LaReen's Gorgeous Quilt!

There are just some quilts that need their own post!

 

LaReen's gorgeous red, gold, and cream quilt is one of them.

She made this quilt for her wonderful lucky daughter Jackie who just got married this past weekend.  LaReen, a dear friend of mine, spent months piecing the blocks and even designed a few of them herself.  Actually one of my most favorite blocks she made was a mess up block.  Love it!  Happy accidents like that in quilting are just awesome.  She used quite a bit of the fabrics from the Midwinter Reds line by Minick & Simpson at Moda.  Its such a gorgeous quilt and LaReen did a beautiful job, as always!

 There are 18 different blocks, and she made two of each one.  I used a cream Perma Core

A&E 30 tex thread on the inside of the quilt, and a Deep Cardinal red thread for the border. 

I used a 8020 cotton/poly batting.

 There are more pictures posted on Facebook of this quilt.  Just scroll down to April 12 or try and click on this link: LaReen!

 

When LaReen and I usually talk about the quilt for her quilts we think about each part and what will work best.  With this one though we didn't have much time.  So we just talked about the kind of style that she would like, some traditional quilting and whatever else I thought would look good.  I was super excited to see how this was going to turn out, because I made a quilt similar to this one using the "Apple Pie in the Sky" quilt along that my aunt Kristin from Sisters and Quilters did last year.  The instructions to the quilt along start here: Sisters and Quilters Blog and ran for several weeks.  Kristin taught several techniques while piecing to save on time and fabric waste.  A few of the following blocks are not from the quilt along, because like me, LaReen wanted to make her quilt bigger.  However, we used a lot of the dimensions for the blocks that Kristin used in her tutorials.  For instance if there was a block I wanted to make using 4 squares across, I went to a block that Kristin made using 4 squares and I used the same dimensions she did...worked perfect every time.  Same for 1/2 square triangles or flying geese.  I know LaReen did the same thing.  Here are the following 18 different block designs that she had in her quilt. 

This is not one of the "Apple Pie in the Sky" blocks, but could easily be figured out by going to the block designs that had three squares across, with some of them being half square triangles.  When figuring out the machine quilting designs for this quilt, I knew I wanted to add some lines to add to the detailed look of the quilt, without over quilting it.

Love the fun bow tie look to this block.  LaReen thought the quilting

made it look like a wrapped candy.  :) 

 This is my most favorite block to quilt!  It was also the block that was the happy accident.  I told LaReen, I want to make a quilt with this block.  The quilting on this one started with the inside lines, then the outside...then those loops just happened, which makes the block pop! 

This block just makes me happy!

 If you look closely at the four patches you can see the four pointed stars quilted in them. 
Which made a fun chained diagonal look.

 This is one of the "Apple Pie in the Sky" blocks.  Great technique taught on this one for flying geese.  Adding the lines in the center makes the red pinwheel have movement and the feather motif's add a needed softness to all those points.  Its also fun when I can add something hidden in the background to add dimension, the 3 petal feather does just that.

 This is also an "Apple Pie in the Sky" block.  Super fun one to make.  Love how the quilting on this one starts straight and goes to the soft and pretty curves of the feathers and petal designs.

 This is also a "Apple Pie in the Sky" block with a twist on the four outside corners, love it!!  Once again the lines enhance the quilt block while the feathers soften up the center and create movement in the star diamonds.  The loop design on the gold inset triangles add interest and depth to the block. 

 Sometimes quilts need simple blocks like these to add depth.  I kept the quilting simple here, just enough to tie it to the other blocks in the quilt. 

 This is another "Apple Pie in the Sky" block.  Wish I had made one like this for my quilt.  I knew when I saw this quilt how I was going to quilt the basket.  I've seen a feathered handle and a striped basket on quilts from other quilters.  Then I just added the vines on the sides to not over shadow the quilt block.  Another of my favorite blocks.

 Another simple block that let me play with the points lines of the squares. 
Simple four patches are awesome for quilting lines and star designs.

 In keeping with the lines and stars that I've done in some of the other blocks I wanted to add the gorgeous simple star to the center of the star's 9 patch.  Finishing it off with some feather designs around and a arced swoop in the four corner blocks.

 This is yet another "Apple Pie in the Sky" block.  Love the movement that the quilting adds to this.  Feathers, petals, and swirls...perfect combo!

I've been seeing a lot of churn dash blocks lately, love that the corners on this one are dark like the inside rectangles.  The loops and feathers enhance the churn dash.    

 This was the very first block I quilted, and it was immediately one of my favorites, still is!  This is also an "Apple Pie in the Sky" block.  To find each block start by clicking on the link above and go from week to week to find your favorites. I love that center block line design, with the feathers and loops traveling around.  To top it off I quilted an orange peel arc in the background.  Also in this picture you can see the pack and forth figure 8 design in the sashing and the double arc in the medallion/corner stone blocks between the sashing. 

 This is also another "Apple Pie in the Sky" block.  Its fun for me to add curves and arcs with quilting the hard straight lines.  They are just a happy marriage.

 This "Apple Pie in the Sky" block may look tricky, but Kristin does an excellent job making it easy!  This one is fun with the large circles, instead of some feathers. 
Finished off with arcs in the corners and star in the center.

 This block sure turned out to be a fun one to quilt.  I'm going to have to remember it for the other star quilts I have in the future.  An inside echo with a loop inside makes it seem like a flower.  Love!

 This is the last of the 18 blocks...thanks for reading along.  Once again that simple star in the 9 patch with the double looped corner petals adds just the right amount of contrast to the feathered motif's on point.  Finishing it off with an arc in the background.

 The feathers and swirls on the border done it that Deep Cardinal Red A&E thread are stunning. 
One of my favorite machine quilting designs to add to any gorgeous quilt.

When I quilt a detailed quilt like this the first thing I want to do when I'm done, besides shout hallelujah, is to look at the back.  If you click on this picture with your computer mouse it should enlarge and you can get a look at the awesome back.  Its especially great when the back fabric is light enough and doesn't have much pattern to the fabrics, like this one so you can see the quilting.

 

LaReen is such a dear friend of mine!  She would do anything for anyone, and is such an awesome example of going the extra mile for her friends.  Thanks for all you do, and for trusting me to just quilt away.  Love everything about this quilt!

 

Happy Quilting~!

- leisha