Quilt Along #38 - Lost Data

Continuing with Leah  Day's Quilt Along Wednesdays. This design follows on from Jagged lines from last week and is called Lost Data.

Time to share some 'not so great' stitching.

 

Had major issues with the design...tried it twice and cannot say that I got any better at it. The first trial was on the greenish looking Batik fabric. I don't think my machine liked this. Had some issues with the actual stitching as well as the design. Particularly going backwards seemed to create some wobbly stitches. Left it for a day and came back to it, however the Jagged Lines just did not work for me. I don't think I managed once to put a gap in my design in the middle. I think I have some sort of problem with the angles of the zig-zag lines. Maybe I am doing them too tight and that then leads to some awkward angles....no idea really,  but somehow I seem to always end up with really odd, hard to manage spaces, often veering completely to the side. Thoroughly enjoyed the Zippling though...

Might have to stick with Flowing Lines for the border of my practice quilt.

Linking up to Leah Day's Quilt Along Wednesdays on the Freemotion Quilting Project.

Until next time

Karin

Quilt Along #29 - hearts

This week on Leah Day's Quilt Along Wednesdays Leah showed us how to combine hearts (you can use any other shape you might like) with the 5 designs that we have been learning so far: Stippling, Zippling, Circuit Board, Loopy Lines and Sharp Stippling.

If you are wanting to improve your FMQ I highly recommend this Quilt Along. I am really noticing the improvement in my FMQ skill level compared to the beginning of the year. I can now sit down (even after a little break) and just go for it...I am far less concerned about imperfections and seem to have developed my own little rhythm that produces stitches that are on the whole pretty decent.

Here is my practice piece:

This is good fun

Close up

Using other shapes

The star is commonly used with the loops. Every time I do this, I have to stop and think which way to approach it, otherwise I get it wrong...very effective though and such a great playful design. I like the little leafy design...saw something like that in one of my quilting books and it seems to flow for me for some reason. That design seems to look good no matter how wonky you make the leaves and the veins really set it off. I wonder what else I could combine this with. Ran out of thread so I stopped here and continued on my UFO.

No questions...can't wait for the next design.

Until next time

Karin

Quilt Along #22-Wonky Block Quilt

Finished my wonky block quilt. I am really happy that I decided to do this one in the last minute even though I am still limping a week behind. Learned so much from doing this and I am really pleased with the outcome.

First of all - scale: kept loosely to a scale of a little bit less than 1/2 inch; that worked for most designs, but I discovered that some designs worked better at a 1/4 inch for me, i.e sharp stippling

Also, found this exercise really quite liberating as there was no point focusing on stitch quality. Had I done this, I would have gone mad. There are many issues in there...tiny stitches, wonky stitches and just plain ugly stitches but I found that the eyes seem to only see the majority of the stitching which looks absolutely fine. I was actually quite amazed by that and hence stopped worrying about it.










A look at the individual designs:

Loopy Lines design:
  

Not a problem but a bit tricky to fit into some areas depending on which direction you came from.

Sharp Stippling:

 Bit nervous about this one as I had read in some other posts that people had issues with that. I did two areas of this, one in a loop section and one larger area displayed above. As it turned out, I did two different scales. The above one is quilted at about 1/4 inch and that suited me somewhat much better. Once I got into the rhythm of this it just flowed and the effect is quite pretty. I think I prefer the design at this scale.

Zippling:

This was a big surprise to me...loved it. I am born to zipple. Worked like an absolute dream, could zipple myself out of any corner, had no issues with direction and the whole thing just flowed. Not sure I followed Leah's example of what this should actually look like. Seemed to develop my own way of doing this and have some pretty odd shapes in there. But again, the eye only sees the majority of the design which is consistently zig-zaggy enough. I was most impressed with this. Definitely will use this again.

Circuit Board:



Absolutely dreaded this one and nearly chickened out. Funny enough my brain does not appear to be wired for this one. Only worked for me after I drew myself a loose grid across the entire area (about 1.5 inches). This way I was surrounded by horizontal and vertical lines - while I did not quilt within those boxes I could always see the lines in the corner of my eyes. Not one of my favourites, even though it looks quite nice.




 Here is the end result.

Wonky Block Quilt 51" x 42.5"

Just need to find a proper name for this quilt and make a label.

Thank you, Leah, from Leah Day's Quilt Along Wednesday for this great project. Learned heaps from it and (bonus) this was just the right idea for this fabric.

Questions I had from last Quilt Along (which I posted too late):

- how far do you quilt to the edge of the quilt?

- does anybody have any tips on how to remove blue chalk marks (the variety that is used for dressmaking? The packet says to use a damp cloth which I tried and it does not just dissolve, so I am wondering if it is going to come out at all.

- I have a Pfaff machine and have a drop-in bobbin case - would you use the Magic Bobbin washers with that?

Until next time

Karin

Quilt Along #16

I was quite happy when Leah Day announced we are having a break during the month of May. Things have been hectic for me at work and most of last week I was sick, so I generally lost a bit of direction.

On the weekend I finally sat down and went through my stash...that was a bit of an overwhelming experience. There are a lot of potential projects in there, one more enticing than the other. While going through I came across a packet of some 20 fat quarters (blenders in all sorts of colours). I got this some years ago when I renewed my subscription to one of the quilting magazines. No idea what I was saving them for. I now decided to use them for the continuation of our Quilt Alongs with Leah Day...initially I thought I would prepare some squares, practice new designs on them and then sew them together using the QAYG method, however I have now decided to actually make a quilt top similar to Leah Day's Batik quilt...mine will just be a smaller version of  blender squares with some sashing and a border, so all I have to do for the Quilt Alongs is to get that out and practice the design on it. While the QAYG method is a good option, knowing myself it will sit there for another couple of years. This way I should have a quilt top finished by the end of the Quilt Alongs.

I have now started my 'An Arrangement of Small Pieces' project. Here are the first three blocks...decided after all to stick to one colour per block.

An Arrangement of Small Pieces

The blocks come together quickly and I will be able to chain-piece 3 - 4 at a time, so this now looks all very manageable and should be reasonably quick (already have another design in mind which I am quite excited about).

Then tried some Zippling...I did not think that I would like the design that much as I have tried something similar before and my brain just could not handle the straight lines. Well, this time it went very smoothly. While I did not have particular shapes in mind, I just zig-zagged along and it turned out quite well and I actually found it easier to interlock than the Sharp Stippling. Fun design to play with.

Zippling

Until next time

Karin