Happy 2018!

Each year the Maryland and Northern Virginia quilt shops join together to host a fun shop “hop” focusing upon a selected theme and color palette determined by its organizers and using 6” pre-cuts given out by the participating shops. This year the shop hop’s theme was Vintage Hollywood Movies. I designed, assembled and quilted the above quilt, called Tropical Memories, for Bear’s Paw Fabrics, the shop where you will find me on most Saturdays of the year. Our movie was “South Pacific”. I wanted to create a feeling of the tropics using the colors that were selected. I was especially pleased with the effect of the “slanted” second border, which I hope provides the feeling of gentle movement.

It is a challenge to design a quilt given such specific guidelines. In the process I had so many ideas that it was hard to settle on just one quilt. Do you like to use Electric Quilt when you design a quilt? I do. It gives me the opportunity to visualize the final project before I start to sew.

I always do my quilting on my Gammill Longarm. This quilting was done using Creative Studio 7. I am so thrilled with the marvelous control and design capabilities of this new version of Creative Studio. Thank you Matt!

Here’s wishing you a Happy and creative new year! Don’t shy away from new challenges.