More Paper Dolls and Applique

I think that I have an addiction . . . It is to embroidery paper dolls. These dolls are from Embroidery Design Place and they are the Toddler Robby dolls. Aren't they cute? I just love her designs! She has great Baby Michelle dolls and a baby Michelle club which I joined.

With all the dolls I make for the Smiles for Children project my two sons saw these and just had to have a set each. So I started making these ones for them. I am letting them pick out the outfits they want in the colours they want.

Not very quilty, sorry, but this is one of the things that I have been working on :)

Right now here in Ontario it is pretty humid and hot during the day so I haven't wanted to have much fabric on top of me. It is however great weather for hand quilting at my frame or hand applique.

Here is a picture of the Celtic Tablerunner that I am currently working on. I took this course on-line at Quilt University quite a while ago. It was a course called Stress-free Celtic Tablerunner by Nancy Chong and they are offering it again in August. This was one of the UFO's that I am finishing up and it is a perfect take-along prject for the summer. I love the cool blue and purple batiks. What do you think??

Why Sunshower Quilts?

I just recently found a great quilting blog that I love call Sunshine Quilts. When I saw the name I thought to myself "Oh no people are going to think that I copied her name!" She's been blogging a lot longer than I have and is much more well known than I am. So, I thought that I would explain how I came about taking Sunshower Quilts to be the name of my blog.

I had a business from 1998 - 2005 where I made my own soaps and creams and bath products and it was called Sunshower Soaps. You can see the picture of one of my signs on the left. I loved doing the business and I loved the name that I picked. Sunshowers are my favourite type of weather system. You know, when you're outside and it's sunny and raining at the same time. Anyways, when it came time to name my blog Sunshower Quilts just seemed to be a natural choice since I already ahd a association with it. Does that explain things a little bit more?

As for what I am doing that is quilty lately. . .I have been working on the Smiles for Children Project and making embroidery paper dolls. It has been a great thing to do with all this hot weather we've been having. I've also been working on hand quilting on my frame and working on hand appliquing a celtic table runner. Here is a close up of a block that I am hand quilting right now in the sampler that I am working on. I hope that you can see the quilting that I am doing in the picture. What do you think? It is a little bit differnet but I think that it is turning out well.

If you have any commnets please feel free to post here :)

Some Embroidery Projects

This is a picture of a denim shirt that I stitched out the Pfaff "Beasts of Prey" free sample design of a lioness. I wish that I could take credit for this idea but I got it off the Pfaff VIP yahoo group that I belong to. A woman on the group did this and posted a picture and I just loved it. I think that it is so effective and really transforms a plain demin shirt.

I love embellishing clothing with my embroidery machine. You can pick up plain items fairly cheaply and just transform them into something really great! Next I need to start doing more with the hot fix crystal embellishments

This is a denim skirt with side slits that I embroidered with designs that came with my "Endless Hoop."

I didn't do them in the endless hoop but rather in my "Grand Hoop" so that I could get them perfectly aligned. It looks really nice and once again it transforms a plain skirt into something really nice.

What do you think?

Another Baby Quilt and Machine Quilting

Hi all!

This is another baby quilt that I did as a commission. I really love this one. The bright colours are just wonderful and rich. They look like hand dyes don't they? But they are a collection from a couple of years ago by Benartex called Mardi Gras.

I pieced the binding as well to use up the small scraps that I had of the border fabrics. I just love the effect especially since there is so much colour in the border.

I took a picture of the back of the quilt so that you can all see the quilting. I really like the way that it turned out. I quilted it from the front but you can really see the thread on the back. I used a varigated yellow thread and quilted in my sun-burst / waves / fire pattern. I think that this is my favourite way to quilt right now.

There are quarter bursts in each of the corners with the waves and sun-bursts running all through the middle. You can just see one of the corner bursts in the upper right hand corner of this picture but you can see more from the front.

If you enlarge the picture you can really see what is going on with the quilting. I should mention as well that this was quilted by me on my domestic sewing machine.

I hope that you like it! Please let me know what you think!

baby Quilt

This is a baby quilt that I made as a commision. What do you think? I have made this pattern several times before and I just love it. It is from the book "Quilts for Baby: Easy as ABC" by Ursula Reikes. I love this book! Her instructions are great. The quilts are great. The quilts are easy enough for a beginner but they always turn out just wonderful. She has another really great pattern in the book for easy Attic Windows without the Y-Seam. I have made that one several times too and I love it.

I have started a book recommendation section on my blog on the right. The first book that I put up is the Border book that I talked about in my "Scrap Quilts and Sweatshirt Jacket" post. This is a really great book for people who want to do more than add long pieces of fabric to the borders of their quilts. The next book that I am recommending is the Ursula Reikes book. I think that it is the best baby quilt book that I have seen. She has I think three all together but this one is my favourite.