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Well, it's been a while...

We have been on holidays in Bali in the second week of September for 9 days. It was great...beautiful country and beautiful people. We had a great time although I must say it was uncomfortably hot and humid for some of the days. We did splurge out for this getaway with a villa in a very nice resort with a private pool. Incredibly beautiful surrounds.

 

Private pool 

View from restaurant onto one of the infinity pools and beyond.

Also did some fabric shopping while over there. Bought an embarrassing amount of batik after a 2 hour drive to Denpasar. Only went to one shop really...had found the address on FB...apparently most of the quilters from Australia go to this particular shop and having been there I can see why. The shop was full of fabric obviously but what blew me away were the precuts. In the back of the shop the floor was covered in 3 - 4 layers of those round jelly rolls all neatly stacked up. The choice was so difficult so I ended up with more than I actually wanted to buy...then there were Fat Quarter bundles, more jelly rolls in packets, backing fabric and then the shop owner showed me the remnants! Suffice to say I spent about double to what I actually wanted to spend. 

On a different note, I had no problem with the food for the entire time in Bali until the very last day. Got the dreaded Bali belly which made for an interesting flight back home. Luckily it only takes about 5 hours to fly from Bali to Australia. Was glad to be home and was 'housebound' for about a week. Did my pattern write up in that time for my cute little cat quilt which I had finished before we left.

Was really hanging out for some quilting after our time away and finished another one of the charity quilts.

As this is a very floral and busy quilt I just ditched it and then did a simple line design in the pinwheels. Turned out nice, I think.

Following this I made a start on the Bali fabric. Came across a colourwash pattern that Bethanne Nemesh had put up on FB some time ago. Had a look at that and opened one of my jelly rolls. Bethanne said in her pattern that most jelly rolls have usually 2 strips of the same colour...well, my jelly rolls had some duplicates but not all of them. Decided that I will overlook this and just do the pattern with what I got. Sorted my jelly roll into a graduation of colour and made a start.

This should be interesting. The blocks end up very small at 3-1/2in square and my accuracy did suffer a bit as there is a lot of strip cutting, but we shall see. Will end up with something like 200 blocks...very curious how this will turn out as the strips are a riot of colours. Bethanne's examples looked very muted and the graduation was very orderly. I think mine will look fairly dramatic with all the different textures and designs on the batik. Could be really good or a bit of a flop...we shall see.

Also went to a demonstration of the HQ Moxie on a loft frame with Prostitcher Lite...that was super interesting and gave me a lot to think about. Loved the Prostitcher capability of course...the machine did a fine job of stitching out one row of a pantograph. Was quite amazed at what it takes to make all this work. In terms of time, it takes me about the same time to do this on the sitdown with the paper in terms of aligning and making sure it is straight. The computer driven row looked fabulous of course but given the limited throat space of the Moxie you then had to advance your quilt for the second row and put some commands into the computer to make it start the second row. Quite work intensive or I should say that I had no idea what is involved in setting this up. The limited throat space certainly is an issue and I wondered how you would go about stitching an allover design like meandering for example...I forgot to ask but imagine that you would have to stitch it from left to right, then stop and advance your quilt. The lady demonstrating said that you do not advance the quilt with the needle in the fabric, so that would mean you have to break thread. With the meandering in a 15 in space which is decreasing as you roll up your quilt you would really only be able to stitch one or maybe two rows and would probably leave half of that visible when advancing so that you can interlock the shapes somehow. That sounds incredibly difficult to me. Pity we did not discuss this in the demonstration. I was ditching another charity quilt today and thought about how you would do that. I guess what I took from this demo was that you need a much bigger machine (haha...). Must say though, loved the Prostitcher. Would love to have a machine on a frame just to do that. What a toy!

Felt really good this week to get back to some productivity. Hopefully I can keep that up a bit more consistently again.

 

Karin

Finished My Scrappy Cat Quilt

This was so much fun to do. I think those projects that just happen because you feel like it in the moment are often the best. 

I used solid fabrics and leftover tone-on-tone prints for this quilt. Did not have to look for long for fabric to use as I seem to have an abundance of scraps from previous projects. As I often use solids and tone-on-tone prints I had plenty to choose from. Even managed to piece together the binding from binding strips that were left from other projects (yes, do save them as well!).

The completed quilt measures 47in x 57-1/2in

This is the cutest quilt. so bright and cheerful...love it! I quilted it with an allover edge-to-edge design called Ginger Paw (by Melonie Caldwell and Apricot Moon Designs available through Urban Elementz) in a light yellow Aurifil 40/3 thread

Love those little paws! Bit harder to do on the sitdown machine as it varies between long sweeping movements and then all of a sudden you are at those little paws and have to slow down again (and concentrate!). As I have done this design before on my other cat quilt I was prepared for that and did manage quite well. Needless to say none of the paws are totally identical as you zoom around but I managed to stay straight and in line with the pattern, so was very happy with how this turned out.

I have written up the pattern and put as a new listing in my Etsy shop for people who are interested. It is truly the ultimate scrap buster and a great beginners quilting project. Easy to do and comes together quite quickly. I used 30 different fabrics to complete this quilt but it can be done really with whatever you have got on hand and can be as scrappy as you like. 

Funny how after all these years scrap quilts are still my favourite quilts to construct.

Karin

Scrap Quilting

Quick check in!

I was going to work on a string type scrap quilt when inexplicably I started something completely different. Also a scrap quilt but with a cat theme using the many solid and blended fabrics that are leftovers from other projects. I use my Accuquilt cutter a fair bit so I even had ready made triangles just waiting to be used. Too good

Now this was not on my list of tasks to do but got me piecing for the last two weeks. Ran out of white background fabric and also had no batting so had to head to the shop to replenish my supplies. Always a hassle with white background fabric. Even if you find it again, like I did, the chances of the shade being exactly the same is slim, so my bottom sashings are slightly whiter than the rest of the background.

The cat quilt is super simple and I will write up the pattern for my Etsy shop after my upcoming holiday as I think this to be an ideal scrap buster for the emerging quilter. More later...

Karin

To do Tuesday #86 - Getting BackTo It

Well, it's been at least 3 weeks since I last set some goals. I completely dropped my bundle since then and apart from working on my machine cover have not been doing much else...struggling with motivation which often happens after I finish a major project.

When this happens I need something to 'grab' me and it is usually scrap quilts that do that for me. So I sat down and sorted through my leftover bits and pieces taking out most of the strips that were floating around.

In terms of project I was looking for something that does not require much thought...just mindless sewing. I have got a nice book from the Tilda collection and found a very nice quilt where the author just put strips together in a Chinese Coin arrangement separating the columns by sashings. 

This book is just gorgeous...you can see the strip quilt in the background. The book has a lot of very easy but eye catching designs in very pretty fabrics with some fantastic quilting all over it. Highly recommended! The strip quilt caught my eye as it has feathers quilted all down the strips and some easy quilting designs in the sashings. Looks absolutely gorgeous.

In the book the strips are coordinated in terms of colour and placement. They are also the same size. I am doing mine a bit more haphazardly, i.e. sewing strips of varying widths together to arrive at the required 10-1/2in for the section. I am cutting mine straight, but really, you could also just sew them together in a wonky way.

So, no thinking involved apart from making it long enough to make the 10-1/2in. Here I am using some of the longer strips and just cut them into sections of 4-1/2in, but I also am doing some smaller ones from just little strips that were left over. I already have a stack of them, so this should not take too long. Not sure which colour I will make the sashing, maybe a light grey or beige. We'll see.

This has gotten me a bit more motivated again and today I sorted through my solids and blenders leftovers. Intending to make a very simple scrap pattern for my Etsy shop from that.

In terms of tasks for this week I am intending

- to make a start on the quilting for my background filler project

- make more sections for my strip quilt

- cut out the solids/blender fabric requirements for another little scrap quilt to go in the Etsy shop.

- continue with my knitting of the second sock that I started a couple of months ago (it's almost spring here!)
There are a few other things that have been started over the last few months, but I am leaving them off the list for now as this would just become overwhelming. For now I just need to get back into it.

Linking up to To Do Tuesday #86 over at Quilt Schmilt.

Karin

Bernina Q20 Cover

Well, it's been 2 weeks since I started my cover for the machine. It has only taken me 3.5yrs and a bit to tackle this, so this was it. It had to be done.

I have come to the conclusion that I am definitely not a sewist. I might be a good quilter but I am sadly lacking some of the skills for straight sewing.

I followed two patterns (by Beverly Guhl and Terry Burns) that can be found in the Bernina FB group. I used the two as I also needed a slot for my side thread spool which one of the patterns had, so I just combined them. I made my panels, quilted them in a grid...time consuming but no problem!

Then came the zipper which had to run over the front of the machine and down the side in a curve. Beverly Guhl also suggested that it could run down the middle but I did not want my zipper to go over the front screen (at that stage I was still unsure how the sizing would work out for the cover). I bought some zippers and gave it a go. Total fail as I did cut into the zipper on the curve and it became an almighty mess of unravelling zipper. Then I discovered that the size for the zipper in one pattern was wrong...I needed a smaller one. So off I went again and bought two more zippers. While there I also bought some bias tape and fabric glue, but more on that later.

I managed to put the zipper in

Not easily but it was in! The zipper extends slightly over the size of the cover on the bottom. Not sure what to do about that, so I just left it dangling. Might bent it back and sew to the inside. I am definitely not cutting it!

After that I needed to sew the individual panels together. Had not thought about this before, but they all needed to be sewn to the top and then at a 90 degree angle to the side. Now, this pattern uses double batting which I did use and the bulk became rather challenging in terms of bending it around and the bigger the cover got, the harder it became to maneuver this through the sewing machine.  My little sewing station is set up for piecing blocks and lightweight quilt tops, not this monster of a contraption. This took several days. After that I attached the binding to the bottom. God knows why, but I thought I might try to sew the binding to the back and then stitch in the ditch catching the back. Never tried this so this was a good opportunity, so I thought. I glued the binding to the back with my new fabric glue...fabulous! Then I stitched in the ditch with Invisafil thread and hit the back seam sometimes but not all the time, so in the end I had to go around and stitch it all by hand anyway. Did not take the ditch stitching out but just went over it again by hand. This binding is never coming off.

Then came the open slot for the threadmast. Had never done binding to an inner angle before and spent hours googling this. Tried to use the bias tape I bought. Again, total fail on the corners. I followed a very intricate method where you have to be very precise in the corner with measuring your 1/4in seam precisely and hitting the right spot as you turn. At the thickness of the batting and the unruliness of the cover that just did not work at all. In the end, I used 'normal' binding and followed a method where you snip into the corner, then pull the 90 degree angle into a straight line and hope for the best. That worked mostly in terms of the mitering. Not that pretty, but it is a corner.

So here is the finished cover

The slot for the thread spool could have been a bit smaller, but the pattern stated 4in from the seam line so that is what I went with. I measured the threadmast contraption and also made my cut out a bit wider than both patterns stated. Looking at it now, it probably could have been the 4in it stated.

Looks very slender but the size is perfect. While it looks as if it fits like a glove, there is ample space all around. It does not sit on the screen directly and also covers the plug in the back. The double batting and grid quilting made the panels very stiff, so it does stand up really nicely. If I had to do it again I think I would explore using a bag stiffening product to reduce the bulk.

All in all, not a bad effort. 

Karin

Machine Cover Project

Have been a bit tardy in keeping up with my blog and several other things this week, but did manage to work on something!

It's been more than 3 years since I have had my Bernina Q20. I never bought or made a cover but just always covered it with a very thin white sheet to keep the dust of when not in use.                          

 

The machine sits in the spare bedroom which is also now the bedroom for our cat. Recently I noticed that the cat had a swipe at it over the front panel, possibly going for the white sheet just hanging over. Lucky for me, the claws were trimmed and it did not leave a scratch but you could see a white faint mark from the trimmed nail. That came off, no problem, but I thought it was time to tackle the cover for the machine.

You can buy a cover, however that is quite expensive. Similarly, Amanda Murphy offers a written pattern which looks quite involved. In the Bernina FB group there are two patterns that generous quilters have put up there that one can follow and people have made the most fanciful covers. Just amazing! Over the years I have looked at that, but always shied away from it as it involves a zipper.

Anyway, I have started my cover having a bit of fun with it. Initially I thought that I just will make a box with an opening for the thread mast, but now have also bought a zipper. We shall see whether that works for me or not. If it does not work for me I can still just sew it together as a box.

This is pretty rough...I did not piece this, but just appliqued the piece of fabric on top, zoomed around it and presto! This is a piece of fabric I had left over from my recent bag making adventure. Just love those cats! In terms of quilting I kept it simple. I used double batting (wool and cotton) to make it more sturdy and just did the simple grid. The loft was unbelievable and going over that with the ruler was precarious as I did not even baste the piece beforehand. Learned my lesson and basted my second panel which made it much easier to quilt (less distortion as I went along).

Currently doing the top parts and when that is finished  I will trim the panels to size. And then comes the zipper. Should be interesting, to say the least, as the zipper has to come from the top to the bottom creating a corner.

Hopefully this will work out as it took ages to do the grids. Mind you I am hopeful that I will get some sort of cover out of this.

Karin

Playing with Rulers

I like to push the boundaries a bit with my sitdown longarm, i.e. see what else I can do on there and how difficult (or not) is it to push my quilt through the machine with the latest ideas I have. Given that I have a draw full of rulers I am always looking for new ideas to use my rulers to complete allover designs.

I recently picked up a panel quilt from the charity group I am involved in. The panel is "Elsa" from Frozen. The quilt is a little bit bigger than the usual baby quilt and measures approx. 47in x 55in. In the past I have often finished those types of quilts with clamshells using the HQ Clamshell ruler. Fun to do and relatively quick. For this one though that would have been too small and I needed another idea. Looked through my draw and decided to use one of Amanda Murphy's circle rulers to do a big Orange Peel design over the quilt.

I picked the 7in circle and started...literally regretted my choice straight away. The 7in ruler fits my whole hand. Thinking I would just go around and around I thought that this would be quick and easy. Wrong! The ruler shifted of course with the movement of the quilt. As you have to backtrack over one part of the circle as you move along that became quite difficult, particularly starting off with the batting making everything more wobbly and moveable. I struggled big time...

Solution: those little rubbery draw liners. Cut myself two pieces off and placed them under the ruler for every circle I did.

So much for quickly quilting this out, but at least my backtracking worked out nicely. The size of the ruler made it challenging to move along, but as I now was committed to finishing this off, I had to think this through a bit better. An added challenge was the wool batting. It does give you a fair amount of loft, so I had to concentrate and go slowly to ensure my hopping foot stayed on the side of the ruler. The way I quilted around the ruler involved shifting my hands constantly to hold the ruler next to the foot steady while at the same time adjusting the quilt a number of times as it was always shifting sideways as I went around the ruler. All this while holding the ruler in exactly the same place to get the backtracking right.

Must say I was not confident that this would work. A few rows in I measured where I was up to in relation to the bottom edge. I was pretty sure that my circles were not straight across and that I had lost my way. To my surprise I was spot on...same distance on both sides. This was encouraging!

Gave it a bit of a visual...not too bad. Not perfect by any means but overall looked quite good. Every now and then the shape in the middle of the circle looked a bit off center but that had to do with me not always hitting the exact point where the circles meet. I let go of worrying about that because there was just too much going on in terms of stitching, holding the quilt, avoiding drag and keeping the ruler steady.

Stitching along...

As per usual half way through I turned the quilt around and quilted the circles towards me. Struggled with the drag of the quilt at that point and also thought that my circles were really going out of alignment. Turning the quilt at that point is always good as you now pushing it in the opposite direction and those inaccuracies are starting to disappear.

Was very curious how I would go approaching the top of the quilt and prepared myself for an uneven finish. But, lo and behold...more or less finished evenly across the top. That was a bit surprising seeing the pushing and shoving I had to do... 

Took the basting out and had a close look but cannot take a photo at the moment as it is evening over here and the shots would come out too dark. Will post a shot of the finished quilt in another post. 

Overall happy with my efforts...looks fairly consistent even though my circles shifted slightly to the left but I don't think that that is noticeable once the binding is on as it is only by about a quarter inch.

Might try this again on a smaller quilt using the smaller 5in circle.

 

Karin