Cassowary is Finished

Wow...I worked for most of last week on this to get him done and today I finished him.

I am just a little bit proud of this...nothing about this project came easy to me. Each section had its own challenging little things and some of them I did get right and some of them I did not.

In general, I think I thread painted a bit heavily in parts and some of the shading is a bit wonky, but I am more than happy with it. Actually cannot believe I managed to do this.

And here he is...the finished Cassowary done in an online workshop with Sophie Standing...must say I now know this bird intimately...looked at every little hair, every shading, the way the funny red tubular things run...

Can't tell you how impressed I am with my handiwork. Learned a lot about thread painting and how important tiny detail is (and how easy it is to get things wrong). 

Close up

Now it's back to quilting for me!

Karin

Another win!

This has been my year for wins...cannot believe it.

I won another Aurifil thread box...YES!!!

Feeling very lucky indeed. I won this thread collection through The Ultimate Quilt Challenge run by Quiltshopgal through the summer of 2016.

Thank you so much Quiltshopgal and a big thank you also to Aurifil for their amazing generosity.

This thread collection is from April Rhodes and called Sewn Desert

Yummy!!!

For some reason I thought I was getting a box with a few Aurifloss spools in there (I think that was another prize)...I was over the moon, as this is a split box of half 50wt and half 40wt. GREAT! LOVE IT! So handy.

My love affair with Aurifil started about 4 years ago...I bought a small pack of orange colours for one of my table runners as one of the colours matched the sashing of that table runner really well. This was also the time I seriously got into FMQ and I discovered the beauty of this thread. I have not used any other threads for my FMQ since then and will not change that (apart from specific purposes obviously). I can honestly say that the thread just works for me and my machine...I never have thread breakages or any other thread related issues...its beautiful to work with (hardly any lint)  and given the size of the spools it lasts for a very long time. As the thread is harder to come by over here, I did not use it much for piecing, but mainly for FMQ. On occasions though I have used it for piecing when I needed my seam allowances to lie flatter and to be more accurate. Now that I have have more of the thread I might start using it more for piecing as well. In the early days I invested in two thread collection boxes...one by Sheena Norquay and the Essential Collection by Mark Lipinsky...that has kept me going all these years. Beautiful colours.

You would think that I don't need to buy any more thread...wrong, the range of colours is amazing and without fail, I run out of a particular colour or stock up on my favourite beige colour.

If you never tried this thread, I can highly recommend it, particularly for FMQ...you will not want to go back to another thread...now I sound like a commercial! I was reading today somewhere people discussing different types of thread and whether one should invest in higher quality thread...in that discussion people seemed to think that less expensive options did the job just as well. This might be so, although I somewhat doubt this, and when spending some 5 months or so on a quilt, I do want to finish it off with some high quality thread...I just think the effort deserves it.  Over time I have come to see the value of good quality fabric and thread.

So, off to using some of this beautiful thread to finish some projects!

Karin

FAL 2016 Third Quarter - First Finish!

Well, here we are...my first and only finish for the Finish Along Third Quarter! I have been working on this for a while during the second quarter and obviously could not make it to the Second Quarter deadline, so here is my long overdue finish of the Mandala quilt I have been working on.

You can find the list of my Third Quarter goals HERE

Our Guild is running a Mandala Challenge  for the 2016 Festival of Quilts. The quilt must be circular with a diameter of between 50 - 60cm. Any quilting technique is allowed! If you want to find out about the design process and how I used Cindy Needham's Ultimate Circular Stencil to draw this design, please go to the Mandala Challenge post.

I was a tad conflicted a couple of weeks ago, thinking that I had made the wrong thread choice as it is not contrasting enough. Was incredibly discouraged but thought that I better finish this off. Looking at it now, I quite like it...I am particularly impressed with how evenly round I ended up, given the challenge this provided with drawing up a perfect circle at this size.

Mandala Challenge finishing up at 55cm in diameter

Close up of the fantastic blue Aurifil colour (#2725)

Detail:

Mandala measures 55cm in diameter
Cotton fabric (Moda Solids) and Legacy cotton batting
Stitched with Aurifil 50/2 thread (Brass, Medium Red, Light Wedgewood, #6728); all the colours are from the Shannon Brinkley Dryad Thread box
Cindy Needham's Ultimate Stencil used to draft this design; Ultimate Background stencils used to fill the outer petal as well as the outer rim of the Mandala.

Very happy with the end result. Now onto the next project!

Linking up to Eleven Garden Quilts for the Finish Along 2016 Quarter 3 Link Up

Karin

Big Thank You To Aurifil and Fabri-Quilt

Had to wait for the fabric to arrive before posting about this. I was the winner of the Dryad Blog Hop Giveaway in February!

Won the Dryad Thread box and some fabric designed by Shannon Brinkley to go with it.

Woke up to the email on Valentine's Day and could not believe it. Entered this at a bit of a whim  thinking ...'well, you have to be in it, to win it'.  This was such a lovely surprise. The fabric from Fabri-Quilt arrived yesterday...it is absolutely gorgeous!

I did say in my comment that I would use it to make an owl quilt with the new Accuquilt die that I got for Xmas, however seeing that they are 2.5in strips that probably won't work. Need to think of something else a bit special...this will keep me awake at night!

A humongous Thank You to both Aurifil and Fabri-quilt for their generosity. Very much appreciated and definitely made my day. Why not head to inspiredbyfabric.blogspot.com to see more of this beautiful fabric or maybe join their Ocean Sunrise Blog Hop. You never know!
 

Karin

How to build your thread collection

Do you collect thread?

I certainly do. Have accumulated a lot of thread over the years until I decided to only use Aurifil thread for my FMQ. This thread is hard to come by over here and for this reason I have purchased 2 thread collection boxes, i.e. the Sheena Norquay collection and Mark Lipinski's Allrounder as well as individual spools that were needed at the time.

These thread collection boxes are good, however I wish I could build my own thread collection box. Having quilted for a while, I now know exactly what I would need and what is most useful.

Here it is...Karin's thread collection (with a few added individual tones)

I would need a threadbox that incorporates both Aurifil Mako 50/2 and 40/3 as I sometimes want to emphasize certain areas of quilting. In terms of purchasing the boxes you however need to take one or the other which I have found a bit limiting, so giving my avid FMQ I have purchased the 50/2 thread.

The colours you see above are the ones that I most frequently use:
gold type colour: goes with lots of quilts if you like me do lots of country type coloured quilts. Also is a nice accent colour if you like hyperquilting in feathers.

light green: am on my third spool with that...use this all the time and this is the one where I realized that I need the 40/3 thread (with the green cap) as well.

surprising pink: I am not a pink person at all but this pink has been most useful in quilting anything with a dark red fabric (as I often do).

blue tones: my new favourite
varigated: one spool of variegated thread for allover designs. The one I have there probably has too much green so I would look probably for a slightly toned down version

So, here is my box:
White 50/2: for baby quilts
Off white 50/2: for all other quilts

Taupe/Sandy thread 50/2: when you really want to blend in your thread for a multi-coloured quilt.

Gold 50/2 and 40/3
Light-green 50/2 and 40/3
Dark Pink 50/2 and 40/3
Blueish tones 50/2 and 40/3
Variegated thread 40/3

Exactly 12 spools...I am on a winner here. Once your box is done, then you can add to it as I certainly have done with different individual spools of different tones (see above the red-brownish tone added to the gold) for individual projects.

On the Aurifil's website they are talking about Customized collections coming soon...not sure whether this applies to individual customers...maybe that would be too labour intensive. Would be good though.

Anyway, back to some quilting...

Karin

A Little Present To Myself

Actually a more biggish present. I purchased another thread box from Aurifil. Yep, could not help myself.

The Basics Collection by Mark Lipinski

Was just a bit sick and tired of finding the right thread...where I live there are only a few shops where I can actually buy Aurifil thread. So I started looking for a sandy type thread for my Charm Square quilt over Ebay but after a while I decided to go for the whole box. Colour matching over the internet was just too tricky. 

I am glad I did...the colours that I had intitially chosen were a slightly different hue then I thought and what I call beige is actually a very light beige in the Aurifil range. Got 2 whites, 4 different shades of beige/sand (Sandstone is the perfect fit), 3 greys and 1 black...together with my other thread box from Aurifil I will not have to buy any new thread for a very long time. Each spool has 1300m of thread, which goes for a very long time...

I am chuffed. These threads came from the US at www.pictureperfectthreads.com . Good service, fast and efficient, it took less than a couple of weeks to get here. A word on threads in Australia. While I am conscious of supporting local business I nearly fell over when I saw the price difference. Even with postage which was not discounted in any way, I did get this thread a good 1/3 cheaper than here in Australia.

Could not believe it...so definitely paid a small fortune for the first thread box that I bought here in Australia.

 If you have not tried the Aurifil thread, give it a go. It is lovely thread, smooth and has a slight sheen to it. There is not a lot of lint which is great as I do a lot of FMQ. I am definitely hooked on this thread.

Karin

Aurifil Thread

Have I shown you my beautiful Aurifil thread yet?

I am building up quite a collection on top of the single ones that I already have. As there is no shop nearby that carries a decent range of the thread, I thought it best to go for a collection of thread so that I did not always have to order single colours in. Going on the website I went through the collections for ages to find something that would make the most sense to me. Given that I am usually working with muted country type colours this box by Sheena Norquay appealed most to me. I reckon I will have no problem using each and every one of those colours.

The two yellows in the front are slightly variegated and I already used the lighter yellow for one of the baby quilts that I made earlier in the year. Of course, it was brilliant.

Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous...I love this thread!

Karin

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

Look what's arrived!

My Aurifil thread has arrived....

This is the first time that I ordered thread over the Internet...usually I buy it at a shop in the city, however their selection is limited. Was a bit sceptical on how well I would be able to match the colours to the Wholecloth quilt this is intended for.

Must say, I am very happy with this...the colour selection is good and should blend well into the background.

A bit of a trial....

Now I don't know which colour to choose for my Wholecloth quilt. The darker colour is a slightly different tone to the fabric...

in fact, have not decided exactly how to quilt the background, whether to just microstipple or choose a different kind of design.

Decisions, decisions...!











Seems like an awfully big area to microstipple...should have really thought that through a bit better.

Karin

UFO Sunday #14

It's UFO Sunday on Leah Day's Freemotion Quilting Project today.
I am nowhere near as productive as some people have been, however I have been steadily working away on my projects. I am back onto my Japanese Table Runner and decided to use the Echo Shell design that I saw on Leah Day's Craftsy class. Initially I was going to quilt that design into the second border ...however, then I decided that this, while nice, would hardly be seen given the busy pattern. Decided to KISS (Keep it Simple) and placed the Echo Shell design in the inner border instead, so it can be seen.

Echo Shell Design

Do you like this? Certainly adds a whole other dimension to this table runner. 

 I placed the shells facing inwards after trialling it the other way (see below)

Shells facing outwards

 Not sure whether you can see it properly but having them face outwards created a bit of a ridge across the top edge due to the seam allowance being literally encased in the last echo...did not like this and hence had all my shells facing the other way. Stitching the shells in one direction rather than at random was certainly a challenge, but once I had started, I was determined to get it done. Consistency wise it is not too bad and I like the pattern.

I used Aurifil thread (Mako 50/2) and must say, I absolutely love this thread...I used needle size 70/10 Sharp and it went like a dream. Also noticed (as I had before) that when I quilt at a slower speed where more accuracy is needed, I have to take my Machingers gloves off because I seem to need my finger tips to gently guide the material around. I have noticed this before when I am quilting motifs. As I am usually concentrating really hard (and it is summer here) my grip on the fabric is usually enough, i.e. sticky hands. However, for added grip, Diane Gaudynsky in her post about moving the quilt in a home machine, recommends Neutrogena handcream...it just leaves that little bit of sticky residue that will help with the grip.

Well, almost there with this table runner...

UFO Sunday has certainly helped me to get going on those projects that have been hanging around forever, i.e.
- the English Paper Piecing Project
- the Cat Wall hanging

In fact, I remember packing them up when we were moving house in the beginning of the year and with some guilt was reminded that they had been lying around for a very long time before that. I have almost reclaimed all of my basting pins again.

Karin