Free Tablecloth Pattern!

This pattern goes together very quickly, and gives you lots of open space in the center for adding embroidery and appliqué! There are only 14 blocks to piece, and two outer borders, so it will be on your table quickly.

To download a PDF for this tablecloth, click on the button at the left to join the Candy Apple Quilts Yahoo Group --- the file is there waiting for you!

Same pattern -- different look!

Time to reuse some of the patterns I have, and try and make them look completely different! This quilt has a formal name (which I can't remember....) but I call it the Orient Express. It has lots of Asian influence, and beautiful butterflies all over.

Any time I see butterflies, I think of my friend Lyn. That happened with this quilt, and then it dawned on me.... the Stained Glass quilt that we just finished for her had a beautiful butterfly pattern on it! That would be a great one to use again! I'm not sure if you can see the design in the close-up above, but it's exactly the same as the design used on Lyn's Stained Glass quilt below. Same pattern, but a totally different look!

Adding hand stitches to machine quilting

I just love where machine quilting is headed these days -- the effects that are achieved are truly amazing. Sometimes, though..... I just want to sit down and stitch by hand. Oh, sure -- I'm still doing the binding by hand, but that's not quite the same as doing quilting stitches. I guess you could say I've missed it a bit, since I was a hand-quilter for so long.

If you do any machine quilting (long arm or short arm), and you want to add something really special and fun to your quilts, try adding just a touch of hand stitching!

Here is a little whole cloth quilt that I did a few months ago.

I thought it would look nice with a little touch of color in the center. Here is a close-up of the machine embroidery that was added.

You can see that there are also hand quilted stitches a quarter of an inch away from the machine stitches. I like the effect of the two types of stitches combined! Each of the corners had a little heart inside of a square, and I think it really softens things up a bit when there are a few extra stitches added.

Candy Apple Quilts

I'd like to share a few pictures with you of a quilt that I have just finished called Scrappy Mountain Majesties. This was done with a pattern that I saw at Quiltville, and it was tons of fun! I used up lots of different shades of green from my stash. You could use any combination of colors to create a truly scrappy quilt in all different colors. It's also a fun project to do with friends, because you can take full advantage of the "assembly line" style of sewing.







Here's a close-up of the quilting used on this project. The patterns I used are called Gilded Deluxe Friends, and they are available through Anne Bright.







Anne's patterns always have coordinating borders, squares, triangles, etc.... and just really brighten up any quilt that I have used them for. These designs are for use with a Statler Stitcher -- the computer-aided long arm quilting machine made by Gammill.