REWIND: Quilting dragonflies (or anything else that tickles your fancy) and Turtle Girls in the Garden

If you are looking for my GROW YOUR BLOG POST AND GIVEAWAY please go here.

Welcome back to REWIND! Every now and then I "rewind" and republish one of my older posts that you may have missed! I was speaking to a blogging friend about quilting something lovely in an open area of her quilt and she thought it would be beyond skill level. I offered her an idea for creating a lovely design; it is something that I wrote about on  July 21, 2013. and so I thought I would share it with you again. In this issue I talk about a simple technique for creating beautiful quilted designs on your quilts! Plus you'll get another peek at the Turtle Girls!

Quilting dragonflies (or anything else that tickles your fancy) and Turtle Girls in the Garden

Although I'm not completely finished with the centre of the quilt it is stable enough that I can work on the border now. Mom wanted some dragonflies in the border so I did my test swatch to see how they work up. 

Test swatch of dragonfly quilting

Once the test swatch was done it was time to dive into the quilting of the border on the Anna quilt. This is the first dragonfly quilted in the swag on Mom's Anna quilt. Yesterday I promised to explain how I did this so that is my topic for today.

These dragonflies are easy to quilt - surprisingly easy! And you can create any motif that tickles your fancy. This is how I did it!

The first step is to decide upon the motif. If you are comfortable drawing free-hand sketch it on tracing paper. You can also use a quilting template or a photograph. Children's colouring books are also great sources of designs. Trace or draw the image on a sheet of tracing paper. Or if you have a design on one of the fabrics in your stash that would make a great quilting design why not trace it?

Once you've traced your motif cut it out being sure to leave at least 1 " of tracing paper all around the motif. I like to make a master template and I trace copies of the master that I will use for quilting. I save my master templates in a binder so if I want to quilt the design again it is there waiting for me. The one caution I would offer is be careful of the marking tool you use. If you use a very soft pencil you can transfer the graphite into your quilting. It is probably best to use a marking tool that is fabric safe and that will wash out or trace lightly with a hard pencil.

Dragonfly motif on tracing paper

Next pin the paper template to your quilt.

The third step is to machine quilt on the lines. I like my stitches to be shorter because it makes the removal of the paper a breeze. You will notice that the head is a little wonky - I was working fast on my test swatch. It will not happen on the quilt - I'll take my time and it will be perfect!

The fourth step is to remove the paper. If you do this carefully you can remove all of the paper and there will be no little bits caught in the stitching. 

If there are bits of paper caught in the stitches use a pair of tweezers to gently remove them or you can use a little soft scouring pad. Lightly rub it over the quilting and it will remove any stray bits of tracing paper. If the scrubber is coloured I would recommend that you test the scrubber on a piece of muslin before you take it to your quilt to be sure that there is no colour transfer from the scrubber.

This is Mom's Anna quilt with the dragonflies quilted and the tracing paper removed.

I echoed around each dragonfly and then stippled (or meander) quilted to fill in the space. It is time consuming but I think that it does look nice so it will be worth the effort!

This is a great method for quilting a design on a fabric that is difficult to mark, a busy print for example. The motif you select can be as simple or as complicated as you choose however one thing I have found is that if there is a lot of travelling (having to backtrack over stitches to get back to a particular point) that this can make removing the paper more difficult. I used this tracing paper technique to quilt some maple leaves in my quilt Owl at Night (you can see it in Gallery). I quilted the outside shape of the leaf and the veins which involved backtracking. If I did this motif again I would quilt the outside of the leaf and with the needle in the down position remove the tracing paper from the centre of the leaf before quilting the veins.

Close-up of maple leaves in Owl at Night

I've got to figure out what to do with the elongated hexagons because tomorrow is Q day for them (quilting day)! 

Then I'll do something with the little hexagons in the medallion and finally the outside of the border.  I'm thinking straight lines that run perpendicular to the swag. That or an all over swirly design of some sort. It won't be meandering or stippling - I've had enough of that for a while! I figure another two or three days of quilting and this one will be done, done, done! Well except for the binding but that will be a job for Mom!

There isn't much new in the garden in the way of blooms these days. I was out looking around for something I could shoot for you and who do I see...with one of my quilts I might add? And it is a silk quilt not meant for the outdoors. It was Turtle Girls!

HEY, Turtle Girls!!!

That looks like one of my quilts rolled up under your arm. Where exactly are you going with my quilt might I ask???

You won't believe where there were going and what they were going to do. Tune in tomorrow to find out! Until then, happy sewing!

I'm linking up with Angie at A Quilting Reader's Garden where you'll find great inspiration! I hope you've enjoyed this edition of REWIND. Until I post again, happy sewing!
Karen H

Faux Trapunto My Way!

My friend Babs dropped by to visit my Mom and she asked to see the Anna quilt. She particularly liked the dragonflies in the border and asked if they are trapunto. They are not but the stippling flattens the background so they puff a little to look like trapunto. But if I wanted I could still make them look even more like trapunto in a non-traditional way. I know this because I've done it in the past! And you've heard me say this before, I can be lazy so I look for easy, quick ways of doing things and faux trapunto is one of them!

This method is best suited to simple shapes or little details. I wouldn't do a huge medallion this way (although I supposed there's no reason why you couldn't) but little details like the dragonflies would be ideal. Faux trapunto is done after the quilting is completed. I developed this method many years for a quilt I made for my daughter.

Hopollo 1: Frogs in Space, Karen H, 1995

This quilt is titled Hopollo 1: Frogs in Space.  It is a mishmash of star blocks made of bright colours and a black background. Some of the prints have frogs, some were space prints and some of the blocks had appliqued or pieced frogs hence the name. In each corner of the border there is a poison dart frog. The frogs looked flat and I wanted more dimension. The solution? Faux trapunto!

 

Faux trapunto frog close-up

 

This frog fits inside a 4" square. Its arms, legs and body are trapunto but not the hands or feet. So how did I do this? You will need acrylic yarn and a larger needle. The first step is to do the quilting. This works with hand quilting as with the frog or machine quilting as with the dragonfly. Use a colour of yarn to match the fabric but for demonstration purposes I've used a darker colour. If you have a largish space to fill, the frog's body for example use a double strand of yarn.

 

On the wrong side of the quilt insert the needle where the trapunto is to begin and slide the needle in between the fabric and the batting.

 

 

Continue sliding the needle along between the fabric and the batting until you reach the point where the trapunto is to end. Exit the needle.

 

 

Pull the yarn through until the ends are just inside the starting point (in this case the tail) and then trim the yarn close to the exit point, the head. It may be necessary to insert your needle perpendicular to the exit point to sweep in any loose ends.

 

 

In the example above this is the first insert of yarn in the body. I will repeat it once more to add a little more volume . I'll repeat the same process to fill the wings.

Had I used a colour of yarn to match the fabric it would have been invisible. I have found that a light colour works best for most fabrics, regardless of the colour.

 

 

 

Trapunto from the back where I worked - you can see a hint of the colour of the yarn (Note: if you selected carefully the hint of colour could be a "special" effect for your quilt)

Trapunto from the front

 

And there you have it - faux trapunto my lazy way! In the dragonfly above there is faux trapunto in the wings on the left side as well as the body and no trapunto in the wings on the right side. I might just do this on the Anna quilt now that I've done it on the test patch!

 

And now for one little surprise about the poison dart frogs in Hopollo 1: Frogs in Space. If you are familiar with these little frogs you will know that they are very colourful! So what did I do? I painted the frogs before quilting and trapunto! I used plain old ordinary folk art craft paint. And they look as good today as they did when I did them 18 years ago! This is what they look like! I didn't want to damage my lovely paint job so I did the trapunto from the back and it worked just fine!

 

 

I just looked out the front window and what did I see? Hmm, it is starting to look like those Turtle Girls are serious about their yoga! At least it won't be in my livingroom! I wonder if they'll get any takers. We'll just have to wait and see, won't we?

 

 

 

Until I post again, happy sewing!

Quilting dragonflies (or anything else that tickles your fancy) and Turtle girls in the garden!

Although I'm not completely finished with the centre of the quilt it is stable enough that I can work on the border now. Mom wanted some dragonflies in the border so I did my test swatch to see how they work up.

Test swatch of dragonfly quilting

Once the test swatch was done it was time to dive into the quilting of the border on the Anna quilt. This is the first dragonfly quilted in the swag on Mom's Anna quilt. Yesterday I promised to explain how I did this so that is my topic for today.

These dragonflies are easy to quilt - surprisingly easy! And you can create any motif that tickles your fancy. This is how I did it!

The first step is to decide upon the motif. If you are comfortable drawing free-hand sketch it on tracing paper. You can also use a quilting template or a photograph. Children's colouring books are also great sources of designs. Trace or draw the image on a sheet of tracing paper. Or if you have a design on one of the fabrics in your stash that would make a great quilting design why not trace it?

Once you've traced your motif cut it out being sure to leave at least 1 " of tracing paper all around the motif. I like to make a master template and I trace copies of the master that I will use for quilting. I save my master templates in a binder so if I want to quilt the design again it is there waiting for me. The one caution I would offer is be careful of the marking tool you use. If you use a very soft pencil you can transfer the graphite into your quilting. It is probably best to use a marking tool that is fabric safe and that will wash out or trace lightly with a hard pencil.

Dragonfly motif on tracing paper

Next pin the paper template to your quilt.

The third step is to machine quilt on the lines. I like my stitches to be shorter because it makes the removal of the paper a breeze. You will notice that the head is a little wonky - I was working fast on my test swatch. It will not happen on the quilt - I'll take my time and it will be perfect!

Dragonfly quilted - tracing paper still in place

The fourth step is to remove the paper. If you do this carefully you can remove all of the paper and there will be no little bits caught in the stitching.

If there are bits of paper caught in the stitches use a pair of tweezers to gently remove them or you can use a little soft scouring pad. Lightly rub it over the quilting and it will remove any stray bits of tracing paper. If the scrubber is coloured I would recommend that you test the scrubber on a piece of muslin before you take it to your quilt to be sure that there is no colour transfer from the scrubber.

This is Mom's Anna quilt with the dragonflies quilted and the tracing paper removed.

I echoed around each dragonfly and then stippled (or meander) quilted to fill in the space. It is time consuming but I think that it does look nice so it will be worth the effort!

This is a great method for quilting a design on a fabric that is difficult to mark, a busy print for example. The motif you select can be as simple or as complicated as you choose however one thing I have found is that if there is a lot of travelling (having to backtrack over stitches to get back to a particular point) that this can make removing the paper more difficult. I used this tracing paper technique to quilt some maple leaves in my quilt Owl at Night (you can see it in Gallery). I quilted the outside shape of the leaf and the veins which involved backtracking. If I did this motif again I would quilt the outside of the leaf and with the needle in the down position remove the tracing paper from the centre of the leaf before quilting the veins.

Close-up of maple leaves in Owl at Night

I've got to figure out what to do with the elongated hexagons because tomorrow is Q day for them (quilting day)!

Then I'll do something with the little hexagons in the medallion and finally the outside of the border.  I'm thinking straight lines that run perpendicular to the swag. That or an all over swirly design of some sort. It won't be meandering or stippling - I've had enough of that for a while! I figure another two or three days of quilting and this one will be done, done, done! Well except for the binding but that will be a job for Mom!

There isn't much new in the garden in the way of blooms these days. I was out looking around for something I could shoot for you and who do I see...with one of my quilts I might add? And it is a silk quilt not meant for the outdoors. It was Turtle Girls!

HEY, Turtle Girls!!!

That looks like one of my quilts rolled up under your arm. Where exactly are you going with my quilt might I ask???

You won't believe where there were going and what they were going to do. Tune in tomorrow to find out! Until then, 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!