Design for my second Alfred Shaheen panel quilt (image using EQ7).  There will also be painted designs of flowers and possibly birds around the border.  I am currently working on those designs.

I am making as many quilts as I can to add to my upcoming exhibit of my quilts at G Street Fabrics in Rockville, Maryland, to take place sometime in the  April/May period. I figure keeping busy is a great way to ignore the news as much as possible, and quilting is such a delightful way to do that.

I had such a lot of fun making my Hawaiian Garden quilt that was focused around the Alfred Shaheen panel that I made for the MQX Exhibit in 2016 and later gifted to my brother and his wife for their special 50th wedding anniversary that I decided to make another one (see design above).  Here in this picture of Hawaiian Garden and you can see I will be using a similar border plan for the second AF panel quilt:

Hawaiian Garden…central panel is a vintage Alfred Shaheen panel.

I received permission to make the second quilt from Alfred Shaheen‘s daughter, since the first quilt had been made under MQX’s permission they got for the exhibit.  His daughter asked that I let my quilt friends know that the panels are very rare and are obviously precious to her.  I know that all of us who have made these for MQX are honoring his wonderful art work with our quilts.

I have also been working on the design for a panel quilt where I will be using a printout of the design I painted myself for the central panel.  I worked out this plan below in EQ7 using the design I painted in the center.  I still have to get the central panel printed.  I may add some additional real painting in the border…I have an idea for that, but can’t get it drawn like I “see” it in my head yet.  I might just leave it as is.

Design for my digital flower panel quilt (using EQ7 to design placement and border)

Both of these quilts will probably not take very long to make, now that I have worked out the designs and have the borders worked out in EQ7 which is very helpful in getting them cut properly.  I already have the quilt top cut out and ready to piece together for the Alfred Shaheen panel quilt design shown at the top of this post.  I plan on offering both of these new quilts for sale if they come out like I hope.

Sew happy everyone!  Make a panel quilt…there are some wonderful panels out there now and they are really fun to make.  You sometimes have to block them square first and steam helps too.