A Bit Of Practice

I was thinking of doing a bit of rulerwork on the next charity quilt, however when I opened the bundle up it was not what I thought it was. In fact it had whole rows of embroidery on there and no four or nine patch blocks (which it looked like when I first looked at the bundle). As a matter of fact, I am going to take this bundle back to the group as there are a number of problems...the 3 rows of very detailed embroidery is still attached to its stabilizer and sewn to the next pieced section.  The checkerboard rows underneath bulged out to no end because of that. On top of that somebody ironed the embroidery presumably with some steam from above, so it is all crinkled up...I stood there looking at it for a long time, unsure what to do, but decided in the end that that one is not for me. Anyway, that is a different story...

What I was going to try out and show you was something I had seen on Natalia Bonner's YouTube channel. Loved the look of it (you can find it in the Shorts section under the title 'Less is More...Who am I?)...In the video she is stitching out a seemingly very simple design on a quilt that has alternating four patch blocks and white empty blocks. It looks really crisp and fresh and it appealed to me straight away as it is particularly suited for such a simple, yet effective layout.

So I tried this on a piece of scrap fabric to see how easy (or not) it would be to just stitch this out with some rulers and freehand with some minimal marking. Also used this to free up some half filled bobbins and kept going with a bit of a feather spray on top...that bobbin just kept on going! Natalia, of course, is using her new Sway rulers for this task. As I do not have them, I used my trusted small Pro Echo ruler but also the long Bernina ruler which came with the ruler table when I still had the frame. Kept this as a souvenir.

I could have used the longer Bernina ruler for the entire task (except the circle in the middle of the second block) but found that the smaller Pro Echo ruler was more convenient to do some simple curves.

I did this from memory and did some simple Nine Patch blocks when in fact Natalia's demonstration was based on Four Patch blocks as I saw when I watched the video again. Never mind!

My drawn squares were 6in and I was curious how I would go adding the petals around the flower in an orderly way. I made the circle of the flower 2in which in retrospect was a bit too small. Looking back at Natalia's video I reckon the circle is something like 2-1/2in. Not that you have to follow exactly what somebody else does, however I did find my petals a bit too long as it was a harder to keep them nice and straight. The other thing learned was that you should not turn your piece around as you go around the circle. Firstly, you would not be doing that anyway if you have a larger quilt under your machine, but I also found that it messed with my brain. It was far easier to have it not turning and slowly but deliberately move around the circle. 

Turned out ok for very little effort in terms of marking, basically you just need to know where the center of the block is and have a circle guideline for the outside and off you go...easy to do and an effective way to dress up a very traditional layout. While there are a few inconsistencies, I don't think that would feature a lot if you had this design in every alternate block over an entire quilt. I had a bit of uneveness in terms of the size of the petals in the bottom but overall not too bad. If this was a quilt, I would probably leave that and try to do the next one a bit more even.

Also baked a bread while I was doing it, so overall felt very productive that day!

Happy Quilting!

Karin

Edge to Edge Quilting

Could not resist doing a pantograph over a very, very scrappy charity quilt. While I don't normally do this on charity quilts due to the time it takes to do this on a sitdown machine, this quilt literally screamed to have the design put on it. Funny how some quilts do seem to speak to you instantly.

The design I had to do was "Happy Times' by Hermione Agee. It is a 5-1/4in design, however I used a slightly enlarged copy as I already had a roll of that taped together ready for use. I have detailed the process of preparation and quilting it with Golden Threads paper elsewhere on this blog, so I will not go too much into the details again (you can also search my blog using Edge to Edge Quilting and it will bring up a number of posts on the topic).

I did however do something a bit differently this time to speed up the process. Normally I trace every single row with blue water erasable markers, however this time I traced it only once, then laid about 6 rows of paper underneath and stitched through my first row with a bigger sized needle (unthreaded) on the domestic sewing machine. So I had about 7 templates of the design ready to go. Personally I prefer to have the rows traced individually but that does take considerable more time. With the paper that had the design as punctured lines it was marginally harder to see, but also felt a bit more precarious to stitch out...as you are travelling along the line, depending on how accurate you are, you are going to hit the punctured pre-stiched line which will then slightly separate the paper in some places. Not a big problem and makes taking the paper out later easier, but it feels a bit more unsecure as you go along.

Anyway, here are some photos of this beauty...this design is so right for this quilt and gives it a really nice texture on top of securing some of the more precarious seams ( I think this is quite an old quilt top that had a few seams that were coming apart and a bit of fullness in some areas). The thread choice was also interesting as the quilt had a bright red pieced backing. As I am slowly but surely using up some older thread, I chose a red variegated Gutermann 50/3 thread to quilt this out. Was not sure how that would go...I don't often quilt with red thread as they can be a bit finnicky at times in terms of tension (why do I even have this thread in my stash?), however had no issue with it and definitely adds to the 'happy' look of this quilt.

The finished quilt

Close up

The very bright backing

The thread choice was definitely right, even in places where there was a lot of blue fabric. Just looks really cool. Also used the same thread in the bobbin which makes the back of the quilt look great. The variegation is hardly noticeable due to the vibrance of the red fabric.

 This was very enjoyable...love it when it turns out just like you had imagined! I think for the next charity quilt though I will move on to some ruler quilting...something I have seen on Natalia Bonner's YouTube and I just got the quilt for it.

Happy quilting!

Linking up to Finished or Not Finished Friday

Karin

Loose Thread Design

In order to finish another charity quilt before delivering the last lot to the Orange Tree Quilters, I had to come up with a simple allover design that I could execute with some speed. The quilt was lovely...just strips sewn together like a jelly roll quilt with some diamonds in between. At first I was just going to meander all over it but then I decided to try something different. Saw Susan from StitchedbySusan do this loopy design which I have come to know as the 'Loose Thread' design and decided to give that a go.

Not too difficult and goes quite quickly. Noticed that me going row by row was a bit too even so I started to go slightly diagonal over the areas...somehow that was much easier and made for better interlocking of the design. Consistency-wise I must say that I had no issues...whenever there was a slightly bigger unquilted space I just went in and did a few ordinary loops to fill that in, no problem at all! My roundness of the bubbles left a lot to be desired, however, as this had to be finished I did not worry too much about it...almost round was good enough.

Turned out lovely

With the spotty fabric in there it was just the right design and the texture was great. I quilted it with a soft pink Rasant thread which complemented the pastel colours in this quilt and looked very nice over the darker fabrics. A fun quilt for a little person!

Next is a floral log cabin quilt where I am currently trying to work out how to best quilt that. It sort of screams 'feathers' but that would be quite a lot of work if I do individual feather sprays in each of the blocks. Hmm...could be good practice though as I am running a workshop on feathers in November and doing a bit more of an involved tasks will assist in getting my head back into the feather game.

We'll see...decisions, decisions!! 

Karin

Basting A Quilt

Still doing the charity quilts as I took more than usual home with me last time when I went to drop off the previous batch.

Thought I share my process as I do baste my quilts, charity or not, every time I prepare for quilting. As I am now back on the sitdown machine I do spent some time pinning my quilts first. Then I use the basting function on the Bernina Q20 to baste the quilt in an overall meander. There are three options on the machine...1/4in, 1/2in and 1in in terms of length of the stitch. I usually use the 1/2in option. When I say meander I mean this very loosely...basically I noodle around the pins in a somewhat meander way. At present I use older thread (Gutermann) to do this in any colour that I can see reasonably well. 

I baste at a fairly large scale, i.e. above... those little squares are about 3in, so I baste probably at an approximate 4in scale just going around the quilt starting at one quarter and then move clockwise around the quilt taking the pins out as I go along.

I also baste the edge, however for that I use the 1/4in stitch length and a ruler to keep the edge stitch at about 1/8in from the edge. 

Do I ever use the 1in stitch length? I have in the past basted a wholecloth (which I baste in a grid) with the 1in stitch length but found that I got my sewing foot caught up in it or even my fingers...just too much of a length of loose thread, so even for wholecloth quilts I now use the 1/2in stitch  length.

Why do I baste my quilts? 

- once its basted I don't have to worry about any pins (obviously) getting in my way. Easier for ruler quilting and gives me peace of mind in terms of inadvertently hitting a pin.

- any fullness which happens a lot in the charity quilts stays in its location rather than being quilted out to other areas.

- I use up older thread and leftover bobbin thread to baste.

- I can leave the quilt for years in its basted stage...nothing will shift, distort or become undone over time. Very handy, meaning I can start something completely different and more exciting if the inspiration bug strikes 😉

- I do like basting...I always think that the quilt is not really a quilt until it is fully basted.

Definitely more work but worth it in my humble opinion. Never had a pucker yet and have left quilts for a  considerable amount of time in this state not having to worry about unsightly holes from degraded pins...literally can just pick them up and go.

I have tried spray basting once. I know there are a lot of quilters who swear by that. I found it incredibly messy. I did it on the tiled floor next to the kitchen. I thought that I had used very little spray but it seemed that the spray had gotten everywhere! I mean everywhere...I obviously went into the kitchen in between several times and back again and found that I had some sticky residue all over the place. I had to wash the floor...not once, but twice to get rid of the sticky spots. That was it for me! Also did not like how the spray basting gummed up my needle while quilting. But, some people find it very easy and unproblematic to do which is fair enough.

For this little quilt above I did a simple allover loop design

Suits this little quilt which is about 48in square. Quilted with Gutermann thread which I am re-discovering after some years. Strong cotton thread at 50/3 weight behaving very nicely, no problem at all.

Well, still got two more charity quilts to do!

 

Karin

Baptist Fan Quilting...The Fearless Way!

So I continued to quilt a Baptist Fan design over one of the charity quilts using the Baptist Fan templates from Michael Quilts.

Not having done it for a while I forgot to secure my templates with some extra grip. While I have got the normal grippy things on the back of the templates, sometimes you just need a  little bit more grip. For that I use a material that one uses for drawers or sometimes under carpets. I just cut myself some small pieces that I place under the template so it does not move around as I go around the template.

I only started doing that after about the second row so my rows were already starting to be a bit out of shape. Having done this though a number of times by now I do know it will all work out in the end (that's why I called the post 'fearless quilting'). Trust your ability to fudge correctly a bit here and there to get the rows in line with the row underneath, no matter what the template points to in the current row.

I was out with most of my rows by anything up to a 1/4in which was annoying but there was not much I could do to get that exact anymore other than fudge the alignment of the template over the row. My rows were also starting to wander off to the left a bit, however that was alleviated by turning the quilt around and quilting from right to left. 

It got done though...not exact and definitely not consistent, but in the end looking at it you would not notice unless, of course, somebody comes along and follows individual fans all across the quilt. I quilted the fans in a thread colour that matched the blue/green rectangular shapes and it just blended in.

The final result...in progress

...and finished (in daylight!)

Was very happy with the outcome..the design spells consistency due to the consistent spacing of the arcs. The discrepancies from one row to the next, i.e. whether they are exactly aligned is a different matter. This design though fits this quilt really well and offsets the strong angular lines beautifully.

Always an adventure quilting the Baptist Fan over a slightly larger quilt!

Karin

New Listing - The Large Throw Sized Quilt in Bold Colours

Had a request the other week as to whether I could extend my Colourful Geometric Baby Quilt Pattern to Throw Size.

So I sat down and started doing that last week thinking that this would be a quick and easy update on the original pattern. Not so...as it turned out I had to completely re-work the pattern, making the blocks bigger but also change the whole layout around a bit. As this is a custom layout that took a while to get right in terms of colours and shapes.

So here it is: Large Trow Sized Quilt Pattern in very bold colours

It comes to 64-1/2in x 72-1/2in, so quite large...it is made of different types of simple shapes in a custom layout. Very easy to do though and will come together quickly given the block sizes. The pattern comes as a PDF instant download and includes detailed instructions, including lots of diagrams on how to put this together. 

Head to my Etsy shop if you are interested in this pattern. 

Karin

A bit of Ruler Quilting

For the last charity quilt I did not feel like anything major and decided to just put an allover meander over it. Then I remembered having watched an Amanda Murphy video on FB where she uses the Star template to spruce up her meander. Decided to give that a go to make it a bit more interesting and to see how this would flow when doing the meander. 

I used the 2-1/2in Star shape

Here it is in action

As you can see I have the needle in but the foot up while moving the template in. I am always very careful with rulers as I don't want to hit the ruler by mistake. I only lower the foot once the template is in the middle...only then do I position the template into place.

The meander with the Star template was much easier then I thought. Did not give me any issues at all in terms of quilting the overall meander. Fitted nicely into the overall scale. Not that you can see much of it on this scrappy quilt, but I know it is there 😀

Onto the next charity quilt...

This is a bigger quilt and as usual I basted it first before doing anything else.

Contemplated my thread choice for a long time...in the end I decided to run with the blue colour of the rectangles. Also laboured over the quilting choices as I am a bit busy with other things at the moment and still got another 4 charity quilts to complete after that. I have got about a week to complete this before visitors arrive from overseas! In the end though the quilt won...I think it wants an allover Baptist Fan design! This is going to take a while but the quilt is perfect for this design. The bottom edge is nice and straight and also the local group gave me cotton batting for some of the quilts in this lot, so it is very flat...really enjoying quilting on cotton for a change as the charity quilts usually come with wool batting.

So I made a start today using my fantastic Baptist Fan Rulers again. Can't recommend the Baptist Fan rulers from Michael Quilts enough! I do think that they are the best on the market. The set I have has 1in spacing which I enjoy as it takes up a lot of space (3in, 5in, 7in, 9in and 11in template). On the sitdown of course the size can be somewhat challenging but if you take your time, go slow and deliberate it is all do-able. I have done a number of quilts now with these templates and still think they are the best thing since sliced bread.

So nice!

Apart from this I am still working on my scrappy log cabin quilt...I am up to 65 blocks...only 5 more to go. Must say that I lost my mojo for this. It would have been easier to just use 1-1/2in strips for this rather than strips of all sizes. At times I had difficulties judging my strips to get to the right end measurement of the block which at times was a hassle. Happy to say though it has made a noticeable dent in the strip department.

Also have been doing some quilt pattern work and promptly started another design for an Eye-Spy Quilt. I have got this stack of fabric that needs putting together but I do not want just a traditional squares quilt. Lots more work to be done on that before I can actually start on this

...and I got so many of those 😬

So, no time to waste...got lots to do!

Karin