To do Tuesday #86 - Getting BackTo It

Well, it's been at least 3 weeks since I last set some goals. I completely dropped my bundle since then and apart from working on my machine cover have not been doing much else...struggling with motivation which often happens after I finish a major project.

When this happens I need something to 'grab' me and it is usually scrap quilts that do that for me. So I sat down and sorted through my leftover bits and pieces taking out most of the strips that were floating around.

In terms of project I was looking for something that does not require much thought...just mindless sewing. I have got a nice book from the Tilda collection and found a very nice quilt where the author just put strips together in a Chinese Coin arrangement separating the columns by sashings. 

This book is just gorgeous...you can see the strip quilt in the background. The book has a lot of very easy but eye catching designs in very pretty fabrics with some fantastic quilting all over it. Highly recommended! The strip quilt caught my eye as it has feathers quilted all down the strips and some easy quilting designs in the sashings. Looks absolutely gorgeous.

In the book the strips are coordinated in terms of colour and placement. They are also the same size. I am doing mine a bit more haphazardly, i.e. sewing strips of varying widths together to arrive at the required 10-1/2in for the section. I am cutting mine straight, but really, you could also just sew them together in a wonky way.

So, no thinking involved apart from making it long enough to make the 10-1/2in. Here I am using some of the longer strips and just cut them into sections of 4-1/2in, but I also am doing some smaller ones from just little strips that were left over. I already have a stack of them, so this should not take too long. Not sure which colour I will make the sashing, maybe a light grey or beige. We'll see.

This has gotten me a bit more motivated again and today I sorted through my solids and blenders leftovers. Intending to make a very simple scrap pattern for my Etsy shop from that.

In terms of tasks for this week I am intending

- to make a start on the quilting for my background filler project

- make more sections for my strip quilt

- cut out the solids/blender fabric requirements for another little scrap quilt to go in the Etsy shop.

- continue with my knitting of the second sock that I started a couple of months ago (it's almost spring here!)
There are a few other things that have been started over the last few months, but I am leaving them off the list for now as this would just become overwhelming. For now I just need to get back into it.

Linking up to To Do Tuesday #86 over at Quilt Schmilt.

Karin

Bernina Q20 Cover

Well, it's been 2 weeks since I started my cover for the machine. It has only taken me 3.5yrs and a bit to tackle this, so this was it. It had to be done.

I have come to the conclusion that I am definitely not a sewist. I might be a good quilter but I am sadly lacking some of the skills for straight sewing.

I followed two patterns (by Beverly Guhl and Terry Burns) that can be found in the Bernina FB group. I used the two as I also needed a slot for my side thread spool which one of the patterns had, so I just combined them. I made my panels, quilted them in a grid...time consuming but no problem!

Then came the zipper which had to run over the front of the machine and down the side in a curve. Beverly Guhl also suggested that it could run down the middle but I did not want my zipper to go over the front screen (at that stage I was still unsure how the sizing would work out for the cover). I bought some zippers and gave it a go. Total fail as I did cut into the zipper on the curve and it became an almighty mess of unravelling zipper. Then I discovered that the size for the zipper in one pattern was wrong...I needed a smaller one. So off I went again and bought two more zippers. While there I also bought some bias tape and fabric glue, but more on that later.

I managed to put the zipper in

Not easily but it was in! The zipper extends slightly over the size of the cover on the bottom. Not sure what to do about that, so I just left it dangling. Might bent it back and sew to the inside. I am definitely not cutting it!

After that I needed to sew the individual panels together. Had not thought about this before, but they all needed to be sewn to the top and then at a 90 degree angle to the side. Now, this pattern uses double batting which I did use and the bulk became rather challenging in terms of bending it around and the bigger the cover got, the harder it became to maneuver this through the sewing machine.  My little sewing station is set up for piecing blocks and lightweight quilt tops, not this monster of a contraption. This took several days. After that I attached the binding to the bottom. God knows why, but I thought I might try to sew the binding to the back and then stitch in the ditch catching the back. Never tried this so this was a good opportunity, so I thought. I glued the binding to the back with my new fabric glue...fabulous! Then I stitched in the ditch with Invisafil thread and hit the back seam sometimes but not all the time, so in the end I had to go around and stitch it all by hand anyway. Did not take the ditch stitching out but just went over it again by hand. This binding is never coming off.

Then came the open slot for the threadmast. Had never done binding to an inner angle before and spent hours googling this. Tried to use the bias tape I bought. Again, total fail on the corners. I followed a very intricate method where you have to be very precise in the corner with measuring your 1/4in seam precisely and hitting the right spot as you turn. At the thickness of the batting and the unruliness of the cover that just did not work at all. In the end, I used 'normal' binding and followed a method where you snip into the corner, then pull the 90 degree angle into a straight line and hope for the best. That worked mostly in terms of the mitering. Not that pretty, but it is a corner.

So here is the finished cover

The slot for the thread spool could have been a bit smaller, but the pattern stated 4in from the seam line so that is what I went with. I measured the threadmast contraption and also made my cut out a bit wider than both patterns stated. Looking at it now, it probably could have been the 4in it stated.

Looks very slender but the size is perfect. While it looks as if it fits like a glove, there is ample space all around. It does not sit on the screen directly and also covers the plug in the back. The double batting and grid quilting made the panels very stiff, so it does stand up really nicely. If I had to do it again I think I would explore using a bag stiffening product to reduce the bulk.

All in all, not a bad effort. 

Karin

Machine Cover Project

Have been a bit tardy in keeping up with my blog and several other things this week, but did manage to work on something!

It's been more than 3 years since I have had my Bernina Q20. I never bought or made a cover but just always covered it with a very thin white sheet to keep the dust of when not in use.                          

 

The machine sits in the spare bedroom which is also now the bedroom for our cat. Recently I noticed that the cat had a swipe at it over the front panel, possibly going for the white sheet just hanging over. Lucky for me, the claws were trimmed and it did not leave a scratch but you could see a white faint mark from the trimmed nail. That came off, no problem, but I thought it was time to tackle the cover for the machine.

You can buy a cover, however that is quite expensive. Similarly, Amanda Murphy offers a written pattern which looks quite involved. In the Bernina FB group there are two patterns that generous quilters have put up there that one can follow and people have made the most fanciful covers. Just amazing! Over the years I have looked at that, but always shied away from it as it involves a zipper.

Anyway, I have started my cover having a bit of fun with it. Initially I thought that I just will make a box with an opening for the thread mast, but now have also bought a zipper. We shall see whether that works for me or not. If it does not work for me I can still just sew it together as a box.

This is pretty rough...I did not piece this, but just appliqued the piece of fabric on top, zoomed around it and presto! This is a piece of fabric I had left over from my recent bag making adventure. Just love those cats! In terms of quilting I kept it simple. I used double batting (wool and cotton) to make it more sturdy and just did the simple grid. The loft was unbelievable and going over that with the ruler was precarious as I did not even baste the piece beforehand. Learned my lesson and basted my second panel which made it much easier to quilt (less distortion as I went along).

Currently doing the top parts and when that is finished  I will trim the panels to size. And then comes the zipper. Should be interesting, to say the least, as the zipper has to come from the top to the bottom creating a corner.

Hopefully this will work out as it took ages to do the grids. Mind you I am hopeful that I will get some sort of cover out of this.

Karin

Playing with Rulers

I like to push the boundaries a bit with my sitdown longarm, i.e. see what else I can do on there and how difficult (or not) is it to push my quilt through the machine with the latest ideas I have. Given that I have a draw full of rulers I am always looking for new ideas to use my rulers to complete allover designs.

I recently picked up a panel quilt from the charity group I am involved in. The panel is "Elsa" from Frozen. The quilt is a little bit bigger than the usual baby quilt and measures approx. 47in x 55in. In the past I have often finished those types of quilts with clamshells using the HQ Clamshell ruler. Fun to do and relatively quick. For this one though that would have been too small and I needed another idea. Looked through my draw and decided to use one of Amanda Murphy's circle rulers to do a big Orange Peel design over the quilt.

I picked the 7in circle and started...literally regretted my choice straight away. The 7in ruler fits my whole hand. Thinking I would just go around and around I thought that this would be quick and easy. Wrong! The ruler shifted of course with the movement of the quilt. As you have to backtrack over one part of the circle as you move along that became quite difficult, particularly starting off with the batting making everything more wobbly and moveable. I struggled big time...

Solution: those little rubbery draw liners. Cut myself two pieces off and placed them under the ruler for every circle I did.

So much for quickly quilting this out, but at least my backtracking worked out nicely. The size of the ruler made it challenging to move along, but as I now was committed to finishing this off, I had to think this through a bit better. An added challenge was the wool batting. It does give you a fair amount of loft, so I had to concentrate and go slowly to ensure my hopping foot stayed on the side of the ruler. The way I quilted around the ruler involved shifting my hands constantly to hold the ruler next to the foot steady while at the same time adjusting the quilt a number of times as it was always shifting sideways as I went around the ruler. All this while holding the ruler in exactly the same place to get the backtracking right.

Must say I was not confident that this would work. A few rows in I measured where I was up to in relation to the bottom edge. I was pretty sure that my circles were not straight across and that I had lost my way. To my surprise I was spot on...same distance on both sides. This was encouraging!

Gave it a bit of a visual...not too bad. Not perfect by any means but overall looked quite good. Every now and then the shape in the middle of the circle looked a bit off center but that had to do with me not always hitting the exact point where the circles meet. I let go of worrying about that because there was just too much going on in terms of stitching, holding the quilt, avoiding drag and keeping the ruler steady.

Stitching along...

As per usual half way through I turned the quilt around and quilted the circles towards me. Struggled with the drag of the quilt at that point and also thought that my circles were really going out of alignment. Turning the quilt at that point is always good as you now pushing it in the opposite direction and those inaccuracies are starting to disappear.

Was very curious how I would go approaching the top of the quilt and prepared myself for an uneven finish. But, lo and behold...more or less finished evenly across the top. That was a bit surprising seeing the pushing and shoving I had to do... 

Took the basting out and had a close look but cannot take a photo at the moment as it is evening over here and the shots would come out too dark. Will post a shot of the finished quilt in another post. 

Overall happy with my efforts...looks fairly consistent even though my circles shifted slightly to the left but I don't think that that is noticeable once the binding is on as it is only by about a quarter inch.

Might try this again on a smaller quilt using the smaller 5in circle.

 

Karin

Festival of Quilts 2024

I had the bestest time at the show! The atmosphere was great, the vendor hall so very tempting and on top of that I had the biggest surprise on the day.

As my readers would know (I talked about this for weeks on end) I entered my wholecloth quilt into the show. I have entered quilts before in the show and was familiar with the process. Normally if you win an award you do get a phone call a few days before to attend the award presentation. Well, I did not get a phone call so told everyone in the family that I did not win an award this year. Went to the show on the Friday to take some photos of my quilt and spent some money in the vendor hall. Had a fabulous time and was just at the Wonderfil stand when a friend texted me from the show grounds congratulating me!!! She sent a photo of my quilt. I was absolutely stunned and somewhat gobsmacked. Had not looked at the display as yet and actually went over to have a look. 

Won two awards: First place in my category which was 'Other Techniques' and also a Special Award for Excellence in Machine Quilting. Made my day...I am so very pleased with this.

Apparently somebody forgot to ring for this category. Bit of a pity that I did not get to the award presentation, but realistically I could have gone of course even if I did not win, however it was a rainy and very cold evening so I did do some knitting instead.

So finally I can share some process photos which I have been waiting for:

Finished project: can honestly say that this is probably the first time I was really happy with every aspect of my workmanship (...and this is big for me, does not happen that often!)

The centre motif: stitched with a combination of rulers, freehand and also used one of Cindy Needham's stencils (rope) for the inner border.

Lots of feather arrangements

Amish Curling Feather border: put the learnings from one of Bethanne Nemesh' workshop ( I think it was called Feather Fiesta) into practice

Lots of texture: chose to do mainly tiny lines in the background. While the main elements were stitched with Aurifil 50/2 thread I did use 100wt Invisafil thread of the same colour to totally flatten the background. Included a little bit of a microstipple in the feather centers, however that was tedious and very heavy-going on the eyes. 

I am so glad I finished this. This was a design that I started back in 2018 when I did a workshop with Cindy Needham. Was so enthused in her class that I drew up an entire wholecloth in the class. I was going to stitch this out but as the design needed several tidy ups never quite got around to it. Over the years then I altered the design several times...never quite happy with it until last year when I finally had enough and spent the time to finalise the design.

Well, onto the next project...

Karin

Another Tote Bag - to Do Tuesday #79

This is what I was supposed to be doing last week:

- finalise my quilt show entry ...only need to put a cover on the label, prepare my bag and that's it!)

- finish the quilting-in-the-ditch on my background filler project

- continue to knit in the evenings ( currently trialing a raglan jumper and also need to make a start on a second sock)

- keep looking at my Etsy shop until the pressure becomes so great that I will actually start on a new pattern.

Well, have not done a lot of this other then getting my quilt show entry ready. Instead I tidied up my sewing room a bit (always dangerous) and found this

The cool cat fabric...bought at a quilt show, I cannot even remember how long ago. Had just enough for two panels and with that I got side tracked into making another bag.

I used an old pattern from Rebecca Mae Designs called the Victoria Tote bag. I made this bag several times already over the years for myself and also my daughters. The bag is just so useful...just the right size to carry all the essentials, with a zippered pocket to put your phone or the house keys in and it holds your water bottle comfortably as well. Always liked this bag and have used mine a lot. So rather than looking for a new pattern I used this tried and trusted pattern again.

Turned out lovely

Nice and sturdy. Would have been great if I would have had more fabric to match the cats up on each side, but I only had two identical panels, so the sides do not match. Still is fun to look at and I actually used the fabric for what it was intended for.

For the remainder of the week I will put down only one task because next week is the quilt show week and I know that I will not be doing much.

In the meantime I will try to finish off my stitching in the ditch on my background filler project. Almost done, only a few more lines to go and then the fun of Freemotion will start in earnest.

Linking up to To Do Tuesday #79 over at Quilt Schmilt.

Karin

Quilting With Invisafil - To Do Tuesday #78

Last week I planned for:

- 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). - Well, I did look at it, but that's about all!

I started on my background filler project with the rather tedious task of quilting in the ditch. As this is an improvisational piece the quilting in the ditch has to be done largely freehand. A definite skill to practice! I am using Invisafil 100wt from Wonderfil Threads for the most invisible stitch in the ditch Using three different colours:

Antique White on the left, Orange (in the background) and Nude on the right (Yep, started another thread collection). I could have used just the nude colour...this would have blended nicely with everything as Invisafil does blend into the colour you are quilting, but given that I had the other colours as well, I used them for the most invisible finish.

Many people find Invisafil fiddly. Must say I don't...I have my tension on the lower end (on the Bernina Q20 on 2.25), use Decobob prewounds (80wt) in the bobbin and go in manual mode rather slowly. Never had any issues with that.

The thread just sinks in and virtually becomes not noticeable. Gives a really nice finish. Also made use of my new foot, the 72 S...a ruler foot with a slit, so you can switch between sewing feet if you need to without cutting your thread. Actually forgot that I got this...I have a couple of straight lines in this piece and only remembered when I was about to change the foot. 

So, I am working away at this, hoping that I can start the freemotionquilting some time next week.

For the remainder of the week I am going to

- finalise my quilt show entry ...only need to put a cover on the label, prepare my bag and that's it!)

- finish the quilting-in-the-ditch on my background filler project

- continue to knit in the evenings ( currently trialing a raglan jumper and also need to make a start on a second sock)

- keep looking at my Etsy shop until the pressure becomes so great that I will actually start on a new pattern.

Linking up to To Do Tuesday #78 over a Quilt Schmilt.

Happy Quilting

Karin