Designing

Radio silence from me again for a few days. I have been designing which always takes me some time to do. I have been asked to do another class next year doing a Mini Wholecloth class.

Initially I had no idea what to do, so several days were spent just thinking about how to approach this. I needed to come up with something that was achievable for the ladies without being too difficult to stitch out but also not to difficult to get down on fabric.  Up to now I have been designing using pen and paper which would take me ages as I would change things as I went along, then start over and over again until I got it right. When thinking about this class I realised that I needed a printed copy of my design and started to think about how to get my drawing into a digitized format. While I have drawing programs on my desktop I have never attempted to do a full blown design using a mouse, so the Ipad came to mind.

In the past I have used a very good App 'Graphics for Ipad' to do drawings on the Ipad, however I recently discovered that this App has stopped working properly possibly due to the many updates for the Ipad that have happened over time. I really liked this App as it allowed me to smooth out curves, add measurements etc. However, the layer tap does not work anymore and without that, it is useless.

When I had Covid earlier in the year I spent a lot of time just sitting around. In order to keep myself semi occupied I started to look at the Procreate program. I had purchased that App some time ago but never really got the hang of it, so I set out to learn it properly. Discovered that it is extremely useful to quickly draw out a draft of something, e.g. like this

Not that pretty and not what I am going for, but I was just playing around with ideas and to familiarise myself with the program again. Spent a lot of time searching for a way to make a shape to scale and finally figured it out. When you highlight a particular shape in the Procreate program it will show you the measurement in Pixels. Took me a while but with the help of Google I found a formula to convert pixels into inches. I wanted my heart shape to be about 2-1/4in, so that meant that I had to multiply this with the dpi which was 300 which made that 675 pixels and...voila...I was on my way (Actually just found a pixels converter on Google which does the calculation for you). Once I had this, I also discovered that I could set the grid behind my picture in inches, so I made my grid 1/4in small so I could see how I would fill in the space that I had given myself for this Mini Wholecloth.

The drawing itself was actually not too difficult, just had to adjust the brushes to make my strokes as even as possible. Good thing is that you only need to do one shape and then of course can copy and paste as your heart desires. Here is my frame

Does not look like much but that took a while. Spend some time getting that first stroke right. Once I had that, I just copied, flipped and pasted it into place, tidying up some pixels as I went. Reduced that shape then by 1/4in to make the distinct frame which comes out to 9in. Once I had that, I worked out the size of the heart motif and put that in the middle and I was on my way.

Still working on this so I can't show you the full picture but the printing of this comes out 100% to scale which I am extremely happy about as this means I can just print it out at the end of it and trace from there. 

If you have an Ipad it is well worth your while to invest some time into something like Procreate. Even if you don't design full blown wholecloth quilts, it does allow you to quickly and effectively just jot down a draft which I always find very helpful. Like that first picture above felt like a good idea and would have taken me ages to draw out on paper...on the I pad it maybe took an hour to get the base shapes on there and then copying and pasting, a bit of rough filling to get an idea of whether I liked it which in this case I did not (would need more work around the angle of my feathers somehow).

Karin

Moving Onto The Wholecloth

I am on a roll...finished off my Ruler Practice Quilt! My Pfaff machine was in for a Spa treatment and so I had nothing else to do.

I was really feeling like some FMQ, but did not feel like just doodling and ended up pulling out another UFO.

Had not looked at this for some time and really felt like some stitching, so I began to continue on that. This has ended up as an UFO as there are some design issues in there which seemed just too huge to continue with it. On the other hand, looking at it now I thought that this was a pity...it's a decent piece of fabric (Kona Solids) and a fair amount of stitching. It would look amazing finished, I think, even with all those 'mistakes'. Anyway, really felt in the mood for it and just continued stitching...

Did a little bit every day as you have to concentrate quite a bit on this one and made some progress. Will need to do some unstitching in some areas and also just come across another problem...my corner motif needs to be altered! What a hassle. If this ever gets finished this will be an amazing feast in improvisation!

Also started the design process of my other project, another wholecloth, that I drew up in Cindy Needham's class last year using a lot of her wonderful stencils that she had brought along.

It's nice but does need some work.

Started off with Cindy Needham's Ultimate Stencils. Normally you would use the transparencies that Cindy has provided for her stencils to draw up your design roughly. I usually start with drawing on paper, using the blue washable markers. Somehow I got used to that as I did not originally have the transparencies and I must say, this helps me to think the process through in every minute detail. As I am drawing I take note of the measurements and how my designs are going to fit into the spaces that I created as well as looking at how the quilting would show up, i.e. which area will 'puff out' and which one will recede. 

And here comes the somewhat intense part...I will do the same drawing over and over again, until I am happy with it and I am sure that everything fits.

This is number 2

...and so it goes on. Already have a number 3 going, but forgot to photograph it, but I think you get the idea. The above drawing was used to trial different sizes and different arrangements. Also have Cindy's Border Stencils and played around with that as well. While I am drawing this I get a sense of were problematic areas arise as 'if I cannot draw it with ease, I cannot stitch it either' and that gives me the hint that I need to do a bit more work on that. Undecided also about the size of the middle section...maybe make it a tad bigger? Before I had the Sweet 16 I did stitch everything freehand from my drawing. Now things are getting a bit more complicated as I have got rulers, so my design needs to be matched to particular rulers if I am going to make use of the rulers.
If you are interested in the wholecloth design process, I did write a number of posts about it last year, starting HERE.

Getting back to drawing...this could take a while!

Karin

Australian Machine Quilting Festival 2018

Well, it's come and gone. Great event organised by Tracey Browning from Constantine Quilts right here in South Australia, Adelaide.

I went for 3 days straight and must say, I was totally exhausted by then. While exhilarating and fun, I also felt slightly overwhelmed with inspiration, as usual. Currently washing some fabrics to try out Ricky Tims Convergance quilts idea...luckily, I took a week's leave to recover and let the ideas sink in and just finish off some things.

My last class was a Wholecloth drawing class with Cindy Needham. After a bit of a lecture on Wholecloth design (also got a CD of this as part of the class which I still have not had a look at) we got to draw for the whole afternoon. Cindy had the entire stencil collection out for the class to use. Usually I draw a bit and then loose focus unless I have got a very definite idea, but that day I was super focussed and just about finished an entire Wholecloth, measuring about 36in in the afternoon.

It was very interesting to see how people approached this in the class and every piece looked very different to the next (not that I saw that many as I had my head down the entire afternoon). I started with my little motif in the middle, not really sure what to do with it. However, I thought, it will come to me as I go along and just kept extending it out.

I used Cindy's Ultimate Stencils for the middle section, first drawing in the motif with the circle stencil and then using the square stencil to extend it out. I do usually do a bit of filling as I go along, just to get an idea of what could go in there...will always have to have some cathedral windows in there, so marked this in. Also tried one of Cindy's tiny border stencils in one of the inner borders and got myself very confused with direction initially. Then I went out further and put some feathers in the inner part and to finish this off I used Cindy's High Tide border stencil for the outer border...and presto, I had an entire Wholecloth! Not the most exciting design, however lovely to look at and a very workable design. I will re-draw this on paper and tidy up some areas and then stitch it out to have a bit of a memento of this class.
After the class, I went straight upstairs and bought Cindy's Border Stencil collection.

Now this was not part of the plan 😏. I had looked at them before on the internet and had thought that I do not need this as I can draw the basic shapes myself. Doing this class though I realised how very handy they are...in the inner part of my drawing I wanted a bit of a curly type feather and then realised that I could use one of the border motifs (simple swirl) to just mark the curve in and off I went with my feathers. This was so handy and fast and looking now at those basic shapes I can see how useful this is going to become. Also liked the border stencils with the corner element and middle line cut out for alignment (I do struggle with this at times). This was a breeze to put into my border with a bit of fudging fitted nicely into that space. Obviously when I am going to draw it I will work this out a bit more precisely, but even drawing it in this roughly, it looks very good.

Enthused plus!!!

Karin

Wholecloth Quilting - Where To Start

Where do you start.

I wrote a post last year on what goes into the preparation for a Wholecloth. Currently thinking of doing a number of posts on the topic of wholecloth quilts to demystify the process.

First and foremost is planning. I spend an extraordinary amount of time on planning these projects given that I am going to spend the next few months on this one project. Once it’s basted and you are stitching there is very little you can do to alter your design or re-draw sections. Trust me, I tried...it becomes incredibly messy, is very unlikely to work and you will be in a world of pain.

Personally I like to see a picture of the Wholecloth before I start. This can be achieved by drawing it out on paper (or sections of it) or using the computer. I tend to use EQ8 or my Serif Drawing program. No consistency in which I use, whatever suits the design I will use. For the current Wholecloth I used the EQ8 program, as I am using one of their stencils. I printed the stencil out and then put it in the shape, photographed it and imported this back into the EQ8 program to make into a block. This is how I started off to just have a bit of a look at the overall picture. As I liked the design I then found the shape I was looking for in the block library and placed my stencil into it.  Then I just explored different settings and arrangements until I liked the look of it.

I did a lot of playing around with this...different sizes, different arrangements and different colour ways (EQ8 has a whole range of Aurifil thread colours in their thread library). Love the EQ8 program as it is fairly easy to move things around (although I am still getting used to the update) and get a good look at the end product. In addition I find it very useful in looking at dimensions, i.e. how big should my motif be in this arrangement. If you make it too big it is going to look too busy and crowded, if too small it is going to create a problem in terms of the surrounding open space.

Alternatively, if you had a motif that you liked and wanted to put it into a cathedral window shape, you could draw out your cathedral window and trace your motif into it or, even easier...



...you can use Cindy Needham's Ultimate Shape stencils which makes that job superfast. All you do is mark your shape and off you go...

My first attempts at this from last year with the feathers oriented in different ways. I made some photocopies of this initially and cut out the squares to see what I liked better

After all of this I started to stitch out the motif and surrounding plumes to get a bit of a sense how this would work, i.e. will I work freehand, use rulers, trace the motif? Also trying different threads and  batting, getting a bit of a feeling for the design. Stitched this out about four times and noticed that I needed to do a little bit more work on aligning the motif. Went back to the EQ8 program and edited the motif, drawing in some diagonal lines for alignment in the center. Also adjusted the size of the motif just by a tad to allow for a bit more space around the curve.

As I am stitching this on very dark grey (charcoal) fabric, I am thinking that I will only use minimal marking as it is much harder to mark with the white sewline chalk pencils. Decided to use Cindy Needham’s Shape Stencil to get the framework down, then use rulers to stitch this out. The curve of my ruler does not magically correspond with the Ultimate Shape, however this does not matter as the Ultimate Shape will give me the points to align my ruler. The curvature of my ruler will be slightly bigger than the Ultimate Shape curvature (hence I had to do some adjusting of the size of the motif in EQ8). The motif will most likely be pounced using Golden Threads paper.
The feathers....unsure...don’t feel like marking them in, but will need to think about consistency. Probably will do some semi-marking, i.e. just lightly draw in the tops, so I can follow this and have the same number of plumes on each side.

Next step is to draw this out on my trusted IKEA paper (love that paper roll) using Cindy Needham’s stencil to align the motif, draw in the plumes...

You can see that my ruler is slightly more curved than the shape. This is only a rough copy...as I am not tracing off this, this is good enough to give me an idea of how this will work. Yesterday then I tried out a number of different markers, but decided in the end to stick with the one I know...the Sewline Chalk pencil. All I need to do now is to draw in the shape across the quilt top and I am ready to go. So I thought 😆 Discovered today that my fabric width is not wide enough, hence had to extend the center by adding on individual borders. Not what I had in mind, but so be it. Given that this piece will have a very distinct border, that all fits.

This will be a busy Wholecloth with lots of individual stops and starts, so a busy backing fabric is in order.

...and this is only the beginning! If you are thinking this is a bit obsessive, you are absolutely right. However, I have learnt my lesson of being unprepared in the midst of months and months of stitching when you arrive at the point of...hmmm, that does not work...not a good feeling, let me tell you. Thinking about writing a bit of a series on Wholecloth quilting. Let me know if you are interested and/or have particular questions about the topic. Not that I am an expert, but I obviously have done a lot of learning over the last few years and thought it might be helpful to share some of the resources or point people in the right direction.

Karin

Design Process

I have not been blogging lately due to general hectic around this time of year. Layer that with getting distracted easily, a good dose of a migraine the other day and the annoying mess that had mysteriously spread out in my sewing room.

I have been FMQ my Bethanne Nemesh 'bird wall hanging' over the last few weeks, however half way through I thought it would be fun to start the design process on my next wholecloth.

For this wholecloth I thought that I put into practice what was demonstrated in a class that I attended earlier in the year run by Claudia Pfeil. In terms of designing I have to emphasize that this is only one of the many ways that one can design a wholecloth. In this class we worked from the center out. Basically you have your main design in the middle and then throw some borders around until you reach your desired size. In doing so you would use a select number of FMQ designs, use echoing and mirroring of design elements until you reach a visually pleasing arrangement. Easier said than done.

I did not want to repeat what we had done in class so I used one of the designs that I had drafted previously on Cindy Needham's Ultimate Shape and decided to use a diagonal layout. I start my first draft on paper and while this must appear painful for some, it is the only way for me to get my head around dimensions, how big I want the design to be, where to start the next border and how big the quilt top will end up. In this case I used Cindy Needham's Ultimate Stencils for orientation, first the Circle one to put a simple outline around the little drawn design and then I overlaid this with the Square Stencil to put the surrounding borders in. This worked fantastically and I now had a workable model. The stencils are enormously helpful.

As you can see I went it a bit overboard with the borders just doodling away. This looks laborious and it is, but for me this is a very important process...while I am doodling, I am thinking this through, i.e. what will this look like quilted? what will recede and what will come to the foreground? More often than not I do not get this right as you can see in the example, and the design will just fizzle out into mindless doodle as I already know that I will have to do this again. I would usually do this again several times until I feel I have got it right.

I have done some exploration around drawing on the computer and while I can get the basic motif and a general outline happening in my drawing program (which is useful to work out some sizing), I cannot draw the fillers to this level of detail with the basic drawing program that I have on the computer. Carla Barrett has some useful blog posts about designing wholecloth quilts digitally using a tablet...that got me a bit interested, however I do not have one of those and I certainly do not want to spend more money on yet another electronic device. Carla uses a tablet PC and Photoshop Elements. Maybe at some stage...for now, I have my Ipad, so I started to do some exploration around this. I have several drawing apps for the Ipad which I use to practice FMQ designs, nothing fancy, just a bit of doodling. When I was at the shops the other day I bought a decent pen for the Ipad. As it was, I also downloaded the Adobe Draw app and Adobe Capture (initially really clueless what I would use Adobe Capture for).

And then I started drawing...easy to use and the possibilities opened up. Some examples:

Planning my feather on a photo of the quilt top. This was useful as it gave me a bit of an idea of what shape to use in what section.

Next came a surprising fun design

Filled my little previously drawn design with colour. Really quite like this...could use the Accuquilt shapes that I have to construct an Applique design like this. You can see I did not get the border size right. In the App you just drag the shape out with a pinch and that is a bit fiddly at first, but the name of the game is not accuracy here. This is just to get a bit of an idea what this would look like and for that it does the job.

Then I tackled the wholecloth...haha, and worked out what that Capture app is for. With the capture app I was able to photograph my little design (which I had previously drawn out on the computer as the motif has to be accurate for later tracing). The motif then could be magically saved into the Library which I could then use in the Draw app.  This is how I got my center motif on the Ipad (as I was not going to draw that again!). From there I just placed borders around it and started filling them with FMQ designs.

I went into a lot of detail to see how difficult this was going to be. While the Ipad screen is somewhat limiting (had to zoom in and out all the time), it definitely is possible to add a lot of detail. A bigger screen would be better, i.e. a tablet, however depends really what you are going to use this for. For my purposes this is quite ok as it will give me a picture of what this could look like. Accuracy is similarly not important, as I am not going to use this picture as a template. The actual planning around this wholecloth in terms of sizes of the borders will be relatively easy to be worked out once I decide on how many borders and what fillers I want. The centre motif is already drawn up...just needs a bit of a tidy up. While initially awkward to draw on the screen I was getting the hang of it at the end. Had a bit of a laugh, this wholecloth looks suspiciously like the last one...had to do the grids, even on the Ipad. Just love doing that. Did not finish it ...the last border will be a feather frame, but my juice ran out.

Also played with 1/8 of a slice of a wholecloth...another way of designing a wholecloth. As the app has layers, it is relatively easy to draw your 1/8, then duplicate and rotate and construct your wholecloth that way. But more of that on another day.

Karin