To Do Tuesday #43 - Making Progress

Here we are again...another week has flown by. My list from last week:

- continue to fill my current freemotion-quilting project. I want to take my time with this a bit to really try a few unfamiliar designs in order to just practice and hopefully commit them to muscle memory.✅

- continue on my knitting projects ( I did continue in the week and I will show you my new socks once they are completed...have about 30 rows to go)✅

- continue on the cat quilt, maybe do just one more cat block.✅

Whoa! Stuck to my plan, that is a first!

So I continued on my freemotionquilting project. Got quite a bit done but was a bit dismayed at not being better at it. Always humbling to see that you still have a lot of learning to do.

My 'splat design in the upper part worked fine and flowed really well. Combined this with some filler elements and pebbles. As so often I do get carried away with the pebbles and had to make a conscious effort to do other little floral elements to break that up. Not that I like pebbles better, but once I get going I can just pebble along for a really long time. It's almost hypnotic!

Then I quilted that rainbow design. Had trouble with that when I first tried it in the workshop (Bethanne Nemesh' Breaking Boundaries workshop) and lo and behold, found this very troublesome again. Not sure what this is...it is such a simple design but my brain just does not want to follow along it seems. As I had started on it, I persevered as it was going to 'eat' up a whole chunk of area when combined with some straight lines. 

Not really that happy with it but I am leaving it and put it down to a learning experience. Found that I had to really think this through and make a conscious effort to make them look behind and in front. Then on the side I obviously got sick of it and made them somewhat bigger which does not look good. So what did I learn:

- need to keep the rainbows at a manageable scale

- need to build on them rather than quilting rainbows in a row

- need to watch the spacing between the lines.

On a positive note though, when combined with straight lines you can fill a vast amount of area very quickly, so overall a really effective backfiller.

I did a bit more knitting in the evening but the sock is not yet finished, so I will show a photo in the next few weeks. However, I also continued on my cat quilt. I love Elizabeth Hartman designs and started that cat quilt some years ago using a range of predominantly brown fabrics that matched our cat.

She has got such nice colouring and I just had the perfect fabric to match that.

When I looked at what I had done I just thought that it was ridiculous that I have had this sitting around for years as a UFO and just sat down to make a few more blocks. They are not difficult to do, it is just a bit of a hassle to cut out all the pieces. The actual sewing is quite effortless. Made three blocks in one sitting and thought if I devote one day per week to make 3-4 blocks I will get this done! It is just a matter of doing it rather than sitting there thinking about it.

Apart from this also bought some new fabric when visiting a newly opened shop in the area...just could not resist as it was on special!

Ducks in rows! Too cute...the fabric is 'Ducky Tales by Lucie Crovatto for Studio E Fabrics. Almost got sidetracked again into starting something new, but eventually put it in the drawer for another day. This would lend itself to some fussy cutting of a four ducks charm square and then matching the fabric with some alternate blocks. That would be rather cute. 

So for the remainder of the week I will

- continue on my freemotionquilting project

- continue and hopefully finish my sock

- make another cat block or two

- re-think my Australian Christmas tree quilt. It is ready to be pinned and basted but I am now thinking of maybe just doing a pantograph over it rather than doing an involved backfiller as I am not really sure what I am going to do with that quilt. As I got other projects to finish I am thinking that this will just hold me up unnecessarily.

- deliver the charity quilts and pick up a new lot.

Linking up to To Do Tuesday #43 over at Quilt Schmilt 

Also linking up to:

Midweek Makers over at Quilt Fabrication

My Quilt Infatuation
 

Karin

To Do Tuesday #42 - Making a Start

Well, let's see how we went. This is what I had on my list

- once my thread arrives make a start on the filling of the quilt above once I worked out a bit of a plan on how to go about that✅

- baste another little charity quilt and hopefully start the quilting on that ...maybe another clamshell allover✅

- cut the pieces for a couple more cat blocks ❌

- continue on my knitting projects✅

As I was waiting for my thread, I completed the last two (of the four I was given) of the charity quilts. The first one was a little scrappy baby quilt which I again did a simple clamshell design over it. Still love doing this, particularly for little baby quilts.

The second quilt was a very bright 'Crazy' quilt which I ended up just doing an allover meander over it. This ensured that I caught some of the fullness in some of the blocks and bonus, also almost straightened out some wonky sashings. Win-win!

My thread arrived yesterday. I ordered a pastel grey 100wt Invisafil for my Indigenous looking quilt in the hope that I would be able to just use one thread colour to go over the whole lot. So far I tried white, several tan colours, peach and now the grey. The grey turned out not too bad...definitely could get away with that but due to the frequent and heavy backtracking that I am planning to do, not really my cup of tea. It blends in just fine on both the white and the orange, but as soon as you backtrack the grey does become a bit more visible. I actually preferred the white thread in the end on the orange.

So today, after all this mucking around and indecision, I looked at my project again and decided that I would change colours in the white and burnt orange sections. The Indigenous fabric is multicolour and I can comfortably just continue to stitch  with the white colour over it as long as I do not do a huge amount of backtracking. So in terms of colour changes this should not be too bad.

Made a start on this today

This is quilted with a strong Invisafil orange colour and I do like the look of it. As the whole piece will be heavily quilted, given the thin 100wt thread will hopefully not overpower it. This should be very interesting. The idea is to fill all the different areas with different designs. Initially I was going to plan this out, however today I just went with the flow and started with a design that was not even on my list. Felt like doing this particular design, so just made a start and am now looking for a design that will go into the white area...needs something with lines so I need to have a bit of a think about that. After this I will section off another area and choose another few different designs. Good fun...

Also started yet another project that was not on the list...an Australian Christmas Panel!

Picked this panel up a while ago from our local sewing shop. It is called 'Bush Celebration' from the  Devonstone Collection. Acquired some backing and more wadding the other day and attached the borders today. What is the idea here? Not entirely sure yet but am thinking to use this as another practice piece for some Nemeshing (this was demonstrated in Bethanne Nemesh' class 'Feather Faster'). Maybe a bit of a variation of that, i.e. instead of a lot of feathery type plumes, maybe go for a leafy type arrangement. We shall see...the grey Invisafil thread that just arrived is just right for this and will blend right in which will be handy as I will have to outline some of the animals that make up the Christmas tree.

So my list is constantly changing as I keep jumping from one thing to the other. For the remainder of the week I will

- continue to fill my current freemotion-quilting project. I want to take my time with this a bit to really try a few unfamiliar designs in order to just practice and hopefully commit them to muscle memory.

- continue on my knitting projects ( I did continue in the week and I will show you my new socks once they are completed...have about 30 rows to go)

- continue on the cat quilt, maybe do just one more cat block.

That's it...I know that I will not do anything else as my passion is with the freemotion filler project at the moment.

Linking up to 'To Do Tuesday #42' over at Quilt Schmilt.

Karin

Charity quilts

Finished the last two of my charity quilts before delivering them to the Orange Tree Quilters Group. These have been hanging around for a while so I used a production line set up...basting in one hit and using the same thread to finish them off.

First one

Cute little baby quilt...can't go wrong with clamshells. If you are interested in the process of quilting this with the Multi Clamshell ruler on a sitdown longarm machine, I have spoken about it a number of times on this blog and in a little bit more detail HERE.

Came out near perfect again as you can see at the top, my clamshells remained straight and nicely in line at the edges. Does that mean they are all perfectly the same...definitely not, there was a bit of fudging going on here and there which is not visible in the overall look of the design. That's why I like this as a quick allover  design. Quilted this with a yellow Rasant thread (TEX25 which is close to 40wt) on a wool batting which made it nice and puffy. 

Straight onto the next one which was a very bright and cheerful 'Crazy Quilt'

Just did an overall larger scale meander over it which was supposed to have some loops in there but somehow I settled on the meander while I was stitching this. This was the right decision for this quilt as it allowed me to gather some fullness in individual blocks and distribute that out to the sides a bit. Also seemed to have gotten rid of some crooked sashing sections which is handy. Attached a bright orange binding to the quilt yesterday...almost too much for the eyes, but the whole quilt looks just great and will no doubt cheer somebody up.

With that done, I just bought some more wadding to immerse myself back into some of my own project (of which there are many).

Karin

To Do Tuesday #41

Another week has gone by. I have not been doing much after my recent workshop finished. The group I had was really quite talented...they picked up the feather quilting very quickly and while not everyone finished the table runner during the sessions, we were able to go through all the fillers so that they can finish it at home. 

My list for this week was

- bind the charity quilt✅

- baste the class sample from above and work out the quilting design, path and thread✅

- cut the pieces for a couple more cat blocks (no piecing at the moment as I am taking my machine to the workshop and leave it un-connected in between sessions)

- maybe baste another of the little charity quilts.

Well, I got two things done at least. I did baste the Indigenous looking quilt top and then got side tracked into trying to figure out which thread to use. 

Also re-visited the course I did with Bethanne Nemesh in 2021 'Breaking Boundaries' to re-acquaint myself with some of the design options. Bethanne's classes are available on 'Teachable' when you purchase the course. While it is running, you can watch the sessions on FB live but afterwards Bethanne puts them on Teachable so that you have lifetime access. I watched a couple of sessions again to refresh my memory of some of the designs and the different ideas on how to combine them.

Then I trialed my thread. I decided to use 100wt Invisafil and will try to use a colour that blends across the burnt orange and white. Invisafil from Wonderfil has got the weird ability to just blend into the colour that it is on, its just a matter of finding the right match. Did a bit of testing on the various threads that I already have.

Not that you can see much on here...started off with my trusted tan colour (464) which was great in the orange section but slightly too dark on the white. Tried the Antique White colour which of course was great on the white and almost fine on the orange. Then used a peach colour and another darker tan...all almost there but not quite.

I now ordered a pastel grey, hoping that that will blend into the white as well as the orange. We shall see! If not, I might use the white colour to stitch across. If you are interested in this thread I also came across a great educational video on You Tube from Wonderfil explaining the many uses of this thread.

While I was at it, I stitched in the ditch around the seams with my trusted tan colour. I have been using Invisafil for a while now when stitching in the ditch but I am always amazed again at how well that blends in.

Close up

Stitching in the ditch on the orange fabric with my tan coloured thread...just about invisible.

And on the other colours...

Amazing thread!

So that's done, now I am just waiting for the grey colour to arrive to start with the filling of this project. should be interesting. all this is in preparation for another of these quilts which is a bit bigger and different in design.

So, for next week my list looks as follows

- once my thread arrives make a start on the filling of the quilt above once I worked out a bit of a plan on how to go about that

- baste another little charity quilt and hopefully start the quilting on that ...maybe another clamshell allover

- cut the pieces for a couple more cat blocks 

- continue on my knitting projects

Linking up to To Do Tuesday #41over at Quilt Schmilt 

Karin