Another Finish

Finished my Drifting Leaves Quilt, however will not be linking it up in the FAL 2016 as I forgot to mention it on my goal list for this quarter. Never mind, I know it's the second finish.

I must say this quilt is one of the most beautiful projects I have done in a while. To clarify, this is not my pattern...I won the fabric and some Auriful thread earlier in the year through the Aurifil blog (Auribuzz). Initially I had planned to make a little Owl quilt from this, but when the packet arrived I realised that I did get a Snack Pack which consists of 2 1/2in strips. The fabric was just so beautiful and I really did not want to cut them up...so, in the end I did the quilt that was displayed on the back of the packet which was Shannon Brinkley's 'Drifting Leaves' Quilt. This quilt truly displayed the fabric in the most favourable way and I always had wanted to just make a strip quilt.

And here it is

Drifting Leaves - approx. 49in x 62in

I enjoyed making this quilt and used it to try a few different things on it, i.e. using a number of different decorative stitches to attach the leaves. I have posted about this HERE

Also, I laboured over how to quilt this. I really like the wavy lines that are used for some of the modern quilts, however for this quilt doing wavy lines horizontally did not suit. Doing wavy lines the length of the quilt freehand would be possible however I doubted that I would be able to maintain them somewhat straight and consistent over the length of the quilt doing them on a DSM. There were very few reference points (other than where I pieced two strips together) and some of the leaves were slightly tilted which would have surely send me down the wrong path.

In the end I decided to use my machine...I selected one of the wavy decorative stitches and stretched it out to maximum width, shortening the stitch length at the same time and put it into the machine's memory for continued use. I then made a bit of a plan on how to tackle the quilting

First I put a basting stitch right through the center both vertically and horizontally (I was using wool batting and even though I had it pin basted, I did feel it needed some extra securing). I then used masking tape to give me a straight line down the middle and another strip of masking tape some 8in away. I only stitched approx. 8in at a time, then stopped and did the next 8in following the numbers at the top. I also turned the quilt with every wavy line, going up and down which was a bit cumbersome, but ensured that I had no dragging of the lines. I was very curious (as in petrified) as to what this would look like...initially also a bit unsure what exactly I would follow once I had stitched the first line. When I started at the second line, it all made sense...I rode my sewing foot along the hills of the wavy line, sometimes just gliding along it and other times shifting it a bit to get some variation. This worked like a dream. As I was approaching the 8in masking tape, I could clearly see whether I was straight or a bit off and could make slight corrections. Overall this kept me very straight...in terms of variation and wonkiness, we are only talking about half an inch here and there.

Work in progress

Not that you can see it very well, but here is the first finished 8in, ready to take the tape off and go for the opposite side

Close up of the lines...I used two different colours...just because! Loved the texture that was emerging

And so I went along doing line after line. In retrospect, I could have structured this a bit differently and left some empty space that I could have filled in with some tree bark FMQ...that idea came about half way through the quilt! That would have worked really well as I would have had the lines for guidance.

The texture is gorgeous...just right for this quilt. At some stage I thought this might get too stiff because of the dense quilting, but it turned out great and it really suits the quilt.

What thread do you asked....Aurifil 50/2 wt, of course! This certainly eats up a lot of thread but you will be amazed...this is all I used for this quilt.

So economical, it's amazing!

Linking up to Let's Bee Social over at Lorna's Sew Fresh Quilts and also to the Needle and Thread Thursday Linky Party over at My Quilt Infatuation

Karin

Drifting Leaves Quilt

I am working on my Drifting Leaves quilt. This is from the fabric that I won in the Auribuzz Blog Hop. The fabric is by Shannon Brinkley from her Dryad collection. It is absolutely beautiful and in the end I decided to follow her Drifting Leaves pattern which simply sews all the strips together.

For the leaves I ordered some of the Multicolour Print...gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous. Had trouble cutting into this, but managed to cut out my 17 leaves.
I am using this as a bit of a practice or re-acquaintance for some of the decorative stitches on the machine. I have another applique project in mind where I do want to use a variety of stitches. So I trialed  several different stitches to secure the leaves onto the fabric. Definitely was very rusty in doing this...some examples:

Filled circles as edge

Blanket stitch

...and close up of the uneven satin type stitch. I liked this one best as you cannot see any hiccups that will invariably happen

Uneven type satin stitch

Used various other options from the choice of stitches, some worked better than others. This time I used my Aurifil thread to do the applique which worked great and looks great as the colours coordinate nicely.
Quilt is now ready for basting

Found some nice dark blue dotty fabric in my never ending stash (the stuff I have got in there is unbelievable!) and put the binding together today.

Linking up to Lorna's Let's Bee Social over at Sew Fresh Quilts

Karin

A Day of Bits and Pieces

Today I worked on a few bits and pieces. I finished the quilting on the border of my Robert Kaufmann fabric Quilt, however had to wash some fabric to use for the binding. So I thought I make a start on preparing the applique pieces for my Drifting Leaves Quilt

As I only had strips to complete this quilt I ordered some of the Gold and Green Multicolour Print from the Dryad fabric range by Shannon Brinkley. It is absolutely beautiful

I think I said it before...the quality of this fabric is outstanding, one of those that you do not really want to cut into at all! If you have a minute head over to Shannon Brinkley's web site...love her work! She runs workshops on the web on her Scrappy Applique Technique...one of these days I would not mind signing up for that. But for now, I need to concentrate on getting some finishes happening.

I cut a 10in strip of each (that was all that I was going to give to those leaves) and traced the leaf shapes onto Applique Magic Plus (great product!). I then fused the shapes to the back of the fabric.

Next I cut out the shape on the drawn line and presto...we have a leaf on the quilt top

In between cutting my binding for the other quilt, I then trialed some of the stitches on my machine to attach the leaf shape. This is something I had wanted to do for some time as I still want to complete a little applique owl quilt using some of the cool stitches that come with the machine.

Here is my trial

I spend most of the afternoon mucking around with this, i.e trying to get the height and width of the stitches right

Love those two stitches...if you have a  Pfaff QE 4.2 or indeed any other machine where you can save stitches, are you using this feature? I keep forgetting that I have this option on the machine! Rather than remembering what setting I had for each stitch, I saved them in the setting that I liked and am now ready to go once I have cut out all 17 leaves. This is most useful as I did a lot of adjustment in terms of height, width and density to these stitches and without fail, the moment I changed one setting I had forgotten what setting I came from. Definitely need to use this more.

Felt very productive today.

Linking up to Let's Bee Social #147 over at Sew Fresh Quilts

Karin

Dryad " Drifting Leaves" Quilt

Well, I cracked...started another project even though I have several WIPs sitting there waiting to be finished (and I am also on a deadline for the FAL 2016).

You may remember that I had won some beautiful fabric designed by Shannon Brinkley (Dryad) for Paintbrush Studio, Div. of Fabri-Quilt and some thread through the Aurifil blog earlier in the year.

While I have used the thread already I had not opened the fabric pack as yet other than to take a quick peek (because I know what I am like!). Well, the other day I finally opened the Snack Pack and took the fabric all out...wow, that was it...gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous!

The fabric is absolutely beautiful and the quality is just fantastic. Initially I had thought that I would use this fabric for my Accuquilt Owl shape, not realising that I would get strips, so this was not going to work. What to do? I ended up on Shannon Brinkley's website...she has got some lovely fresh and modern designs on there. I also discovered that she has written a book about her Scrappy Bits Applique technique which looked very interesting (new purchase coming up?)...in the end I decided to do one of her patterns (which is also on the packet of the Snack Pack) "Drifting Leaves". Just love the look of this quilt.

The fabric was just too beautiful to cut up and I had wanted to make one of those strip quilts for a while. This did not take long, of course, however had to improvise a little bit as I did not have the exact same number of strips in the packet, it seemed. The quilt should measure 50" x 60", however mine might be little bit off as my measuring left a lot to be desired.
Looks fantastic though, I really like this...so simple but so effective.

I have got a few little bits and pieces left over as well as two strips of the main print and I reckon I will have enough for a little pouch of some type. Yah!
The only thing left now is the leaves. For this I ordered some more fabric (Dryad Main Print) from Fort Worth fabric studio to cut out the leaves shapes.



Now we wait...

Linking up to Let's Bee Social #136 over at Sew Fresh Quilts.

Karin