Heartfelt Wholecloth Progress

Nearing the end of my Heartfelt Wholecloth quilt. This quilt was designed by Kelly Ashton and can be found on the Handiquilter website under the Ruler of the Month Club information.

Only the four corners left

This has been an extraordinary intense workout of all 6 rulers of the Ruler of the Month Club 5 and was an excellent opportunity to get further acquainted with the Capri 18. There are a number of things that I tried on this wholecloth making use of some of the new features, i.e.

- stitch regulation: I used stitch regulation for the the frames of this wholecloth. Making longer straight lines has by now become quite easy to do and I used the Precision mode for this task. As I have become more comfortable with the stitch regulation, I did also use it in some of the smaller designs as well (like all those tiny 1/8in lines, the Flying Geese shapes and the diamonds)). As this was mainly for practice, I did some designs starting off in stitch regulation, however then went back to Manual when this was easier. For example, for some strange reason I found doing the smallish ribbon candy in the last border quite comfortable in Cruise mode on a particular setting where I felt that the machine and I were in sync, however when I tried to do the smaller swirls this did no longer apply. While I could stitch the swirls in Cruise mode, it felt jerky and somewhat uncoordinated. In this instance I went back to Manual, as this was just easier and looked better. A lot more practice needed for stitching some of the smaller designs, although I am equally as happy to just stitch them out using Manual mode . It really is a matter of finding out what feels comfortable for you at what setting and fine tuning this a bit.

- Play/Pause button: I love this feature and have used this on this wholecloth when doing microstippling and pebbling. It allowed me to just concentrate on the movement of my hands, focusing in on the design without starting to slow down or speed up, just keeping the sewing speed at a nice steady speed. Very handy for that sort of work.

Very happy with how things are progressing and looking forward to the next wholecloth. 

Karin

Heartfelt Wholecloth Progress

Working steadily away on the Heartfelt Wholecloth, a project that came out of the Handiquilter Ruler of the Month Club 5.

After finishing the frame and doing the grids I was ready to fill in the center

Center filled in with pebbles and some freehand straight line work

Did some more straight lines around the hearts which was easy enough. Now came the hard part...lots of tiny lines with the HQ Matchstick Ruler (1/8in) all around the odd shaped Flying Geese. That looked like a real hassle and involved an extraordinary amount of travelling along previously stitched lines. When I started off I did single lines, travelling back over wherever I landed. I soon discovered that this was not the way to go about this as I sometimes had to travel along the Flying Geese, sometimes at the bottom and sometimes on the top wavy line which prevented me from working out a way to systematically stitch this out. In the end I decided to double-stitch the lines (which for me is literally unheard off), i.e. down and up again, travelling only on the upper wavy line to the next spot, leaving some areas uncovered. Came back to these uncovered areas on the second path, travelling on the lower wavy line. This probably does not make a lot of sense, but suffice to say, this was a hassle and a half and took a while to complete.

I finally completed that part and am happy to report that the world did not come to an end because of the double-stitched lines, in fact I can hardly see it. The whole piece is looking more and more like the real thing

After this I filled in the last lot of spaces with some more circles and now I only have to do some piano keys in the wavy sections (on the right above) and then 'only' need to do some background fillers to complete the wholecloth.

Its looking lovely...not entirely correct in some places but the psychedelic silk is making up for that.

I must say that this is the way to go with the Ruler of the Month Clubs, i.e. stitching out a project to go with those particular rulers. I have used every one of the rulers intensely plus a few others (circles and straight line rulers) and it does help you to really become familiar with the rulers in terms of holding them, whether you need more or less grip in places and using multiple parts of the same ruler. Really enjoying this (when I am not cursing about those tiny lines) and learning a lot.

Not that I want to advertise, but there is a Ruler of the Month Club 6 out which also has a project attached to it. That one looks way simpler...I think it is a great way to get your confidence up with rulers. I am not doing the Ruler of the Month Club 6 as I really have enough rulers for the time being. Famous last words...already wondering whether there will be a number 7.

Karin

Let's Do Some Ruler Work Linky Party #4

Another 2 weeks have gone by and the world has become a somewhat scary place. Hope you are safe and well and keeping your spirits up whether social distancing, self-isolating or in actual quarantine.

I have not been blogging for the past 2 weeks mainly because my blog has been the target of spam galore. Initially I tried to limit this with word verification however that did not work at all and eventually I put on 'comment moderation'...something I have not had to do since I have had the blog, but it just got too much. So, for the moment, I will run with the 'comment moderation' to see whether it subsides. Very annoying.

Anyway, today I tested the Heart Shaped Ruler of the Handiquilter Ruler of the Month Club 5. Still have not got my new machine so I am doing this on my domestic sewing machine, the trusted Pfaff Quilt Expression 4.2.

The HQ Double Hearts Ruler

This ruler is the only ruler from Handiquilter (as far as I know) that you actually turn over to complete the heart. Usually you only use the side with the writing facing you otherwise your design would not come out accurately as the lines are scored on the bottom side and turning it around would distort alignment.

Obviously can be used to make motifs in a hurry and also heart designs in a sashing or border space.











So, here it goes...did some sashing designs to start off with by just shifting the ruler along (using the smaller heart shape). The full smaller heart in the second line comes to 2-1/4in, so fits nicely in a 2-1/2in space.

Then I did the motifs. The bigger motif with the nested hearts (love this!) comes out at 6-1/2in and the smaller one at 4-1/2in. Very handy to quickly put a motif into a square, something which I do quite often in the baby quilts that I make. I actually have a heart stencil that I normally use for this, however that means drawing it out, then going over it etc. ...this ruler makes the job much easier, all you need to do is put in the cross hairs to quickly and accurately stitch out the design. Even on this little practice sandwich it came out very accurate. Also did the hearts running up a center line which could be used in a border by stitching one side first, turning the ruler and then going down again on the other side. Too easy!
Stitching this out on a domestic machine though was interesting. The ruler is quite big, i.e. 7in x 4-1/2in, so it is somewhat awkward to hold. Also, as you are turning it over, I did not put the Handigrips on. Let me show you what I used instead, something that I use quite often with all rulers (even if they have the Handigrips on) for added stickability.

I bought a roll of this white rubber-like non-slip liner from the hardware store that you can use in drawers and under the carpet. I usually have two little rectangles that I slip under the rulers to help prevent them from slipping. Works really well, however I have been known to sew them to the back of my quilt, as I keep losing them as I go along! Something to watch out for...

Very handy ruler to quickly do some heart designs!

Time to share what you have been working on with rulers whether it is an old post or something you have done recently. Similarly, any tips or tricks that others could benefit from as they embark on the ruler quilting adventure would also be great.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Karin

Ruler of the Month Club 5

The Wiggly Wave Ruler


Initially I thought...oh, not another wave! ...but, there are some cool things you can do with this one

First try

...and then there is this

How cool are those semmingly overlapping lines! Can't lay claim to that idea, saw it on the Handiquilter Ruler of the Month Club 5 video. Also really liked the first design on the right, one line stitched out with the ruler and then the first and third line freemotionquilted with a circle in it around it. that would look really nice in a narrower sashing.

Karin

Follow-Up on Half Carat Diamond Ruler

Just a quick follow up on the Handiquilter Half Carat Diamond Ruler, the second ruler of the Ruler of the Month Club 5. You can view all the ruler in the series HERE.

Last week I tried the ruler out on creating simple sashings or border designs, just using the shape or parts thereof to create interesting designs. You can read about in this post.

For this follow up I used the ruler to create various star designs...

Again, I did not pre-prepare this or go particularly careful around the ruler. This was just to see what I could create with this ruler and to get a sense of how the alignment on this ruler worked. The bigger stars are 8in in size and I was actually amazed at the ease of stitching this out. Very easy to do and comes out beautifully on the first go (I had the crosshairs lines drawn in for that). I particularly like the big star in the right hand corner. I then used only parts of the ruler to make smaller stars...lots of options and lots of sizes you can try. This is really only limited by your imagination.

Overall, I was impressed with this ruler as I can use it for many different things, i.e. sashings and borders as well as block motifs in various sizes. Good value! Looking at the big star now, I also realised that I have not even tried the echo feet with that. If I was to put, say the 1/2in echo foot on, I could stitch this out at 7in or with the 3/4in echo foot at 6 1/2in...lots of options.

Linking up to Freemotion Mavericks over at Lizzie Lenard Vintage Sewing

Karin

Handiquilter Ruler of the Month Club 5

Picked up the next ruler (we are running a bit behind over here, so this is only the second ruler)

The Half Carat Diamond Ruler

I gave it a whirl, fresh out of the package...I am putting up my not-so-perfect attempts here to show that ruler quilting is like freemotionquilting...it takes a moment to get the hang of it and I am no exception to this. Every ruler is different and it takes me a few goes to get used to the different rulers, i.e. work out the alignment, figure out what one can do with a ruler (in addition to the obvious) and get a handle on how to best hold it. So, here it goes...not that pretty.

Also had some bearding going on on this little practice piece 😼

The diamonds come out at 4in and were relatively easy to do...again I was amazed at the accuracy of the template. Took me a little while to work out how to make another smaller diamond inside (in fact had to look at the Handiquilter ROMC page to watch that video again and it was embarrassingly simple). Then I played around with the  longer pointed triangle and stitched out simple triangles. Switching the ruler around I was then able to use the flatter triangle of the top of the diamond to put a channel in there. Really liked this...would look good in a smaller border (of a table runner for example) and can be done entirely without any marking. My kind of ruler! Lots of things that you can do with this ruler. I ran out of room to try the block motifs...will leave this for another day.

Linking up to Andree over at Freemotion Mavericks a bit belatedly, but I got got confused with the dates