Basting A Quilt

Still doing the charity quilts as I took more than usual home with me last time when I went to drop off the previous batch.

Thought I share my process as I do baste my quilts, charity or not, every time I prepare for quilting. As I am now back on the sitdown machine I do spent some time pinning my quilts first. Then I use the basting function on the Bernina Q20 to baste the quilt in an overall meander. There are three options on the machine...1/4in, 1/2in and 1in in terms of length of the stitch. I usually use the 1/2in option. When I say meander I mean this very loosely...basically I noodle around the pins in a somewhat meander way. At present I use older thread (Gutermann) to do this in any colour that I can see reasonably well. 

I baste at a fairly large scale, i.e. above... those little squares are about 3in, so I baste probably at an approximate 4in scale just going around the quilt starting at one quarter and then move clockwise around the quilt taking the pins out as I go along.

I also baste the edge, however for that I use the 1/4in stitch length and a ruler to keep the edge stitch at about 1/8in from the edge. 

Do I ever use the 1in stitch length? I have in the past basted a wholecloth (which I baste in a grid) with the 1in stitch length but found that I got my sewing foot caught up in it or even my fingers...just too much of a length of loose thread, so even for wholecloth quilts I now use the 1/2in stitch  length.

Why do I baste my quilts? 

- once its basted I don't have to worry about any pins (obviously) getting in my way. Easier for ruler quilting and gives me peace of mind in terms of inadvertently hitting a pin.

- any fullness which happens a lot in the charity quilts stays in its location rather than being quilted out to other areas.

- I use up older thread and leftover bobbin thread to baste.

- I can leave the quilt for years in its basted stage...nothing will shift, distort or become undone over time. Very handy, meaning I can start something completely different and more exciting if the inspiration bug strikes 😉

- I do like basting...I always think that the quilt is not really a quilt until it is fully basted.

Definitely more work but worth it in my humble opinion. Never had a pucker yet and have left quilts for a  considerable amount of time in this state not having to worry about unsightly holes from degraded pins...literally can just pick them up and go.

I have tried spray basting once. I know there are a lot of quilters who swear by that. I found it incredibly messy. I did it on the tiled floor next to the kitchen. I thought that I had used very little spray but it seemed that the spray had gotten everywhere! I mean everywhere...I obviously went into the kitchen in between several times and back again and found that I had some sticky residue all over the place. I had to wash the floor...not once, but twice to get rid of the sticky spots. That was it for me! Also did not like how the spray basting gummed up my needle while quilting. But, some people find it very easy and unproblematic to do which is fair enough.

For this little quilt above I did a simple allover loop design

Suits this little quilt which is about 48in square. Quilted with Gutermann thread which I am re-discovering after some years. Strong cotton thread at 50/3 weight behaving very nicely, no problem at all.

Well, still got two more charity quilts to do!

 

Karin

Overall Feather Design

Well, I am back on my sitdown and very happy. Cleaned up the sewing room and made use of the now empty spare room to put the computer in. Feeling less crowded and things are much better organised.

Started on my workshop sample, just trialling different things that I want to cover in class. The sample gives me an idea on how long it approximately takes to stitch out the class content and also what size of practice samples should be cut out for class

I got side tracked, of course...started playing with rulers, tried different things, realised I had not covered what to do when your space is much bigger than you comfortably can stitch out. Overall very useful which will be used to finish off my handout. The class has now been scheduled for November so I am now well ahead ( which is handy as we are having overseas visitors at the end of July). Also found a new favourite feather border arrangement.

Its the last one in the lines of feather shapes. I think I took that inital feather arrangement from the 'Ambrosia' pantograph and then just continued with the same shapes in an arbitrary playful way. Looks quite nice and helps me to quilt in a little more informal way which I usually find quite hard. It seems that my muscle memorey is hardwired to do really formal feathers and any deviation is almost painful to execute. That was really fun to stitch out.

After that I continued on my mission to put an overall feather design on one of the charity quilts. I had practised this a bit both on the frame and now on the sitdown after seeing it on the website of StitchedbySusan. Like the texture of that design and thought that it could be potentially an easy way to get some charity quilts done.

So this is stitched edge-to-edge rather than allover, meaning I am going from left to right and then back again. This was certainly a challenge and I thought for a moment about doing an allover design - in which case I would have stitched this out in quarters turning the quilt clockwise after each quarter. However that would have meant that the feather plumes would go in different directions and I was not sure whether that would look any good so I stuck with the idea of edge-to-edge.

I found going from left to right easier than going the other way. Started in the middle of the quilt finishing off one half and then turned the quilt to do the other half. Must say, initially struggled a bit as I am also quilting on a larger scale but soon got into the swing of things. Happy to say that I did not get stuck anywhere and was able to move along quite quickly from row to row.

Came out ok, but not sure whether this is almost a bit much. It certainly has got a nice feel to it and looking at individual sections is lovely, even though the overall picture looks a bit crowded. I think I have another few scrappy quilts in my bundle of charity quilts. Might try it again maybe paying a bit more attention to the scale as some of my shapes are a bit irregular ( like instead of getting stuck I would make really long and big shapes to fill out a space 😆). Good experiment...took two afternoons to completion, so a good option for those charity quilts. Mind you, also could see this with a nice pantograph stitched allover!

Well, we shall see what I feel like next.

Karin

Saga Continues...

Well, the saga with my frame has continued. We did replace one of the ratchets and also the handle bars (as they were sticking and giving me error messages) and then replaced half of a pole. Now this was situated in the dead bar so it was relatively easy to do. I have been using the frame since then but recently discovered that my deadbar is bent, i.e. when you advance your quilt and the deadbar rolls with it due to the bent it then tensions the quilt differently every time you advance. I had noticed that my quilts were more taut in the middle but did not really put two and two together until I saw it the other day when advancing a quilt standing on the side of the frame. Very peculiar! This could be very well why I continued to have problems with controlling the machine in the middle as it would create a diagonal pull.

I seem to be extraordinarily unlucky with these things. The dealer has since been out again and will replace the pole...as we discovered one of the screws that holds the two deadbar pieces together is slightly bent creating this problem. It means that I have to wait again which has been quite frustrating. I am honestly not too sure about all of this, but have promised myself that I will give it a good go before making any major decisions about the future of this frame.

I have been practising in between all of this even though it was quite hard to keep a positive attitude going.

Bought a very nice panto from Lorien Quilting called 'Ambrosia' (actually purchased through Urban Elementz as a single page digital download). So pretty, so me!

Love this and also thought that it was a bit more of a challenge as there is a tiny amount of backtracking involved, so went to work on one of the charity quilts

Not too bad...struggled a bit with the backtracking (as expected) but was pleasantly surprised with my shapes. They are not too bad at all!

It looked really quite nice and those little wobbles and hesitations are very hard to see on this busy scrap quilt.
After that I went for an exploration of an overall feather filler. There is a free workshop over at StitchedbySusan which caught my attention. Not that difficult but also not that easy as I found out.

First attempt

Not bad but too linear and I found that I had limited control over the machine as well as forgetting where to go next. I started watching a number of Susan's YouTube videos and started to think that I was doing something not quite right. Susan's quilting looked rhythmic and even whereas mine seemed to be a tad more frantic. So next I tried the design in Manual mode.

Found that I definitely am going too fast...when stitching in Manual mode I literally had to force myself to slow down (as my stitches got too long). This was not easy at all but after a few moments of playing with the speed setting I managed quite well on a smaller scale design (except for the middle where the problem with the pole is situated). Towards the end of this piece I did a little bit of the design in stitch regulated mode again as I need to be able to make it a bit larger for the charity quilt that I have in mind for that. Not sure yet whether I will attempt this as I tend to go faster when in stitch regulated mode and some of the shapes then fly away from me...will ponder more on this. I have done a few practice pieces since then and it is a matter of either biting the bullet or coming up with a different design for that particular quilt.

Anyhow, while there I also tried attaching a binding on the frame. Had seen this on YouTube and wanted to see how difficult this would be (as I hate doing this on the small DSM). Very easy and worked really quite well even on this more sloppy attempt. 

It was fast and effortless...I went around the quilt like I normally would and had no hassles. The left side demanded a bit more attention in terms of where to place my two left hands but I guess this is just a matter of getting used to it. I was impressed! I started on the side which of course I could change by starting on the horizontal on top and then going down one side first and then the other side. Might give that a go as well to see what is easier. But yes, not as fiddly as I imagined and definitely something I will do from now on.

Hopefully I will get the new poles soon and that will be it in terms of the set up!

Karin

Complications

It's been a while again since my last post but I have had some trouble with the new frame. Once I got used to it a bit I noticed that I had a 'bump' in the middle. Ever so slightly but it meant that the machine would just veer off to the right...very noticeable when quilting along. On top of that my rails were not tightened  properly in the middle which meant that they had wedged once I started quilting. Not a huge deal, but important if I wanted to sell the frame. The dealer has been out a number of times to fix things. While all this was happening we also noticed that my handle bar buttons were sticking which led to them not working at times. A few other issues that need attention, so all in all very frustrating. I am not sure whether I will keep this frame but have decided to hold on to it for at least 6 months to see how I am going with it and whether I actually prefer it or not. At the moment I am missing my sitdown set up where I can just go and quilt. We shall see...the 'bump' has been fixed (it was due to a loose screw underneath the rail), so I am now up and running again. One of the rails still needs replacing which should happen some time this week, so let's hope that everything is going to go smoothly...not sure I can handle any further delays.

On the plus side, I finished my strip quilt for the Natalia Bonner Strip Design quilt-a-long.

I did put a border around it as well, not sure why I did not take a picture of that. The Strip-Along features 99 designs so I figured that it does not matter when I join. I think I might just pick and choose once I am ready to put that on the frame.

Also did some more practice before everything fell into a heap

Have a bit of a problem with small circles not wanting to be round. Finding this very infuriating as I cannot figure out exactly how to hold the handles.

Also tried a new pantograph...Billowy from Lorien Quilting. Very enjoyable and relatively easy to do. Really like the pantograph feature.

Currently waiting for the new rail to come so I cannot actually load anything major. Doing some practice again focussing in on those blasted pebbles...getting there but it is not easy at all. Every time I think that I am managing it goes haywire. Did some circles yesterday which were not too bad and then tried to echo around them for a stacked rainbow design and just did not get together. Very frustrating...I am obviously not good at being patient. We shall see how this all evolves!

Karin

Finishes For This Month

Well, where are we at?

I have continued practising my quilting on the new to me studio frame. Was very encouraged by my evolving pantograph skill and went ahead and finished one of the panels I had sitting in the cupboard

I tried one of the new pantographs on there that arrived just before Christmas. It's a new design from Hermione Agee from Lorien Quilting called Airy Clouds. Very cute for little baby quilts.

While still a bit wobbly here and there I am definitely feeling that I am getting the hang of this.

After that one I continued on the charity quilts and did this beauty.

The photo really does not do it justice. Really liked this quilt and decided to quilt it with the pantograph that came with the Bernina pantograph kit. It was a bit bigger than the ones I had done before, so I thought that this would go rather quickly. The pantograph paper roll itself was fairly large and after much head scratching I cut a little bit off on both the top and bottom as my laser was just too far away. Did not make a difference in the pattern as the cut off parts were empty paper and a little bit of the ghost rows. Anyway, my assumption that this would be quick was a bit wrong as the design meanders rather dramatically over the roll and the advancement is in fact very small. The pattern though was just right for this quilt...it is called Zest by Patricia Ritter. I did not practice this beforehand and went straight onto the quilt and to my amazement felt that this pattern was even easier than the one before.

Came out beautifully

Really enjoyed doing this one and looks absolutely fabulous on this quilt.

Then I had one more charity quilt to finish. Now this one gave me a bit of a headache as I am not used to think through an entire quilt before I even start, however with the frame it is absolutely necessary in terms of considering the space you have got available, the quilting path (i.e. minimising the starts and stops) and in general how to tackle the whole beast. This quilt was ackward in the way it was pieced. Very pretty with very pretty fabrics but in the centre it had only 4in blocks set on the diagonal which left an enormous amount of negative space. If this was my quilt that would be great as one would densely quilt the background down...so many possibilities! However for the charity quilts the brief is not to over-quilt them so that they stay nice and soft to the touch.

Thought long and hard about this one and in my mind it became 'The Art of Minimal Quilting'. In considering this quilt I knew that I had to put some sort of secondary design in that vast open space. This is what I decided on

Nothing fancy just some simple line design and the motif thrown in for good measure. Again, if it was my quilt I would have put a feather wreath in there and maybe a grid behind it, however I don't mark these charity quilts with the blue marker as they are likely not washed beforehand...the risk of bleeding is just too high in addition to being a lot more work. So whatever I do on these charity quilts has to be done without marking (or very minimal tick marks with the air erasable marker) unless it is a dark quilt where I can use some chalk.

The quilt turned out lovely

I also had thought to do more in the triangle border, however discovered that the maker had pressed the seams open at times and to the side at other times so I abandoned that idea and just did some 1/4in echo lines in there. When I started I realised that I had not considered the outer border. Wanting to keep this as simple as possible, I just put some large piano keys in there. This meant that I could stop in the batting and then advance and start again. My secondary design was tricky as I had to advance the quilt, do the top of the design, then go back and do the echo lines and the motifs in the area above...not something I had thought about beforehand. Also had a definite plan this time for the ditching but then did not follow it! So again there was a lot of stopping and starting but this time it all looks very nice and tidy on the back, so I seem to be getting better. Very happy with how this turned out.

So, I am getting more used to it, but the different process is what throws me a bit. Also discovered that my leader cloth has not been attached straight on the top take up bar. Was unsure about this but have noticed that it does make a difference in terms of rolling it up straight, so this needs to be attended to. I will have to fix this by taking it off, replacing the tape and putting it on again. Not looking forward to that but it will have to be done. 

Apart from this I have been doing some piecing for Natalia Bonner's 99 Strip Design series.

It's a free quilt along aimed at improving your freemotion quilting skill. For me it is a good opportunity to improve my control of the machine on the frame while learning some fun new designs. The quilt along will stretch over four of those strip quilts...I think I might do a second one however that will probably be enough for me. Should be fun though.

Happy quilting!

Karin

Adventures on the Studio Frame Continued

Well, Christmas has come and gone and in the blink of an eye we are in 2026!

I did continue practising on the studio frame. After I had somewhat successfully managed to quilt an entire practice piece with a pantograph, I then went onto one of the charity quilts. Still using the Daisy Dotz#2 design (available through Urban Elementz) I made it through this floral charity quilt.

Suited it really well and sunk right in so any irregularities are really not noticeable which was a bonus. When I was quilting it row by row I was almost at the end when I saw that one of my rows further up on the take up roller had no tension at all on the back. I think for a moment I just stood there, looking at it. Was confused as to how to fix this as it definitely had to come out...the bobbin thread was literally just lying on the backing. Decided that I would finish the quilt first and then go back to the row that needed fixing. Easy enough, however when I rolled the quilt back up my laser did not align with the rows anymore! Never mind, I took the row out which was easy enough as I could just pull large sections right out. I then went back to the end of the quilt again, found my registration points and went back point by point until I was back at the row in question. Once I had everything aligned again I went and inserted a new row. This worked ok, the alignment was alright except for having moved over on the horizontal ever so slightly. I noticed it as I started and left it. It was more important at that point to just get the row inserted in an orderly manner rather then worry about a slight shift.

Since then I was thinking that I needed something to see my stitches underneath the quilt. I know people say to just feel the stitches underneath but that does not work for me. I was thinking that I needed some sort of contraption that allowed me to see under my quilt at the row that I was stitching. Initially I thought about a physical mirror, but then it hit me...I needed an app. So I started looking at that and found quite a few options. Got myself a simple app for the Ipad which is a mirror with some basic magnifying options. Also got a make-up mirror app which has even better magnification. So all I have to do is to place my Ipad on the table underneath with one of those apps and look at my stitching that way. Works very well, so hopefully a whole row out of tension will be a thing of the past.

After the pantograph quilting I loaded another practice piece. My new pantographs had arrived and I was eager to test whether my newfound skill (?) in pantograph quilting was transferrable to a completely different pantograph, i.e. would I have to start again at the beginning with those wobbly shapes and crooked lines?

The pantograph I was testing is called Airy Clouds from Hermione Agee of Lorien Quilting. On her website the pantograph comes as a 10in design however I ordered it as a 6.5in design...that was a bit arbitrary however I figured that I am more used to that size and it would hopefully be easier to stitch that out.

My first attempt...I was impressed! Not a 100% but acceptable enough. Found this design actually a bit easier than the floral one I had done before. This was very encouraging as that may mean that once you work out speed, movement and how to go about the pantograph quilting it might be transferable to a range of like designs. 
My other practice included my new rulers from Amanda Murphy ...Apples and Oranges

This is a set of three different sizes...4in, 3in and 2 in. While you could quilt these curves with another curved ruler it would involve some marking and getting your curves just right. I specifically bought this for making my life a bit easier and using this on quilts with simple squares as a quick and easy way to finish them off. Love this pattern! 

After that I did some more FMQ which descended into a bit of chaos as I was trying to control my stitches in Manual mode.

I got somewhat bored...it was practice without a real purpose. I decided that the best way to practice is to go on real quilts rather than practice pieces where I tend to become a bit sloppy when I get bored.

So I put a little Disney themed quilt together and had another go at stitching-in-the-ditch and rulerwork

This was good fun...I must say that I really like stitching-in-the-ditch on the frame. I find it way easier and definitely quicker. This time I had worked out a plan for how to go about the order of quilting, i.e. I ditched two rows first and then went back to doing the ruler work. Amanda Murphy quilts this design in diagonal rows however that would mean that you have to travel in the ditch over previously quilted lines which I did not like, so I quilted mine horizontally across which was equally as easy to do and gave me a very neat design on the back.

Well, that's how far I got with my practice over the last few weeks. I since made a list of quilts that I want to finish...I got to about 18 quilts...some of them are already done hanging in the cupboard, others are waiting to be made where I already have bought the backing or cut out the pieces and then there are others which are swirling around in my head to be done one day. No wonder I get stressed! For the moment I will concentrate on the pantographs and some rulerwork to hopefully give  me a bit of a sense of success as it is easy to be discouraged when you cannot execute something you previously were quite proficient at. This will clearly take a bit of time, so I may as well make it as enjoyable as I can. 

Karin

Adventures on the 10 Foot Frame

We spent another few days on levelling the frame...at some point the carriage had a slight tipping motion, so then we had to re-adjust the carriage and tracks and so it went on. But I think we now have got it right and the machine stitches without any major problems.

 

So I decided that I was going to try out stitching in the ditch on one of the charity quilts. What a hoot! Had not paid a lot of attention to the size of the blocks which were rectangular. Once I loaded it I realised that the length of the block was too big for my space once I had affixed the ruler table. For a moment there I thought that I should just meander or loop over the quilt, however thought it would be great practice to continue with my original idea of stitching in the ditch even though this looked painful.

Wow...I probably never finished a quilt in such a clumsy way as I have done on this quilt. 

Firstly, I had no real plan on how to do this, so every pass was quilted in a different order and different way. Secondly, I was using Rasant thread which is close to 40wt...not my smartest choice! The starts and stops were quite unsightly in parts as I am used to burying my threads. I have got a tie off function on the machine which works reliably for the start off but not that reliable for the stopping position. So I did all sorts of things...sometimes I used the tie off at the stop position, other times I tried to bury my threads and all things in between. Definitely need to work on that!

The stitching in the ditch was quite alright, a bit untidy here and there but that was also due to the thicker thread and would have occurred on the sitdown as well. I did get the sense that it would be much quicker once I was used to it because everything lies flat and straightish with no moving around of the quilt. I did put a very simple motif in the white rectangles.

Not the prettiest choice but I really just wanted to try out different rulers and how I would hold my hands etc. That all worked really well and I did get into a bit of a rhythm with the advancing and towards the end of the quilt I had worked out a somewhat consistent approach on the ditching.

Not my greatest work but it got finished!

Next on the list of things was the pantographs. I practiced the Daisy Dotz#2 pantograph as that is one I had for a while and have done many times before. In addition, I have another baby quilt finished and do want to use that one on that. So, how hard can this be? I took an almost 2m piece of fabric for the backing and used calico on the front. Set it all up and off I went...quilted the partial design row first at the top of the quilt and bam...had not really looked at it a lot and got confused straight away on where I was and what lines came next. Great start! Started off with my rows and had the same problems as before, i.e could not get my shapes properly at times, i.e. wobbled a lot. It is a floral design and while I had become better at the petals, the leaves were at times slightly misshapen. Experimented with different speeds and different stitch lenghts which does make a difference, but then there was my body that had to move along which did also not work at times. Nevertheless, I did get my set up right and felt happy with how the rear handles were adjusted, where I was standing and how I moved across the row, so it started to go quite well. Definitely not to the standard that I am used to but it did go a bit easier. I did get a sense where I had to speed up a bit and then slow down a bit. Ran out of bobbin thread twice in the middle of a row which was not a problem as the laser and needle aligned nicely at that point, so I could just continue where I had left off without any issues.

Actually, this section looks quite good, must have been towards the middle when I had done the design a multitude of times.

Here is part of the finished piece

Not that you can see that much, but overall it looks quite good. My alignment of the rows was good, its nice and straight and the overall picture spells consistency. Was really quite happy with that and am thinking that it is time that I go on a real quilt. Have a floral charity quilt that I will try out next.

Definitely not that easy from the back of the machine, but so worth it...might have to stick to simple designs for a while but it is such a nice way to finish off a quilt. In terms of time, this took me about 5 hours to finish, so for a little baby quilt this would be so quick. I ordered some new pantographs of course. Wondering now how long it will take to learn new pantographs. This will be an interesting journey.

Wishing everybody a very nice Christmas with hopefully a few days of undisturbed quilting as we are moving into the New Year. 

Karin

The 10 Foot Studio Frame has Arrived!

It's been a hectic few weeks. The frame arrived 2 weeks ago and has now been all set up. There were a few delays, ie. my ruler kit only arrived last Thursday and the last day of my workshop also fell in between. Must say I did not expect that much 'mucking' around. It took about a day to set it up in the spare room. Then came an extraordinary protracted trial of trying to find a comfortable height. So I had it a bit higher initially, then decided that I might want it one hole lower and then yesterday we put it up again to where it was. Initially I was also unsure how much space I needed around the frame...did I want it set up close to the wall or not? ...that also changed twice. If I left space around both sides it meant that I had to squeeze through one side with the other side sort of ok, however in the end I decided on one bigger space on one side to walk around. The restriction on that side when placed towards the middle of the room just irritated me. All of this while trying to level the frame. Not an easy feat and I think we still need to do some fine tuning on that. The dealer came today to give my machine a spa treatment and to replace the bottom of the needle shaft...in all of this my needle could not be changed as the little screw  (already an issue a while ago) was stripped.

Today then I was also able to ask some questions which I had saved up for this visit. In a way it's been good to have a few days to take it all in. There are a lot of new things to get your head around apart from the actual quilting part. People are asking whether I like it...hard to say, it is just too new and all my usual processes of 'attacking' a quilt do not seem to apply.

Let me show you some photos of the first attempts on the frame:

Pantograph quilting

That was really hard to do from behind the machine. I am obviously not great at following a line with a laser. The hilarious part is also that I don't seem to be able to coordiante my body. While my upper half moves along the feet just don't want to cooperate properly. Too funny!

I had tried other bitses of just freemotion quilting by then but did not take a photo...strangely enough there are some designs I can do really quite well, whereas others I struggled. As with the pantograph the adjustment is multifaceted...I struggled to 'work out' the involvement of my whole body, seem to have two left hands and also struggled with the speed settings. The machine glides so easily that it often just glides away with me. Nevertheless, I decided to just do one of the charity quilts with a simple meander as I could do that really well.

So off I went and muddled my way through that. Struggled a bit with working out when to advance at times, misjudged my available space a couple of times and did a somewhat untidy baste job around the top and the sides. But it got done! Stitched with a thread that blended in on the quilt top but contrasted on the beige backing. Bold choice, but I wanted to see the stitch quality on the back at the speed I was going.

The finished quilt

Close Up

Great...stitching hardly visible

The back

Not too bad...every now and then you can see that I tried to fit more shapes in my available space elongating them a bit to make them fit. Found it very tricky at times to judge what distance I had both on top and at the bottom of my available space.

Overall, not a bad job...maybe a bit more untidy to what I would have produced on the sitdown, but I was quite happy with that...the shapes looked smooth, had no puckers or folds and the quality of the stitching was perfect. Apart from that, it went really quite fast helped by the fact that I had loaded the quilt sideways to make the seam that ran through the backing load up on the horizontal.

Since then I have honed in on more dense designs that I often do in Manual mode. I do find Manual mode a bit harder on the frame as I have not worked out a comfortable speed for me.

This photo is several days ahead and I felt that I had a bit better control. Practising another pantograph (need that one for a baby quilt I am making)...still a killer to produce nicely flowing lines, but getting better. Had the ruler kit by then and made myself a little border. The feather might look ok from afar but is pretty haphazard...tried my darnest to do some of that in Manual Mode but also did some with stitch regulation. Then the pebbles...again, very hard to do but I think I have worked out a comfortable speed on those in Manual Mode. Swirls, strangely enough work well for me on the frame as does Ribbon Candy.

Did some ruler work, more pebbles and so it goes on. Every day a little bit to gain some control. 

Next on the list is another charity quilt where I will try out stitching in the ditch. Let's see how that goes.

Overall impression:

This will take some months to master. Went to one of the stores here and bought a bolt of inexpensive batting to use for practising. The charity quilts will be good to further get my head around loading and advancing quilts. While this is not difficult it is just different and at times confusing to the brain, ie. a few times now I have forgotten to baste the sides as I am used to that being done already by the time I get to the actual quilting. So, lots of re-training necessary and of course...practice, practice and more practice.

Karin

One Last Time E2E On The Sitdown

It's been a few months again, but this time I have got a good excuse. Our grand daughter made her grand arrival at the end of August.  At the same time, ie. within days my younger daughter moved out into her own apartment. So for the last few months we have been extremely busy with providing support for both of my daughters which has involved a lot of running around, practical help, organising things and also some baby sitting. 

Very little quilting was done, in fact no quilting was done at all and it was only the other day that I pulled out one of the charity quilts. A fairly old-fashioned little quilt with almost too much of a good thing going on in terms of busy-ness.

Decided to do an edge-to-edge design over it using my trusted Golden Threads paper again. I sped this up a bit this time and traced and stitched two rows in one hit which did affect accuracy a bit but on the busy quilt that was not even noticeable at all. 

Why, you asked... for the last time! Well, after much research and soul searching I have decided to put my machine on the frame (which will arrive in a couple of weeks). It all started about a year ago when I thought about computerised quilting. I know people have various opinions on that but it appeals to me as it combines my love of quilting with my passion for design work on the computer. I started looking at this for a while, however decided against it in the end as the Bernina Q-matic is just too expensive to justify getting it for just a bit of fun. So I concentrated on what I saw as the benefits of a frame and added a Pantograph kit to my order as the next best option. I can't tell you how many YouTube videos I watched quilting on the frame over the last year...learned lots about loading and how it all works and then went through an extended period of indecision and I think that I am still a bit unsure about it all as I simply do not know how long it will take me before I make the transition to moving the machine rather than my hands and whether I will like that change or not. Over here there are actually no opportunities to try in all seriousness before you buy. My closest shop only has the Moxie from HQ set up and quilting on that does not compare to a Bernina. I have tried the Bernina Q20 on a frame for a little moment at the last show and also had a look at another quilter's set up but that's about it! However, I do know that I need to change things up a bit...I need extension, more of a challenge and some renewed learning. The last two intense projects I did left me feeling very bored and confused as to what direction to take. In the end I decided to take the plunge. I will keep my table, just in case, so that I will have the option to revert back to sitdown quilting if I absolutely hate it. This should be very interesting, to say the least.

So, anyway, here is the charity quilt that I just finished on the sitdown with an edge-to-edge design called Lorien's Festival from Hermione Agee.

Told you it's a bit overwhelming...just a tad too busy for me. Photo also not that great...also trialling a new photo editor 😣

The back though looks stunning

Loved doing this pantograph and am hoping that it will not take too long before I can figure out the pantograph kit on the frame. That does look like a lot of fun to me and should speed things up enormously.

Will post again when the frame is here.

Karin

More Charity Quilts

I am running behind in the the quilting of the charity quilts. Have four more to go before I pick up new quilt tops, so I am really knuckling down trying to get this done (hopefully by mid - August). Very much in the mood for ruler quilting and the next quilt top presented the perfect opportunity to do some Baptist fans again.

I am using templates from Michael's Quilts. Purchased those a couple of years ago now and still think they are fantastic and the best on the market. Remembered that I looked at other ones at the time, i.e. Amanda Murphy had just brought out her Baptist fan rulers but they were too narrow for me. I was looking at a 1in space between the curves in order to use it as an allover design. That's how I eventually came across the templates from Michael Quilts. 

First issue was that my charity quilt was not exactly straight around the edges. As I can't mark the charity quilts my trusted masking tape came in really handy (using a lot of that lately). In order to start my fans I needed a straight edge, so I used a large right angle and marked the 5-1/2in height of the fans with masking tape straight across. Had not thought that through though as I needed to get my beginning fans straight! The first little circle is 1-1/2in high so I had another straight tape line at 2in and from there I chalked in the 1-1/2in line.

Bit clumsy, but worked fine. As I was stitching along I removed the tape

Took me a moment to get comfortable again with the templates. The largest template is based on an 11in circle, hence it is quite big to use on a sitdown longarm. Takes up my whole hand.

As you can see I have lots of little grippy disks on the back and also use the sticky drawliner pieces to hold the ruler in place. Similarly, the smallest fan is based on a 3in circle and is somewhat awkward to hold, so a slow pace was the go. Initially I was dreadful at backtracking over previously stitched lines, but improved as I went along. The trick is to use the top of the templates to help you stitch along 1in to get to the next fan.

Now, I am not going to say this is super easy...it's not. Being on the sitdown means everything moves and you are surrounded by your fabric sandwich which may not always cooperate in terms of push and pull. Nevertheless I was impressed how consistent this looked after a few rows. I forgot how heavy this is on the shoulders, so given my shoulder issues I had to really take it easy. So I took my time doing about 2- 3 rows per sitting.

Looking good

I finished the last few rows today but could not take a photo...just too grey and rainy over here. Turned out lovely and fits this quilt really well. I think it was originally a memory quilt top as there are lots of old shirt fabrics in there. Really interesting to stitch over. Will take a photo tomorrow of the finished quilt. The Bapist fans came out great...funny though there is always one row in doing this where you think 'oh, I lost the plot' as nothing seems to align properly and you feel as if you are really trailling off. Then the next row...everything seems back to normal and I had several fans that aligned a 100%. Too weird. So, not for the faint-hearted, but I am used to it and just keep blindly going and hope for the best. The surprise is always on the top where you can see exactly how much or how little you have been out with your alignment. Given that the edges of this quilt were not totally straight, my top row came out great. Not a 100%, but good enough. Once the binding is on, this will hardly be visible. 

So jsut have the binding to go and then it is on to the next one!

Karin