Quilting Is My Therapy

Kona Modern Quilts

Happy Saturday everyone!! I am sure you have a busy holiday weekend ahead of you, so I appreciate you stopping in today. Today’s quilt is brought to you courtesy of the Robert Kaufman fabric company.

When I am quilting a quilt with a lot of little pieces and colors, I try to find some kind of reoccurring element within the quilt.  If I can find it, I always quilt it the same. I like to say it’s like the verse of a song, it adds some repetitiveness to the quilt. Around each center pieced block is a border, so I picked two designs (back and forth lines and squares) and alternated between the two.

Even though the “borders” are different colors, I quilted them the same.

Another thing that I like to do when quilting busy quilts, is to highlight random pieces within the block. Quilting each little piece differently might overwhelm the quilt.

I quilted a swirl all over except for a few random pieces. Just to add a bit of detail…..

I think it adds a custom touch to the quilt without overwhelming it!

This quilt was fun to quilt, but it isn’t exactly what it seems to be…..it was made using Kona Modern Quilts fabric from Robert Kaufman. This fabric line is kinda like a modern quilt cheater cloth….and I love it!!!! If you look back up at the quilt at the top, the blocks surrounded in white are pieced block. But the rest of the pieced sections are large pieces of the fabric.

In the picture below, the left side is the cheater cloth and the right side is actually pieced.

I think it’s kinda hard to tell the difference!  When I am quilting for the awesome people at Robert Kaufman, I know that the most important thing about the quilt is the fabric. I want to make sure the quilting helps sell the fabric. To make that happen in this quilt, I quilted all of the blocks the using the same techniques….whether they were pieced or the “cheater” fabric. When the quilt is viewed in person, it is hard to tell which is which.

On a completely different topic, I am having a giveaway on my Facebook page. I have decided that my quilt studio is beyond help, so I am giving away a copy of the book, Organizing Solutions for Every Quilter. Head over there and leave a comment on the picture of the book telling me about your studio…..you never know, you just might be the lucky winner!

Happy Quilting!

Quilt Market Recap~ Empty Bobbin

Are you all getting tired of the Quilt Market Recaps yet? I sure hope not, because I have a lot of them! Today’s recap is all about Shea, the dynamic force behind Empty Bobbin Sewing Studio.

Shea and I go way back, she is one of my oldest customers. I think the first quilt I did for her was back in 2003…..but don’t quote me on that. She calls it “vintage Angela” although I would refer to it as “crappy Angela”. She quit teaching a few years ago, started her pattern company and hasn’t looked back!

This market marked a couple of firsts. Her first booth and her first pattern with a licensed designer….me!

But besides designing patterns for her pattern company,  I also do her quilting. Even though she is really good at free motion quilting!

Her booth had a lot of quilts in it! All of which I quilted….makes me a little tired just looking at it!

Here is a shot of the corner of the booth. Hanging on the wall to the right is her newest pattern, Crosshatch. Which I blogged about a couple of months ago!

She also released two other patterns, an advent calendar and a pillow. But I failed to get pictures of those!

I also failed to get a picture of Parson Gray (designer of the fabric used in the Bleachers quilt) dropping by the booth, and posing with Richie (Shea’s husband). But at least someone else took a picture!

Happy Quilting!

Quilt Market Recap~ Tula Pink

So it probably goes without saying at this point that I quilted the quilts for Tula Pink’s double booth. This was a busy market for her, she was promoting her book and two fabric lines!

I made sure to get a picture of us together, I usually forget!

Her booth was cleverly divided in half, her dark side and her light side. The dark side represented her fabric line, Nightshade.

First up, her Stacked quilt (a pattern from her book). We got a lot of attention for this one!

I blogged about this quilt earlier. When I was quilting it, it was just for fun….a little inside joke between her and I. But the response to the quilt and the quilting has been overwhelming. It spawned a love letter from her as well as a lot of buzz on the internet. Too funny!

In case you aren’t tired of this quilt, here is a close up shot:

I also quilted this Kiss Kiss quilt for the “dark side”:

I have also already blogged about this one, but it was nice to visit it again!

And one last Nightshade quilt, Snowglobes:

A detail shot:

Now for the lighter side of Tula Pink, The Birds and The Bees. I couldn’t blog about any of these before market, since she hadn’t debuted the line yet…..but I can share them now!!! First is a Cartwheels quilt remade with the new fabric:

I tried to quilt each wheel with different designs.

And of course, her custom quilt backs:

A close up of the Dreamweaver quilt made from the pattern in her book:

And lastly, Space Dust. This one is going to be released as a pattern and I hear that it is much easier to piece than it looks!!

I may have been busted taking pictures of Tula’s booth. Even though I quilted them, it was nice to see them hanging and all finished.

Sorry for the picture heavy post, but with much eye candy in one place, I have to include it all!!!!

Happy Quilting!