Patience

You have to laugh...I have been ditching away for the last two days on another charity quilt from the Orange Tree Quilters. I was going to try out my new Natalia Bonner Mini 4n1 ruler on an actual quilt but things never go to plan.

When I unpacked the quilts I picked up the other day, I saw that I got another Patience Corners quilt. Last time I did an overall Baptist fan which looked nice, but this time I wanted to do something different. Given I wanted to try out the ruler, I patiently ditched along all the seams...not my favourite thing, but I thought I may as well practice my stops and starts. After all these years, I am still burying my threads rather than just cutting them off like longarmers do.

The quilt is loud and very pink, but I was surprised how different it looked when I had most of it ditched. It really made those pink squares stand out. Very cool!

My practice of starting and stopping was really needed. The Bernina Q20 has a tie off function which I really like when starting off. You can set it so that the machine makes 4 - 5 stitches on the spot and then stops. It makes the most invisible and tidy tie off, however so far I have always buried the threads even with the tie off. This time I double secured my thread with some added tiny stitches and soon found that I was was able to just cut the thread off at the beginning. Stopping was a different matter...I approached this in reverse...tiny stitches, tie off and then had a look what that looked like. Somehow I could not get that right for half the quilt...when tugging on the thread, I felt that there was too much give and I often ended up burying them again. However, I finally got it and was able to just cut my threads off...looked fabulous on the back for most of it and given that I had the tiny stitches beforehand absolutely nothing became loose. This was a great help, otherwise it would have taken me double the time to complete, if not more. I really need to get used to doing this, saves so much time.

Then, finally I was ready to go on the quilt with a ruler only to realise my 4n1 Mini ruler (the smaller curve) was not big enough to get me to the center of the block. Doing my design with the bigger curve ended up too skinny. The square is over 4in...obviously did not try this out beforehand in my planning.

So back to the good old ProEcho rulers from Lisa Calle. Used the 5in Pro Echo curve ruler to give me the curve that I wanted and used a smaller one to do the curves in the black squares. I had to use the purple thread as the backing is a deep purple. Tried a hot pink thread with the purple in the bobbin but the pokies you inevitably get here and there were just annoying me. I don't usually stitch with darkish thread so this is also a bit of an experiment.

Might look a bit too floral, but will try this...could look interesting because it will go under in some of the squares and only stand out in the light ones. That could be a cool effect. Had looked at other designs but wanted something that is continuous as I don't want to backtrack or do the squares individually as that would take me too long. This way I can can travel along on the diagonal over the entire quilt.

Hmm...this could either look really good or be a bit much for the eyes. We shall see...

Karin

Another Little Project

I am really into 'clean up' mode lately. Found leftovers of a pastel quilt I made the year before last out of a Fat Quarter bundle called Foxglove Gardens by Leanne Beasley for Ella Blue fabrics. I made a baby quilt out of that with pretty pink birds on top...even used some of the Fat Quarters for a pieced backing and still had heaps of fabric left. So I cut myself a Charm Square stack and just sewed them together (still got fabric left!).

Colours look a bit dodgy in this photo...it does look better in real life.

Further trialled the Aurifil Monofilament thread for the ditch work...yep, no issues, performed very well for me. Did not break or do anything else weird, just easy sewing. Had my tension very low as before and used a simple thread net. For the bobbin I used Aurifil 50/2 thread. I am using a wool/poly batting so the squares puffed up nicely.

Today I finished the ditching and started on the ruler work. I am using Lisa Calle's Pro Echo ruler #12 for a bit of practice. It is a rather large ruler and initially I struggled to hold it tight. In fact, I realised that I have to stop half way down the curve to re-position my hands otherwise I loose the grip on the ruler ever so slightly and have inaccuracies on the point. While I sort of knew this I was initially being lazy and trying to go down the curve in one go...yep, definitely needed to slow down and re-position my hands as the ruler just gently slides sideways.

Love doing curves and absolutely love Lisa Calle's rulers. Might have to invest in the #10 one...might be easier to hold on a sit down machine. I initially bought #12 and #8 and given I loved them so much then invested in the small Pro Echo set (which goes up to #7), so I am missing a few curves in between. Use these curves all the time, particularly the smaller ones.

Not sure yet exactly where this is going to go in terms of quilting. The idea originally was to just do a simple line design over it and be done with it...we'll see where this will take me.

Karin

Let's Do Some Rulerwork #1

For the first of our Ruler Linky Party I would like to draw your attention to a class I was made aware of by Quiltshopgal some time before Christmas. It's Patsy Thompson's 'Beginning Free Motion Quilting with Rulers' offered through the Missouri Star Quilt Company. As the title suggests it is a class for beginners, however as it was relatively inexpensive and I absolutely love Patsy Thompson's teaching style I jumped on the opportunity. I figured that there are always hints and tips that I can pick up from watching her videos.
The class covers basic stuff about ruler quilting including information about measuring/marking, ruler feet, how to stitch with a ruler and alignment, and some information about rulers. In the class Patsy is making a basic table runner using a straight line design, arcs and curves. I was particularly interested in the marking of the designs and producing accurate channels, so I followed along making a slight variation of this table runner.

So I did some straight line design, curve design and arched swags. I used my Pro Echo 7 and 12 for the curves and arcs. Should have probably chosen some more contrasting fabric and thread as this was very hard to photograph.

...and then I did some filling in to just practice different designs

Gone a bit overboard practicing some crosshatching with the Pro Echo12 ruler (still find that very challenging) and also some more piano keys with the HQ Line Grid ruler. And...as you can see...stuffed the curves up a bit by filling them with a darker thread which makes the filler design stand out more than the curves. Live and learn (I think Patsy did mention this, but I was just so bored with the coordinating thread). What did I learn?
- measuring your border (for each design) down to 1/8in was absolutely essential
- marking your center lines correctly (and, if need be, correcting them slightly after your first pass) is important to have all the points align on the same line (easier said than done!)
- alignment of your ruler to hit that little tick mark each time is crucial
- picked up a neat little hint on judging the alignment when doing arcs, using this little tool (which I had floating around in my sewing box)...just holding the little 1/4in notch against your ruler to double-check that you are actually 1/4in away from your tick mark...this was very helpful when wanting to be precise.

Great class!

Now its your turn to share what you have been making with rulers.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Karin

Deciding On A Quilting Design

The Fancy Foot block is cute, but left me scratching my head for a suitable quilting design. I had decided to do ruler work instead of an allover design. I have a whole bag full of rulers by now and the best way to become really familiar with them is by using them on a quilt. I find that it does take a bit of practice to work out how to align them, the best way to hold them and which one you might prefer for which job. But first, I had to come up with something...

This took a lot of doodling on the Ipad...tried all sort of things and in the end decided to go for some straight lines to stitch down the elongated triangles in order to emphasize the circular nature of the 'foot', then do some simple curves in the square sections and some pebbles in the middle to make the middle section recede. Worked out a stitching path diagram which took the longest time...somehow I find that incredibly difficult to visualize, so out came the Ipad again.

Realised today that this may need to be revised as I did not stitch one seam down...not sure whether I like this or not as the 'foot' is puffing out a bit.

Happy with the arrangement though.

I used the following rulers for this first part:
- Pro Echo3 &5 (all time favourite shown above)
- Ditch ruler (shown above)
You would have seen the circles in the sashing. Thought I give that a try...used the long Skinny ruler to quilt a 1/4in echo and then used the 1/4in Swiss Cheese ruler. My sashing is 1 1/2in wide, so I used the 3/8in Echo foot to make the circle exactly 1in.

Was a bit impressed with that...have only really played around with the Swiss Cheese ruler on practice samples but was encouraged by the first lot that I did. Accuracy was a must as the circle fits exactly in that space with not a millimeter to spare. At this stage I also realised that I needed to do the sashing first before the dense quilting would compact the areas...so continued on that today...

Well, alignment  was an issue...I had drawn myself a center line in my sashing but somehow that did not work so well, possibly because I was drawing on the sandwiched piece, so my line was not necessarily exactly in the middle. Also, of course, my quilt is not sitting tightly on a frame but is scrunched up all over the place which does affect the alignment of things. After a while I started to eyeball this a bit, however the eye is trained for 1/4in, not 3/8in. To my surprise, at least in one of the long sashings I found that if I aligned the side markings of the circle exactly at the top of the sashing, I hit both echo lines spot on. I spent a lot of time looking at this as this made absolutely no sense, however it worked! I suspected that I was shifting the ruler ever so slightly as I was doing the circle because I was holding on too tight trying to concentrate on staying on the circle. Anyway, this is how far I got today...

Looks really nice, I think. Planning to do swirls around the applique but will have to finish all the sashing first.

Really enjoying this and getting a very good workout on all the different rulers.

Karin

Ruler Practice Quilt - Pro Echo Rulers

I have been splurging out over Xmas and ordered the small Pro Echo Curve set from Lisa Calle.

The set goes from 3in up to 7in which complements the 8 and 12in curves I already have.

Have I not got enough rulers? Yes, I have...but of all the different rulers that I have, I also am always looking for curves. So, I thought that I take the plunge and order the set. I particularly like the Lisa Calle rulers as they do work  better for me than any other curves that I have used. I completed a baby quilt recently with the 8in ruler. Read more here... This convinced me to get the set, as the alignment was just so effortless and the end result was so consistent.

I finally got around to just have a bit of a 'play' with the new set on my Practice Ruler Quilt. I do a fair bit of practising, as you may have noticed... I really think that it takes a while to get used to different rulers, i.e. how to align them, how to read the lines and how to best hold them. For me it works best if I practice on an actual quilt as I then have to deal with the bulk, how to best position the ruler and hold everything,  and work out which way to quilt, i.e. in front of needle or to the side. This all takes practice.

My initial trial was somewhat sloppy, but already so much better than with other curves.

5, 6, and 7in curve

3in curve

7in curve with 1/4in echo

7in curve grid

Very happy!

Karin

New Rulers

My new arc rulers arrived from the US

They are the Lisa Calle's Pro Echo rulers. I got size 8 and 12 thinking that this is probably of most use to me at this point in time. There is a whole set of sizes available and I would have liked some additional sizes but with postage this is all I could afford without being overly greedy. Husband made remark about  how many more rulers I could possibly need...wow, I can think of plenty more!

I stitched out some arcs in the following sample (first two spaces from top down)

Effortless alignment, very happy with that.

The next 3 spaces of arcs were done with the Westalee Corner Mark Ovals

You might have wondered why I got those...they are extremely useful in creating arcs of different sizes. If you look at the last space, I used the smallest of the three ovals and got five different sizes out of that by just aligning it to the next quarter inch mark. This represents very good value for money and would be very useful for different sashings and smaller borders. If you then look at the bigger ones, there are a lot of sizes in there, so for that reason alone I think they are useful to have in your repertoire of rulers, i.e. able to make just simple arcs, interlocking designs and a variety of orange peel designs, all in a multitude of sizes. This was a better option for me than buying a dedicated swag design set with a few different sizes...found that a bit limiting and wondered how often I would use that. Similarly, did not want to end up buying different size ovals as standalone rulers as I am then limited to a few select sizes. 

That's it for me for a while with rulers...unless I smuggle them into the house 😜

Karin