Beth and her excellent applique skills!

 

So, first off - this quilt is Beth's. I have quilted several quilts for Beth and it is always a pleasure to quilt for her.  She makes me think that hand applique might eventually be fun to try ;-)  Her skills are just amazing.  This quilt pattern is called Stevie's Garden by Susan Smith and it has almost 650 applique pieces, WOW!!! I know it takes patience to quilt, but hand applique must take so much more patience.  I am always so impressed with quilts like this.  They are so beautiful!

 

I have to apologize if the quilt looks a little blueish - the background is white fabric, but I took these pictures when the clouds were out and it changed the colors. I did my best to fix them. Anyway - the quilt took me 17 hours to quilt - my back aches, but it was so worth the pebbling. I used Magnifico #2003 for the top thread and So Fine #401 for the bobbin thread - the thread worked nicely together.

 

Because there are a lot of circle applique shapes in this quilt, I wanted to add large quilted circles in the filler.

 

It is always tricky to quilt around applique and time consuming to go in between each little leaf, but again - so worth the effort.

 

Close up of the large circles with a swirl in every other one.  I love the look of the extra detail to the circles.

 

Random swirls throughout gives the quilting more character - that is why I love free motion quilting!

 

I just love this!

 

More close ups of the circles.

 

And, it is always tough to pick out a favorite section of my quilting when it comes to a random design. But, this swirl just worked out so perfectly that I think it is my favorite part of the quilting :-)

 

And the back - love it! Because the border fabric was so busy - in a good way - I just did my free motion feather swirl. When you can not see the quilting, no sense in doing a custom quilting job in that area, right?

 

 

Some of you have asked for a video tutorial on this filler - I will do that, eventually.  Sorry, it is a little crazy right now so I will let you know when I get a chance to quilt this filler again.

 

Last, but not least.  I love the texture difference between the border and the inside of the quilt. 

Thanks for letting me share!