Microstippling Completed

I finished the microstippling!

Hilarious...I love the back of this quilt almost better than the front.

 

 

Looking forward to the next part...more feathers.

Karin

Microstippling

Finished the major quilting in my quilt and am doing the surrounding areas. Decided to microstipple in the black surround with black thread...what craziness!!

Had to put all the lights on in the room plus use my OTT-Light...in the end I had to lay down the OTT- Light behind the foot shining directly onto the area to see where I was going (and even then it was a bit of a challenge).

Probably hard to see in photos but turned out quite alright...flattened it nicely and like always - not a line crossed (I wish).

Having major problems also with the bearding on this quilt. I am using a bamboo batting that I had left over. I distinctly remember thinking about the bearding when I was doing another project (which was a light project and did not impact that much) but obviously had forgotten about this when it came to this quilt. THIS IS IT...I am not using bamboo batting again. While the batting is nice and soft and easy to quilt, the bearding is actually quite bad and is distracting when FMQ, particularly in the black areas...quite a hassle to clean that up before you can even start quilting. Not looking forward to the outer boarder which is all black and at the moment looks like fluff all over.

Well, on with the show...once I have finished this I am thinking of doing more feather work in the borders.

Heading over to FMQ Friday at the Freemotion Quilting Project with Leah Day.

Karin

WIP: Colour Adventure Project

It's been a while that I linked up to WIP Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced. So here is how far I got along on the quilt that I called 'The Colour Adventure'...a hugely bright and bold quilt that was a bit of an experiment in colour placement. Got a bit very bright for my liking and is a bit out of my comfort range but I am in the process of finishing it off (I think I started this some time in January...ended up getting side tracked a fair bit starting several other WIPs).

 

Linking up to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.

Karin

Disaster Averted

It had to happen one day....a whole cup of coffee was spilled over the table runner on the dining table.

I thought I take the opportunity to share how I wash and dry my quilts as I am often asked about this.

First at all, my quilts are for use and hence should withstand washing in the machine on a gentle cycle. I have found people are really reluctant to put quilts in the washing machine. I have learned very quickly that the more quilted a piece is, the better it washes and the distortion is fairly minimal and a gentle cycle should do it no harm.

Now for the soiled table runner...I  did not put it in the washing machine as it needed to be rinsed straight away. I used cold water...experience has taught me that cold water is the way to go to avoid stains. Coffee came out straight away and no stain was left, so I put a bit of washing detergent in to wash it a bit....yes, the red fabric started to bleed a bit (and I am pretty sure I washed this fabric beforehand!), so I put a colour catcher into the water to avoid a major disaster. As it continued to run ever so slightly, I used vinegar in the end to made the dye more stable and that did the trick.

After rinsing a number of times (all in cold water), I  rolled the runner up like you would do with woollen clothing and gently squeezed out the excess water. Then I put it outside on the clothes hanger and gently stretched it into its normal rectangular shape and let it sit there for the rest of the day and night. I only put it on the washing line once it was almost dry for the wind to go through, so that there was no distortion. Came out absolutely brilliant.



Linking up to Anything Goes Linky Party at Stitch by Stitch

Karin

WIP: Colour Adventure...Saga Continues

If you missed it, I posted about the saga of the Colour Adventure quilt earlier in the week (see the post Here)

I did ponder over my FMQ for a while...in the end I decided that the design was the wrong scale as well as quilted with the wrong colour. While it was beautiful in itself the design was competing with just about everything around it. This did not fit with the vision that I had for his quilt. For a moment there I also thought about going back to my initial idea of quilting concentric circles, however thought I better give myself a day or so to just look at it.

Anyway, I ended up sticking with the swirls design. Just had too much fun stitching them. However, I changed the thread and choose colours that just blend in. Also reduced the scale as this was meant to act as a filler and not an overall design.

I am now using Rasant, a matte Polyester thread as I was able to get most colours in that...for the multi colored sections surrounding the centre I used a taupe thread...I had read that this blends in well, so I thought I give that a go.  Had to look up 'taupe' in the dictionary as I was not even sure what colour that was. While I do not like the colour much, I must say it does blend in extraordinarily well.

This is how far I got...

Taupe thread for surrounding areas - blends in like magic



Red area next to star - now taking a backseat with smaller scale swirl and red thread

On left larger scale design still to be changed

Love the back

The quilting now blends in and just gives me the texture I wanted and the star is back to being definitely the centre of attention...just how I envisaged this. This quilt is so bold and colorful, the quilting really needs to take a backseat, otherwise it is just too much for the eyes to take in and you loose what you want people  to look at. As much as I prefer stitching with a light-coloured thread on dark fabric, it is just not appropriate for this quilt.

Would have been good if I had thought this through a bit earlier. Mind you, also discovered a new little trick to get rid of the stitching marks. Used the steam from the iron and just lightly hovered over the area without actually touching the fabric. The steam going through fluffs up the batting again and the majority of those little stitching holes disappear...good as new, was quite impressed.

Linking up to Leah Day's  FMQ Friday on the Freemotion Quilting Project.

Karin

WIP: Colour Adventure Saga

What do people think of this...?? Brutal honesty appreciated!

I got carried away yesterday (my day off and had the whole day to myself)...started the swirl pattern and just kept going. I was so focussed on the swirls that I did not pay a lot of attention to anything else. When I stopped and looked at it, I was not so sure that I actually liked it. Does this happen to you (at least sometimes)?

The design looks bold and somewhat exuberant and I think it just about competes with everything else around it, both in scale and design. I then tried out my initial idea (not sure what really happened and why I did this impromptu change) of quilting concentric circles in those spaces.

That looks much better, I think. It fills the space in a structured and quiet way and flattens out the area. Well, here comes the next problem, i.e. my idea of using the light green thread is not going to work with this design because of the backtracking. I tried this on the orange fabric and it looked absolutely hideous.

On the upside, I did get a good rhythm going on the swirls in that bold, daring and exuberant way. I really did appreciate quilters saying that you need to make patterns your own...that was the only way to actually be able to execute this pattern in order to fill a defined space. Just not sure that this is the right pattern for this quilt.

I will look at this for a while longer...bit unsure which way to go.

Karin

Cheryl's Quilt

This is my colleague, Cheryl's quilt...her first machine pieced quilt (she usually pieces by hand)

It's gorgeous. I love the colours of the Carpenter's Star and the old pink background. The pink and green seem to go so well together.

Why am I showing this? Cheryl did this quilt 2 years ago and when it was finished put it away. Unfortunately she had a very bad experience with having it machine quilted by a longarm quilter which literally wrecked the appearance of the quilt. We were looking at this today and seriously, it is quite unbelievable...in fact, the whole story is quite unbelievable...

here are some close ups:

This is the pattern...huh?!

 

Horrendous stitching all around

 

The quilt came back with several cuts in it



Puckers galore on the back



I could show you more but will spare you...it is actually quite painful to look at this. Apparently she did take this up with the quilter at the time but was told that her quilt was not well constructed, hence those mishaps. When looking at it today, I thought that this was a bit of a cheap excuse...yes, the points do not match exactly and it may not have been dead straight, but that does not account for the poor workmanship and certainly does not excuse actually damaging the quilt. If this was unquiltable, where was the phone call back to Cheryl saying...I don't think I can quilt this with my longarm.

I have seen work by some very talented longarm quilters, so hopefully this is an isolated example of really poor quality and one also hopes that this longarm quilter is out of business by now, but I reckon it serves as a reminder to check the work of the quilter that you are entrusting your quilt to and to be clear about beforehand what you accept and what is simply unacceptable.

Anyway, we decided today to rescue this quilt... (and may live to regret it). We will undo the stitching which should be quite easy as the stitches are incredibly loose, then take it off, repair some of the seams that have been ripped (probably fro trying to stretch it), and re-baste it and see what can be done.

Any ideas about the cut in the fabric...the cut above is the largest (the other ones are more like little nips here and there and can be quilted over)...not really sure what one could do with that.

This should be very interesting...

I am linking up with Anything Goes Linky Party at Stitch by Stitch in the hope that someone has some ideas about the cut in the fabric

Karin