Featured Quilt and Quilter!!

Linda has trusted the Bears this time with not one, but two, king size quilts.  Both will be delivered to Thimble Pleasures this Friday July 15th.  The first one is a quilt that was made on a retreat.  It's totally gorgeous, with appliqued

baskets stealing the show. There's so much going on here that we felt custom quilting would be completely lost.  Not only that, we felt it would actually take away. So instead, we chose a beautiful feather overall design. Thread choice is critical in that it needs to blend everywhere. All we're shooting for is a whole lotta' texture. Superior Threads Sew Fine #402 came through.

Taken in the Victoria Suite  in the Bed and Breakfast.  This room boasts a king size mahogany sleigh bed and I soooo wish this quilt were mine.  Because it it were, this is where I'd put it!

Yes, it IS ok to quilt right over those appliqued handles!  See what I mean?  Imagine if you quilted those baskets, and then oh so carefully outlined the handles. Waayyy too much.   Click or double click on any image for more detail.

Ding Ding Ding!!! Bonus time!  Linda's got a beautiful second quilt.  Just turn it over!  Johnny was the lead quilter on this quilt and nobody gets a more perfect balance of tension than Johnny.  Seriously, he's taught me all I know about how to acheive perfect tension. (Quilt Judges know it too!)  And something else you might not know about Johnny.  He fell off the roof of the Bed and Breakfast recently, but he's OK.  LUCKY!  Thank goodness the Cartwright House is opening Monday July 18th.  Feet on ground from now on.  I got a pinky promise on that.

Unique Quilt to Feature

Very unique, very creative, very beautiful! Peter's got it all going on with this 3D quilt in batiks.  The open piecing presents some quilting challenges, at least for me.  I need to be r-e-a-l-l-y careful when moving the machine head over the quilt.  It'd be real easy to tear one of those squares if you get in a hurry. Alas, all of the little suckers are in tact! The body of the quilt was all stitched in the ditch.  The borders were various widths, so careful thought went into the quilt designs here as the density needs to remain constant.

Click or double click on any image for more detail

SID detail

3 D Piecing, Border detail

Large Border Detail

Happy 4th of July!!!!

And I have a real firecracker for you.......Laura from Chapel Hill pieced this beautiful star sampler.  As always, Laura did a spectacular job.  This is a large quilt, 89 x 96.  With wool batting and flannel backing, this will be used as a winter quilt. 

on a king size bed

There were five borders.  The large outside border runs the length of the quilt only.  We quilted a beautiful feather design here

click or double click on any image for more detail

you can see all 5 borders here.  the narrow pink border was SID.  this really creates a nice frame when on a bed.

it's all about the details.....

each star block was uniquely quilted.  i have a lot of pictures, simply because we have seen a lot of these types of quilts lately.  perhaps you might see something you'd like on your quilt????

stitch in the ditch is always worth the effort

this shot was taken on the frame

lastly, laura can flip her quilt over, and have a beautiful whole cloth quilt.  the bears pride themselves with their stitch quality.  the back should always look as good as the front when it comes to tension.



New Featured Quilt and Quilter!

Carol from Scottsdale, AZ  pieced this beautiful pink and white pinwheel quilt for her daughter.  We just love it, and had a great time quilting it.  Carol does exceptional work!  Something tells me she had a good teacher.....

Click or double click on any image for more detail

Border detail

Custom quilting is our specialty!

Sawtooth border detail

We used warm and white 100% cotton batting