This quilt was made for my daughter's 21st birthday.  It is hand-appliqued using predominantly Kaffe Fassett fabrics and varying low-value spotted backgrounds.

This is a Storm at Sea setting, in an original coloring design (by me). It's symbolic of what it means to me to be a Christian, how only by loving one another and helping each other can we overcome hard times and get through the dark times of our lives, and that we can only do that by first receiving the love of Christ for us.  The quilt is 39" x 39", home machine pieced & home machine quilted. 

This was a very large quilt handle under my home machine.  I chose to make 2 halves and then sew together.  The quilting was all done freemotion on my home machine.  I decided to omit the bottom and top boarders of the pattern to keep it manageable.  The fabrics/colors were as close to the original design as I could get.  The machine quilting in the white spaces was the basket weave design.  This was a very challenging quilt!

A celebration for all occassions.

I made this quilt for my best friends mother on her 80th birthday Her mother has been a quilter for 60 years and we thought she would love to see

her family in a quilt.  I started with the matriarch in the center in B/W and Sepia tones and then gave each of her 4 daughters a quadrant of the quilt.

As with all families I think children add color to our lives so the quilt got more colorful as I worked my down to the grandchildren. I made sure to

incorporate pictures of the daughters and grandchildren with the quilts this grandma had made for them. She loved it and it hangs in her sewing room

to reminder her of her legacy.

This quilt appeared thanks to The From Marti Michell Corner Trimmer template. The all of top is sewn with this template. The light blocks are decorated with handmade appliques. Quilt is quilted by hands.

The third in a series about polo horses.  The photograph was of an Aiken SC player. Using photoshop cropped heavily and placed horse and player slightly out of the picture on the right and the ball to the left.  Also changed colors and shapes of landscape and tents.  Quilted using 100 weight thread to create a more subtle quilting line on the wool batting.

I decided to do the Sedona Star quilt as a challenge to myself to pick my own colors, embellishments and then experiment with techniques I had learned on TQS. I used Razzle Dazzle in the bobbin to highlight different parts of the quilt, Machine Embroidery on the appliqued blocks, overstitched some quilting with Glitter thread to make it show up more, used pipping on the binding, and them added over 4000 crystals to make it shimmer. It took me almost 2 years to complete and I had so much fun expanding my skills. Getting Margaret Solomon Gunn to quilt it was the icing on the cake. I just love the way it turned out!

The Cow Pony - Inspired by my husband's love for his roping horse, Dancer. Dancer loved cattle, which is known as being cowy. My husband referred to him as Cow Pony. You can view a slideshow of the making of the Cow Pony Quilt: http://luannkessi.blogspot.com/2010/01/cow-pony-slideshow.html LuAnn in Oregon http://luannkessi.blogspot.com/ kessi@pioneer.net

My Wyoming Valley - Tribute to Wyoming. took the traditional wyoming valley block and made 5 variations thereof. combined with the bucking horse emblem form the Univ. of Wy.

A medalion quilt. It has a large multicolored running horse quilt center with silhouettes of horses surrounding it. It has an inner border surrounding the center medallion and a Prairie Point edge using the same color arrangement.

Finally have completed my first (and last!) "commissioned" quilt....made for a graduation gift (to fit a dorm room long twin bed) for the daughter of one of DH's co-workers. Never thought I wanted to make quilts to order, and this experience has confirmed that idea.....your hobby isn't near as much fun when it becomes work! Lesson learned! Having said that, making a Storm at Sea from a laser cut kit makes a very positive difference....just very time-consuming when other projects are calling for attention!  Very pleased with the quilting done by a local long-armer at my favorite LQS....the quilting really added to the water-like feel of the quitl!

This is a second version of a quilt I designed using the prisms of a round diamond. Rather than a Diamond, this one looks like a Mariners Compass. I rarely repeat a quilt, but I saw other possibilities for this design. 

Based on patterns from the book by Sharon Pederson.

This is my interpretation of the stained glass window in the Sacred Heart Co-Cathedral in Houston.  I copied and enlarged and traced the pieces, using fusible. After it was all ironed down, I zig zagged the black lead lines. Quilting was done with monoply thread on the top following the lead lines and matching thread on the back.

This wall quilt was derived from a block from my modern sampler, "Playing Well Together", which was designed for the Modern Quilts Unlimited "Old is New" Block and Quilt Challenge. Each month of the challenge we assigned a traditional block and we were to create an original more modern block.  The tradtional block for this challenge was Drunkard's Path.  In my version, enlarging drunkard's path subunits extend from the middle out in 4 blocks. I used dark purple alternating with shades of orange, green, magenta and teal as the subunits enlarge outward. While the purple unifies it also contrasts with the colors giving luminosity and depth as the colors seem to jump out at you, while at the same time recede into the distance.  Drunkard's Bullseye WOW! was juried into the new exhibit “A Celebration of Color” that debuted at International Quilt Festival in Chicago April, 2017. 

Small art quilt featuring asymmetric paper-pieced Dresden plates as aerial fireworks. This is my 2017 donation to the SAQA benefit auction. It is a follow-up to last years Dresden Daisies. For more details see https://susieturn.blogspot.com/2017/04/dresden-fireworks.html

This was made for a friend in exchange for a beautiful Mah Jongg set that incorporated her love of color and textiles in its restoration.  The quilt is based on the "In Full Bloom" pattern by Sue Spargo.  It was challenging to convert a folk art pattern intended for hand stitching on wool into a contemporary style cotton quilt done completely by machine.  I think the final product retained the spirit of the original pattern and incorporated the style of my friend's work.  Making it was a wonderful tribute to friendships formed through the love of games and fabric arts.