9 Patchalong With Natalia Bonner

Where is the time going...

I finished my Lana Lemur quilt and now am working on a nine patch quilt for Natalia Bonner's 9 Patchalong. This is going to start on 1st September  with Natalia showcasing new designs using her rulers every Tuesday and Thursday on YouTube. There is a FB group you can join to showcase your work and have a look what others are doing (already there are a few variations on this quilt top).

I am stitching along with a friend to further hone in on my ruler quilting skills. I think so far I have done about three ruler practice quilts, trying out different rulers and techniques. Find this very useful in terms of just focusing in on accuracy and how to hold a ruler for best results. 

So, I managed to get that quilt top together and am currently stitching in the ditch with a straight ruler.

I am using clear Monofilament thread in the top and a prewound in the bobbin. The Capri is behaving nicely and I am practising using the stitch regulator for this task. Must say it really makes a difference in how this looks on the back of the quilt. Quite impressed with that...looks so much neater compared to when I do this task in Manual mode.

I am looking forward to this stitchalong. Natalia's designs are always very straightforward, but quite clever in the way she uses them to dress up blocks in a quilt. While I do not have her rulers, I think I have enough rulers to match what she is doing on the quilt, basically using a straight and a few curved rulers. Already Natalia has posted designs for the sashings and the borders which I do quite like, particularly the scalloped border design. Looking forward to this.

Linking up to Cheeky Cognoscenti for her weekly Long Arm Learning Linky Party.

Karin

Finished The Quilting

Yay!!!!!!

Was not as bad as I imagined and only took a couple of days of concentrated effort.

Now I only have to get rid of some of the blue marker lines and then it’s onto the binding...and the next quilt🤪

Karin

Lana Lemur...Still Going

I took a break from my Lana Lemur quilt for about a week but got going again on it this week. Certainly one of my more crazy ideas...this is taking forever!

This is how far I got

So close and yet so far away. 

Like I said before Claudia Pfeil made this look very easy and relatively fast doing it on her longarm in her video Claudia's P(Fillers). I am really dragging my feet with this one. Not sure whether this is because I had no specific plan on how to go about it and have to frequently stop and think about what to do next or it just does take longer on a sitdown.

In thinking about this the last few days I thought that this approach to filling a background is maybe better suited to a longarm machine where you can see a section in its entirety rather than having it all scrunched up and going a bit more blind...not sure about that one. I found that as I was going along switching from one design to the next I was often not looking at the overall picture and some of my transitions are not that great because of that. I thought that it would be easier to have a whole section in front of you to really concentrate on making a visually appealing transition. Could just be that I am a bit tired of it.

Never mind...it will get done, just have to make a concentrated effort this week. Got a few more circles left and need to find something to fill the circles with which should not be too difficult. Just looked a little bit earlier on  Natalie Bonner's Let's Stitch A Block A Day series which is an excellent resource in terms of designs to use for blocks. Will try out a few of her designs in the remaining circles. Also have a few more lines to quilt which should reduce the area to be quilted significantly, so hopefully I can knock this off this week.

Some close ups

Not too bad...I quite like my little circle motif between the lemurs...very puffy.

Linking up to Cheeky Cognoscenti's Long Arm Learning Linky Party and Freemotion Mavericks

Karin

9 Patch Along with Natalia Bonner

I am working on my quilt for the 9 Patch Quilt along with Natalia Bonner which is set to start on 1st  September.

Blocks are almost done, now I only have to do the sashings and border, and insert another row of 4in blocks. You could have ordered a preprinted panel from Honest Fabric, but with shipping costs that was not an option for me. Luckily this comes together quickly which was half the attraction. I had been watching Natalia's YouTube series of Let's Stitch - a block a day over the last few months and was impressed with the range of designs she has come up with for 365 days in a row!  Unfortunately I did discover that QAL sort of half way through and  had too many other things going on to participate. So when I saw the announcement of the 9 Patch Along I jumped at it. I love what Natalia does with her rulers. Very straight forward and clever designs that will fit a range of quilts.

The focus of this stitchalong is Natalia's 4-N-1  and Inside Out mini rulers. While I do not have those, I have enough curves and straight rulers to substitute and use this quilt for practice. Should be good fun and keep me busy with another two projects on the go.

All in all there are going to be a total of 9 video lessons on YouTube. Those are free and anybody can join. A big Thank You to Natalia...incredibly generous! 

Looking forward to this...

Karin

Lana Lemur Continued - Almost Half Way

As explained in my last post, I am trying out Claudia Pfeil's method of filling up a background as demonstrated in her DVD 'Claudia's (P)Fillers'. Essentially this is a mix and match approach starting with some bigger circles strewn across the quilt and then freemotion quilting from one to the other using different designs. The idea is to create sufficient contrast between the designs to make the whole thing visually pleasing.

Easier said than done!

I started out with the following designs, combining straight lines with stacking shells and pebbles

Felt that it needed something more and decided to mix in a meandering box design to create contrast to those round organic looking designs. Also wanted to loosen it up a bit as I do not want the whole quilt too tightly quilted.

That looked alright however I was not entirely happy with my boxy meander. I did, for a bit of extra fun, try that box design with a ruler in another section...basically just to see how annoying this would be. Never really considered doing this with a ruler and always thought that this would be incredibly tedious.

Wow, to my surprise that went like a treat. All I had to do was to flick the ruler around my box...I did not meticulously align the ruler, just eyeballed its straightness because I was sure that visually, the eye would view its straightness and assume that the lines were all properly aligned at the correct angle. In addition, I used the Capri stitch regulator for this exercise which made it look even more formal. This was exactly the contrast I was after. It looks straighter, more formal and mixes in well with the surrounding lines.

If you compare the two pictures above you can see the difference (yes, I un-did my organic box meander). While the more organic, freehand method is fine when it stands alone as an overall design, for this exercise I really wanted a sharp, crisp contrast to the curves and circles. Really happy with how this is turning out.

I almost finished all the circles for about half the quilt. Quilting the straight lines in sections 'eats' up a fair amount of space and the filling tends to become more manageable that way. Running out of ideas on what to put in the circles and will have to recycle a few designs.

The Capri 18 is behaving like a dream...no tension issues (I am using Aurifil Mako 50/2 on top and Deco bob in the bobbin) and the stitch regulator is my best friend for all those straight lines.

I am joining Cheeky Cognoscenti for her very first Long Arm Learning Linky Party.

Cheeky Cognoscenti

Check it out! The linky party will run weekly and is open every Tuesday through to Friday.  

Karin