To Do Tuesday #23

My list from last week included the following:

- start on an edge-to-edge design for the baby quilt panel; this will take some time as I need to trace the design a number of times on to the Golden Threads paper. Also I am a bit undecided about which design to use...feel like something new and have been exploring designs over at Urban Elementz (always dangerous as I end up spending money!)

- if time allows, start quilting in the ditch around my other small baby quilt and maybe even working on the draft for the pattern. We shall see.

- start knitting another beanie...got the right needles now for the decrease of the top of the hat, so that should come together quickly.

- finish sewing on the binding on the table runner.

Let's see how we did.

Well, I did end up buying another edge-to-edge design from Urban Elementz. It is called 'Lorien's Festival by Hermione Agee. Caught my attention straight away on the first page as this was featured in the new design section.

The design is 6.5in wide, has lots of open spaces and flows really well which makes it very suitable to do on a sitdown longarm machine. If you are interested in the process, I wrote a little bit about how I do this in the previous blog post. It is not difficult, just demands a bit of patience and is a bit more work intensive, but so worth the effort. Looks really good. I then started on the binding...choose a fun stripey binding.

Made sure I joined the stripes properly, but was not so sure about the closure and then this happened

When coming to the end to join the binding I was able to align the stripes almost perfectly for the final join. This certainly does not happen usually to me. Could not believe it! The join is totally invisible when folded over. Looks great! I am now sitting in the evening stitching the binding to the back by hand. Taking my time a bit as this quilt will go into the Etsy shop but I need a bit of a sunny day to photograph this properly and at the moment the weather is just cold and rainy.

Started to stitch-in-the-ditch around my other little quilt which will become a new pattern for the Etsy shop

I get incredibly bored doing this task so yesterday I mucked around with making a little video for IG on this. Managed... that's all I can say. Takes me a long time to edit and cut to bitses and then try to figure out what IG wants. My daughter explained it again to me but I don't know...I don't find that easy at all and her explanation was that it is basically a piece of cake, just press here, do this and that and it's magically done. Took me a very long time...probably could have finished that little quilt instead!

Also still knitting...instead of another beanie I am now trying socks. How difficult can that be, said she. Oh boy, was I wrong! I had to re-familiarise myself with doublepointed needles. But that was not my only problem...as I am European I am used to knitting in the European way, hence I had to look for videos that show that way of knitting. I did find a very good video on sock knitting, however that person knitted the other way and no matter how I looked at it, I could not translate that to my way of knitting. So it took a few days and I found a very entertaining European knitter on You Tube who also runs a blog (Nimble Needles). His You Tube videos are in English which is useful as the patterns I am reading are in English and use English abbreviations. Wow, I can't tell you how challenging even the starting of the sock adventure was...I literally sat here a whole day unable to get all my stitches on those blasted tiny needles. A few times I managed but then kept losing stitches in between. I reckon I did about 8 - 10 attempts before I finally got going. At the moment I am approaching the heel...will take a photo when I get there and hopefully manage. So far it is looking good and I think I have understood from the videos how this is done.

I did finish the binding of my table runner in between, but forgot to take a photo. Still planning on doing another one of those, but not just yet.

So, for the remainder of this week I am planning to

- finish off the ditching around my little baby quilt pattern, then do a little bit of ruler work and hopefully make a start on the binding.

- finish off hand stitching the binding on my panel baby quilt and if weather allows to take some photos

- drop off all the charity quilts and pick up some new quilts to finish off

- continue plugging away at knitting the sock.

That's probably enough for the week

Linking up to To Do Tuesday #23 over at Quilt Schmilt

Karin

Edge-to-Edge Quilting

I finished my little panel quilt. 

It's busy enough, so I just put a sashing and border around it. Very cute! Felt like an allover design and started looking at edge-to-edge designs at Urban Elementz. Of course I found something straight away...could not resist.

A new design from Hermione Agee called Lorien's Festival. It is a 6.5in wide pattern which is a good size for doing it on the sitdown longarm. When looking for designs that I can do on the Bernina Q20 I do look for designs that are nice and open given that I am quilting it using Golden Threads paper which will have to come out when finished. While I do not mind taking the paper out it is obviously easier to have bigger shapes that come out readily and with relatively little effort. When you purchase the pattern you download this one page and then print as many as you require sticking them together with tape to make a row.

When quilting this it is definitely an advantage to have a lot of space

As you can see I can spread out my quilt over the entire surface quilting it going from left to right without having to crunch up anything. The paper is secured with 'sticky dots' and also some pins so that there is no shifting. Can you do this on a DSM? I think you can, however it would necessitate you having a flat surface and you would need to quilt it vertically because of the orientation of the DSM having the majority of your quilt in your lap as you start. Now I have to admit I have never tried this, however I would imagine that that is quite fiddly (mind you, not impossible). Having said that though I do think you can quilt smaller pieces like table runners and borders with this method without any problems.

The design was easy to stitch out

I do trace every row, however you can trace just one row and then put up to eight rows behind it and stitch through the paper without thread to get multiple rows stenciled. I have done this before and it works ok, however I prefer to trace every row. While tedious and by the eights or ninths row you are absolutely sick of it, it does prepare you well for the quilting as the design starts to commit to muscle memory which makes for better results. This design in particular flowed really well and it took no time at all to get the hang of it. In stitching this you follow the lines however you will never be totally spot on. My hands are about as big as the design, so when quilting within the span of your hand you swing out at times as you gather speed. The trick with this is in the alignment of the rows. I rarely align on the row that I stitched. While I do look how I stitched the row and align my points as best as I can, the alignment happens on the faint bottom row. When I get a new row, that bottom row has to align perfectly with the row to be stitched which will ensure that you keep your design nice and straight as you make your way down the quilt. 

Love doing this. While a bit more work intensive I find this very relaxing. Don't have to think much, just follow the lines, then I sit there quietly taking some of the paper out after each row, leaving the bottom row in place for the next row. Quilting the row literally takes only a few minutes. I use the stitch regulator of the Bernina Q20 for this task, so my stitches always look fabulous which makes for very relaxed stitching.

Finished this yesterday...I did spread this over two days mainly because of the tracing of the design. Usually I trace two or three rows, then quilt them, and then trace again.

Turned out lovely...a busy little quilt for busy little people.

Always like looking at the back

Now I just have to do the binding...have a fun striped fabric that I might use and then this quilt will go into the Etsy shop.

On to the next project...

Karin