Sunrise Quilt Studio

The cutaway trapunto is completed on my latest wholecloth quilt. This photo shows the back of the quilt after I spent 8 hours cutting away the trapunto batting. It doesn't look like much, but I'm hoping for a nice quilt once I've completed the quilting. This is a little baby quilt made from a Moda Charm pack and extra yardage. This is for our newest addition to the family, our first grandchild, due to make an appearance sometime in February :D Tomorrow will be busy with fabric postcards and cutting fabric for a mystery quilt, and hopefully starting on a customer quilt.

Ginny from GinnyQuilts has tagged me for the 6 Picture Meme. So here is the 6th picture from the 6th folder in my "My Pictures" file on my computer. It's a photo I took while I was painting a coral reef mural in my DDs' bathroom. The mural has more work on it now, but this is how it looked at one point on the wall and at one point in time during the painting process. I'm not much of a painter, but it was a fun project. So to pass on the fun! Here are the rules: Go to your Picture Folder on your computer or wherever you store your pictures. Go to the 6th Folder, then pick the 6th picture in that folder. Post that picture on your blog and the story that goes along with the picture. Tag 6 other people that you know or don’t know to do the same thing and leave a comment on their blog or an e-mail letting them know you chose them. My six chosen bloggers are all from the FiberArts Yahoo Group. 1. Debra from Patchwork Sanity - Debra is handpiecing Dear Jane blocks an...

This is a photo of my current personal project. This wholecloth quilt design is from a Dover copywrite free image. I've made some modifications of the design to better fit as a trapunto quilt. I wanted something different from the feather wholecloth quilts I've done in the past. The quilt is rectangular instead of square and should finish around 76x60. I'll work on this after I finish 2 more customer projects. The quilt on my machine at present is a charity quilt for the Kimberling Area Library. It's a beautiful redwork embroidery quilt. I finished the stabilizing quilting today and hope to finish all the detail quilting in a day or two. The weather is in the single digits here in Mid-MO and that makes my unfinished basement studio a bit chilly - kind of like trying to quilt in a walk-in refrigerator! I managed to work in 45 minute segments today before having to come upstairs to warm up. Even the space heater wasn't much help. Cold weather makes quilting a bit di...

These photos are of the test sample that I made before quilting on the wedding gown quilt. The top fabric is a bridal satin with a mat finish. I have 2 layers of batting in this sample - Hobbs 100% cotton for the main batting and a 6.6oz poly batting for the trapunto batting. This is a faux trapunto quilt instead of a cutaway trapunto. I did not cut away the trapunto batting but quilted as usual. The 2 layers give a bit a a trapunto affect. The backing fabric is a dupioni silk in an ivory color, and I bound this quilt using the satin fabric. The heart motif was traced onto the quilt using an air-soluble pen, and the feathers were freehand quilted. I used Sew Fine 50wt. 3-ply thread #402 Pearl in the top and bobbin. The background is McTavished. This test sample was for me to test the batting, thread and needle size to see what would work best. I used a 3.0MR needle for this sample. Once I got to the wedding gown quilt, though, I had to make changes even though the sample quilted up...

Do you dye fabric? If so, what is your favorite method, products, etc. I started out fabric dyeing about 9-10 years ago using fiber reactive dyes and the gradation dyeing with several buckets of dyes of the same color in gradations of saturation. Fun to do, took lots of time and lots of stirring of the dye baths. But, I wanted more than one color to come from a dyeing session. So I started the direct dyeing method by soaking my fabric in the soda ash, wringing it out and squirting different colors of dye directly onto the fabric. It was much more satisfying to me, but you have to wait several hours for the dyes to react with the fibers before you can wash them out, dry them and use them. Then my kids wanted to get in on the fun. I premixed the dyes as well as the soda ash soak to keep the kids away from the toxic chemicals. They were allowed to squirt the dyes onto their fabric pieces, or clothing pieces as the case may be. We had many fun days of dyeing fabric and clothing and many in...

This week has been busy with one more customer quilt completed and a 2nd one in the works. I'm also working on designing another wholecloth quilt for competition. I'm looking for something a bit different from feather designs so I've been looking at library books on Art Nouveau, Celtic designs and Victorian ornamental designs. I haven't decided which way to go yet. One thing I haven't found locally is cotton sateen in wide widths. I don't want to piece the top, so I purchased some Robert Kaufmann Kona cotton. It's silky and smooth and I'm anxious to see how it quilts up. Another quilt in the planning stages is a Rhapsody quilt. I have Ricky Tims book and worked on a couple of dozen (really!) patterns last year, but was not satisfied with what I came up with. This past week, in between quilting and homeschool and researching wholecloth designs, I drew more Rhapsody patterns and came up with 2 that I like. This will be a long project and I'm not counti...

Another close-up of the quilting. Another view of the top center of the quilt. This is after binding and reapplying the roses. I had to take the roses off while I quilted to keep the quilt flat and smooth. This is the bottom of the quilt - the train of the wedding gown. A full view - or as full a view as I could get - of the wedding gown quilt after binding. This was a long project but I think it turned out pretty well.

The above photo is of the back of the quilt. The silk is white in color. Another close-up of the quilting on the front. This is the center top of the quilt. The little filigree heart is in the midline with the feathers extending off on both sides.

Here it is! My photography isn't the best. I do wish I had a wall tall enough to hang the quilt and get a good photo, but I don't. This is a photo of the quilt before it was trimmed. It's laying on my bedroom floor on top of a couple of sheets. This is a close-up view of the freehand Victorian feathers inbetween some of the lace, beading and sequins. The quilt is ivory satin with a silk backing. This shows one of the filgree hearts I quilted in the upper right-hand corner of the quilt. I used a high loft polyester batting to get the faux-trapunto effect. The background is entirely McTavished.

This is my next personal project. I pieced this top last April, but didn't do anything further with it. I need to put some kind of border on it and then quilt it. Since I'm out of hand-dyed fabric, I think I'll take a day and dye fabric to see what I come up with. All the background patches are hand-dyed fabrics. The flying geese are commercial fabrics. My oldest DD wants to make a whole cloth quilt out of hand-dyed fabric. We'll plan a day and dye fabric together and then she can design her whole cloth while I work on borders for this quilt. I'm also planning a whole cloth quilt, but out of white cotton sateen. It will be a while before I get to that one, though. The wedding dress quilt is done as of 8:30pm tonight!!!!! I'm so happy! This was a long, challenging project, but I learned a lot and it sure is a pretty quilt. I want the customer to see it first before I post photos of it, but if she is agreeable, I'll get photos posted early next week. My nex...