Query re Pattern

I have been working on cleaning up my Mini Wholecloth design over the last few days. I had it initially drawn in the Procreate program to an approximate measurement. With my new drawing program I tidied this up and made an exact copy of it. Turned out really well...locked all my layers this time and labelled everything as I went along which made the whole process much more enjoyable.

I am now wondering whether quilters might be interested in this pattern as I am thinking about putting it in my Etsy shop. The pattern would come in PDF format and needs to be tiled when printed out and then taped together. The Mini Wholecloth comes out at 18in but can be made smaller by squaring it off to a different size.

It is intended as a skill builder as you can leave it as it is, put grids in various spaces or FMQ a design of your choice around the design. I used it in a workshop I held last year and people chose various options on how to fill it depending on their skill level. 

Would be interested to hear what people think about this idea. Too difficult, too bland or not enough direction to complete this project if I just put the pattern up there?

Karin

Last Mini Wholecloth Finished - To Do Tuesday 13/12/22

Well, I lost the plot again for a few weeks in terms of my weekly goals, however did manage to finish at least one thing from my list a few weeks ago.

Finished the last of the little wholecloth quilts for a workshop next year.

Have three examples of the same design now and plenty to talk about. The last one, the yellow wholecloth was a bit of an exploration of thread. I used Magnifico 40/3 wt thread from Superior for that for the main elements and 100 wt Invisafil for the background.

It looks lovely in that gold colour and the feathers in particular stand out more than in my other samples. Stitching the feathers with this weight though required a slightly different approach in stitching them. Rather than doing heirloom or bump-back feathers I had to stitch them as continuous feathers to make that look nice and tidy (meaning that all the backtracking was along the length of the feather rather than on top). Had not done this for a while and really enjoyed the slow stitching of that. So therapeutic.

For the background I used 100wt Invisafil in a tan colour. Would have been great if I had a more gold colour but that's what was on hand and I really wanted to try to see the effect. I stitched swirls in the outer surrounds, again to have a bit of a look at what that looked like. Very happy with how this turned out. I kept my swirls smaller...definitely something I learned from doing these Mini Wholecloth quilts, i.e. everything has to be a bit smaller to keep with the smallness of the project. I think the swirls would have been over-powering with a higher weight but with Invisafil they just blend in. Also used what Cindy Needham described as a scribble rather than a micro stipple in some areas which is a super small micro stipple with little regard to whether you go over some lines or not...really enjoyed that and it looks insanely dense and flat...just what I wanted for those areas. 

Overall great little exercise, but that is it now for this design. I am now working on some notes for the workshop and will have to do a few more drawings for my handout.

My goals for the coming week

- stitch a simple charm square quilt together from fabric that has been sitting in my stash for many years. Just needs to be gone

- make a start on a new pattern, i.e. get the cutting of the fabric done

- prepare for Christmas which of course we left to the last minute again!

Linking up to Linda's To Do Tuesday over at Texas Quilt Gal

Karin

Another Charity Quilt and Other Stuff

Finished one of my charity quilts. This one was particularly cute...a house quilt. Love those.

Ideally I would have liked to quilt in the background of the houses and put a nice pattern on each roof, however that would have ended up over-quilted (as a charity quilt) and additionally would have taken a fair amount of time. So in the end I decided to do an allover loopy meander over it. Loved doing that as it flowed really nicely and I than could stitch out the meander a bit bigger. Gives this quilt a nice playful feel.

Last week I looked for a binding for my little mini wholecloth as I was sure I had a piece of dusty pink in my cupboard. For the life of me, could not find it and ended up putting a slightly lighter pink binding on. Following this I thought that I really needed to clean up my cupboard with all the fabric all over the place...did that this week and yes, you guessed it...found that dusty pink fabric neatly folded away between two pieces! Well, too late as I already finished putting the binding on that pink wholecloth.

While looking at all the fabric and supposedly cleaning up, finally also pulled some fabric out that I have had sitting there since 2006 (the little ladybug fabric)! No idea what I was waiting for...I pulled it out and decided to cut it up into charm squares and just put it together with some white and hot pink squares. Probably will offer that for sale in my Etsy shop...this just needs to go. Will put this together over Christmas and quilt a nice edge to edge design over it. Those little quilts always turn out really cute.

Will not bore you with all the other potential projects that were hidden away...really need to get going on making a dent in my stash and finish a bunch of projects.

Also made some progress on another Mini Wholecloth for my class next year, this time in eggshell yellow.

Will stitch this out with gold Superior Magnifico (40/3) thread for the main elements and then do the background with a tan 100wt Invisafil thread. This should be interesting. Not sure yet what I put in all the background, but I marked a grid behind the hearts just in case I want to use it (forgot this in my last wholecloth).  I am thinking to incorporate some swirls but need to think that through a bit more. Looking forward to this.

Also worked a bit on the content of my class so I feel it is all coming together.

Can't believe the year is coming to a close already...so much to do still!

Karin

Another Mini Wholecloth Finished

Finished the second wholecloth from the same design that I did some weeks earlier. 

This time I stitched this out on a dusty pink fabric using a 'run-of-the-mill polyester thread. While this worked fine, I am not sure I would do this again...the thread was almost abrasive. No problem stitching with it, but a real hassle to pry it out of the fabric if you tried unpicking. However, as this wholecloth is for a class I am doing next year I thought that I give this a whirl as people will come with all sorts of thread.

I used different fillers this time and also made the frame around the heart a smidgen wider. Quite like this! The feathers are done a little bit more playful in this version and in the end I decided to put a grid in the surround. Not a bad idea, however I should have done my grid slightly smaller. This was done with a 3/4in grid. I put double lines in there which I thought would be enough to narrow this down a bit. In hindsight though I should have started off with the 1/2in grid and then did the double lines. By the time this became a bit obvious to me, it was too late...I was not going to take that out! Thought that this would be a good talking point in class in terms of thinking about size when choosing a background filler. Often you only see the effect of your quilting once you already have gone quite a distance. Definitely something to think about. While pretty, the grid in my mind detracts from the actual design...just too much going on here.  Very interesting exercise though.

I will probably do one more wholecloth from this design, this time focusing on the weight of the thread, i.e. using something like Aurifil 50/2 for the main design and then stitching the background down with 100wt Invisafil, again using slightly different fillers. Let's see what we can come up with.

This will give me three different versions of the same Mini Wholecloth to talk about in class. That should be enough to get started.

Karin

To Do Tuesday - 1/11/22

Here are my goals from last week:

📌prepare another Mini Wholecloth using a dusty pink fabric with a slightly stronger thread that will hopefully show up a bit more; this is for the workshop next year...I might change the fillers a bit from the original one to see what that looks like.

📌start work on a new pattern; this pattern was supposed to be for Christmas and I will get it done...it's just a bit on the late side, but so be it. Need to get this out of my system so I can start on something else.

📌If time allows, continue on my cat blocks.

Did manage to start another Mini Wholecloth

I changed the layout slightly, made the frame around the heart a smidgen wider and quilted the feathers in a more playful way. I forgot to mark a grid around the hearts, so I think I will just micro-stipple that. at the moment it is just sitting there as I am a bit undecided what to do next. Quite like the hearts 'fat' like that and am just pondering.

In the meantime, my show quilt has finally been handed in. the quilt show is next week, so that should all be very exciting. Have not been to a quilt show in a very long time. Looking forward to the shopping mall (even though I really do not need anything...famous lat words!).

Also made a start on a new Christmas pattern which I am really a bit late for but it has to be done. This pattern is a bit special, as it is a drawing from my daughter when she was very young. Already then a clever little entrepreneur she did not give me that pattern for some time...at the time I was writing patterns for magazines and that meant that you gave up the copyright to a pattern to the magazine. I did not mind that much as I was paid for the patterns, however my daughter did not want to lose the copyright to her little drawing. It took another few years before she granted the copyright to me when I started to sell patterns on the internet myself. This Christmas we were both looking at the pattern and thinking...would that not be cute if we gave it a Christmas theme and here it is...the Christmas sheep

Currently doing the applique and going around this with a zig-zag stitch. Bit out of practice but I am sure once I done it a couple of times it will be fine. Planning on 3-4 sheep for a table runner. Have a nice black Christmas print for the border, so the whole thing will just focus on the sheep. Very cute, however in terms of Etsy and their Christmas marketing way too late...I will probably finish this by the end of November, but it's fine...it can just sit there on the Etsy shop ready for next year.

📌For next week I will just concentrate on the sheep to get all the blocks ready to be put together. Realistically that is all that I am going to achieve

Linking up to Texas Quilt Gal for the weekly To Do Tuesday Linky Party and Midweek Makers over at Susan's blog 'Quilt Fabrication'

Karin