it complements the pretty applique in the circles. See? I can quilt using the motto, “less is more” when I want to. A rare event- to be sure, but I can quilt minimally when asked to.

Off to do the blocks now… Enjoy your weekend! Carla