More Ruler Work and Two More Finishes

Its been a productive couple of weeks...managed to finish all of the charity quilts ready to be delivered next week.

Had a lovely 'I Spy' quilt to finish. Given its colourful fabric I just meandered over it. Still find that the most effective and fast ways to finish some of the more scrappy type quilts.

Nearly got side tracked again in going through my stash to find similar fabric that could be used for an 'I Spy' quilt. Such a good isea and a fun project! Restrained myself though and kept going with the next charity project.

Now this one took a bit longer as I had to ditch the seams first but then I got going with some simple curves in the blocks. What started out as just wanting to do a motif in the larger yellow squares turned to an allover design. Really enjoy using Lisa Calle's Pro Echo rulers!

Put a piano key border around it as well using a blend in purple colour. Came out great and finished it off nicely.

Next will be another baby quilt panel that I will quilt up for one of my daughter's friends who is expecting and then my machine will go in for a spa day. I had some issues with my stitch regulator...minor, and maybe related to the particular project I was working on. Experienced some racing of the needle at odd times. This has since stopped and could very well be attributable to the sliding mat I have around my needle plate...not sure. I thought that maybe the edges of that might have been catching the fabric, so I have now taped this down a bit better and have not experienced this again. But in speaking to the dealer we decided that we may as well have a bit of a look and while at the shop the machine might as well get cleaned and oiled on the inside. Not strictly speaking necessary, but can't hurt...I have had this machine now for over four years and while Bernina talks about it only having to go for service at 30 million stitches I have since heard different viewpoints. In the end I contacted Bernina some time back asking around service and they had said that it was recommended to have your machine looked at every couple of years to make sure everything runs fine. As I am thinking about putting my machine on the frame at some stage later this year I thought it might be a good idea to get the machine running as best as it can. (assuming that I will have a horrendous adjustment period).

That's all from me today...have a nice quilty weekend!

Karin

Gridwork on a Charity Quilt

Have not completely finished my baby quilt, however the binding is on and it just needs to be handstitched to the back.

Was itching to stitch so I made a start on the pile of charity quilts I have sitting here. First one I picked up is a cute ballerina panel quilt in pastel pink tones. Decided to try a new thread on this that I purchased at the last quilt show. It is 50wt Konfetti from Wonderfil threads. 

Now when trialling new thread I go by what experience has taught me over the years. This thread is different to Aurifil 50/2 thread in that it is thicker and feels more cottony, so I assumed it was 50/3 thread. In fact it felt very much like the Mettler thread cone I used for the last few charity quilts. So I decided to use the Mettler setting (i.e. tension and speed) that I kept on my machine for this thread and no surprise, it was just about right. Also used this thread on the bobbin which turned out to be a bit of a hassle in terms of the tie offs. On my machine which is a Bernina Q20, I have a programmable tie off function.

It is set to something like 4 or 5 stitches before you start off. With Aurifil 50/2 that gives me a very neat tie off. With this thread it was more like a horrendous knot...very unsightly and hard to digest. Absolutely a nightmare to bury in your quilt. Tried different ways to counter-act this, i.e. starting off carefully in Manual, making a few stitches on the spot and then taking off in Regulated mode but still, the thread kept making these unsightly knots. This slowed me down there for a while...in the end I used the Manual mode to start off with some very small stitches and then moving over to the Regulated mode. I think if this was my own quilt I was quilting I would put something like Decobob in the bobbin which is an 80 wt thread...I think the knotting issue would be far less. Anyway, I have a whole cone of this so I continued with it, as the stitching looked fine otherwise and one big plus...this thread has absolutely no lint!

For the ballerina quilt I initially decided to do the center panel in a meander and then do some ruler work in the borders, however I did not really like that idea. The problem with the charity quilts is that I cannot really mark them a lot other than using a bit of chalk. The fabric is likely not pre-washed and getting rid of the blue marker with water could lead to disasters (think colour run). Maybe not so relevant in this pink quilt but it is also winter over here, so I would have problems getting that dried in a hurry.

Looking at it I thought a grid would look nice over the ballerinas. Have not done this on the sitdown machine before over an entire quilt, so that was going to be a good challenge. Now, if this was my own quilt, I would definitely pre-mark this before basting and then just follow my lines but that was not an option here. So I needed to come up with something different. In the end I used masking tape.

Found the center of the panel first. I did not trust the straightness of the panel, so that is why I did not start in the corners. Maybe it would have been fine, but I don't know...could not think that through. Started in the center and did my 45 degree angle from there. Put two lines in for good maesure to see how accurate I would end up after the first line because I did this after the quilt sandwich was all put together and this has a puffy wool batting, so I was not quite confident that this would work out. Did the first two lines and it did look alright, so I continued without the tape basing every subsequent line on the previous one, going very slowly with carefully aligning my ruler. I used the Handiquilter straight line ruler for this which is about 9 in long, so it was bit by bit, moving the ruler along, following the previous line. I made the lines 2 in apart to match the pieced second border. Was not that confident that it would turn out accurately when I started the crosshatch as I had to move a fair amount of quilt around on the diagonal with a fair amount of puff from the wool batting. Aligned my straight ruler on the previous lines but also used some additional 45 degree lines to keep the angle as consistent as I could. But wow...to my surprise, it turned out brilliantly

Even measured the squares...yep, more or less 2in, looking nice and square. Not that it matters that much if it was out a bit but I was expecting much more inaccuracy. Now to that checkerboard border. Will put some curves in there and finish off the outer border with a bit of a scallop. Still undecided whether I will quilt the smaller 1-1/2in borders down or leave them unquilted.

This, of course, is all taking a bit longer than anticipated, but I felt a bit like experimenting. For a kid's quilt this is quite long and larger than usual. Given that this worked out well, a simple grid is a really good option for a smallish baby quilt. Definitely will do this again.

Karin

Progress Report

Well, the AMQF has come and gone. Four days of all things quilting. I went every single day...not exactly how I had it all planned out but with having to drop off my quilt and picking it up, retail hall and one class it just turned out that way.

My quilt looked nice on the black background. It won third place and got a beautiful yellow ribbon. Loved it!

Got to do one class with Bethanne Nemesh 'From A to Zen' which was very good (as usual) and a group of us got talking to her after the class. Was able to have a very close look at some of the quilts she had brought over, including some class samples of the classes that I had done previously online. This was a bit special, I must say.

I did allocate a whole morning to exploring longarm frames and machines...have been thinking about this for a while by now and before I went to the show I did a fair amount of research into the topic in order to be a bit prepared. As so often happens when consulting the internet, I got quite confused with all the different choices (and we don't have that much choice in Australia!). Anyway, I was wondering how difficult it would be to get used to quilting on a frame versus on the sitdown machine...in previous quilt shows I have had a few moments here and there on various machines, but nothing ever quite seriously. So this time I really had a very good look and try on some machines to see how difficult it would be for me to maybe make that switch.

Must say that I got a bit side tracked in my research, lured by the cost of various set ups. As I really would want to do edge-to-edge quilting I started looking at computerized set ups which is insanely expensive. I would absolutely love to have a set up like this but am reluctant to give up my sit down machine. So I started looking at cheaper set ups and was able to test these at the show. Not to mention the brands but what I thought was a great deal (longarm, frame plus computer) felt absolutely horrendous to stitch on. Tried a higher model of the same brand which was better but that would mean that I would again hit over $20000 if I wanted a computerized set up. In the end I went to the Bernina stand. One try on the Bernina Q20 on the frame and I was sold...it was like day and night. I know my machine and I obviously think it is a good machine but the difference in operation on the frame compared to others was astounding. The machine was extremely light and easy to manoeuvre and I was able to stitch basic meandering patterns in about 5 minutes. Obviously I would need more practice to do the fine detailed quilting that I am used to but at least I was able to ascertain that I would be able to make that transition after a bit of practice. I had a really great time with the sales person...she even let me try some rulers which was also quite easy going. Talked through all the options, different frames, accessories needed etc., marvelled at the quality of the frames and this helped me greatly to get my thinking straight. I have got the machine and now that I know that I could make that transition with a bit of practice, this really opened it up for some decision-making in the future. All I would need is a frame and the space for it...the computer that comes with the Bernina is out...just too costly. Unfortunately I cannot justify that expense ($24000 for the computer system alone) as I am not intending to set up a business. However went away really quite happy after having done all the research and reassured myself that indeed this would be an option for me, now it is just a matter of time and space. Will have to wait a while...we are planning some renovations over the latter part of the year and various other things are happening. But there is no hurry, I love my sitdown Bernina and when the time is right I just plonk my machine on a frame rather than looking at getting an additional machine of a different brand. 

After this little adventure I have started back on the charity quilts. Managed to pin and baste two quilts in one hit

Really felt like some ruler quilting and started today after having spent a day stitching -in-the-ditch.

As this is a charity quilt I only ditched the major seams otherwise I would have had to spent another day just ditching. The intersections of this quilt were horrendous...at times like little hard pebbles. Also think that the fabrics used in this quilt are quite old or maybe the quilt top is quite old. Everything felt a bit more movable. In order to secure all this I decided to quilt a simple line design, semi-continuous depending on whether I remembered where to go next. Would have liked to do an individual motif in the white squares, however that would have taken forever. This way I literally zoomed along finishing half of the quilt in one go today. I stitched the curves with the Pro Echo curve no 6 which made a nice deep curve in the coloured squares and was also the right size for the white squares. Looks quite nice and will hold this all together. Also tried a different thread today...Mettler Silk Finish 50wt...no problem at all, stitched very nicely, but then again my machine stitches nicely with any thread, just a matter of getting the tension adjustment right.

So, that's where I am at...next on the agenda is some piecing of a sweet little baby quilt.

Karin

The Great Illusion

I have been hard at work finishing the last charity quilt out of the pile that I had. With this particular quilt I was just not feeling it and decided to do a minimum of quilting-in-the-ditch on it just to get it done.

So I went around all the blocks only to realise in the end that this just would not do. The blocks were way too large to just leave them at 8in unquilted. As much as I did not want to do any further work on it, minimally quilted like this would make the quilt literally unusable. One wash and the pieced blocks would have puffed out like there is no tomorrow.

This is actually why I like quilting the charity quilts...there is a lot of problem-solving that one has to do. As with some of the other charity quilts the mere mortals who pieced this together did a fairly haphazard job...not bad, but literally none of the intersections met, some of the seams were changing direction half way through a row and the measurements were a little bit out here and there. Nothing too bad, but definitely something to consider when quilting it. I could already see that some of my ditched lines were a bit crinkly because of non-matching seams. First at all I had to stitch down every single alternate block. To make it more interesting for myself I decided to practice securing my thread when starting and stopping in order to just cut it off. I do struggle with that as I am used to burying my threads, however for this piece this would have taken ages to complete, so I bit the bullet and decided to cut off my threads. 

The Q20 has an automatic tie off which works really well in the beginning of a line but not so reliably at the end of a line. Thought about Amanda Murphy's method of beginning and ending a line...she uses the stitch regulator to set it to about 22 or more stitches as she starts off and then switches back to normal stitch length. Must say that that has never worked really well for me...the machine races to produce the tiny stitches over a tiny length and it just feels really unnatural. So in the end I decided to go back and forth with tiny, tiny stitches in manual mode to start off, then switched to stitch regulation to sew my line and do the ending in the reverse, i.e. tiny stitches towards the end back and forth in manual. Then I cut the threads off and lo and behold, the world did not come to an end! My stitches appeared secured. Maybe not quite as clean as I normally like it but it saved a lot of time.

Then came the thinking about what to actually quilt in the alternate block. This is what I went with

The area around the tiny square should have measured 2-1/2in but rarely did and the surrounding intersections did more often than not not match. I decided to put the lines at 3/4in apart starting from the outside in and leaving the tiny square unquilted, so it would pop out. There was method to my thinking, i.e. the x- blocks were not aligned properly hence my 3/4in was always a bit out, however going inwards and trying to meet each line as I went around it looked fairly consistent due to the 3/4in space. This left an approximate 1in space unquilted, big enough to hide any inconsistencies that occurred in the tiny triangles. Had I gone one more line I think it would have emphasized the inaccuracies. If you go with a ruler you would of course see that there was hardly any consistency, however the overall look signaled consistency. Was fairly curious of how this would turn out.

To my surprise I quite liked the look of it in the end

Glad this is done and very surprised on how neat this turned out. Added bonus...I was finally forced to get a hang of cutting my threads off! (otherwise this would have taken ages!)

Getting back to To Do Tuesdays: I am weeks behind as we went on holidays in between, then I had to quickly write up my Etsy pattern and then I got going on the charity quilts. So I achieved a fair bit but just not in the order that was on my previous list. And who would have guessed, I did start something else, i.e. new project since I have come back from holidays.

So my list of things to do looks something like this now

-make a start on my background filler project from way back

-continue on my scrap quilt blocks (have made 15 so far)

-continue on the new 'colourwash project

That leaves several UFOs unaccounted for but I just need to get back to some structure first before I can add more things.

PS: When I came back from holidays I noticed that I had several comments on my blog going back several weeks. I do not always get an email notification now (no idea why) but also had forgotten that I had switched on comment moderation, hence those comments were just sitting there. My sincere apologies...I do love comments and try to respond to each and every one either by email or here on the blog. Definitely not ignoring you...must have been one of those senior moments!

Linking up to To Do Tuesdays #94 over at Quiltschmilt.

Karin

Back to Quilting

Well, it's been a while...

We have been on holidays in Bali in the second week of September for 9 days. It was great...beautiful country and beautiful people. We had a great time although I must say it was uncomfortably hot and humid for some of the days. We did splurge out for this getaway with a villa in a very nice resort with a private pool. Incredibly beautiful surrounds.

 

Private pool 

View from restaurant onto one of the infinity pools and beyond.

Also did some fabric shopping while over there. Bought an embarrassing amount of batik after a 2 hour drive to Denpasar. Only went to one shop really...had found the address on FB...apparently most of the quilters from Australia go to this particular shop and having been there I can see why. The shop was full of fabric obviously but what blew me away were the precuts. In the back of the shop the floor was covered in 3 - 4 layers of those round jelly rolls all neatly stacked up. The choice was so difficult so I ended up with more than I actually wanted to buy...then there were Fat Quarter bundles, more jelly rolls in packets, backing fabric and then the shop owner showed me the remnants! Suffice to say I spent about double to what I actually wanted to spend. 

On a different note, I had no problem with the food for the entire time in Bali until the very last day. Got the dreaded Bali belly which made for an interesting flight back home. Luckily it only takes about 5 hours to fly from Bali to Australia. Was glad to be home and was 'housebound' for about a week. Did my pattern write up in that time for my cute little cat quilt which I had finished before we left.

Was really hanging out for some quilting after our time away and finished another one of the charity quilts.

As this is a very floral and busy quilt I just ditched it and then did a simple line design in the pinwheels. Turned out nice, I think.

Following this I made a start on the Bali fabric. Came across a colourwash pattern that Bethanne Nemesh had put up on FB some time ago. Had a look at that and opened one of my jelly rolls. Bethanne said in her pattern that most jelly rolls have usually 2 strips of the same colour...well, my jelly rolls had some duplicates but not all of them. Decided that I will overlook this and just do the pattern with what I got. Sorted my jelly roll into a graduation of colour and made a start.

This should be interesting. The blocks end up very small at 3-1/2in square and my accuracy did suffer a bit as there is a lot of strip cutting, but we shall see. Will end up with something like 200 blocks...very curious how this will turn out as the strips are a riot of colours. Bethanne's examples looked very muted and the graduation was very orderly. I think mine will look fairly dramatic with all the different textures and designs on the batik. Could be really good or a bit of a flop...we shall see.

Also went to a demonstration of the HQ Moxie on a loft frame with Prostitcher Lite...that was super interesting and gave me a lot to think about. Loved the Prostitcher capability of course...the machine did a fine job of stitching out one row of a pantograph. Was quite amazed at what it takes to make all this work. In terms of time, it takes me about the same time to do this on the sitdown with the paper in terms of aligning and making sure it is straight. The computer driven row looked fabulous of course but given the limited throat space of the Moxie you then had to advance your quilt for the second row and put some commands into the computer to make it start the second row. Quite work intensive or I should say that I had no idea what is involved in setting this up. The limited throat space certainly is an issue and I wondered how you would go about stitching an allover design like meandering for example...I forgot to ask but imagine that you would have to stitch it from left to right, then stop and advance your quilt. The lady demonstrating said that you do not advance the quilt with the needle in the fabric, so that would mean you have to break thread. With the meandering in a 15 in space which is decreasing as you roll up your quilt you would really only be able to stitch one or maybe two rows and would probably leave half of that visible when advancing so that you can interlock the shapes somehow. That sounds incredibly difficult to me. Pity we did not discuss this in the demonstration. I was ditching another charity quilt today and thought about how you would do that. I guess what I took from this demo was that you need a much bigger machine (haha...). Must say though, loved the Prostitcher. Would love to have a machine on a frame just to do that. What a toy!

Felt really good this week to get back to some productivity. Hopefully I can keep that up a bit more consistently again.

 

Karin

The Nude Quilt

Finished the quilting on another charity quilt which I ended up calling 'The Nude Quilt'. It is an exceptionally well made quilt top...the seams mainly line up and the maker has taken great care in painstakingly cutting out a motif to put into the corner stones for the sashing. Those little corner stones are just 1-1/2in squares, so that would have taken a lot of patience to cut out. The motifs then re-appear in the striking border. 

The corners are neatly mitered. Love the muted colouring of this quilt and am assuming that the fabrics are quite old. Love doing these charity quilts. When I am quilting these, I am always wondering who made this, for what purpose...was it meant to be a gift or did somebody just love the colours of the fabric.

Anyway, initially I was going to do some ruler work in the charm squares, however then decided that this quilt would look best if I just ditched it. It is wonderfully flat and having just stitched in the ditch lets the fabric choices shine. I decided that this is what the maker must have had in mind.

See those little corner stones...too cute! Like little diamonds all over the quilt.

I have not done stitching -in-the-ditch for a while and thought I practice cutting my thread tails off rather than burying them. Well, that did not work for me...I did cut a few off but went straight back to burying my threads. Not that it does not work...it does, I just find it really difficult to trust that and straight away fall back into burying those threads.

A little bit about my machine. I am stitching on a Bernina Q20 and was reminded the other day that some people might find it useful to read about the settings and how I use this machine.

I stitched in the ditch with my favourite ditch ruler from Handiquilter (the right one in the photo below)

I like it because it has the quarter inch notch on both sides, so I can easily switch between stitching on top of the seam or next to it which is handy when you are stitching down a quilt and the ditch side of the seams of each block alternate as you go down the quilt.

In terms of settings, I do all my ruler work in BSR2 (which is the Precision Mode on HQ), i.e. the needle stops moving when I stop moving the fabric in contrast to BSR1 where the needle keeps going when you stop moving the fabric. Find that just a bit precarious with a ruler next to the needle.

For this quilt I had just the right coloured thread, in fact it was a perfect match with the red of the sashing.

It is one of the small Aurifil spools that I acquired a long time ago when I was still stitching on the DSM. I have a side spool for the machine, however the thread is wound crosswise, so I put it on the top as per normal and it worked just fine. No problem at all.

Also used a different thread in the bobbin as the backing was multi-coloured. Chose a soft pink that just sunk into the fabric. Had no pokies either top or bottom as both threads were Aurifil 50/2 weight. With a little bit of care when setting the bobbin and top tension you can absolutely avoid pokies. The domestic sewing machine needles that this machine uses of course helps with that. I stitched this with an 80/12 Jeans needle. Strong needle with a fine point and good to use when you quilt with some speed.

What next for me?

Missed out on the To Do Tuesday Link Up again for 2 weeks, I think. Since then I finished my wholecloth and am currently preparing it for the show. Will show photos of the wholecloth in July once the show is happening as my entry is a juried one so you cannot have photos of it circulating. Am I happy with it? I am, however it does look rather plain so not sure how it will go. Always interesting at quilt shows...you must be interested in FMQ to recognise the amount of work and effort that goes into a wholecloth even a seemingly plain one.

For the week ahead I am planning

- to sew up a cover for my label for the wholecloth and also prepare the hanging sleeve

- maybe make a start on my next background filler project

- seriously look at a new pattern for my Etsy shop (which I have neglected over the last few months).

Linking up to To Do Tuesday #77To Do Tuesday #77 over at Quilt Schmilt

Happy Quilting

 Karin

To Do Tuesday #56

My goals for the last week were

- complete the dinosaur charity quilt using the edge-to-edge design from above.

- continue knitting my brown sock

- developing a plan of attack in terms of projects for the coming months. I know that I do want to start my wholecloth but also need to be working on some patterns for my Etsy shop, so that needs to be thought through a bit.

I finished the dinosaur charity quilt and it came out really beautiful. I used an edge-to-edge design called 'Happy Times' by Hermione Agee available through Urban Elementz.

It is the cutest thing. The design is new to me and comes with 2 rows printed out so I wanted to see how that goes on the sitdown longarm.

Starting off...

Going very well but I am astutely aware that I am spending a lot of time on this. Not that I think these charity quilts don't deserve that but when I started quilting for the local charity group I did consider that I need to keep the quilting fuss free and relatively quick unless like in this case I do want to try out something specific. For this quilt also, when I do look at them closely and see the work and commitment that has gone into it, I often feel that they deserve the best. This quilt is a panel and the group just sewed two small borders around it. However, the batting...somebody has sat down and sewed batting strips together at about 3-4in width for the entire batting. Was very impressed by this.

Anyway, to speed up the process, I traced my next row of design and then placed 5 more rows behind and sewed through this with an unthreaded machine, so that I now had 5 stenciled rows ready to go. Normally I trace all my rows however wanted this to go a bit quicker and also try it out again.

Well, it was very hard to see (maybe should have used a bigger needle!) as you can see in the picture below.

Given that the design was really quite easy to stitch out, I managed with the extra light from the machine and completed the quilt quite quickly. However, for the future I probably go back to tracing row by row as this was more difficult to manage.

However look at the bottom

Was impressed with how straight this turned out.

Close up of the design

Great design, definitely will use this again. Came out really cute and suits this panel.

So what else did I manage? I did not continue my knitting however spent a lot of time on the computer looking at new patterns and while I was at it, cleaned up my EQ8 program a bit. Have several possibilities of new patterns and have been spending the last few days on trying to work out one particular pattern in terms of math to make it more user friendly. Will have to do a test block to see whether my calculations are correct, will probably start on that pattern. Apart from this I did spent a lot of time in my head trying to work out a plan for the next 3 months or so, but have not written that down as yet, as I am constantly side tracked with new ideas. Definitely need to develop that plan to stay on track.

For the next week I am planning to

- make a test block of the new pattern (and take some notes this time!)

- put my plan for the next 3 months on paper starting with the wholecloth quilt (which is still waiting to be printed)

- continue on my sock

- pull out the fabric for a new Fox quilt and get ready to tackle that.

Linking up to To Do Tuesday #56 over at Quilt Schmilt

Karin

Charity quilts

Finished the last two of my charity quilts before delivering them to the Orange Tree Quilters Group. These have been hanging around for a while so I used a production line set up...basting in one hit and using the same thread to finish them off.

First one

Cute little baby quilt...can't go wrong with clamshells. If you are interested in the process of quilting this with the Multi Clamshell ruler on a sitdown longarm machine, I have spoken about it a number of times on this blog and in a little bit more detail HERE.

Came out near perfect again as you can see at the top, my clamshells remained straight and nicely in line at the edges. Does that mean they are all perfectly the same...definitely not, there was a bit of fudging going on here and there which is not visible in the overall look of the design. That's why I like this as a quick allover  design. Quilted this with a yellow Rasant thread (TEX25 which is close to 40wt) on a wool batting which made it nice and puffy. 

Straight onto the next one which was a very bright and cheerful 'Crazy Quilt'

Just did an overall larger scale meander over it which was supposed to have some loops in there but somehow I settled on the meander while I was stitching this. This was the right decision for this quilt as it allowed me to gather some fullness in individual blocks and distribute that out to the sides a bit. Also seemed to have gotten rid of some crooked sashing sections which is handy. Attached a bright orange binding to the quilt yesterday...almost too much for the eyes, but the whole quilt looks just great and will no doubt cheer somebody up.

With that done, I just bought some more wadding to immerse myself back into some of my own project (of which there are many).

Karin

To Do Tuesday #39

My goals from last week were modest

- finish the handstitching of the binding on the scrap quilt

- baste one of the little charity quilts ready to be quilted,  

- maybe continue on my cat quilt from ages ago, and 

- continue on my knitting projects in the evenings.

Finished my scrap quilt, i.e. handstitched the binding over a couple of days

As I did my shoulder in a couple of weeks ago, had to take it easy, however I did manage to baste one of the charity quilts. In order to go easy on the shoulders, I noodled all over it today, so it is now ready for binding

Looks cute and with the meander over it is very cuddly. This took no time at all, I reckon about half an hour as it is only a small little quilt. Two more to go!

Did not continue on my cat quilt, but had a look at it...

Have six completed blocks, so quite a while to go yet. 

Apart from this I did a lot of relaxing and also some planning in terms of quilting. It's funny how quickly projects become UFOs. I did a freemotion-quilting course with Bethanne Nemesh some time ago (maybe 1-1/2yrs ago). For this course we pieced together 5 improvisational pieces. Well, have not quilted any of them so also had a look at that. Decided to make a start on one of them, however that is how far that took me. Mind you, at least I am feeling clearer on what to do next...just have to follow my plans and eventually I will get there.

This quilt which is my own design will need some careful planning in terms of how to quilt that and what designs I will use. It will be dense and varied so I will need some time to figure out how many and what designs to choose. Took a photo of it and will play around a bit with that on the Ipad. The different bright colours seemed a good idea at the time but now I am also wondering about thread colours. Maybe I should do the class sample first to do a trial...

Actually, now that I said that, that is probably a good idea as that will definitely clarify the thread choice but also could be useful in design choice. Hmm...

So, as you can see a lot of planning going on over here with somewhat limited action. However, I am happy with my progress. At least I have got some clarity as to what to tackle next.

So, my list for next week is as follows

- bind the charity quilt

- baste the class sample from above and work out the quilting design, path and thread

- cut the pieces for a couple more cat blocks (no piecing at the moment as I am taking my machine to the workshop and leave it un-connected in between sessions)

- maybe baste another of the little charity quilts.

We'll see how far I get.

Linking up to Quilt Schmilt  for the To Do Tuesday #39

Karin

To Do Tuesday #22

Forgot to make a list last week! Never mind...I do know what I had in mind of finishing.

Very productive week for me...really knuckled down and got a lot of things done that have been on my 'mental' list.

But first of all, let me show you my little knitting adventure. Bought a beanie the week before and thought I could really knit that myself. Although a bit rusty in my knitting, I did find a number of patterns on the internet that seemed do-able and so I proceeded to knit up this little hat. Bit of a rocky start as I had forgotten quite a few things and reading the English patterns was a struggle (I knitted way back when I was still living in Germany and all the knitting terminology was obviously in German). After a bit of research and looking at a lot of pictures I got going...funny how quickly things come back to you. My only problem was that I needed to re-calculate my casting on stitches as I did not have the corresponding wool to the patterns I found. The hat took me about 2 days to knit. Loved it as I had some fun variegated yarn.

Here it is

Not perfect, but very cute. The next one I do I will need to cast on my stitches a bit firmer though, this one got a bit loose, however if you fold that over it fits perfectly. The decrease towards the top was an adventure as I did not have the right needles and had to improvise. Knitting this was a real pleasure and send me right back to those times when I was a very serious knitter. Will knit another one and then may attempt some socks, however will have to watch some YouTube videos before attempting that. I think I got the bug!

After this it was back to my quilting tasks.

Currently sewing on the binding on the table runner which is destined for a workshop in September. 

Had a lovely little surprise when Auribuzz featured part of my table runner in their Showcase Sunday post.

Nearly missed it as I did not read this post this time which actually was unusual as I normally read them. However I was alerted to it via Instagram where Aurifil had tagged me. That was really nice. The photo they took from IG was really clear and close up, so it looks really nice. Was a bit chuffed.

Also finished my charity quilts. Yah! Definintely was dragging my feet with this, but got the last one done in about a day.

A very brown quilt in country style fabrics. Initially I was going to do some ruler work in there, however decided against it as I needed to get these quilts out of the house. Had this lot for about three months by now and the charity quilters group only meets certain times, so I needed to get this done by the end of the month. So I meandered over this in a brown thread (which you actually can't even see in this photo). Felt that this suited this quilt as the brown pinwheels are very striking and I think ruler work in the cream parts would have been too much. Anyway, it's done.

Also basted my panel (and another little quilt which will showcase a new pattern).

For this panel I will probably do an edge-to-edge design over it using my trusted Golden Threads paper. Find that very relaxing and so rewarding. Just need to make a decision on what design to use.

A bit off topic, but last not least, I made another bread...this time following a definite recipe!

This is a Marbled Rye bread. Very yummy! If you are interested in bread making, I can highly recommend the following Craftsy class: "Artisan Bread Making"  with Peter Reinhart. This is just one of the breads that he is teaching. I have had this class for a while now and have made the beginner's bread a number of times and now moved on to the Rye bread. Still heaps more to explore. Peter is an excellent teacher and the recipes seem to work out great every time.

Now, my list for next week:

- 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.

Linking up to To Do Tuesday #22 over at Quilt Schmilt

Karin

Choosing a Quilting Design

I finished one of the quilt tops from the Orange Tree Quilters group. Another beautiful little quilt!

It is a Kaleidoscope quilt...I had forgotten how effective they can look and remembered that I actually have got the template for this. Did buy the template set very early on in my quilting journey but never got around to actually make one of these, in fact forgot that I had this!

Like the colours...very tastefully put together.

Its a smallish sort of quilt...from memory about 52in square. In looking at it I was unsure how to quilt this. Did not really feel like stitching-in-the-ditch, even more so as every block had the centre seam pressed open. Don't like to stitch over open seams and so decided to do some sort of overall design. The quickest, of course, is meandering but also did not feel like that.

Consulted one of my favourite books...Machine Quilting Solutions by Christine Maraccini. Its an older book from 2007 but has a lot of easy-to-do designs for everyday quilting in there. Chose a swirling  design which I had not done before. In her introduction to the design Christine says:

'This edge to edge design is one of the quickest ways to get a quilt finished. It will add visual movement and has a texture and feel that beg the owner to cuddle up in it.' The only difficulty, as I could see it and Christine pointed out, was to get the design a bit bigger to maintain the softness of the fabric and batting when you touch it. However, the swirl design was perfect as one of the red fabrics had a dainty swirl design on there and it was unobtrusive enough for the secondary pattern to still shine through.

Did one practice run on a piece of scrap and started wondering whether I could execute this consistently over a large area. In the end I decided to just go for it...if you never try, you never know! Was a tad nervous to start off with as I can  get incredibly confused with swirls and their direction, but to my surprise this went incredibly easy. I quilt loosely in rows as a sitdown longarm quilter, just having 1/4 of the quilt under the the machine at a time. Had absolutely no problem moving along swirling my way from one end to the other. Going back then and down, I could see my empty spaces and could reach out with a swirl to fill that in. My swirls ended up maybe 1-1/2 to 2in across, sometimes smaller, but that did not feature too much. Given that the swirls are a bit more dainty it felt very open and soft.

This is why I like to quilt these quilts for the charity group. I get some pretty quilts, an overload of inspiration and I get to try different quilting designs that I may not otherwise use. This quilting design is a definite keeper...I think it took me about 2 hours to complete. I used the stitch regulator on my Bernina Q20, so did not have to worry about my stitches looking fine and went over it with a medium speed which ensured that I could get the swirls a bit bigger (think bigger, more sweeping movement). It was incredibly easy to fill and in the end I was actually quite amazed at the consistency with which I had quilted this across the quilt top. The quilt looks amazing with it and feels nice and soft. This is definitely a design that I will use again. 

Karin

Side Tracked Once Again - To Do Tuesday 25/1/23

I am absolutely hopeless when it comes to staying on task!

I was working through my list for the To Do Tuesday Linky Party when I got what I call the 'design bug'!

It started when I pinned and basted this cute little charity quilt from the Orange Tree Quilters Group. Absolutely fell in love with this even though it had a lot of very crooked blocks and was absolutely not straight. Loved the design and the colours they used. 

In looking at this I decided that I needed to do an allover design on this. Would have loved to do an edge to edge design but given this a charity quilt, this seemed too time consuming, so it had to be something that I could do freehand. Feeling absolutely bored with the allover meander, I thought some swirls and feathers would be nice and promptly made up a design that including both. 

So I started practicing

I am pretty good at freemotionquilting, but obviously muscle memory takes more than a few hours or even days...this was certainly a good reminder. No matter what I did, my brain would not allow me to freely travel across an area without getting lost as the swirls would constantly throw me into a direction where I did not want to be. It truly is a matter of sustained practice over time. However, as I was doing this over and over again, I noticed that I was starting to work out how to travel in one row...and that is when I truly got into it! Got my Ipad out and started drawing...

Over the next few days, yes days...I developed my own pantograph design

Why on earth did I do this...no idea, but I got hugely excited about this and felt like sharing that little achievement. The design itself is not finished...some lines need tweaking and my overlap is somewhat dodgy, so there are changes that will have to be made for it to become usable, but wow, this was a lot of brain teasing fun. I am planning to tidy that up over the coming weeks so that I am able to use this on one of my quilts. Very curious on how this will quilt out in terms of texture.

For my little charity quilt though I decided in the end to do an allover meander as I have got more pressing items on my list that need finishing and no joke...days had passed since I basted that quilt. Looking at it again I thought that the meander would be the best design to grab some of the fullness in certain blocks and distribute that around a bit and with the frequent direction changes in the design it did just that and it turned out beautifully. I do think that the meander design is severely underrated...such a good design to use when you have a bit of a disaster of a quilt in terms of the piecing. The alarming areas of fullness I had in some areas of that quilt do not feature at all after the meander and look all part of the overall picture. Definitely was the right choice!

Well, my tasks from last week were:

- to finish the pattern write up and put it up as a new listing in my Etsy shop✅

- to cut out the material for a new pattern ready to be constructed; the pattern is ready to go in EQ8, just a matter of putting it all together - partially done

- to pin and baste another charity quilt (I think I got two more to go in the bag that I picked up last year from the Orange Tree Quilters group)✅ 

So, for the coming week I have set myself the following tasks:

- to start working on a new pattern, i.e. get off the computer and do some sewing!

- to pin and baste another of those charity quilts and maybe even get it quilted.

Linking up to To Do Tuesday #4 over at Quilt Schmilt 

Karin