Saturday 9 November 2013

What?...I am not a machine?

Finally tackled the FMQ on my disappearing Four Patch quilt. Decided to go with an overall meander given the business of the quilt top.

I chose a 40/2 Aurifil thread in light green. Usually I use the 50/2 Aurifil thread but I had 2 spools of 40/2 thread sitting around, so I thought that I would give that a go. I love this thread...works beautifully and is the right strength for an overall meander. I am using a 80/12 Denim/Jeans needle for this.

So, off I went and straight away the issue of scale presented itself...I practised a bit on a smaller practice piece but gave up on that as it just does not compare with the 2m monster that I am doing.

This is what it looked like under the machine to get to the approximate middle of the quilt.

 
Squashed under the throat of the machine with the bulk of half the quilt top placed in front of where I am going to start quilting. The side not under the machine to the left is just loosely folded over so it does not drag...

Well, had several starts as I was a bit out of practice  but got there in the end. In terms of scale I aimed for about 1/2inch apart.


I started off a bit awkwardly and just managed to get back into the swing of things, warming up as I went along...when I stood back after I had done an entire quarter I noticed that I did much more sweeping movements later on, so my scale is slightly off...the lines had become longer and the shapes itself somewhat bigger (probably a bit hard to see in the photos, but believe me, it's there).


This annoyed me to no end until I got a grip on myself, hence the title of my post...no, I am not a machine and no matter how hard I strive this will never be consistent. I think I have this issue with every quilt top I am stippling...it takes a while to find a rhythm and settle into a particular scale and there will always be areas that will look slightly different and this will only become apparent when you are actually quilting over your quilt top rather than on those little practice samples. For example, now I have had an afternoon break from this and when I go back in the evening, no doubt, I will start off slightly denser and smaller again. I really had to remind myself in the end that this is the charm of handmade items, those little inconsistencies, odd shapes and all sorts of other issues in the execution of our work. As you can see, this gets me every time...

Anyway, I will stipple the middle section of the quilt and then probably do some lines in the black borders to de-emphasize that section....we'll see

Linking up to FMQ Friday at the Freemotion Quilting Project

Until next time

Karin

5 comments:

  1. Your stippling looks really great! I like Aurifil but haven't tried the heavier weights yet.

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  2. I think your stippling looks wonderful! You're just being too hard on yourself. You're doing a great job!!

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  3. The stippling looks very nice! I use the 40/2 weight threads a lot for quilting when I am doing a larger more open all over design or when I really want the threads to show. I use the 50/2 weight if the quilting is really dense or I want the quilting to disappear more. Anyway, it your work looks really good to me.

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  4. Your quilting is always beautiful, Karin. Great post. Glad to read that you are relaxing a bit. Enjoy the process!

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  5. No, you're not a machine. You're human and your stippling looks great! Part of loving this process is learning how to love whatever is happening, even if it's not 100% perfect. What is perfect anyway Karin? Should we all take rulers to our quilts to measure between all the lines? I certainly never have and don't intend to! Give yourself a break and a giant hug because you quilted your own quilt! Yay!

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