Valerie's Quilt.....

This is Valerie's beautiful quilt - she contacted me after I had done one of her friends quilts. She waited patiently as I took what seemed like forever to get to her quilt. Thanks for being so patient Valerie! She belongs to a Quilt group called the QBees and you can follow their journey on Theresa's Blog.

Here is what Valerie said about her quilt and why she wanted to make it.

I was inspired by this quilt because it combines appliqué with pieced blocks
and I was excited about the large white center to show off quilting. For me
this was a somewhat different color way. As a matter of fact, my daughter
looked at it on your blog and said "That's your quilt, Mom? There is not
enough brown in it..."

****Update****

Pattern is called:

"Home Sweet Home" designed for Patchwork Party Fall 2007 by Carolyn McCray with Cottage Quilts

The pattern was a Patchwork Party event in 2007 - I will get the details as soon as I can - if anyone out there knows the pattern, let me know and I can update my blog so I can give proper credit to the designer.

I used one layer of Hobbs 80/20 batting. I used Superior Threads Highlights #796 for the cream fabric and #703 for the prints.

Oh - and before I forget - I have an A-1 long arm - I love it, I would buy it again. I am not familiar with all the other machines out there because this is the one I have always used, but I think it is an amazing machine and I don't plan on switching to anything else. (That hopefully covers all the missed questions).

Okay - this fun little design was perfect for the corners of the border. It gives it a nice little break from the diamond sash quilting. This is a toned down quilt job for me - I had to promise myself and Clint that I wouldn't do more detail than what I started with. I typically add more detail in because I am just a little crazy..........

Since the center flower basket creates a center section of the quilt and it's own border, I thought it would be fun to mimic the corners, but at a smaller scale. I loved how it turned out!

I wanted the center quilting to really compliment the design. There was enough empty space that I created a fun design to border it.

Don't you love how it almost looks like a butterfly taking flight?

I just love it! I have made a PDF template available for this design. I called it diamond swirl - real original, but it works! You can buy it here.

I really had fun doing this quilt - it went faster than some of my other quilts, but there was still a lot of marking and ruler work. The quilt took me a little over 20 hours to quilt.

One of my favorite blocks - I have done this up and down stitch before, but I haven't ever tried it around all the triangles before. I saw it done beautifully by Jenny - so thanks for the inspiration girl!