Adam & Jen's 25th Anniversary Wedding Ring Quilt

I don't know how I missed posting this quilt. I only discovered the error when I went looking for it just now. I made this before I had my longarm, and was trying to make quilts with shortcuts. This type of wedding ring quilt is made on my home sewing machine with the method from "Rings That Bind" by Cheryl Phillips and Linda Pysto.

My friends that received the quilt were celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary. I know I had consulted a little with Adam on the name for the quilt, but Jen knew nothing about it. They stopped by before we went out to dinner and I had been busy sewing another quilt top in the living room. They kindly asked what I was working on. I showed them and said that I had just finished one if they wanted to see it. Sure! I showed them this and they oohed and aaahed over it. They have a collection of blue and white china, so they really liked the motif. I flipped the corner for Jen to read the quilt label saying it was for them. Shock, elation and emotion is all I can say.

We went out to take some pictures. It was a little dark and I think it might have been a little wet out there. Each of the photos below have a dark spot, all in the same place which must have been on the lens. I quilted the patterns using the design printed on the paper, sewing through the paper and then peeling it off. I also did some with the same method only with press and seal. I was grateful for a way that made this possible, but am even more grateful to have my longarm now.

I have noticed that all of the pictures of the quilting have a gray dot on them. This was a raindrop on the lens, not a spot on the quilt.

Cynthia's Tula Nova Quilt

Cynthia made this beautiful EPP (English Paper Piecing) quilt from Tula Pink fabric using the Tula Nova pattern. For those who don't know that EPP is, the short answer is she fussy-cut each piece and hand sewed the entire medallion top.

The top was then temporarily glued to the black background which I sewed/secured on my longarm with a stitch close to the edge of the medallion before quilting the entirety.

For the quilting, I used clear MonoPoly thread on the top, and Sterling Glide 60 thread on the back. I stitched-in-the-ditch (SID) around each piece, outlined each striped piece, outlined many of the animals and all the circles, plus putting circles in thinner diamonds.

All pentagons got stars, and the wider diamonds in the outer circle got some dot-to-dot quilting.

In the border she wanted feathers in the shape of hearts. These I echoed around as well as putting stars in each of the corners of this decagon quilt.

I had never quilted with a Minky back before, but I turned out beautifully and you can see the quilting so well with it. 

I learned somethings with this quilt, besides working with Minky. In the future, I would recommend that odd shaped quilts aught to stay rectangular for the quilting and then cut to the proper shape. I didn't think it would be that big a deal, but because there was so much fabric in the center potion with all the piecing and seams and then the black background that as the quilt rolled around the take up bar, the edges didn't have as much tension as the center portion. It also would have made the set up easier (I had to baste and unpick the edges multiple times to get things all straight). But learning is good.

Cynthia bound it with a black and white striped fabric. It looks good and her lucky recipient loved it.