Second Finish of The 2019 Finish Along Third Quarter

My Fancy Fox Quilt is finished. 
This is the second item from my goal list for the 2019 Finish Along. You can find the information about the 2019 Finish-A- Long on  Leanne's blog She Can Quilt. There you will find more detail on how this link up works and also find the list of bloggers who are hosting this great event. The link up for this quarter opens on 1st October.

I did the Baby Quilt version of Elizabeth Hartman's Fancy Fox Quilt (had just enough grey fabric for that size). The quilt measures 34 x 46in

I used my favourite fabric for this...the Dryad fabric range by Shannon Brinkley for Paintbrush Studio.

For the background I chose some cool woodgrain fabric

As explained in previous posts I used the backing fabric to follow the woodgrain pattern as an overall design and quilted this back to front, so to speak. Love how this turned out! For the thread I used a brownish-grey SoFine thread from Superior.

So cute! I think I am going through a bit of an Elizabeth Hartman phase...already eyeing out her Hedgehog pattern and definitely will do another fox quilt, this time with a brownish background and slightly bigger.

Linking up to Studio Sew of Course for the Q3 Finish-A-Long.

Karin

Tension Play

Today I allowed myself some time to just play!

It has been 2 years since I acquired the Sweet 16. After many trials and tribulations in the first few months, I have felt quite  comfortable with it over the last year. I did stick with my one thread rule for a while though. However, now slowly but surely, I am branching out in trying different threads and different thread combinations.

Today I trialed Superior Fantastico (wt 40/3)...I have got a beautifully variegated cone that was part of the box full of thread that Superior had thrown in when I purchased the machine. Still very impressed with their generosity.  Initially I left my So Fine bobbin thread (wt 50) in place to use up the thread that was left over from the Fox Quilt. When that was gone (worked fine), I took my bobbin out and adjusted it for a DecoBob Prefilled bobbin (80wt). Was curious on how that would go...

That worked really well, no problem at all. Spent a bit of time on concentrating on the speed and consistency and noticed that I need to slow down a bit. Have gotten into the habit of stitching faster than what I can control. The stitch quality was good...had a few little pokies here and there as I was mucking around with different tension settings, but really nothing to worry about. Really like that thread and will need to make a quilt to go with that (that could be good for the next Fox Quilt actually).

Then went back to Aurifil thread Mako 40/2, this time though stitching with the DecoBob bobbin thread...good combination! Actually I like the DecoBobs as they are wound so evenly...much better for your tension!

Continued to play and now went back to Aurifil 50/2 in the bobbin. Those are the bobbins that I wind myself...hardly any difference other than that I noticed fluctuations in the bobbin thread. On closer inspection I could actually feel that when I unwound the thread off the bobbin. Probably should pay a bit more attention to my bobbin winding...I suspect that I need to slow down the winding a bit to avoid the thread swinging around like it does at times. Winding it slower would probably also be better to avoid any stretching of the thread. Will adjust this next time I wind a bobbin.

Productive play!

Karin

So close...

Almost finished the quilting on my Fancy Fox quilt. I decided in the end to do a woodgrain design.

Bit of an adventure as I am quilting from the backing to the front as the backing has a woodgrain design on it.

The idea is good and its working well, however I did have some issues with the thread. I am trialing So Fine from Superior 50/3. So I set my tension for the bobbin and adjusted the top but as I went along the thread started shredding. I had a needle size 16 and did not really want to go higher so I persevered for a while, however the shredding continued to happen. In the end I switched over to a needle size 18 and the problem disappeared altogether. I am not sure it actually has to do with the thread...could actually be the quality of the grey background fabric. In stitching front to back and looking at the stitches they did not look that great in parts on the grey but were perfectly fine on the other fabric.

Initially I thought that it had to do with me or the machine tension but after a while I started to see that it was perfectly fine in the coloured areas...must be the quality of that fabric, I reckon. The above photo is taken directly after the quilting...the stitch will settle a bit and look a bit more normal after  a while. How strange is this!
Anyway, I am quite happy with how this is turning out (minus the thread issue). The woodgrain pattern is lovely and I am getting the hang of it and learning how to do it properly thanks to the backing fabric.

Karin

Fancy Fox Quilt Top Done!

Made a concentrated effort to finish off the Fancy Fox quilt top. Don't know about you but it always takes me a moment to really get familiar with a pattern, so the first few blocks are always a bit out in measurement and I usually still try to work out which way I am going to press the seams. After having done a few I then could go over to chain piece elements together.

On the weekend I did the remaining 9 blocks chain piecing the segments in one hit. These last 9 blocks were much better in accuracy than the first few, so I felt that I was really getting the hang of things.

All the eyes done! I thought I was on such a roll until I noticed this...

I was trying to keep the direction of the fabric the same, but I am so spatially challenged that I got the eye section the wrong way around. Initially I was going to leave this, but then I thought that I was not going to be able to overlook this, so had to slow down and re-do a few eye sections.

Anyway, it got done and yesterday I completed the sashings and top border

So cute! This is the baby quilt size of 34 x 46in. In retrospect I wished that I had made this larger but I just had enough grey background fabric and for the white I used every available piece that I had down to the very last scrap. I think that I will do another one with a brownish background, maybe adding a row in width and length.

Learnings: don't be too over-zealous with cutting the blocks to size...I did on quite a few occasions and forgot that I was cutting into the seam allowance, hence some of the points were no longer points! Hmm...now the fun begins with the quilting. Would like to do a woodgrain design but am really not that good at it...may need to practice for a little while to see whether I can let loose on the quilt. Alternatively, a nice allover design...still pondering.

Karin