Due to recent spamming, I've had to change my blog settings to "comment moderation" which is unfortunate but temporarily necessary from time to time. That just means that all of your wonderful comments will be delayed in showing up on the blog for a little while until the spam machine moves on to greener (unmoderated) pastures :)
Meanwhile in my quilt studio, the October UFO has been pin basted and the machine quilting has begun. I always begin the quilting with some stitch-in-the-ditch grid lines to stabilize the 3 layers together and those lines are done.
Because this is a sampler quilt, I am quilting each block differently.
Some blocks just want a simple straight line design. I use my Bohin chalk marker and a small ruler to mark some lines to follow. The pink chalk is my favourite because it shows up on most fabrics.
This photo show how this block looks from the back. Just simple straight lines.
I am not hand sewing the thread ends in on this project. It's just a family quilt, so I'm taking a few stitches in the same spot to fasten the thread at the beginning and end of the line of quilting, and then just clipping the thread. It makes a tiny knot and doesn't look as pretty, but it's faster and easier than burying all the threads by hand when there are so many starts and stops in these quilting designs.
In some blocks there are fabrics that have a pretty design that can easily be free motion stitched. In this block I started some free motion quilting on the outlines of the flowers.
It's a fun challenge to think of a different quilting design for each block of the quilt.
Linking up to Let's Be Social over at Sew Fresh Quilts.
Progress is being made in machine quilting my Berenstain Bears baby quilt. This terrible photo of late night stitching shows how I started with some free motion curved lines in white threads, working my way across the white fabrics on the diagonal.
Here's a better day time quilting photo.
I put the walking foot on the machine and did some stitch-in-the-ditch on the horizontal seams to stabilize the whole thing a little more. It seems close to being finished.
How do you know when the quilting is done? I sometimes have a tendency to overquilt... because it's fun and I keep getting ideas so I keep quilting. I'm trying to stop myself before I do that because it's a baby quilt which I want to be soft and cuddly, and less stiff from being overquilted. But now looking at the photos I can see 2 more quilting ideas I could add.
Maybe I should just stop quilting and put the binding on. Then I could focus on the "to-do" list and get started on quilting my UFO of the month!
Progress continues on machine quilting the bear. After the stabilizing lines on both sides of the sashing were stitched, I started quilting the paw print border blocks. I just stitched a free motion 'X' through each plain square.
And then in the next border I free motioned an 'X' design again. I marked each section with an air erase marker to have a spot to aim for. It's not a precise method and the lines are usually not even straight, but I like quilting this way, and the results are good enough for the bear and me!
Then I decided to quilt across the brown bear paw blocks on the diagonal. I like the way it looks but it's a lot of stopping and starting. I decided to not tie in the thread tails, but to just tack the beginning and ending of each line of stitching, and clip the threads. It doesn't look as nice, but the bear and I are both okay with that too! If progress keeps going this smoothly, this bear might even be done by the end of the month!
One of the biggest challenges of being a quilt maker is figuring out how to do the actual quilting. I know of many quilters who have a collection of quilt tops because they just don't know how to quilt them.
While I am basting a quilt, I am thinking about the quilting design. Sometimes I have a clear understanding of how I will quilt a project (like when making the Scrap Vortex) and sometimes I have no inspiration. When that happens, I just start by quilting a grid of some sort, making horizontal and vertical lines from the centre to the edges, or diagonal lines from the centre to the corners. As I'm doing that, more ideas for possible quilting designs usually come to mind.
That is what I'm doing with the bear quilt. I started by "stitching in the ditch" on both sides of the sashings using the walking foot.
Then I decided that the bear needed some free motion swirling designs. My concern about this is if one area of a quilt is densely quilted and the rest is not, the quilt will not lay flat.
I'm not sure how this will work out, but we shall soon see!
Linking up to Sew Fresh Quilts.
Progress is being made on machine quilting my UFO, but it's not done yet.
Here is a photo of one of the corners of the quilt and you can see the circular quilting lines out to the edge. So far it's laying fairly flat on the edges, which was my biggest concern with this quilting design. If everything isn't completely flat and well basted, you can end up with a teepee in the middle of the quilt and ruffles on the edges!
Also I have decided that it needs a dark scrappy binding, so I sorted through my basket of leftover binding ends and pulled out pieces to use. It will take extra time to construct a binding from so many smaller pieces, but it's perfect for this project. I hope it will be my Slow Sunday Stitching project to hand stitch the binding ... so exciting that the quilt is this close to finishing!!
I am celebrating with Amanda Jean from Crazy Mom Quilts as she kicks off a blog hop for her new book "No Scrap Left Behind". Amanda Jean is such a generous person and has freely shared so many wonderful tips, creative ideas and quiltalongs over the years. So when she publishes another book, I want to support her! As soon as I heard about the book I pre-ordered it and have enjoyed reading her new ideas and seeing her fabulous scrappy quilts. Click here to see the blogs on the celebration tour and enter the daily draws for free copies of the book.
With one week left to the finish line, my April UFO (which started with a Crazy Mom Quilts quiltalong!) has been pin basted.
Only quilters can appreciate how much time it actually takes to go from a quilt top to being ready for quilting. The thread has to be chosen for the top and the bobbin, and the quilting design has to be figured out. The backing fabric has to be chosen, measured (and pieced sometimes) and pressed, the batting has to be cut and fluffed up in the dryer, and the quilt top has to be pressed. Then the layers have to be smoothed out, one on top of the other, and finally the pin basting can begin.
This quilt insisted that the quilting design had to be the spiral pattern, which is also something I learned from Crazy Mom Quilter Amanda Jean Nyberg from her tutorial here. I have quilted this design once before and remembered that the beginning of the spiral is a little tricky using the free motion foot, but when you change to the walking foot, it's a little easier.
However, you are shoving half of the quilt continuously through the harp of your sewing machine, around and around, trying to keep the curves smooth. Shoving the quilt through the machine and repositioning it constantly means that your shoulders and hands will be aching, but it's the price you pay for leaving it to the last week and trying to finish it before the end of the month! LOL
Once you get to this stage of the quilting, when you are farther away from the centre of the spiral and moving to the outside of the quilt, it gets way more fun! There is less fabric to shove through and the curves are more gentle and easier to manage. I am lucky to have two large tables to spread the quilt out on when I am machine quilting and it holds the weight of the quilt (except the part that is on my lap, which in this photo is the top half of the quilt that is hanging over the front of the table).
An important spiral quilting tip - always make the spiral go clockwise, or the bulk of the quilt will accumulate to the right of the needle in the harp of the machine, instead of to the left of the needle and you will not be happy!
It was a machine marathon in the studio this week.
Once I committed to the double diamond design in the sashing, that added many extra quilting hours to finishing this project. But I was a happy camper, listening to music and CBC radio - learning, relaxing and quilting all at the same time.
The outside edge sashing design was just a single diamond. I debated about whether to put the binding on before or after the quilting. I decided to attach the binding first, and then quilt the outside edge.
It was so helpful to have the stability of the binding with all the twisting back and forth while quilting. It was easier to stitch "dot to dot", rather that drawing all the quilting lines (the outside edge lines were half the size of the double sashing double diamonds that were stitched throughout the quilt).
So now the quilting is done, and the binding is on, so today and tomorrow are all about hand stitching the binding to the back of the quilt... one of my favourite things to do!
I have had my nose to the quilting grindstone this week in an attempt to finish my March UFO. At the beginning of the month, the plan was to machine quilt one line of stitches straight down the middle of all the sashings, which would have been 12 straight lines.
I quilted those lines, and then was inspired/obsessed to further quilt the sashing areas with a diamond design, which meant an additional 48 zigzag lines of quilting.
Honestly, when inspiration hits, why isn't it ever something quick and easy?!?!
I learned this double diamond design in the Quilt Canada class with Melissa Marginet last year. Melissa has published a new resource book called Walking Foot Quilting Designs and it includes how to make this grid pattern. The pattern involves a lot of planning, measuring, and marking using a 30 degree angle. And then there is a lot of twisting and turning of the quilt to follow the lines, but I am so happy with how it's turning out. Everything is laying completely flat now, even some spots that were a little "puffy" before.
I really like how the sashing intersections look. I couldn't envision how that was going to turn out, but it's really cool!
However, this added quilting is taking so much more time than I anticipated, and with all the twisting and turning of the quilt (which is getting heavier with every line of quilting that I add!) it has been hard on my shoulder joints. I can only quilt for a couple of hours at a time, and although I am trying hard to finish this quilt for the end of the month, it's iffy. If all goes well, the binding may go on tonight, and a March finish might be possible just under the wire tomorrow night. Such drama! I tell you, it's an exciting life I lead! *snort*
My Votes For Women is in 3 quilted sections and is ready to join together into one big quilt. This blog post highlights some of the things I have learned about the technical challenges of using the "Quilt-As-You-Go" method of joining blocks or sections of a quilt together. A few years ago I took a fabulous QAYG class with Martha Schellingerhoud and she showed us 3 methods of joining the quilted sections by hand and/or by machine. This blogpost is not meant to be a tutorial for the technique, I am just sharing some tips that I have learned along the way. You can click here for a great step-by-step lesson with photos. I am not using the exact same joining method as shown in this link, but it's similar.
1) For this method of joining, I do not quilt near the edge of the sections. I give myself at least 1" between any quilting and the edge of the quilt. See where the screw driver is pointing to? That is as far as I quilt until after the sections are joined. Believe me, it will just be easier to handle if you join the sections the way I am with this quilt.
2) Trim all sections carefully - the backing, and the quilt top should all be exactly the same size. The batting will be trimmed 1/4" more by hand once the sections are joined.
3) To join the quilted sections together, use lots of pins. You are joining two sections with right sides together and are only sewing the quilt top edges together.
Pin the edges together and then pin the batting back and out of the way so you don't sew it accidentally. Pin more. Don't even attempt to join two large sections without pinning it to death. And then add 2 more pins! I guarantee that you will not be happy with how everything lines up (or not!) if you don't use all the pins you own.
4) Once the sections are attached, I lay the whole thing out on the table and trim any excess batting between the sections with scissors, being very very careful not to cut any fabric. I trim the batting in a slightly wavy line, which I like to think prevents the join from being too visible. I'm not sure if it effectively does that or not, but it's what I do. Then I hand stitch the batting together using a ladder stitch. When all of these steps are done well, the batting will lie flush and flat, with no gaps along the join.
5) The last step is to fold over at least 1/4" on the edge of one panel and hand stitch/applique it on top of the other panel, just as you would stitch a binding edge. I like to do this by hand so that there are no stitches on the front of the quilt from the join.
6) Once the seams are all finished on the back, then you can add more quilting. I plan to quilt all the horizontal seams from one side of the quilt to the other, which further holds all the batting sections together. And then I'll probably do more quilting... the blocks are heavily quilted, so the sashing will likely need more quilting.
Quilt-as-you-go is a construction method I enjoy since it allows me to do all my own quilting, even on the largest quilts. These are two of my other quilts I have finished using this technique - Swoon, and Scrappy Memories.
My March UFO project is finally seeing some major progress this week. In truth, this project has really been my "UFO of the month" since last September - sad, but true! The third and last panel of Votes For Women was pin basted the first week of the month and since then the quilting has been coming along well.
First I put the walking foot on my sewing machine and stitch in the ditch to stabilize the edge of each block.
Then I change to the free motion foot and make up a stitching design for each block that has the longest continuous line of quilting I can think of. It's a fun challenge to make a different design for each of the 14 blocks in the panel that I am quilting.
I anticipate being able to sew the three panels together next week, with a possible finish in sight. I am trying not to get too excited!
It is quite possible that I am avoiding quilting the UFO of the month by becoming obsessed with this Valentine's quilt. Am I now the Queen of Procrastination?!?
Perhaps! I'm okay with that because working on this quilt has been really fun. AND there are several more days to meet my goal this month!
I finally found the perfect heart design for the 4" empty spaces on this quilt and was eager to get going on the quilting. I started with the walking foot and stitching in the ditch around the 9 patch blocks to secure the layers together.
Then I marked the quilting designs for the empty spaces using a frixion pan and a 4" stencil that I found at The Quilt Place. There are a total of 44 hearts to quilt, which is a lot of stopping and starting. I found a way to quilt the tiny hearts with a continuous line which resulted in a total of 32 stops/starts.
I put the free motion quilting foot on my sewing machine, reduced the presser foot tension (so the quilt could be moved more freely under the needle), dropped the feed dogs, put the stitch length on zero, and was ready to go. I carefully stitched on the drawn lines. If you've never done this kind of free motion quilting before, it's a really challenging skill to get the speed and stitch length even, and to keep the needle on the line. It takes a lot of practice.
Most of the time when I am machine quilting, I start by making 3 or 4 stitches in the same place at the beginning and at end, and clip the threads as close as possible to the quilt. That usually keeps the thread ends secure. But it also leaves a little bump of thread, and I didn't want that to be visible in the solid white squares especially with so many stops/starts. So with this quilt, I left the thread tails hanging, and will hand sew the ends in when the quilting is finished. You can see the threads laying all over the place in this photo.
Since I decided my Circa 2016 quilt must be finished in the year 2016, it has really lit a fire under me to get going on machine quilting. I am also machine quilting my Votes for Women UFO, so I have two different projects on the go and I can switch back and forth depending on the type of quilting I feel like doing each time I sit down at the machine.
I am starting the quilting in the centre of the quilt as I always do. The quilting will just be stitch-in-the-ditch, which I don't do very often any more because it is boring. But there are so many seams on this quilt to quilt through, and I want it to be a quick finish, so I am tolerating the boringness :) And also it is a wonderful break from the intense machine quilting I am doing on my UFO of the month.
I realized I had set a lofty UFO goal for November, and I didn't even come close to meeting it! However I did get started on it, so it's all good. I realized I was making this project into a very big challenge in my mind, and was therefore procrastinating getting started. Once I decided to look at this project as "only 48 miniature projects to quilt", it seemed more manageable to me, and I got the first panel pin basted to start the quilting.
I have the perfect recipe for enjoyable quilting with my Brother 1500, which is:
*Aurifil thread in the top and in the bobbin,
*a Magic Bobbin Washer in the bobbin,
*a Topstitching 90 needle (which reduces skipped stitches), and
*Machinger gloves.
It took me a long time to find this perfect formula and I spent a lot of money over the years on fancy threads that only made me 1) swear a lot, 2) waste valuable time on testing and adjusting terrible thread tension, and 3) struggle with machine quilting. But this combination is as smooth as silk, with perfect tension every time with my sewing machine.
For each block I put the walking foot on and stitch-in-the-ditch around the inside edge of the sashing.
But I only sew to where the screwdriver is pointing so that it will be easier to attach this panel to the others because there will be no quilting close to the edges where the seam allowances will be.
Once that is done, I put one of my free motion quilting feet on the sewing machine and get started on the block. This photo shows an open toe foot that works well when I want to see exactly where the line should start and stop.
And this free motion foot has a plastic disc that is good to use when the block does not lay flat. It seems to mash the quilt top a little flatter to quilt through, but it's less precise. I use this one when there are lots of bulky seams to quilt over/through.
I am viewing each block as a miniature quilt, and try to think of a design to quilt that has as many continuous lines, and as few stops/starts as possible.
Right now I am more than half finished quilting the centre panel.
My December goal will be to finish the machine quilting on all 3 of the panels of my Votes For Women quilt. It's another lofty goal, especially at this busy time of the year, but I will have some days off over the holidays and might have the opportunity to work on it then.
Hop over to One Monthly Goal and see what other quilters are going to work on in December.
Progress is being made on machine quilting my Triangle Stars quilt. I have completely quilted half of the quilt and still have almost 2 weeks left in the month to finish the quilting and get the binding done. It's looking good for a possible finish this month!
I am free motion quilting both sides of every triangle seam and for the most part it is going well. I have had a few issues with tension since I am changing the thread colour when quilting in the stars and don't always remember to check the tension with each new thread change.
The result is this kind of effect with the top thread peaking through on the back. I have decided that it is going to be fine with me to have a bit of this going on. The quilt is just for me, and although it might be entered in a fall fair somewhere down the road (where the judges will tell me to try to make my quilting lines straighter and to improve my thread tension!) it doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to be done! That's the goal!
The machine quilting is coming along really well with this month's UFO called Triangle Stars. I enjoyed selecting a variety of thread colours for each section of the quilt. I started by machine quilting approximately 1/4" on all sides of the centre diamonds with a variegated thread.
When that was done, I quilted all the white triangles around the centre diamonds. Then I moved over to the green star and quilted that area with these Aurifil threads. As you can see I am quilting both sides of every seam in this quilt.
It is a fun challenge to see how far I can quilt with a continuous thread without having to stop and restart in another place. Here is the green star corner finished. It's going quite well so far and I am enjoying quilting with different colours as a break from all the white triangles. I am also really liking the texture, and am working on getting my lines to be as straight as possible.
Today is the longest day of the year AND it's a full moon, which makes it as rare as a whole cloth quilt! It's the first time it's happened in 70 years. I'll be celebrating that we made it through another winter of life, and now its time to celebrate the power of light over darkness! Hey, I look for any opportunity to celebrate!
And here's another reason to celebrate...
on the design wall today are all the sample sandwiches from the machine quilting class I took at Quilt Canada last week (details are here). I'm just letting all that inspiration soak into my brain until I decide what to do with these. Maybe I'll join them in a quilt-as-you-go style to have as a reference for the future.
I hand painted these blocks the week before Quilt Canada, so that I would have something pretty to practice my quilting designs on instead of plain fabric.
I used my favourite Setacolor paints and had a great painting day. It was dry and hot outside so the fabric dried very quickly and I didn't get much effect with the salt. When the paints dried, I heat set them with a hot iron, cut them into 8" squares and I was ready for the class. So fun!
To see more design wall postings, hop over to Patchwork Times.
I am impressing myself with my commitment to finishing the Swoon quilt. I pieced the blocks in 2012, but didn't start machine quilting them until February of this year and have just finished block #6. I have two more weeks to machine quilt the remaining 3 blocks to meet my UFO goal.
 |
| Swoon block #5 |
This is how I start from the centre point of the block to stitch the 8 seed shapes that mimic the design on this grey fabric.
This is a great photo that shows the quilting lines in this block.
Loving it so far!
I will be finishing these blocks using a Quilt-As-You-Go technique (tutorial here). With only 3 more blocks to finish, I am getting excited to see these blocks become a finished quilt.
Blocks 1 to 4 of my Swoon Quilt-As-You-Go project are on the design wall. I pieced all the blocks in 2012, but didn't start machine quilting them until this year. Last week I finished quilting the 4th block.
Here is s close up of block #4. These prints are so busy you can't see any of the quilting design.
The fabrics in the corner were fussy cut (as you might have guessed) and I like the interest it gives this block. A fat quarter was not enough fabric to cut all the background pieces for a 24" block, so all of my blocks (except ones made from yardage) have two different background fabrics. I was annoyed about this when I was piecing the blocks, but now I really like the effect of having a scrappier looking background.
The quilting is wobbly in some many places. I am posting this close up of what I mean so that you will not be critical of your own efforts. Unless your quilt is going to be entered in a juried show, perfection is not required. Just try your best, have fun and embrace the wobbles!
To see more design wall postings, hop over to Patchwork Times.
In some blocks there are fabrics that have a pretty design that can easily be free motion stitched. In this block I started some free motion quilting on the outlines of the flowers.
