April Finishes

I spent a lot of time re-making samples of some of the stuff that was stolen. This table runner is an example:

Here’s a closeup of one of the centers:

I also finished that sampler wallhanging for bird blocks #1 and #2:

If you are making any of the bird block or wreath designs in 15 inch blocks, I began with 23 inch squares (cut into 4 pieces) for the side setting triangles and 12 1/2 inch squares (cut into 2 pieces) for the corner setting triangles. These will be slightly oversized but once the entire quilt has been pieced, I trim my edges so I have a 1/2 inch seam allowance beyond all my block “points.” (I use a wider binding, so you may want to trim yours even closer.) Here’s the center:

…and here’s one of the side setting triangles that are quilted with feathers:

If you ever have a large triangle to fill with feathers but it seems too large for you, it’s always an easy fix to divide and conquer. Here’s a corner triangle that’s been divided in half and then had spine guidelines marked to guide the placement of feathers (soap sliver is the marking tool here):

…and here’s the same triangle with the first feather stitched. You can see there’s also a soap marking about 1/2 inch from the outer edge of the quilt; that’s to remind me to keep my plume tips outside of the binding zone:

And this next table runner shouldn’t really make it into April Finishes,” but I was so darn close! It was totally quilted but not yet trimmed and bound:

The colors aren’t coming out well in the photos. It’s green and purple. Here’s a closeup of the green block wreath:

The background quilting is the rudimentary version of “Plumify It:”

…and I stitched the “Igloos” pattern in the narrow divider/end blocks:

..and here’s a shot of one of the purple wreath blocks:

I could quilt these tablerunners every day! They are such a small quilt that it’s very gratifying to finish the project quickly and it’s very stimulating to see all the texture come to life so quickly as it’s being quilted. On to May projects…

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Life Interrupted

We had the misfortune of having our car broken into while we were traveling and a lot of stuff was stolen that meant a lot to me.  Things like an embroidery machine can be replaced, but quilts (whether completed or in progress) into which you’ve poured time, effort, and heart cannot.   Remember this quilt?

Gone. Stolen…most likely in a dumpster or ditch somewhere, covered with mud or garbage, because the person who stole it had no use for it. Can’t really buy drugs with a quilt, so what good are they?

I enjoyed every minute of working on this quilt so I’m grateful for that. For me, quilting is really about the process of making the quilt instead of the final product, but my time with this quilt was cut short. It sounds silly, but I have been quilting this quilt for about 4 months now, stretching it waaayy out and only doing a bit at a time, only because I did not want that creative process…my intimate engagement with this quilt, to draw to an end. I know some of you understand what I’m saying. There’s a sadness once a quilt is completely done and I was putting that off. Oh well.

Also gone. It didn’t look like this anymore…I had added a border to it a couple months ago and was in the process of fusing up flowers/leaves/swirls that would go in the border with a few that would cross into the main body of the quilt. This quilt had loads of trapunto work as well as free motion embroidery; I am guessing that I started working on it at least 8 months ago…

All those wreaths from a recent post…

…will never make it into a quilt. Or the many, many blocks I have been working on. Dang, I had just embroidered several really incredible blocks that I haven’t shown on the blog yet and I was going to wow you with a quilt made from them! Too bad there are no pictures of the blocks since the quilts won’t ever be “born.” Tomorrow is new day and there will be time to birth some new stuff. Please pardon my whining; I’ll be back to my old self in a couple of days.

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Famore Scissors Blog Hop, With a Great Give Away!

Aren’t these batting scissors rather intimidating?  Trust me, these babies can cut pretty much anything, and they cut cleanly!  I’ve never used batting scissors before last week, and every time I’ve cut batting before, I always wished I had them.  No matter what type of batting I use, whether it’s silk, wool, cotton, cotton/poly blend, polyester, bamboo, etc, it’s always been a challenge to cut batting using regular sewing scissors.  Not so with the Famore 11 1/2  inch EZ glide fabric sheers.  With next to no effort, I was able to cut through batting with a very clean edge and no snagging.  On top of that, for as large and powerful as these shears are, they don’t weigh much, so using them is a breeze.  Here’s some info on them from the Famore site:

NO MORE SNAGS. The Famore E-Z Glide fabric shear will never snag, we tried and it did not. Batting, silk, poly, wool, cotton, alpaca, you name it these scissors will cut it. The ultimate fabric shear. Rubber handles for comfort, perfect balance makes this a perfect choice to add to your collection. (Only available in blue handle)

(By the way, if you search for these scissors on the Famore site, they will be called EZ Glide Sheers, not batting scissors.  BUT, if you type “batting scissors” into their search box, you’ll find them!)

I spray baste my quilts on a wall and I always do a rough cut to remove the bulk of the batting before I un-pin my quilt from the wall.  Here’s a wall hanging I was spray basting last week, using a large scrap of Hobb’s cotton/poly 80/20 batting for my sandwich:

I used the Famore batting scissors to cut off the heavy excess batting and they made the work easy.  It was really hard to snap a photo of me cutting it while holding the camera at the same time, but check out how cleanly they were cutting the batting below:

I would not be singing their praises if they didn’t work well, so know that these scissors are a definite 2-thumbs up!  Here’s a shot of that wall hanging as I was starting to quilt it by outlining the applique shapes with invisible thread:

…and you’ll have to wait to see photos of the rest of it!  Would you like to win a pair of these batting scissors for yourself?  If so, just leave a comment to this post by 11:59 pm eastern time on Monday 1/23/12.  You’ll need to pay for shipping from Holland, OH to wherever you live but you’ll win a wonderful pair of batting shears!  Want some other chances to win some great Famore scissors for other sewing uses?  Then visit these blogs this week and enter each of their drawings as well:

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Coming Up for Air

I have been in heaven for the last 8 days, tucked away in my sewing room, working on all kinds of projects.  I felt starved for some uninterrupted sewing time when this began 8 days ago and after averaging about 9 hours a day sewing, I’m realizing that I have an insatiable need to sew!  I only have 2 more days of this before I have to go back to a “normal life,” and the thought of walking away from my sewing room is killing me!

I’ve been working on all kinds of different projects, so tonight’s post will update work on a quilt top I started months ago.  I needed to do something to “save” this large fantasy flower:

The small green petals that outline that center circle just seemed to meld into one unit, and this was bugging me terribly.  They needed better definition, so I stitched a narrow satin stitch in gold rayon thread (24 karat gold by Robison-Anton) around each one, then free motioned some swirls inside the center circle:

Here’s what a longer shot of the whole flower looked at that point:

Those inner petals still looked kind of boring, so I added some decorative free motion stitching inside them, as well as finished the perimeter of that center circle using a free motion zigzag stitch:

Next up, I stitched the EKG edge finishing design inside the blue petals:

If you look at the backside at this point, you’ll see that many layers of stitching don’t show up on the trapunto layer:

The “missing” areas were free motion embroidered before the trapunto layer was added, so those areas of stitching will be more prominent once this is all quilted in the final quilt sandwich. Here’s a shot of the finished flower:

Be sure to check back on the blog on Monday because I’m participating in a blog hop and you may win a really great prize!

And one more thing…Nikki uploaded 50 new bolts of batik fabrics onto the web site last week and all fabric/thread/notions/etc are now priced 20% off MSRP!

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A Fun Resolution for the New Year…and a Give-Away!

About 8 or 9 years ago, I had learned how to free motion quilt, but I was still feeling kind of overwhelmed by the world of thread.  You have to understand that for about the first 25 years of my quilting life, there really wasn’t much out there in the world of thread, but then all of a sudden, thread exploded.  I mean really exploded! There were tons of types of thread, colors of thread, weights of thread, brands of thread, and purposes for thread.  It all just seemed so daunting to me and when I’d ask other quilters about threads, most of them seemed to be as perplexed as me.  This began my first year of what I call “fun resolutions.”

I’d never really been much for New Year’s resolutions, but that New Year’s Eve, I resolved to spend the next year learning as much as I could about all these different types of threads, and to learn how to handle them on my sewing machine.  Little did I know that this was the beginning of one of the most fun journeys I’d ever taken!  Playing with different types of threads to create texture and dimension and colorful embellishments to my quilts has enriched my quilting life in ways I could never have imagined.  Since then, I’ve been making a “fun resolution” every New Year.

I’m bringing this up because there’s something about putting a task on “project status” that seems to ensure getting that task done.  Most of the time, I do this with tasks that I really don’t necessarily want to do, but I need to do.  In quilting, there are all kinds of things I’d love to do, but they take a lot of time, so they keep getting pushed into the future.  That’s where making a “fun resolution comes into play.  It’s a combination of making a commitment and giving yourself permission to devote time on a regular basis to learn something you’d love to learn but keep putting off.  Every time I’ve made one of these fun quilting resolutions, it’s paid off for me in spades, so I’m hoping it will work that way for you.

So, where am I going with all this?  Do you find yourself surfing web sites and blogs and seeing all kinds of quilt photos where you’re wondering how a quilter created some interesting quilting designs?

…or maybe you’re more enchanted by frame designs and you’re wondering how people create quilted designs like these:

…or maybe you’re wondering about how folks make beautiful border designs on their quilts:

Whatever type of free motion quilting you’re aching to learn, there’s a great opportunity just waiting for you in the new year:

Thanks to Darlene of the SewCalGal blog, you have the opportunity to sign up for a free (yes, totally, 100% free!) year of free motion quilting lessons by several wonderful free motion quilters who are putting together all kinds of lessons just for you! I’m happy to say that I’ll be putting together the border lesson for the month of December 2012, but check out this list of quilters who will each be contributing during the 2012 Free Motion Quilting Challenge:

Irene Bluhm
Leah Day
Ann Fahl
Diane Gaudynski
Susan Brubaker Knapp
Don Linn
Frances Moore
Cindy Needham
Paula Reid
Wendy Sheppard
Patsy Thompson
Sarah Vedeler

So, this is your big chance to make a fun resolution to learn all you can about free motion quilting during 2012! Will you need to practice? Of course! Will it be worth the effort? You bet! All it will take for you to get in on the action is to go here to sign up for the 2012 Free Motion Quilting Challenge! And one more thing…I’m cleaning out my sewing room and am happy to give away these 6 spools of thread to a receptive quilter:

If you’d like this thread (4 spools of YLI variegated cotton and 2 spools of King Tut variegated) and are willing to pay shipping, you can enter the give away simply by posting a comment to this blog post telling me what you’d like to learn about free motion quilting over the next year. Entries are open until 11:59 pm eastern time on Wed 1/12/12.

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