A Few of My Favorite Things - Trunk Show Linky

This is a fun Blogworld quilt show, hosted by Soma at Whims & Fancies. I am spotlighting my top three favorite quilts that I've finished entirely on my own, with bonus favorites tagged onto the bottom that I had quilted by professionals.

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"25th, Baby!"  

This one took me just over a full calendar year of my top attention priority to construct and quilt. I made it to celebrate our 25th anniversary, which was in August 2014. I finished it in October of that year.

Cutting:  39:10

Piecing:  122:15
Pin-basting:  7:30

Quilting-
  Stitch in Ditch:  22:05
  Detail Work:  103:45
  Arcs:  10:00

Attaching Binding:  6:10 (includes hand cutting the edge and zig-zagging for stability)
Finish Work (cleaning papers off, tying & tucking ends):  62:05

Handstitching Binding down:  18:35

It is a huge king size quilt, finishing at 98 x 110 inches, and it was all quilted on my table-top domestic Sapphire 875Q.

It has monogram and commemorative quilting in the central rings

For more details, you can see its finish report post HERE.

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"Semper Fi - Combass"  

This was made this year in honor of my son-in-law's acheivement in graduating from the Marine Corps basic training. NOT an easy thing AT ALL!  

Finished this past August, this was an original design and as with all my work, was quilted on the desktop Sapphire 875Q. 

I used trapunto on the central medallion and touches of metallic gold thread here and there. 

I'm sure the end result with the perfect Marine Corps feel is just as key to my absolute love of this quilt as is the pride and love I feel for our Marine.

If you're interested in more details, its finish report is HERE. 

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"Run, Kitty, Run"  

This is the first quilt I made with "serious" free-motion quilting throughout. It is my first happy feather work, too. 

Finished in July of 2013, this was made as a special thank you for a friend whose personal journey to fitness profoundly affected me (she lost over 150 pounds through changing her diet and running). Her example got me off my tush and into a much healthier lifestyle. I don't doubt that it actually saved my life.

Those are 85% reductions of her favorite running shoe's footprint!

And she was famous for encouraging everyone to just do whatever they could to get healthier by saying: "Every Step Counts!" So I quilted that on each corner with a heart for the fourth. Who cares if you can't actually run or do long mileage? Seriously - every step you take is more than the old you sitting all day at a desk or sofa did!

If you're interested in more details, its finish report is HERE. 

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Favorites that were quilted by professionals:


(These are listed in order of finish, and clicking on their name will link to their detailed finish reports.)

"Sailing with the Flying Needles", quilted for me by Patty Butcher, and finished August 2011. 

I adore the embellishments I put on this and the fun design I came up with for the block-of-the-month sailboats that I got from our guild's drawing the summer before. 









I even love its applique-sailboat label!














"Amaretto Cottage", a huge king size quilted by Margaret Solomon Gunn, was finished in March 2013. 



It frequently graces our bed, and I just LOVE the way she brought very nice organic order to the varied block-of-the-month pieces.




"Wild Rose Cottage", a queen size quilted by Kathy Schwartz, was finished in April 2013. 

I just adore how cheery and homey this block of the month turned out, and it looks fabulous hanging over our grand piano when it's having a turn.

"Dragonfly Party 1" -and- "Dragonfly Party 2", quilted by Kay Bell and Judi Madsen, these twins have a very special story, and are each works of art! I finished them in July 2013. 
The quilters were given carte blanch to do whatever they wanted, and it's beautiful to see the effects they achieved. These have cool appliqued labels, too, and their colors are far nicer than this photo shows. But it's an awesome shot at the Air Force Academy! 

You really want to follow the link to see the details of what Kay and Judi quilted.


Kay:



Judi:



Me:  :)





"Heather Bear!" was made to celebrate our daughter's graduation from college, and was quilted by someone local because I ran out of time. 



Finished in May 2014, it is made from their school colors. (It took a year of occassional shopping to find a great border fabric that was not ostensibly Christmas!) Its back incorporates favorite photos from those years and giant bear claws for their mascot.




I hope you enjoyed my little "trunk show." Check out the link-up for some really great eye candy from other quilters!

Trunk Full of Quilts 2015

Blogger's Quilt Festival: "Semper Fi - Combass"

My favorite quilt finish this year is the one I designed and made for my son-in-law to celebrate his U.S. Marine Corps boot camp graduation:

"Semper Fi - Combass" 

designed and made by Lynette Caulkins

70 x 70 inches

cotton fabrics, black Hobbs Heirloom 80/20 cotton/poly batting

free-motion quilted on a domestic Husqvarna Sapphire 875Q

Entered into the Original Design category of the 

Fall 2015 Blogger's Quilt Festival

That up there is my favorite photo of this quilt, even though I still had approximately 6 feet of the binding to stitch down at the time. It was taken outside the hospital in Grand Island, Nebraska, when we were visiting my mother-in-law. The sculpture is slightly larger than life: "Second Thoughts" by Vergyl Goodnight.

I designed this quilt myself on my EQ6. It needed to fit what I could find in my stash that worked around a Marine Corps yardage and panel that I bought on ebay when he reported to Basic Training in March. (He lived with us as a de-facto foster son for six months before that, and I needed a project to occupy my Mama Bear heart during the three months he was there." I also wanted great quilting, but needed it to stay somewhat pliant for personal use and fit in a masculine military scheme.

Basic Training for the Corps is the single hardest and longest of such training in the world. It is physically and mentally grueling beyond what most people (and their bodies) can endure. And during that time, there is extremely limited communication with your loved one by snail mail. Which is usually greatly delayed. It is not fun on either end. I often pinned the growing top up during construction on the quilt-of-the-month in our family room as a comfort factor for me and my daughter, engaged to him at the time.

Now he's a full-grown U.S. Marine, finishing his specialty training.

And don't Marines make the most handsome grooms??

I had fun with this quilt's design. You definitely have to have RED for a Marine Corps quilt. Black is another good color, as is gold. It's all very distinctive from the colors of the other U.S. military forces. But the Marines do work a lot with the classic camouflage in both forest and desert colorways. I had a few greens in my stash to work with that could pull that idea into the scheme as well. 

The central focal point is a fabric printing of the Marine Corps Seal. I gave this medallion some trapunto work before I layered everything for quilting work. The dimension turned out so terrific! I used a layer of quality poly batt for the trapunto. The black ring has the least quilting, so it puffs the most. The rope ring and the eagle-anchor-globe have much denser quilting than that, so they lie a little lower, but still raised from the main level. I did need something dense in the closest background area, so I filled that yellow with a small meander. The denseness counteracted the immediate-surrounding rippling from the trapunto center so that the rest of the quilt lies flat, even before washing and blocking.

I was super happy with the detail quilting here on the central picture, following those very thin lines with black thread that would have jumped out terribly if I'd wobbled off-line. A year ago I would not have had such great success! On the thin gold circle just inside the rope, I used a metallic gold thread to flank it on either side that makes a really fantastic accent, though you can't really see it much here. I did decide NOT to detail quilt the words in the black ring, because that would have broken its dimensionality. Much better this way.

I used the gold thread to quilt our Marine's name in the red band above the seal, and "Semper Fi" below it. It glistens beautifully in this field! I needed a quilting filler between those words, so I put in a chevron for him since he graduated with an early promotion to Private First Class.

The star band features two kinds of stars in two different forest-family greens with fussy cuts from the Marines yardage for the centers. 

I needed cool but not-super-dense quilting on those. The side stars (above) were stitched in the ditch, and then the background just got straight lines that vaguely connote all the barbed wire he had to crawl through and drag dead weight under during training. The corner stars (below) got a little tighter quilting. They have SID, curved echos inside the arms, and medium meandering in the background to add a little more nuance of camouflage fabric to the dark leafy print.

Further out, there's the gold bar band with a woven camouflage element. I had two cool fat quarters for the greens here, and piecing it template-style with a gazillion Y-seams let that be just barely enough. It took forever! But I sure am happy with the result. It's nice that the design pieces aren't broken up into 2 or 3 pieces each for faster construction. This band's joining to the quilt-in-progress ended up providing a serendipitous change to my initial design work. I cut the red band between it and the stars the tiniest bit too narrow. I didn't have enough fabric to recut that, so the problem-solve was to add a black 1/4 inch strip on either side of the band work. You can see in the photo below that this is perfect! The points undoubtedly look much nicer framed completely in black rather than kissing the red like they would have done. Sometimes mistakes are actually blessings in disguise, so I've learned to take them in stride and embrace the problem-solve necessity as an opportunity for improvement or artistic expression.

Oh! Here's a detail shot of the gold bar that shows almost completely how nicely that gold thread glistens. 

I'd wanted to use a particular decorative stitch on my machine to do the edge work on the bar's quilting. It would have helped create an effect of roundness for it. But the stitch was too complicated for a metallic thread, no matter how carefully and slowly I worked it. So I resorted to the blanket stitch. Still not thrilled with how that looks like it was appliqued on, but. . . oh, well for that. Doesn't take away from the quilt's overall awesomeness!

I had a really difficult time deciding what to do for the quilting in the red bands. I found the perfect free stars and feathers motif, but I had to resize it twice for the bands, and then make templates that I could center and trace. I can't do a motif like this on my domestic machine without marking and keep it evenly spaced/sized with the tiny visual field you have to work in. 

I was amazed at how nicely the corners worked on these bands. I really only needed to draw in a couple extra feathers as the stars took care of themselves, laying down in perfect spacing all on their own. However, it took me a couple painstaking drawing hours to work out nice upper and lower curls for the central band, where the name and motto break the border design apart. Some things definitely do NOT come easily for me!

The backing was made with the Marine Corps yardage. I didn't have enough to match the pictures down the center seam, so I just inserted some of the green from the front. 

This is the label I made for it:

I fount it highly appropriate that the only place to lay it out to block it after washing was in the exercise corner! I'm telling you, those Marines have the best hard bodies from all their PT!! 

Thanks for letting me share this special quilt with you. It's one of my top-three favorites of all time, and I really wish it lived out my house!

Finish Report: - "Semper Fi - Combass"

This quilt was finished in August, but it never got its own report:

That is still my favorite photo of it! It was taken outside the hospital in Grand Island, Nebraska, when Marissa and Scott and I went to visit his mother. It is 70 x 70 inches. When the quilt finally catches up with its Marine, I hope to get some great shots to add a new favorite photo.

I designed this quilt myself on my EQ6. It needed to fit what I could find in my stash that worked around a Marine Corps yardage and panel that I bought on ebay when my now son-in-law reported to Basic Training in March. He lived with us as a de-facto foster son for six months before that, and I needed a project to occupy my Mama Bear heart during the three months he was there. 

Our Guy, front of second photo from the top on the right.
Love that look of determination.

Basic Training for the U.S. Marine Corps is the single hardest and longest troop training in the world. It is physically and mentally grueling beyond what most people (and their bodies) can endure. And during that time, there is extremely limited communication with your loved one by snail mail. Which is usually greatly delayed. It is not fun on either end.

I even hung it up during construction progress as a comfort factor.

So I needed this project! The quilting was probably only half way finished when he graduated, but he still had to go to the three weeks of Combat Training after that, and now he's at the nine months of his job training school where he has to live in the barracks. 

Kyle, bottom left

So his quilt won't live with him until March or April, when he has his first Fleet assignment and he and Devon have their own housing unit.

(Still loving how beautiful their wedding was in June!)

I had fun with this design.

You definitely have to have RED for a Marine Corps quilt. Black is another good color, as is gold. It's all very distinctive from the other military forces. But they do work a lot with the classic camouflage in both forest and desert color ways. I had a few greens in my stash to work with, so that's what planned on. The star band features two kinds of stars in two different forest-family greens with fussy cuts from the Marines yardage for the centers. 

I needed cool but not-super-dense quilting on those. The side stars (above) were stitched in the ditch, and then the background just got straight lines that vaguely connote all the barbed wire Kyle had to crawl through and drag dead weight under during training. The corner stars (below) got a little tighter quilting. They have SID, curved echos inside the arms, and medium meandering in the background to add a little more nuance of camouflage fabric to the dark leafy print.

Further out, there's the gold bar band with a woven camouflage element. I had two cool fat quarters for the greens here, and piecing it template-style with a gazillion Y-seams let that be just barely enough. It took forever! But I sure am happy with the result. It's nice that the design pieces aren't broken up into 2 or 3 pieces each for faster construction. This band's joining to the quilt-in-progress ended up providing a serendipitous change to my initial design work. I cut the red band between it and the stars the tiniest bit too narrow. I didn't have enough fabric to recut that, so the problem-solve was to add a 1/4 inch strip on either side of the band work. You can see in the photo below that this is perfect! The points undoubtedly look much nicer framed completely in black rather than kissing the red like they would have done. Sometimes mistakes are actually blessings in disguise, so I've learned to take them in stride and embrace the problem-solve necessity as an opportunity for improvement or artistic expression.

Oh! Here's a detail shot of the gold bar that shows almost completely how nicely that gold thread glistens. 

I'd wanted to use a particular decorative stitch on my machine to do the edge work on the bar's quilting. It would have helped create an effect of roundness for it. But the stitch was too complicated for a metallic thread, no matter how carefully and slowly I worked it. So I resorted to the blanket stitch. Still not thrilled with how that looks like it was appliqued on, but. . . oh, well for that. Doesn't take away from the quilt's overall awesomeness!


Back to the main focal point: The center medallion, a fabric printing of the Marine Corps Seal, has trapunto work. The dimension turned out so terrific! I used a layer of quality poly batt for this, and it's cut out from the red area. The black ring has the least quilting, so it puffs the most. The rope ring and the eagle-anchor-globe have much denser quilting than that, so they lie a little lower, but still raised from the main level. I did need something dense in the closest background area, so filled that yellow with a small meander. The denseness counteracted the immediate-surrounding rippling from the trapunto center so that the rest of the quilt lies flat, even before washing and blocking.

I was super happy with the detail quilting here, following those very thin lines. The gold thread is fantastic in that accent, though you can't really see it much here. A year ago there would have been lots of wobbles in my FMQ showing there. But the thin gold line is perfectly edged with gold, and the thin black ring and all the detail work on the rope ring and the central motif run true to the mark. Very exciting moment for me! I did decide NOT to detail quilt the words in the black ring, because that would have broken its dimensionality. Much better this way.

Also, I used the gold thread to quilt his name in the red band above the seal, and "Semper Fi" below it. It glistens beautifully in this field! I needed a quilting filler between those words, so I put in a chevron for him since he graduated with an early promotion to Private First Class.

I had a really difficult time deciding what to do for the quilting in the red bands. I found the perfect free stars and feathers motif, but I had to resize it twice for the bands, and then make templates that I could center and trace. I can't do a motif like this on my domestic machine without marking and keep it evenly spaced/sized with the tiny visual field you have to work in. 

I was amazed at how nicely the corners worked on these bands. I really only needed to draw in a couple extra feathers as the stars took care of themselves, laying down in perfect spacing all on their own. However, it took me a couple painstaking drawing hours to work out nice upper and lower curls for the central band, where the name and motto break the border design apart. Some things definitely do NOT come easily for me!

The backing was made with the Marine Corps yardage. I didn't have enough to match the pictures down the center seam, so I just inserted some of the green from the front. 

This is the label I'm sewing on it today before I take it to get appraised next week:

It's finally all dry now from the washing and blocking! It's appropriate that the only place to lay it out was in the exercise bay! I'm telling you, those Marines have the best hard bodies from all their PT!! 

Thanks for letting me share this special quilt with you. It's one of my top-three favorites, and I'll really hate letting it go!

~*~*~

Linking up at:

Fabric Tuesday

Cath's Bits and Bobs

Free Motion Mavericks

Can I get a Whoop! Whoop!

Link-a-Finish Friday

TGIFF, which is at Quokka Quilts this week

 (main site here)

This is my very best Q3 Finish Along piece (My goal post link)