Rainy days, another tiny world and quilting the setting triangles

It is a dull rainy day - my favourite kind for quilting! The iridescent glass in the stained glass in the window glows on days like this. It looks like oil on water.

My Guild has a retreat planned for later this month and I was asked to make a tiny world make-do pincushion as a door prize. I finally got it finished last night. I love this little mug and house. Heck, I love each one I make! This is an old Japan mug that I found at the local thrift shop.

I used variegated floss for the pink posies along the path. They are little French knots. The path was made with a small strip of olive stretch velour and I used a variegated brown rayon thread to stitch over it and hold it in place. The green for the lawn was another find at Fabricland. It is a lightweight wool and acrylic blend that is the perfect grass colour and at $3/metre the price was right!

I hope that the person who wins this pincushion likes it as much as I do. If not I would be happy to welcome it back into my tiny world!

I've outlined all of the Lazy Punk appliqués so I will leave the blocks for the time being and move on to the setting triangles. That means it is decision time! How shall I quilt them? I would like something a little more modern because it is what the recipients of this quilt will like.

I took the Angela Walters Craftsy class Dot-to-Dot quilting. While I have a couple of books on the topic I do like to see "live" demonstrations of how it is done. Simply put rather than marking lines on your quilt top you mark dots and they are your targets, your start and stop points. They are what you aim for when quilting. For smaller spaces the dot system is fine but for larger spaces I think I will be more comfortable drawing my long lines. But who knows, with practice I will likely reach the point where all I'll need is dots but I'm not there yet!

I use my walking foot to stitch the straight lines. They aren't perfect but then who or what is (certainly not me)? I place my hands on either side of the area to be quilted and make sure that the quilt is smooth and flat. I relax, breathe and start stitching on the line. When I approach the  point where my hands can no long hold the fabric flat and smooth I stop making sure that the needle is in the down position. I do not move my hands until the machine has come to a complete stop and I remove my foot from the gas pedal. I reposition my hands once again making sure that the fabric is smooth and flat. I apply pressure to the fabric to make sure that it is held firmly in position so that when I start sewing it will not jump. I relax, breathe and apply even pressure to the gas pedal and start moving the fabric stitching on the blue line. Once all of the straight lines were stitched I filled in the spaces with no marking required.

And here is a close-up of the quilting. As I say, not perfect but I'm okay with it! And I guarantee you this: the last setting triangle I quilt will be much better than this one - that's what happens with practice!

Yesterday Kath asked about the fabric I used to make Red Maple. Aside from the brown and red inner border the quilt was made with one fabric. It is in the outside border and then the blocks were constructed with the One Block Wonder method from the same fabric.

This is the fabric.

And this is the entire quilt.

 

Craftsy has launched its first ever blogger award. You can read about it here.  There are lots of different categories so be sure to nominate your favourite blogs!

 

Time to get back to Lazy Punk (or maybe a cuppa first) so until I post again, happy sewing! 

Autumn colours and quilting Lazy Punk

I love this time of year - the colours are glorious. The sumac is now changing colour and it is spectacular!

 The leaves seem to glow. They remind me of one of my quilts, Red Maple.

This week's theme is for the Quilting Gallery Show and Tell is Fall's Glory. I entered my quilt that was made with the One Block Wonder method. I had intended to keep Red Maple for myself but when I showed it to a friend he asked if he could have it and promptly folded it up and tucked it under his arm. What could I say but "yes". He is appreciative of anything handmade and I know that the quilt will be well cared for and loved. I know where he lives to I can go visit it any time I like! You can see all of the Fall's Glory quilts here. I entered my quilt just to show it to others and I've had a chance to win in the past so if you would like to vote please consider voting for other quilts. There are some stunners!

Yesterday I took the day off to visit a quilting friend who is recovering from knee surgery. That meant not much sewing got done. Bummer. But I was glad to see how well my friend is doing and I hope she'll be back in the saddle very soon!

The quilting of Lazy Punk is started and once I complete a few chores I can go really make some headway on it. I started by rolling up the right side of the quilt almost to the centre so that I could stitch in the ditch on either side of the sashing. Once that was stitched I could unroll a little more of the quilt and stitch in the ditch on the next sashing. I don't bother rolling the quilt on the left side for two reasons. I have a large table so I can spread it out and more importantly it is easier to manoeuvre the quilt if the portion to the left is flat. I then rolled up the left side and repeated the process. The quilt was rotated 180 degrees so I could stitch in the ditch on the remaining sashings.

They are all stitched in the ditch and the pins that were in the sashing are removed. This reduces the weight of the quilt which makes it easier to manipulate. I love the look of a quilt piled up like this!

The next step is to stitch all around each of the appliqués and again the pins will be removed. It is starting to flatten out. As I add more quilting the puffiness will disappear.

Once again I am struggling with how I'll fill in the empty spaces that are just gagging for some quilting. I'm using my blue water soluble marker to experiment with designs. This is one of them. I like this one because it will require virtually no marking at all and that is right up my alley....lazy alley! As always I'll keep you posted on my progress and what I finally decide to do!

I mentioned the glorious colours so I thought I would leave you with a couple of pictures of the slender sunflowers which are blooming like crazy!

And when I looked down I saw one lonely dandelion gone to seed. I think they are very pretty, especially hen the seeds take flight with their little silky white parachutes!

I even put a few dandelion fluffs in my quilt There's a Snail in Grandma's Flower Garden!

Right, time to do chores and then sew. So until I post again, happy sewing!