Baby quilt for a nephew

This quilt was part of a block of the month at my guild in 2015.  It was made with fabrics I purchased on a shop hop in Minnesota. My daughter now owns this quilt.

The inspiration for this quilt is a magnificent dolmen, Kilcooney Dolmen is located near a small village of Ardara, County Donegal, Ireland.  The fabrics are mostly my hand-painted cottons, hand painted silk organza, and couched yarns and trims. I typically paint mostly fat quarters, then each stone cut and appliquéd. There is strip piecing, and turned edge appliqué, and free motion quilting. The edges are faced. 

The inspiration for this quilt was from my photos and memories of being at this fort, at sunset,  on the large Aran Island, Inishmore, off the coast of Galway

The fabrics are my hand-painted cottons, and silk radiance, (Robert Kauffman fabrics), and silk organza.

Size: 53" wide x 73" high

About ten years ago I took a picture of three children playing in a huge Live Oak tree.  I always wanted to try to make it into an art quilt but did not have enough confidence or skill.  The children would be young adults now and I felt ready to try making this quilt.  I used commercial and hand-dyed fabric and for the skin and face painted tan fabric with Caran D'Ache crayons and then covered with fabric medium.  It is heavily quilted using my home machine.  I hope someday they get to see the quilt and recognize themselves and remember the moment. 

Color Crayon Challenge from the Central Virginia Modern Quilt Guild. I got magenta, light purple and dark purple. It could be any size, any techinque and you could add any other colors you wanted. Most were hand dyed fabrics were from Vicki Walsh except the lightest purple and the cream background.  Machine quilted on my home Bernina.

This quilt of a grape vine bearing it's fruit is a gift for my sister this Christmas. It represents the bible verse John 15:2 , Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.

The star quilt pattern is "Star of Destiny" published by Clara Stone in Practical Needlework in 1906.  The 2 applique corners are inspired by Mimbres ceramic designs.  One is circ. 1920 from the middle Mimbres river and represents whirlwinds.  The second is a representation of large animals.  I love using spirals because they are a universal symbol of fertility/continuity.

Each year I make a Christmas quilt, sometimes it is a wall quilt, a bed quilt, or a home decor project.  This year I decided to make a table topper since Christmastime is a time when people gather together to celebrate the season, so what better way than to gather at the table decorated with a quilt.  The fabric was designed by Debbie Mumm from the Santa and Friends collection.  I also made matching placemats which coordinate with the table topper.  May all your holiday celebrations be Merry and Bright.  Merry Christmas!!!  

This quilt is from Quick Quilts Magazine and is fun little project.

O' Holy Night was my 2012 Christmas quilt.  The background was paper pieced and then the manger scene was appliqued on top of the background.  The pieced background is a miniaturized version of a pattern by Pam Bono called "Daisies in the Cabin"  The original quilt pattern finished to 102" but I wanted it to be a wall quilt for my entryway.  I reduced it down to 45" so it would fit on the wall space perfectly.  I selected varying values of sage green and cream batiks.  The applique is raw edge fusible using Kona cotton.  It was one of the first quilts I quilted on my Gammill.  It is quilted with Superior So-Fine in both the top and the bottom.   May the Christmas season be filled with the joys and miracles of the season.     

The original Pied Piper, our Santa brings us the joy of the Holiday Season

 Techniques

Hand Appliqué

Hand Embroidery Machine Embroidery

Embellishments--, beads buttons, gold trim, yarns

Prairie points,

Crazy piecing

Machine Quilted

www.kathymcneilquilts.com

Acrylic paints, pencil, abd quilting.

Acrylics, pencil, and quilting.

True North by Georgia Andrews, Fêteshui Studio 2016. Totally original design, raw edge, fused, threadpainted. Based on photo supplied. This commissioned fabric portrait quilt will be a Christmas gift to North's owner.

My first quilt.  Machine embroidered and pieced by Suzanne.  Took almost a year but now on display in our room.  Loving the quilting by Marilou.  Instructor, Cyndy of Grome's in San Antonio.  So worth the time and money.  On to our next adventure.  Thank you for allowing me to share our new quilt baby addition.Tessa

This quilt was just a fun project for my quilting studio.  I am teaching my friend Penny to quilt and the five fun little pre-printed panels are depictions of the journey of sharing time and space with a fellow quilter.  I found a lovely new fabric line of shell fabric along with gradiated fabrics at my local quilt shop and decided to use purple fabric to contrast with the gradiated fabrics used in the blocks.  The sewing machine is machine appliqué I based on a line drawing from Urban Elementz.  The cardinals with sewing notions are machine embroidery designs from Embroidery Library placed on circles then appliquéd on.  

This is an Edyta Sitar pattern from her Scrappy Firework Quilts book.  While I have done some overall free motion quilting on my domestic machine in the past, this was my first attempt at taking my quilting to the next level.  I used Cindy Needham's Ultimate Background Stencils as well as free motion quilting.  What an enjoyable learning experience this was.