Quilting Details

The finished quilt! This view is almost like looking out over  a shoreline.

I really like the way the machine quilting turned out. I used a long, slightly wavy stitch in two different widths, so some lines are more wavy than others. This is one of my favorite stitches on my Viking. Each strip (about 3-1/2 inches wide) has three lines of wavy stitches and one line of straight stitches right next to the seam.

It feels so good to have a project done! Next, I'll start the hand quilting of the linen quilt. It's in the frame ... just have to carve out some time.

A Quilt for My Husband

Yup. He asked for a quilt made especially for him. I was so delighted that I dropped everything else (except paying work) to plan it.

The catch is that he had requirements. Blue and beige (good! that describes most of the shirts in my stash), a simple patch layout (not a problem), and nothing chaotic or, um, weird (well, I couldn't promise anything except that I'd try).

The blue and beige kept reminding me of water and sand, waves and shore. So, I went with that.

Near one corner I included a little symbol of help and protection.

The top went together in no time, but it then languished for weeks, a victim of my heavy schedule.

Eventually, I layered it and pinned it ... with fine straight pins, because safety pins are way too thick. They literally tear the tightly woven shirt fabrics. Machine quilting was quite an adventure, but I drew surprisingly little blood. Quilting gloves and a long-sleeved fleece shirt provided fairly good protection. It also helped that the quilting was simple.

Soon, photos of the finished quilt!

Wedding Quilt Photos

I don't much like it, but I have to accept the fact that I disappear from the blogging world occasionally. When the workload gets heavy, and personal commitments multiply, blogging is simply one of the more expendable items. But things are more relaxed now, and I'm looking forward to catching up a bit.

Along with blogging, the wedding quilt got delayed, too. But, it turned out that personally giving it to the newlyweds a couple of weeks late was actually nicer than having it mixed in with all the other gifts. I had time to make a nice label. We got to chat about the fabrics and how I made the quilt. Having the more personal connection was very nice.

This quilt was a perfect fit for quilting each quarter separately and then sewing the quilted parts together. The method is a pain if you need to match the sections (actually, I've never been able to get such sections to match at all), but it's nice when matching isn't an option to begin with. I can't abide leaving overlapped batting in the finished quilt, so there's a lot of fussy trimming and hand sewing, but that's better than maneuvering an entire queen-size quilt sandwich, especially when using straight pins to hold the layers together. (Safety pins are too thick. They break the threads of the mostly tightly woven shirtings.)

I knew right away I'd do an all-over meander. I think it's a nice contrast to the hard, straight edges, not to mention that it's the one type of machine quilting I'm even somewhat competent at. I used leftover thread from my hand quilting of the linen quilt--variegated green and variegated yellow--plus a somewhat strange variegated pink-beige, gold, and green that worked surprisingly well.

This was a fun quilt to make, and I got pretty attached to it. It was hard to give it away!

Four Quarters Done

I've been happily picking fabrics, cutting strips, and sewing---and the four quarters of the wedding quilt are done!

I'm short on well-lighted floor space, but this photo gives the overall idea. Only a few fabrics were used more than once. Two (a very dark blue plaid, and the central orange) I used three times each. So, this top has more than 60 different fabrics.

Here are a few of my favorite fabric combinations. I love the peaches, tans/browns, and off-white next to the red.

I used mostly 2-1/2-inch strips, but sometimes I went with 3 inches, and sometimes on only one side (and the central squares are different sizes, too), so here, I added in the blue/yellow stripe fabric to make up some inches. 

Great rusty and brown colors! The rust and white plaid was all small pieces, so that strip has lots of crazy seams and grain directions.

At first, I thought that the intense red/navy/yellow plaid, the wild multicolored stripe, and even the bright yellow/blue/white stripe would be too much for this quilt, and I set them aside. But by the fourth quarter, I was ready for them, and they look great! 

Now, I need to decide on backing fabric. Time to dig through my stash and see what largish yardage I can find.

All except two of the quilt-top fabrics are clothing, and almost all are men's shirts, which means almost all the fabrics are very fine and tightly woven. Safety pins literally tear the fabric. So instead, I'm going to pin baste with large straight pins and be VERY careful while quilting. The plan is to layer each half of the quilt separately. I'm hoping that working on a 43-inch-wide sandwich, and free-motion quilting a simple, smallish meandering pattern will make the straight pins workable. Leather gauntlets would be nice, too.

Quilting the Plaids

With such a busy week, it's been good to have a relaxed, fun project to work on. Over the past weekend I pin basted and managed most of the machine quilting. Snatching some time one weekday evening, I finished it up.

The quilting really brings it to life and also softens the transitions a bit. Here's a close-up:

I had a few glitches here and there, but overall, this was the easiest and best-looking free-motion quilting I've done. With the spectacularly poor start to my machine-quilting efforts a few years ago, I've since tried to give myself every advantage. I can say that gloves with those little grippy dots, a teflon mat on the machine bed, a set-in table (giving a wide, very flat surface), and plenty of flat table space to the left and the back really help. Still, my Bernina and I were not working well together. I just couldn't get reasonably consistent stitch length. The cramped bed area was annoying. Never knowing when I'd run out of bobbin thread add more frustration. Every project was a high-stress affair, with aching back and genuinely bad quilting. I dreaded doing more. And frankly, that was one reason I started hand quilting.

It was also one of my motivations for getting a new machine, and this is my first free-motion quilting project using it. My Viking Sapphire 870 has five speeds, and speed 3 (a little faster than half) seems to mesh really well with how I move the quilt. It's such a relief to not have to pay attention to foot pressure on the pedal. I just press slowly (the machine has a very smooth start and acceleration) to do a neat start and then put my foot all the way down and concentrate on moving the quilt. Also, I like the spring-action foot. I set the foot lift to it's highest level and increase the tension well above (5.0) what the machine sets as the default (3.0). I love hearing the beeps to let me know I need to shorten my stitches before I run out of bobbin thread! The huge bed space really makes a difference. I actually enjoyed the machine quilting, and the lack of pain in my back was so nice.

It's a good thing this was a quilt without expectations, though. When I had an area just 6 inches by 9 inches to go, I ran out of thread. Completely out. My first reaction was "Oh no!" But then, I thought, "Oh well, what other thread do I have? How about the lavender?"

Works for me.

Next: I have the binding cut. Just need to find time to apply it.

This and That

I can't believe it's been two full weeks since my last post. Yes, I've been wrapped up in work again, but I've been getting in some needle-and-thread time, too. 

Last weekend, I couldn't ignore it any longer. Warm weather had arrived, and I had to start hauling out my really summery clothes. Discovering the alarming number of worn out and stained items spurred me to unearth several lengths of fabric I've been carrying around for literally 20 years, and make a duplicate of a favorite but very worn dress.

Fortunately, it looks better on than in this photo. But in any case, it's primarily a trial run for some better, prettier fabric that I hope to get to soon.

I've been working away on the hand quilting, still with my left hand. It's looking better and going faster, although "fast" is a relative term here.

Here and there, I've found time to make progress on getting the two star quilt tops ready for machine quilting. I made two more large blocks, and I have to transplant one more row of the sashing pieces from the large top to the small one. After that, the small one will need a simple border.

I'm still mulling how to get these quilts basted. Safety pins, straight pins, and spray adhesive are out. I was going to hand baste with small stitches, but the time factor is just too daunting, and besides, the quilting frame is otherwise occupied (forget the floor or even a table). Having a long-armer baste it is a possibility. Thinking a little further outside the box, I figured, what the heck, I'll try using a Flynn frame and water-soluble thread to baste by machine. I don't expect to have particularly good control of the frame, but it's just basting. It's going to be an interesting experiment.

Last but not least, here are a few photos of white-flowered crabapple trees on our grounds. They're really spectacular this year. You'll notice that many of our other trees still don't have their leaves fully out. Spring is on the late side, even for southern Wisconsin.

 

A Quick Update

I've been out of town for a bit and, with one thing and another, haven't had time to post. And today, I discover that Blogger is having issues with  uploading photos, so I'll have to make do with just words for now. 

One of the nonphotogenic things I've been doing lately is gearing up for free-motion machine quilting. My past experiences with this have been poor to mediocre, so I've been trying to honestly assess my problems and figure out ways to get through or around them. 

1. Gloves with gripper dots. A few test runs have been very encouraging!

2. A "slider" mat for the needle area. No real trials yet, but I don't think it can hurt.

3. A table behind the machine to support the quilt better (added to a table to the left and the fact that the machine is set down into a table). 

4. My new sewing machine (an admittedly expensive fix!), which provides a 10-inch bed, auto thread cutting, low-bobbin indicator, and a slightly different (and I think better) feel to how the stitching starts (hoping this helps with those huge-first-stitch problems).

5. Sticking with circular designs. No points or straight lines! And nothing that depends on accuracy.

I'm trying to give myself every advantage! 

Figuring Some Things Out

Well, all that blathering earlier today about my quilter's block regarding the scrap star top made me feel a little better, but what really helped me was a little trip to Lazy Gal Quilting. Looking at Tonya's hand quilting is always nice, and I browsed through her past posts to see some more examples. 

Lo and behold, there was a photo incidentally showing some of her hand basting---with really short stitches. Why didn't I think of that myself?! Yes, it will take more time than the traditional long stitches I've always seen, but it will hold the layers better and the stitches won't be nearly as likely to get caught on things while machine quilting. This just might work! The other downside is, of course, picking out the threads from under the machine quilting, but I'm willing to deal with that, too. Thanks, Tonya!

I'm even getting excited about the prospect of marking some simple designs and trying to follow the lines. Hey, I have a new machine now, with a giant 10-inch bed, and my first attempts at some machine quilting on it were encouraging. I think the way the foot works keeps the quilt more stable than on the old machine.