First Finish for the FAL 2017 First Quarter

My first finish for the Finish Along 2017 is ready.  My original goal list can be found HERE. I probably should have called the heading 'my first and probably only finish ' for the first quarter. You can read all about the FAL2017 by clicking on the button below

I took the completed quilt for a walk. There is an old wooden picnic set up in our surrounds which is ideal for quilt photography.

The quilt is lap size using Moda charm squares (A Field Guide) which are set around a smaller darkbrown/green square which in turn is framed by some beige rectangles.

This quilt took a very long time to complete (I think I constructed this in 2015 some time)...I underestimated the time it would take to FMQ this and got sick of it fairly quickly as there was a lot of marking involved for the continuous line design in the squares.

For readers who follow my blog you would remember that I got the new Clarity Ruler foot by Accents by Design in the beginning of the year...what a Godsend...this new foot worked brilliantly for me and I was able to finish the line design with just 5 little marks to align my ruler. This was great and I was able to finish the line designs off in a relatively short period of time and then proceed to quilt the narrow lines in the surrounding rectangles. The tight lines were a hassle (what was I thinking!) and I must admit they nearly finished me off, but here it is...finally done!

Very happy with the end result

Onto the next project...

Linking up to the Finish Along 2017 over at Eleven Garden Quilts for the Quarter 1 Link Up

Karin

What a drag!

I have been missing in action largely due to my Field Guide Quilt. As I have listed it with the FAL 2017 I felt that I needed to continue on this UFO.

Let me tell you...this was the most un-enjoyable exercise. I do not know what possessed me but I had decided to adorn this quilt with some more intense quilting, i.e. lines in every beige rectangle. While that seemed all very do-able, it nearly finished me off.

Here are the little rectangles...looking pretty harmless...

Some lines quilted...the problem was that I had gazillions of those rectangles! While persevering I must say...this was not enjoyable nor did it increase my skill level...in fact I started to become fairly sloppy in doing the lines because I just had enough. Nearly put the quilt away again because it was severely putting me behind in some of my other endeavours. Finally realised that I actually do not like quilting pieced quilts at all. Maybe a bit of a motif here and there or some allover design, but not this somewhat brainless repetition. For me, that just about killed all inspiration or enjoyment in finishing this quilt.

While I love FMQ, I love the blank canvass of a Wholecloth. Even though you also do a fair bit of repetition in a Wholecloth, it somehow feels different, as you are building a picture. This is missing for me in a pieced quilt, or maybe it was just this quilt. Nevertheless I forced myself to keep going, doing a few rectangles every night...looking at the quilt, I did not feel that I was making any progress at all! I started counting the rectangles in order to assure myself that I actually was making progress, but even that did not help as it appeared to be endless. In the end I gave up and just blindly stitched these rectangles at night...what a pain this was...
but, here it is, FINISHED!! ...only the binding left!

It is just a lap quilt and the work involved was obviously deceiving.

This will be my only finish for the FAL2017 First Quarter as I am now seriously behind in everything else. Washed some fabric today though, itching to get going on another Wholecloth!

Karin

Progress Notes

I finished my ruler work on the Field Guide quilt. If you are following my blog you would have seen that I recently purchased the Clarity Ruler foot from Accents In Design

I will not go on about it in this post...Please see earlier posts HERE and HERE for some information about the Ruler foot. Suffice to say that I LOVE it! It is easy to attach and most importantly stays on, easy to adjust and best of all, it is 'see through', so you can see very clearly where you are going.

My quilt had laid dormant for a good year and while it was not the easiest to practice on I did muddle my way through the gazillions of squares that needed to be filled in. Some look great and others, well, not so great! The important thing for me was to get a grip on eyeballing the 1/4" distance and aligning the ruler correctly and practising quilting with a ruler. I very early figured out that going behind the ruler foot with the ruler is not my thing and followed a particular path that I then did over and over again...with time and more squares, this got easier and I also became a lot faster at completing them. Put a few safety steps for myself into place;
- foot off the pedal when aligning the ruler to prevent accidentally coming down on the ruler; once aligned, lower your foot and move against the ruler
- ruler out of the way when bringing up the bobbin thread to start quilting, and
- not pressing too hard against the ruler foot when following the curves.

As mentioned before, had no issues with thread breakage or tension issues, in fact the stitching quality is really good.

Now I only have to finish the lines in the light-brownish rectangles

Who's brilliant idea was this?? I continued on this the other day and am going through the lines with some speed. This quilt just needs to be finished. Not one of my better works, but too nice to just have lying around as a UFO.

I did do a lot more playing around with the Ruler foot...definitely like it and can highly recommend it. Last year when playing around with rulers I was definitely less sure about quilting with rulers, but I must say this new foot has definitely given me confidence in terms of including some ruler work in my projects.

Karin

WIP: A Field Guide

Back to this...

Decided to quilt a simple line design in the surrounding areas

Looks great, but wow...this is going to take me a long time. Running out of thread in a minute too, so will have to wait until the Quilt Show next week to stock up on that particular colour.

While doing this and getting very bored I thought about the next thing (of course)...

This design is from Cindy Needham's Craftsy class on 'Machine Quilting Wholecloth Quilts', the idea being that you take what you like from this and design your own center medallion. I have got it enlarged and ready to go...this could be good and certainly would stretch me out a bit...

But before this, I am going to make another bag...still not over that bag obsession...

Too much to do...need to get going on the myriad of projects hanging around.

Karin

Long Saga- WIP: A Field Guide

Finally recovered from my cold with the help of some Antibiotics resulting in a Flu shot thanks to a very conscientious doctor...now I am back onto the longest WIP: A Field Study.

As you may have seen, I undid all of my stitching and started again. I stabilised the whole quilt by stitching in the ditch in every seam (painful plus!). That took a while but I have made it through it and the quilt is lying straight and flat and I feel back on track.

Funny, I have now started to FMQ part of the blocks with simple lines...this was my first idea before I got too impatient and wanted to finish it quickly with an allover design.

Would have been good if I had thought about pressing the seams on those beige crosses away from themselves as I now have a nice line running through it. Well, live and learn...overall though I like it. It makes the surrounding squares puff up nicely which actually in itself could be a feature. I will wait and see to determine what exactly I will do with those squares. Maybe some swirls in there? Not sure.

Apart from this I have been drawing up my design for the next pillow challenge over at the Quiltshopgal...given that I was out of action for a while I am not sure whether I will be able to finish the pillow by the end of the month though. We shall see...if all goes well, I will have a pillow out of Dupioni Silk to show. Bit excited about that although am still not sure how to do the marking on the silk. We shall see...

Also need to get a move on writing up my pattern for the Stretched Star quilt and start on my next baby quilt and...and...and...the list goes on!

Until next time

Karin

WIP: A Field Guide - Starting again

Yes, I started again...took all the quilting out

While I liked the pattern and texture , I really did not like it for this quilt. In addition, I had not stabilized the quilt at all, using an unfamiliar batting and I could literally feel how the quilt top shifted around while quilting. I started to have these areas of additional puff in odd spots and the seams were puffing out...

Well, took me a while to decide, but in the end I thought it would be a pity to waste the quilt.

I spent 3 days undoing the quilting...this gave me a lot of opportunity to look at my stitches in some detail. Must say, I stitched this design very well...no hovering on the spot with multiple stitches and the stitch length was actually very good. The clean up of the quilt top took another day, picking out all these little leftovers. Then I re-pressed the quilt and re-basted the whole lot. Given that this is good quality Moda fabric, the stitching lines are not overly visible and the whole thing came out looking good as new.

Unfortunately most of last week I sported a massive head cold, so no progress was made on anything, however I started to stabilize the quilt with my new Wonderfil Invisafil thread in a taupe colour in the last few days. This thread is really nice and will be my choice of thread from now on when I usually would have used Monofilament thread. Never quite liked the Monofilament thread, mainly because it has a shine to it and looks somewhat plastic like and is just so fiddly to sew with. The Invisafil blends in like a dream and is much easier to work with. Highly recommended.

Well, this is how far I got

Nice and flat

One row done

I am following Cindy Needham's advice, stitching down every stinking seam (ESS)...not one of my favourite things to do, but this one really needs it. Recently, Cindy Needham had addressed this issue on her blog which I was reading with interest because I usually skip that step because I am a naturally impatient quilter. I think from now on, I will study my basted quilt tops in a bit more detail and think about this beforehand...on some quilts with a nice sticky cotton batting you probably get away with just doing the overall design if you aim for a medium scale, however on others, like the one above with the wool batting, this just did not work. Lesson learnt.

Once this is done, I will do some FMQ on it. Very curious how all this will work out.

Karin

Am I killing my quilt?

Honest opinions sought...

Started the FMQ of my Field Guide quilt. After some prolonged pondering on the matter, decided on an overall design as the quilt itself actually looks quite busy.

Choose a fairly common design which I found in Christine Maraccini's book 'Machine Quilting Solutions'  under the name of Heat Wave pattern. I think this design runs under various names.

There is really no trying out the design for a bit to see what it looks like and then maybe changing your mind (although I have done this before)...you either go for it or not. I decided to give it a go, seeing that the quilt would not be a heirloom but just a humble lap quilt to put over your knees in winter.

So, made a start and  did not really stop until I had quilted about half of it. Needed to concentrate to get into the swing of things, but also because I have a slightly more puffy batting this time and was in danger of creating puckers when coming too close with the individual hooks.

Well, here it is

Is it just me or have I quilted my quilt away? This photo was taken in front of the window, so I got a really good look at the texture.

Next photo taken in a different room with the texture not quite as prominent.

This is better, but now I am a bit worried...although not much I am going to do about it at this late stage...will continue with it and hope for the best.

The pattern looks quite nice close up, but yes, very textured.

Hmm...not sure

Linking up to Let's Bee Social over at Lorna's blog SewFreshQuilts

Karin

WIP: A Field Guide

Feeling productive. Stitched the Field Guide Quilt together after I had put it away as I really did not like my colour choices.

Who would have thought... put it together and quite liked it again. Not my favourite quilt in terms of colours but not quite as bad as I had thought either.

Not quite sure how to quilt it...overall design could be good but I am also thinking that I could stitch down the beige coloured cross shape at each intersection to make the charm squares stand out more...hmm, so many choices, always very difficult.

Linking up to WIP Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced

Karin

WIP: A Field Guide

I wish this was finished. Two more rows to go. This really is in danger of becoming an UFO...still am not thrilled with it. That's why I need to keep at it...

This looked quite alright when I had designed this in EQ7

The block comes out at 10.5in and looking back at the program it appears that I have drawn it...must have seen it somewhere.














Well, win some, lose some. Who knows, might turn into a beauty once I FMQ it.

Karin