Magic fingers and dancing feet

COEUR d’ALENE — Elaine Cederquist has been quilting for most of her life.

“My grandmother was a big quilter,” the Hayden resident said Wednesday. “I just always knew it was something I was going to do.”

Cederquist entered three quilted pieces into the North Idaho State Fair competition this year, including a quilt that won a People’s Choice award.

One of her quilts titled “The Secret Life of Bees” took about five years to complete. The quilt required close to 2,200 hand-cut and stitched hexagons that are about 1-inch wide.

With a honeycomb pattern in classic shades of browns, blues, reds and greens making up most of the design, the quilt is embroidered with four bee hives, three queen bees and a busy parade of worker bees.

“I call it my traveling quilt,” Cederquist said.

This is because she would take along bags of the tiny pieces and work on stitching them together in the car. She said the process kept her hands and mind busy while the hours passed.

Cederquist’s quilt titled “Painted Posie” is a more abstract example of quilting.

A custom-designed panel quilt featuring shades of turquoise, blue, magenta and violet, this piece was finished off with a digital quilting design.

Abstract paint brushes line the top and bottom of the design, and the “dripping paint” culminates in the center with a technicolor floral burst.

“I was just learning these techniques on that piece,” Cederquist said.

She may be learning new tricks of the quilting trade but her years of experience and her love of the art form inspired her to open what she calls her “hobby business” a few years ago.

Cederquist does quilting projects for the public, using a long-arm quilting technique among several others.

She called her business Dancing Stitches, because she and her husband, Skip, have a love for ballroom dance.

“I dance and I stitch, and sometimes I do them both at the same time,” Cederquist said with a smile.

Cederquist’s creativity doesn’t end with quilts.

Her third project entry this year was an elaborately decorated July 4 pillow complete with flashing LED lights, 3D accents and tons of color.

The design depicts a small-town street with a tiny fire station, general store and a country house underneath a sky filled with exploding fireworks.

The next projects on Cederquist’s quilting agenda are another sofa pillow with a Halloween theme and a quilt for a grandchild’s high school graduation.

With the countless hours Cederquist spends pursuing her passion for quilting, her husband Skip spends time with his own hobbies.

“I work on airplanes while she’s quilting,” he said.