The back of the Anna quilt

I wanted to start off by saying I try to reply by email to every comment. If you don't hear back from me it is likely because you are a no reply blogger!

Angie asked me to share pictures of the back of the Anna quilt that my Mom made and that I quilted for her. I don't have the quilt but I do have some pictures of the back so I thought I would share them today. This is the center panel from the front. Inside the hexagon frames are spider webs and I used the webs as lines for quilting. The other blocks were a large floral print and I wanted to quilt a circle of feathers inside the frame of hexagons - note that I didn't quilt over the hexagons so the feather is underneath. I did however quilt around each hexagon with my free motion foot. I used Superior Monopoly on top and The Bottom Line in the bobbin.

In this picture you can see that I marked a light blue curved line inside the frames of hexagons. These lines would act as the spines for the feathers.

At this point this is how it looked on the back.

I quilted the feathers, echo quilted around them and then stippled in the background.

This is how it looks from the back.

There is a border of elongated hexagons (also called coffins). As part of my initial process of stabilizing the quilt they were stitched in the ditch. You can see the stitching on the sides of the quilt in this picture.

I've stitched just inside the edge of the long edge of middle row of coffins. The purpose of this stitching was to provide me with a stop point when I quilted the filler design.

The filler design I chose was a figure 8. I chose this design because it is something I can easily doodle on paper and if I can doodle it on paper odds are that I can also quilt it!

The last decision was how to fill in the upper and lower rows of elongated hexagons. I stitched just inside the  top and bottom edges of the rows of elongated hexagons and then filled them will a free form feather. I also echo stitched around the feathers. Here you can see the top row completed.

And this is the entire border quilted.

And as requested here it is from the back.

I really enjoyed taking Cindy Needham's Craftsy class Design It, Quilt It: Free Form Techniques and one of the techniques she discusses is divide and conquer. Essentially you divide your larger spaces into smaller spaces and then you quilt them. That is exactly what I did with this quilt and others. The entire quilt is stitched in the ditch to stabilize it and then I go back and divide the larger spaces into small spaces and quilt them. Sometimes spaces may have to be divided a few times. I find I get good, consistent results using this method! I hadn't decided how to quilt the elongated hexagons so I started working the border. Here you can see the dragonfly I quilted and the stippling behind it. I later when back and quilted the elongated hexagons.

I hope you enjoyed this little show! Time for me to do some chores so until I post again, happy sewing!
Karen H

The Anna quilt finish, Cherry Blossom Pattern and more!

The quilting is done on Mom's Anna H quilt and I wanted to share some pictures with you because it will be another couple of days before the binding is finished. It will be the same fabric as the side triangle border so it will just blend in.

I very much admire the quilting of the likes of Cindy Needham, Diane Gaudynski and Harriet Hargrave and wanted to create a quilt that was more densely quilted like those made by these three talented quilters. So the Anna quilt is very heavily quilted. This is my first quilt that has been quilted to this extent and I LOVE the appearance. Unfortunately it is difficult to photograph in such a way that the quilting is shown to its best advantage. To compensate I've taken several pictures. So here we go!

The quilting is a little clearer here!

I am really pleased with the look of the quilting in the elongated hexagon border. It is a combination of feathers on the outside rows and figure 8s on the center row. The effect is very pretty, especially from the back!

This is the quilting plan for the elongated hexagons

The border quilting with dragonflies, meander quilting and straight(ish) lines!

 

So there you have it - Anne H's Anna H quilt! Now I'll make the binding for the quilt so Mom can finish it!

 

The reason that the binding isn't made just yet is that I decided to work on the Cherry Blossom Quilt Pattern and I am pleased to say it is almost done. A couple of last minutes checks and amendments and it will be posted tomorrow! I hope you like the pattern and if you make your own Cherry Blossom Quilt, l would love to see it!

 

I've been working on another quilt which I've not yet shared with you but it is coming soon. It is a scrap quilt that was inspired by an antique quilt. It is a fast, simple quilt but it has an interesting little border that I will remain a secret for the time being! For now, here is a sneak peak of my quilt that I call Brick Bungalow!

 

 

And the good news is that there will be another free pattern for this one so stay tuned!

 

For now I'll leave you will some pictures from the garden.

 

Turk's cap lily

 

Bottle brush

 



Bottle brush close-up

 

Until I post again, happy sewing!

The last stitches in the Anna quilt and ten thousand page views!

Thanks to everyone who reads my blog! I've reached a milestone - well I think it is a milestone! Ten thousand, that's 10,000 page views! As a beginner blogger I don't know how that ranks but I'm pretty excited about it and I appreciate that you make time during your day to read my blog! And the gang is also happy you follow along!

It's time to quilt the part of the border that goes from the swag to the binding. I decided to go with straight(ish) lines! I was tired of stippling/meander quilting and didn't want to repeat it outside border. But more importantly changing the quilting pattern will create more interest and depth and that is something I did want to incorporate in this quilt. I started by marking lines with my blue fabric marker and they were 1 1/2" apart. I stitched several lines freehand using the blue lines as a rough guide. This is the first part of the quilting.

It looks good from a distance (there's a lesson here) but up close it wasn't very straight. Can I live with what I've done or is some reverse sewing (ripping out) in order. I can live with it but I wanted to make sure that the balance of the border was a little more uniform. So I marked blue lines 3/4" apart. I would quilt on the blue line and eyeball one line between the two. This is the swag border marked with the new markings.

The corners could be quilted in a number of ways. It could be a sunray design like I did with my quilt Orange Crush.

Close-up of sun ray quilting on the back of Orange Crush

In the end I decided to resolve the corner lines by drawing a diagonal line from the outer corner to the inner corner of the panel. This would be the point where the lines intersect. The diagonal line would not be quilted - it would just be used to help me match up the lines coming in from either side of the border.

 
And this is the corner quilted. I'm happy with the effect although I do see one line that I missed. I'll have to go back in and quilt it!

And here is more of the border. I like the effect of the two quilting designs - it almost looks like two different fabrics! I did this all with my free motion foot so it made the quilting of the border fast and easy! And lovely if I do say so myself!

I've been debating quilting the border triangles but I've decided to leave them unquilted. They have a little puff to them which I think frames the quilt very nicely. So I'll baste the edge with a needle and thread about 1/8" away from the outside edge. I do this because I find that the binding goes on much smoother when the layers are basted together. Then the quilt will be trimmed up, bound and photographed for you to see!

Now I want to go back to my comment "there's a lesson here". Quilts are not looked at through a magnifying glass (unless maybe they are going in a juried show). Let me give you a practical example. Take a look at this! I was out in the garden taking pictures of flowers and look what was there! I didn't notice it until I looked at the pictures on the computer.

This is the picture that I took - I didn't even notice the spider!

Just as I didn't notice the spider because I was looking at the flower, I don't see the little wobbles in my quilting because I look at the quilt. We make quilts for the joy of the making and the comfort we get from their use. Like the flower we look at our quilts from a distance. So before you critique the "spiders in your quilt", take five big steps back and look at the flower. I'll bet you won't even notice the spider! Perspective is our friend!

This morning I was roused from a lovely sleep by a commotion in the livingroom. What the heck was all the racket? Oh brother! It's the Turtle Girls at it again!

Apparently they wanted to greet the dawn with some yoga and friends! Right - everybody O-U-T!  After their little buddies left I told Turtle Girls that in future should they wish to "greet the dawn" they should do it where dawn is which is outside! I think they got the message!

After that early rising this morning and lots of quilting I think I'll go have a nap! So until I post again, happy sewing!

Feathers galore on the Anna quilt

The quilting on Anne's (aka Mom) Anna quilt is coming along very nicely and I am extremely pleased with how it is looking. I completed the feathers around the centre medallion (on the brown background), echoed the feathers and then stippled the background around the feathers. I've also quilted the centre picture hexagon (surrounded by pink) and the two picture hexagons that make the diamond points of the medallion (surrounded by blue). All three of these had large spider webs so I simply used the spider webs as my quilting design. The remaining six picture hexagons are not yet quilted.

They look so nice on the front and especially on the back!

I'm using Superior Monopoly on top and Superior The Bottom Line in the bobbin. Monopoly is invisible. I wanted to stipple up to the echo around the feathers but it can be hard to see the echo.....it is invisible thread after all! The solution? I used my blue water soluble marker and marked the echo line so I could easily see where to stop. In this picture you can still see the spine for the feather which had not yet been removed and the blue marks on the echo quilting.

There were six remaining picture hexagons that circled around the picture hexagon in the centre (surrounded by pink). I had the quilt spread out on the floor all evening hoping that a quilting idea would come to me and it did! I decided I should quilt more feathers but they would form a large circle that surrounds the centre hexagon. As with the other feathers I would echo the feathers and stipple to fill the spaces. 

The first step was to mark the spine of the feather on each hexagon with my blue water soluble marker.

This is a close-up of the feathers, echo quilting and stippling.

This is the entire circle of feathers quilted.

And this is what the back looks like!

I am very pleased with how this quilt is shaping up! The process of machine quilting just gets easier, less stressful, more fun and better looking with each quilt that I work on. That's practice! I never thought I would be able to produce quilting that would look like this! It isn't perfect but I am really happy with it!

I want to introduce some dragonflies in the quilting in the open areas within the swags because there are dragonflies in one of the main fabrics used.

Here's a little peek at what they will look like! This is my test swatch - the dragonfly's head is a little off kilter but that won't be the case when I work on the quilt.

I'll show you how I quilted the dragonfly tomorrow. You'll be surprised at how easy it is to make any shape you want. There's no marking of the quilt required and you don't have to be able to draw! And this technique can be used to produce any motif you want! If you are an experienced quilter I'm sure you are familiar with this method but if you are new to machine quilting I hope that I have I piqued your curiosity and that you drop by tomorrow to see how it's done!

Too busy quilting today to take pictures in the garden. Maybe tomorrow!

Until I post again, happy sewing!

Anne H's Anna quilt goes under the needle!

Anne H's Anna quilt is pinned and ready for quilting. The first thing I did was trim the excess batting to help reduce some of the bulk. I left about 1 1/2" of batting beyond the quilt. Every little bit helps to make the quilt lighter and more manageable.

I stitched in the ditch around every hexagon in the centre medallion. I used Superior Monopoly (invisible) thread on top and The Bottom Line in the bobbin. Once the stitch in the ditch was completed I echo quilted once around the entire medallion.

The centre is stabilized and I will go back and quilt all of the hexagons later. As always I need some time to think about what to quilt.

I've decided that feathers will be used to fill in the dark beige areas. They work up  quickly and easily (never thought I would say that but really feathers are pretty easy once you know the basics). The first step was to draw the spine of the feathers and I pinned well on either side. This is a larger area and I don't want anything shifting so the pins will keep the top, backing and batting together.

I used a blue water soluble fabric marker to draw the spine and then quilted the spine and the plumes on the feathers. I next echoed around the feather plumes to make them pop! But it also makes the space around the feather pop and I didn't want that - I want the feather to look like trapunto. So I stippled the background to flatten it.

In this picture you can see the stippling above the feather. I had not yet stippled below so you can see the difference.

And here is the feather stippled above and below! This is exactly the look I was going for! The feather stands out - it almost looks like trapunto but it isn't!

And here's a view of the quilting from the back.

If you are interested in machine quilted trapunto, I read an excellent tutorial on Hilda's blog. It is very well explained with lots of photos. It looks pretty straight forward! You can read about Hilda's method here. I'm looking forward to seeing her progress on this Carolina Lily quilt.

Tomorrow I'll finish the rest of the feathers and then it will be on to the next border of  elongated hexagons! Not sure what's going to happen there but it will come to me. First step will be stitch in the ditch.

It is very hot here today, 32C but it feels like 40+ with the humidex so it was a very quick stroll in the garden this morning!  Even though it is hot, plants are wilting and blossoms fade fast, there are still some interesting sights to see!

Brugmansia (angel's trumpets)

 

This plant started in the garden but it hates good soil. It looks for tiny cracks. In the picture above it is growing between the sidewalk and a railway tie! That's Teetoo in the background. He does like to have his picture taken, silly cat!

 

And here it is growing between the asphalt and the cinder blocks! Look how lush it is!

 

 And this is a close-up of the flowers! Very tiny but very pretty!  They don't look real - they look like silk flowers!

 

Cabbage butterfly

It is too hot to fly!

 

What's that in the under growth????

 

Until I post again, keep cool and happy sewing!