Bertha and I have been busy ....

In the last couple of weeks we've quilted 3 quilts.

 Sadly, I now have absolute proof that Bertha is, as I had suspected, a fabric snob.  The first quilt she did was the pink one on top, and she merrily worked away, forming perfect stitches and we finished the quilt in record time. Then, I put my Country Charmer quilt on the frame, and we set off again.  Well, Bertha just threw hissy fit after hissy fit.  The stitches were absolutely perfect on the background fabric and the red in the sashing, but as soon as she came to one of the other fabrics, which were cheap and not very good quality I'm afraid, she started skipping and forming horrible stitches, then as soon as she got back to the good quality fabrics, the stitches were perfect again.  I am going to have to hope that a good wash will crinkle the quilt enough that it won't show. Then, when Country Charmer was finished, I put Heartfire, which was made with good quality fabrics, on, and once again, perfect stitching.  Anyway, enough of my whinging, here are a few photos of our work.

Here is Country Charmer, designed by Lynn.  I have quilted a sort of curly-loopy pattern in each block.  I did it oversized, so it extended into the sashing and the borders, which I will do on my DSM, will just be straight lines.  I did try to take photos of the offending stitches, but they weren't good enough to show you what I mean.






The third quilt we've worked on is my version of Heartfire, also by Lynn.  This is the quilt that I made after my wonderful holiday with Lynn and Mr Joe in California.  The fabrics were a FQ bundle that I bought while I was there and I have amended the pattern to include some "flowers".  The yellow ones represent the California poppy, and the red ones to represent the red rose of England.  I also made small hexie blocks to go in the corners of the borders, then I quilted it with a lovely all-over design.  I am going to call it Californian Dreams I think cos of all the wonderful memories I have every time I look at it.

Here is a close-up of the front, so you can see the quilting a little better.  I absolutely love the texture this has given the quilt.

I think Scrappy's influence must be rubbing off on me, cos I pieced the backing with leftovers.  The quilting really shows well on the red fabric in this photo.

Just to finish off, here is a close up of the quilting on the back. Can you tell that I love this quilt?

Just to finish off, you remember the quilt that Scrappy and I are making together? In case you've forgotten, you can see it in this post. Well yesterday, when we were together for a playday, we had all the blocks finished, we shuffled them around on the design wall until we were happy with the layout, then took them all off, carefully labelling them as we went, and here they are, all ready to be sewn into their rows and then a top, next time we get together.