A sewing friend of mine who recently moved away (yes – another one!)  started this quilt at a retreat we both went to some years ago. Alissa wanted to make a quilt completely out of bandanas so she came up with this design herself.

She started out with red, white and blue bandanas and I helped her tea-dye the white ones tan. I also helped her machine applique the stars on the backgrounds. She did all the sewing and I finished the quilting for her, sadly, just in time for her to leave.

Here’s a closeup of the quilting showing a red star outline in the blue blocks. The backgrounds were stippled using clear monofilament thread. She used red bandanas for the backing and it turned out to be a pretty warm quilt!

Here’s a quilt I recently finished that will be donated to a local Susan G. Komen cancer survivor’s group.

The blocks were donated by local quilters and I put them together in a quilt and quilted them. With my recent machine quilting classes, this really gave me a chance to practice my skills. It’s kind of sad to give away but I know it will go to a good cause.

Here’s a closeup of some of the quilting:

Here is one of the beautiful quilts that I saw at Road to California. I was intrigued by this quilt because it uses Paula Nadelstern’s Nuance fabric which I happen to carry. Each star on the front used a different kaleidoscope motif for the block centers.

Check out the quilt backing! This is a great place to use the large allover print. All of the quilts I saw were simply amazing! More pics to come…

Here’s a beautiful quilt made recently by another quilter friend of mine that moved away. Camey caught the quilting bug and had to move so that she could spread her quilting knowledge to others (or maybe it was because she got a great deal on a house on the other side of town??)

Camey used one fat quarter pack of Kyoto Gardens Asian prints from Hoffman for this gorgeous quilt. She cut out big chunks of fabric accented with black. Isn’t it stunning?

I love it when my “quilty” friends send me pictures of their projects. This one is from my friend and former neighbor Allison who recently moved Utah. Allison has always been very crafty – dabbling in sewing projects, needle arts, home decorating, cooking, other other wonderful creations. But of course it wasn’t until she moved away that her true quilting talent is beginning to shine! At least now we have something to email about!

Allison made this quilt from a mix of Heather Bailey prints and Sandi Henderson pieces that she got from me. Don’t they blend well together?

For the quilting, she made a template from one of the Heather Bailey fabric motifs. She used my favorite method of tracing the design onto the top of the quilt with water soluble ink. The quilting was done using her Bernina embroidery foot with the feed dogs off. Way to improvise, Allison!

And of course, she chose to showcase a little back art for the lining. I just love it when you can see all that gorgeous quilting on the back!

I love having crafty friends! My very dear friend Janice (the one whom I shared pastries with yesterday) made me this beautiful cross-stitched picture. It is perfect for my kids’ jungle themed bathroom. She painstakingly formed each stitch by hand with multiple thread variations and intricate shading. Her handy hubby made the decorative frame.

In exchange, I made her this intricately quilted and appliqued wall-hanging for her home. I machine blanket stitched around the edges of each applique piece with matching thread. Then I echo quilted the backgrounds with metallic thread and added a double cable quilting design to frame the border. Special friends deserve special quilts!

I made this quilt for my friend Sabrina, in exchange for all the cute art caricatures she made of me doing “quilty” things like sewing and hoarding my fabric stash.

I used an older collection from Clothworks entitled Sunwashed that is now, sadly, out of print.  I’m accumulating a large collection of floral stencils, one of which came in handy for the alternating blocks. I quilted around the flowers in the border with a few looping swirls to make a continuous design.

Fusible applique has become my favorite decorative quiltmaking style.  I machine stitched around the edges with a buttonhole stitch in a blending thread color. Here’s a closeup of the blocks showing the background stippling:

This is now one of my favorite quilts. I’m so glad I could give it to such a good friend who appreciates it!