Author: bramangirlsquilt

I finished piecing this quilt top yesterday while at the lake. Had to hang it sideways to get a photo to keep it out of the leaves

The Midwest Sisters Quilt Show began when you drove down the driveway. Sunshine streams down on this beautiful quilt on the first curve in the driveway.

The Midwest Sisters Quilt Show started in 2020 because every quilt show in the USA was cancelled. MSQS 2021 was bigger and better.

The weather cooperated with sunshine and a breeze. Nancy and I had a little problem while putting up lines in the trees along the driveway. My car locked itself when Nance shut the door while she was taking photos of the quilts in the trees. So our quilt shop hop was delayed until the locksmith, Jeremy, came to help.

Since quilt shopping was now limited we went to the two shops close by; Delphine’s Quilt Shop in Gaylord and OOOO La La Fiber Creations in Frederic.

Jenean gave a presentation on beekeeping and share her tasty honey with everyone.

2021 MSQS was a success all around. Can’t wait until 2022.

This is the view of our lake this spring just as my husband and I got the dock in the water. I’ve always wanted to make a quilt of the view we have from our porch.

Normally when I start a collage quilt I draw a rough draft of what I want to collage, then define it when drawing it out on Pattern Ease. For this quilt, I pieced together background fabrics. My plan being that I would collage directly on the fabric.

I started by making the trees.

I used small strips for the grass and put them vertically on the background. For the sand I just used lots of small sandy colored pieces.

Beach is done, grass is almost finished. I added the stepping stones and starting on the fire pit.

Fire pit is complete now I started on the lake.

The dock is in the water, and the toy shed is nestled between some trees.

Straight line quilting, both horizontal and vertical.

Completed and hanging in the trees at the lake.

As I’m sure you have noticed in this blog, I enjoy making collage quilts. I met Emily Taylor at the Houston Quilt Show in 2019 and bought her book and one pattern. Since then I have avidly followed her on social media and joined both her Collage Quilter group and Collage Quilter Academy group on Facebook.

The crane is one of the birds from her Take Flight book. Since we have plenty of sandhill cranes in our fields every summer, that is what I chose to make.

I traced this bird on Pattern Ease. When doing collage, the beginning of the project is actually quite boring. I’ve heard many beginners say they don’t know where to start. My advice is put some pieces of fabric on, if you don’t like it it’s easy to change.

Like most of my collage quilts, figuring out the background takes awhile, usually as long as the collage itself. Water, sand and sky for this one.

This wall hanging will definitely be here for the Midwestern Sisters Quilt Show in July.

My granddaughters were with me when I saw the email from Emily Taylor showcasing her newest pattern, Pop Art Pups. I knew I wanted to download one of them, but Cora insisted that I get the whole bunch.

Just like that I downloaded the patterns and printed them off. New Project!!!

Not sure why I do it, but with most of them I started with the ears.

Most of the pups were made in March while I was on vacation in Texas. I used Emily’s parchment paper technique. When I got home with them I found a perfect background fabric line at Seven Sister’s Quilt Shop. Although I did go to the shop about three times that week getting just the right color for each background.

Got the pups on their background fabrics and pieced together. Good thing I have grandkids almost everyday. Conner was the quilt holder for this one.

Deciding how to quilt it took awhile to decide. I had finished making the quilt top and snapped this picture on March 22. It wasn’t until the middle of May that I quilted it. I wanted each pup to be a star. So I stitched lines out from each one, which meant that I had a lot of starting and stopping, but I love the way it turned out.

As a bit of a side note. While in Texas I made a collage pup of a friend’s dog. I started with Emily’s Lab pup pattern and then changed it to look more like Ozzie. I did make this one on Pattern Ease because of the changes I had made from the pattern.

Ozzie has a lot of wild wiry hair, so I added some with the quilting. Since his family are avid MSU fans I added a Spartan in the corner (Thanks to my friend, Terri as I would never have MSU fabric in my stash)

I try to stop in to the local quilt store whenever I get to the lake house. Dephine’s Quilt Shop in Gaylord, Michigan is a real treasure. I found this beautiful Ombré layer cake on a trip in January. Got back to the house and started making a disappearing nine patch block.

I got my first 9 patch sewed together and laid out on the floor. You can see my dog Nya thinks this must be her quilt.

I finished the top that weekend in January and brought it home where I have my quilting machines. The top sat in my sewing room for months, not finished and with no one in mind to gift it to.

Then in late April we got news from Canada that friends we don’t see often, but have always treated us like family, had lost everything in a house fire. Well I knew where this quilt was headed now.

I finished this project in a few days, now to send it off to Canada.

I named this quilt, Quilted Hug. I wish we could deliver it in person, but the border is closed. Until the world wakes up, this is the best I can do.

Jenean enjoying a spring day in her front porch with her new Bee wall hanging. The bee is a pattern by Laura Heine. Jenean is an avid bee keeper and supplies our family with sweet honey.

I started this project over six months ago. I started on the wings. Here I’m working on the body of the bee.

Per instructions on the pattern, the bee on traced onto Pattern Ease then collaged. Now I’ve got my Karen K Buckley scissors ready to cut out the bee and place her on the background.

I loved this flower print the first time I saw it. Not sure where I got it, but I knew it was the perfect background for the bee. Now the bee is glued down and I waiting for it to dry. That was months ago. This project got put aside, in fact it had been hanging in my classroom for months just waiting to be quilted.

Finally in March I got it onto the Simply Sixteen for free motion quilting. I wanted every petal to stand out so as you can see I did different stitch patterns on different petals.

It took hours and hours to quilt this wall hanging, but I think it was well worth it.

By the smile on Jenean’s face, I’d say she agrees.

Braman girls hung quilts outside for National Quilt Day. We also posted pictures on Facebook.

Dana’s first quilt of the day was Tally Marks. Used lots of scraps from my stash for this quilt.

Nancy hung her quilt, Dashed, from her privacy fence since her front porch is not visible from the road.

Jenean hung this beautiful Zygocactus quilt on her front porch. A gift from our mother.

Love this Wonky Star quilt. Dana started making stars and put it together with three inch strips in 2019.

Nancy’s second quilt is Raven, pattern by Emily Taylor is a collage quilt. He definitely made himself at home in the garden.

The third quilt Dana hung was this modernish quilt. Mouse Maze, start at the green block and follow the arrows until you get to the red block.

I had lots of different Christmas fabrics to fussy cut for this collage, so it definitely ended up a Christmas Snow Globe. Unfortunately I didn’t get it finished in time to hang for Christmas in 2020.

I ended up taking this project to the lake house and was able to hang it to work on it. By this time, Christmas was over. So did I want a Snow Globe or Christmas Snow Globe?

It was February before I finished it, so I consider this one my first completed Christmas decoration for 2021. Thanks to my granddaughter, Kaydense for holding Christmas Snow Globe.

I’ve got some projects in the making, but none are complete to share with you. What project is complete is this quilt for a special little boy, Elliot. I have had the best time teaching his Grandma Kathy quilting. We started with her idea of a construction equipment quilt and this with what we ended with.

Kathy did it all making this quilt, from picking out fabric, mastering the rotary cutter, trying to sew straight lines and of course using the seam ripper. She learned quilter language; layer cake, jelly roll, or quilt sandwich. I wish I had taken photos along the way, especially her excitement when she started machine quilting on my Handiquilter Simply Sixteen.

What a fun month we have had. I can’t wait until she starts her next quilt.