Sunrise Quilt Studio

I just finished the beading on "Blue Tigers". I chose not to add beads to the leaves at this time as I'm running too close to the deadline for the Missouri River Quilt Guild Show. I also have other deadlines to meet this week. Perhaps I'll get to the leaves later this summer. The cat has 91 beads alone. This was the most difficult area to quilt. I think it was because of the layers of fusible and the type of fusible I used in this applique. I used a repositionable fusible for these pieces. It's a bit sticky and thicker than the Wonder Under I used in the rest of the appliques. The coneflowers with the purple petals in this photo have a dark purple bugle bead. The other 2 flowers have a round bead. A close-up of one of the larger lillies.

I spent all day yesteray and most of this morning working on the beading on "Blue Tigers". Here's what I have completed so far. The cat is still in process. I'm adding more blue glass beads to the dark blue fabrics along her back, and the bell flowers will also get more beading. Below is the photo I used to create the cat applique. The butterflies are now completely done. I used embroidery floss to add stripes to the bodies of the butterflies and to form the antenae. Blue glass beads were added to the strips in the wings and larger blue beads were added to the tips of the antenae. I added a string of 5 yellow glass beads to the stamen for the pollen pods. I'll add some blue glass beads to the flower petals - hopefully later today. One of the bell flowers shown here with the beading completed.

The quilting on "Blue Tigers" was completed today. I used a variety of threads - Signature 100% cotton, Sew Fine 50wt., and Glide poly thread on this quilt and Hobbs 100% cotton battingg. The frame around the quilt is fused like all the appliques. I drew around the eyes and formed the pupils with a black fabric marker, then quilted the iris of the lime green eyes with a gold color Glide poly thread. The blue tiger lilies will get beads added to the stamins. The cone flowers will also get some beading in their centers.

Here is a photo of my quilt "Inner Circle" hanging at MQS. No ribbon this year, but I sure was happy with the judges critique. It was much better than last year. The competition was really impressive with the amount of quilting and creativity in the entries. I spent the entire week at MQS taking classes and meeting up with old friends and making new friends, and of cours - shopping! The classes I took were mainly on quilting design and embellishment. I came home with lots of new ideas and one quilt top in progress. I took an all-day class with Irena Bluhm on wholecloth design that includes applique. That top is all marked and ready for the applique. Perhaps it will be show-worthy for next year. We'll have to see if I find the time to complete it. The classes on embellishment were a lot of fun. I hope to add lots of new techniques to my own art quilts in the future. On top of these classes, I took 2 classes on digitizing quilting designs. A new venture is in store f...

These quilted blocks are in Sharon's quilt "Lessons From Mama".                                 The following block is the April block from the Saturday Sampler that I pieced. This block gets a heart appliqued in the center, but that will wait until we're ready to put the blocks together in the final setting so that the heart doesn't end up sideways. I'm currently working on another star block quilt that is turning out very nicely. It seems that stars are the theme for spring at Sunrise Quilt Studio!

The quilt guild I belong to has asked for additional entries into their show. So, I went through my stack of quilts and chose 5 more small quilts to enter. This is "Stained Glass Illusion". "Lily" "Butterflies for Kornkanok" "Vail in Autumn" "Serenity Beach"