This memory quilt was assembled using photos printed on a inkjet printer. The surrounding blocks and borders were quilted individually and I did some custom outlining of the photos to balance out the density of the quilting. At first I was nervous quilting within the photos but no longer. The third photo is of the back of the quilt. Quite pretty on it's own.

Christmas Tree Skirt

Here is the Tree Skirt I've been working on the last few days. I did lots of ruler work on the straight lines and used the compuquilter to place motifs in the segments. There are 36 ornaments and 18 Christmas bells in all. Lots of fun!

After the quilt show I had some catching up to do. I thank my customers for patiently waiting while I took care of my own projects. Gwen gave me permission to post pictures of the quilt I just finished for her. It's named "The Peach On the Beach" and is a reminder to the recipients of special things that took place there. The quilt on the machine now is a Christmas Tree skirt and is proving to be lots of fun. With the owner's permission I will post that when it's finished

Second Place Ribbon

I entered two quilts in the local Quilt Show and I'm happy to say I won ribbons for both. For this one I used a pattern from the book "Twist and Turn Bargello" by Eileen Wright.

Third Place Ribbon

Wow! It's been a month since I last posted anything. I've been getting ready to put my quilts in the Penticton Quilters' Guild show, along with finishing quilts for customers to put in the show. I was on the committee assigned to hang the quilts along with working in the boutique selling items made and donated by guild members. I was pretty worn out after all was said and done, and I didn't work nearly as hard as many others. I'm proud to say I (we, Shannon and I) won a 3rd place ribbon for our quilt.

And (drum roll please) here it is!! Originally I named it Funky Geometry, then after deciding how to quilt it, I renamed it The Trouble With Trapezoids. When it was too late to change it again I realized that these shapes are not really trapezoids because to be that they must have 2 parallel sides. Oh well.

The finished top

Here is a photo of the finished top before quilting. Only a white background did justice to the fabulous colors (or black) and we liked the white better.  To begin with I named it "Funky Geometry" but after I started quilting it the name "The Trouble With Trapezoids" came to me. So that's what it's called. It's entered in the Penticton quilt show in one month's time so I'm under the gun to get it finished! I did two different geometric patterns in the borders and I'm doing overlapping trapezoid shapes in the background and the interior of the "blocks". It's truly one of a kind!

Ice Dyed fabrics

Here's a preview of the fabrics we ice dyed before cutting to make blocks. Our inspiration came from the book "Quilting Modern". The hard part is making those first few cuts. I like to just hang the fabrics up and admire them.

It's been two weeks!

I aim to post something weekly, but I've been quilting every day and I'm on the program committees of two guilds and time has just slipped away. Here are photos of two of the quilts I completed in the last few days. It's a layout called "Sidelights". I've done several of these, most with different themes. The hockey themed quilt is one of several I've done. Poppins Quilt Parlour in Penticton assembled the kits and I quilted one for them with a digital pattern featuring hockey skates, sticks, pucks and helmets. Soon after that quilt went back to the store the kits sold out! The hockey themed quilt is quilted allover with the hockey panto. The Fairies required a custom approach partly because of the dark purple flange surrounding the panel. It would have spoiled the effect if I'd quilted all over so I placed fairies in the outer border, butterflies in the inner mauve and the partial blue border and clouds on the panel. In the smaller blocks I placed a pantograph in just those sections that co-ordinated with the "winged" theme. In my next post, I'll add a photo of a quilt I'm working on that's an original of mine and my granddaughter's. We got together and ice dyed some fabric one day and she said "we should make these into a quilt and give it to Mom for her birthday!" Stay tuned-----

As promised!

Here are photos of the king sized quilt I mentioned in the previous post. I used an edge to edge design entitled "Luna". Working on quilts that big (100 by 112 inches) is a bit of a challenge, mostly handling that much fabric. I couldn't get back far enough to get the entire quilt in the first photo (and if I had you'd see how much of it is resting on the floor).
What next?? Hmmmmm

It's been almost a month since I created this blog (that's not quite accurate, my friend Brandy helped me start it, I'd still be trying if I'd had to do it myself) and all the while I've been thinking how out of character it is for me to "toot my own horn". But here goes. For starters when I bought the machine, a 2006 APQS Millenium with Compuquilter, I had to move it from it's home to mine. The fellas disassembled it and loaded the parts on an open flat trailer. After reassembling it at my place I discovered some very dirty spots on the canvas leaders so I thought I could spot clean with a spray cleaner. WRONG!! As I watched the spots I sprayed shrunk and shriveled-lots!! So I pulled the leaders off and threw them in the wash, thinking I'd get them clean and re-attach them. Well, they shrunk a total of 15 inches over the 12 feet of canvas. There was nothing I could do but go and buy some canvas and make new ones! Believe me, I preshrunk that canvas in hot wash and hot dryer before remounting on the machine. Before I remounted them,I installed zippers on the edges so I can zip off one quilt and do another for whatever reason. This has saved my bacon on several occasions. I also made a "mini leader" with a zipper set sewn on and mounted it to the ceiling in my studio so I could hang quilts to photograph them, or to stand back and see the overall effect (and I have to admit, admire my work) I made it so I can zip the quilt either front out or back out. I do lots of quilts with minky backs and I like to get a pic of the back as well as the front. Often it's hard to decide which is more beautiful.

Here is photos of my latest project. This quilt is for my friend's granddaughter. I now have a king sized quilt on and with permission from the owner, I'll post a photo.

Welcome

Welcome to my new blog - Eileen's Longarm Quilting! My name is Eileen Zornes. I live in beautiful Summerland, British Columbia. I want to connect with other quilters and share information, news and events in my longarm business. I come to quilting with a long history of working with textiles, my latest obsession is creating magic with my longarm machine. Lately, I've been having a blast learning to digitize custom quilting patterns.

Please follow along and tell all your quilting friends. My goal is to involve you, inspire you, and share my love of quilting.