Last week I took a fantastic series of lectures from Joanie Zeier Poole. Her specialty is Heirloom Machine Quilting which showcases very tiny stitches over the entire surface of the quilt.

I never knew that listening to someone talk about machine quilting for hours on end could be so exciting! She went over many tricks of the trade and explained the importance of planning the quilting before you even start.

Here’s Joanie showing some of her smaller wholecloth pieces.

She loves to use thin silk thread with soft wool batting to show off the stitches to their best advantage. (I wish the pictures weren’t so blurry!)

Here’s a picture of me and Joanie with her show-stopping quilt. I regret that I didn’t get a better closeup of this quilt showing the intricate details of her fantastic quilting. She designs all of her own patterns and machine quilting stencils.The best part is, I took this class with my friend’s mom, named Judy. She’s my new found quilting buddy and we have lots of plans to take many more classes together!

I think this is my favorite of the three Pure charm pack quilts I’ve made. This one was for a really good friend so I wanted to do something very special with the quilting.

Before I begin the machine quilting process, I first select a stencil that I want to use. I then decide what tool I need to use to mark the quilt so that the lines show up.

For this quilt I selected a stencil of a moon with a star. It’s really easy to mark and quilt and I’ve used it many times before. I figured out how many moons I’d need to mark around the borders. Then I went back over each one to make the lines a little darker and easier to see while quilting.

I can sometimes get lost in the marking, just like many people do when piecing. For this dark material, I used a white washable marker with a thick tip.

If I’m not stressed with a deadline, I can really take my time with the marking process and it can be very relaxing!

I like to go over all the lines and fill in the stencil lines for a complete outline.

Here’s a closeup of the machine quilting with a free motion foot and contrasting thread.

Compared to the fist charm quilt I made, I think I like this one best with the dark brown sashing.

I used little squares between the sashes to help the rows line up straight. It looks like more work, but actually it’s easier than trying to match up rows with no intersecting seams.

I used the same squiggly quilting pattern across the blocks, like I did for Pure Quilt #2. It’s a super fun way to quilt across the blocks. Now on to the next quilt!

This is the second of three charm quilts I’ve been working on using the “Pure” line from Moda. You can see the other two quilts here and here.

I wanted to do a simple non-free motion design through the squares. I thought this would be easier and more decorative than just stitching in the ditch.

I have a “serpentine” stitch on my Bernina that’s really fun to use. It looks like wavy lines and I can set how wide and long they are. I didn’t even have to mark the squares – I just eyeballed it across all the squares since they weren’t that big.

I’m pleased with the results!

The ironic thing about stitching these quilts is that even though I loved how they turned out and wanted to use them as a marketing example of what to do with charm squares, I’ve now sold out of all the Pure charm packs and can’t get anymore!

Oh well, at least the mom I gave this quilt to was thrilled with her new baby blankie!!

I’ve been making lots of baby quilts from charm packs lately because they go together very quickly.

One bundle of charms I’ve been using a lot of is from the “Pure” collection by Moda. I took three charm packs and made three different quilts from them, to see how the same fabric could be used in different ways.

This is the first quilt I made with the Pure charms:

It was set 6 x 7 with skinny sashing between the blocks and the same fabric for the borders.

Here’s a closeup of the free-motion machine quilting. I wanted to try a free-motion spiral design. They aren’t all exactly perfect, but it made for fun practice!

A couple of weeks ago I helped a couple of girlfriends sew up some fun aprons. My first love is quilting but I’m starting to try some “other” types of sewing projects.

We had fun picking out cute fashion prints that coordinated with some trendy kitchen towels we found on clearance. Each gal sewed her own apron and I think they turned out quite well!