Lazy Bones - a quilt top (not mine)

Several friends have made Lazy Punk quilts and one of them made hers from an assortment of skeleton fabrics. What do you call  quilt like that?  That's easy ..... Lazy Bones! I showed you pictures of her blocks; you can see them here.

She now has assembled her blocks into a quilt top and it is now basted and being hand quilted. I thought I would share pictures of her Lazy Bones quilt with you today! She made 13 blocks, set them on point and then added borders. Here is the quilt on the table having just been pin basted.

This is the center panel with the blocks set on point. The center circle in each block is made from the same fabric, a glow in the dark skull. She tested the fabric and confirms that it does indeed glow in the dark! I'm off on a tangent for a moment: I took an Open Thread Bar workshop from Anita at Cotton Mills Thread Works and it occurred to me that Superior makes a glow in the dark thread. I think that thread would be great a great addition to this quilt! If you every have a chance to take Superior's Open Thread Bar Workshop you won't regret it. For me it was money very well spent. I learned so much about thread and using different threads to the best advantage in my quilts! Now back to Lazy Bones!

She had fun shopping for the fabrics. All of the blocks are appliqued to a grey Stonehenge fabric from Northcott. It looks like stone and the bright colours in the blocks really shine. The sashing is made from a barbed wired fabric.

To complete the quilt she added a band to the top and bottom of the quilt. She fussy cut a skeleton toile fabric (the same one I used for the side setting triangles in my Lazy Punk quilt)  and she bordered it with black. Skeletons might not be your thing but you must admit that the setting idea is a good one! Some pops of a frosted red finished the quilt.

This is a close-up of the skeleton toile fabric. If you would like to see some close-ups of this fabric I posted them on my blog on September 7, 2013. You can see them here.

She has a nice ivy vine template for the border and in the vine she will quilt the names of different bones! The backing is also a skeleton fabric but the skeletons are having some "adult" fun so I won't show a picture of the fabric but you can imagine what they are doing! Hopefully I'll be able to share some pictures of her finished quilt with you in the very near future.

Now it is time for me to get back to quilting Lazy Girl. I'll post pictures tomorrow - it is featherlicious. Until I post again, happy sewing!
Karen H

Try it, you'll like it and Love Entwined

Did your mother encourage you to try new foods with the promise "you'll like it"? Mine did and she was often right although neither my brother nor I ever took to her grated carrots in mashed potatoes! Yesterday I took an Open Thread Bar workshop with Anita Zobens of Cotton Mills Thread Works.  Anita is an educator with Superior Threads.

We were to bring quilt sandwiches that measured 8 1/2" x 11" so that they are the size of standard paper. The top half was to be a light colour and the bottom dark. We used the embroidery stitches on our machines and experimented with all sorts of different threads.

This would give us the opportunity to see the effect of different threads on different colours. This in and of itself was a great lesson because different threads look very different depending on the fabric colour. This lovely variegated thread has a very different look on the two fabrics.

I experimented with some of the embroider stitches on my machine but decided I was more interested in experimenting with the threads and free motion quilting. I changed the foot to a darning foot and dropped the feed dogs. I wanted to quilt a little feather with a purple thread but I simply couldn't control the stitches and the needle was moving all over the place. What the heck? Oops, I still had the machine set for an embroidery stitch! Once I reset the mode it was fine!

I love the look and feel of silk thread. Very rich and it has a lovely sheen.

But no matter what I did I couldn't eliminate the whiskers on the back. I had a super fine poly thread (The Bottom Line) in the bobbin. I adjusted the tension from 1 to 9 and there was minimal improvement.

I eventually moved up to a heavier bobbin thread (So Fine 50 wt) and the whiskers on the back lessened but it still wasn't perfect. I have two Janome machines and had the same problem with both. The blue bobbin case doesn't help. I also tried a 70 and 90 needle with minimal change. If anyone has any suggestions I am open to them!

So what did I try that I thought I wouldn't like? Polyester threads such as Magnifico, Fantastico and Twist. They have a gorgeous sheen and my machine seemed to L-O-V-E them! And as it turned out I love them too! They have a rich sheen, are soft, hold their colour in hot and cold washing, don't shrink, do not produce lint and they are very affordable. I wasn't alone. Many of my classmates felt the same way!

I bought a cone of a green turquoise variegated thread that I think I'll use on Piccadilly to the Nines. You can see it in the bottom centre and the upper right in the picture above.

It will look great in the hourglass border.

My machine also really loved the So Fine 50 wt. It is another polyester thread and I'll use it to quilt the light background in the border and in the centre.

So Fine 50 wt.

So it was a good day and a wonderful workshop. Anita is a great speaker and extremely helpful and attentive.

I also purchased some spools of silk thread for the applique work on Love Entwined. I've almost completed Part 3. The red and pink hearts are pinned and ready for stitching down. In the next couple of days they will be stitched and then I can move on to the first vase and bouquet of flowers in the corner.

Finally don't forget to visit Quilting Gallery's Show and Tell. This week's theme is Stars. I'm showing A Pound of Stars but for all you hexie lovers be sure to check out Sheila's Stars Over Adelaide. It is gorgeous! You can vote for your favourites here.

That's it for today. Until I post again, happy experimenting with different threads!