Better pictures of 81 the giant monstrosity and a new project

I managed to find a truck and two men so I could take a picture of the giant monstrosity I call "81".  You really need a quilter to hang a quilt. The men were kind enough to oblige so I didn't want to complain but I would have put the truck in a different place, where the lighting was softer, so that the colours in the quilt top would have been brighter. I did ask them to stretch it out and hold it snuggly so that it was flat - the following picture was what I ended up with. But as I say they were trying to be helpful so I just went with it. The colours are bleached out!

I decided that this morning I would go out in the garden and try to get a better picture by tacking the quilt top to the beams in the arbour and that's exactly what I did. I got a box of tacks, a ladder and I went at it. It was overcast when I started - perfect weather for picture taking but by the time the quilt top was hung the clouds were breaking up and the sun was coming out. This is the best I could do.

"81" (the giant monstrosity)

Here you can see the centre panel (with 81 stars and hexagon flowers) and the basket border. The colours still aren't right in the picture but they are better.

This is the upper right hand corner with the diamond border. I added a cornerstone in each corner and appliqued a butterfly in each.

This is the top border with baskets, flowers and oodles of butterflies!

Now I am casting my eyes about for another project that involves handwork. Last year I promised someone special a quilt but never got around to it. She gently reminded me that I still owe her a quilt so I had better do something about it. I am intrigued by Jen Kingwell's Steam Punk quilt.

These blocks are all pieced and that just doesn't interest me - I want something portable that involves handwork. So I'm thinking I might work out a "lazy girl" version. I've told you more than once that if there's an easier way to do something I'll try to find it! As I look at this quilt I know that there is a much easier way to make a similar quilt so today I think I'll work on drafting a simple pattern and then get started on a simplified version of this quilt. I'll keep you updated on my progress.

Until I post again, happy sewing!

Happy Birthday Mom (aka Anne H), Sweetpea's, lavender bottles and machine quilting recap

Loopers in the Sky with Diamonds, 2005 (Close-up of a block I call July6)

Happy birthday Mom (aka Anne H)! I made this block on Mom's birthday, July 6th,  many years ago so I call this block July 6!

Yesterday two friends and I took her to a lovely plant and gift store in Toronto, Sweetpea's. If you are in Toronto I recommend you drop by for a visit. There are so many lovely items from body care products from Bleu Lavende, unique cards, home dec items including a few locally made quilts, baby and child gift items, perennials for the garden and gorgeous one of a kind floral arrangements! If you've been there you know what a wonderful florist shop it is. It is in the running for best florist in NOW Toronto's Best of Toronto. If you would like to vote for Sweetpea's  you can do so here.

After Sweetpea's we sent for lunch and then to Len's Mills for fabric! What quilter doesn't want fabric on her birthday? Or any other day for that matter? I picked up these three pieces which will be great for fussy cutting.

Mom is out of her cast but in a brace. At least she has use of her elbow which means I can put her back to work! I went out in her garden and harvested a big bunch of lavender so she could make some lavender bottles. She managed to get three made before she had to give her arm a rest.

These are similar but not quite the same as those that I made. But they are equally pretty and they are every big as fragrant!

I've been writing about the way I quilt large quilts on my domestic sewing machine. At the moment I am quilting my Cherry Blossom quilt. There have been some questions about what I do so I thought I would recap my method for machine quilting a large quilt on a domestic machine. This method reduces the bulk of excess backing and backing making it easier to quilt the centre of the quilt.

1. I pin baste my quilt making sure to avoid pinning over major seam lines.
2. I attach a free motion foot and I use either invisible thread  (I use Monopoly) or a very light weight thread such as Superior's The Bottom Line on top and in the bobbin I use a light weight thread such as The Bottom Line, Decobob or Invisifil. I used a thread colour in the bobbin to match the top of the quilt for this step.
3. I stitch in the ditch on all major seams horizontally and vertically. I do not remove the pins from the quilt top. The stitch in the ditch stabilizes all of the blocks on the quilt top and it won't shift or move.
4. If my quilt has a single border I stitch in the ditch where the centre of the quilt meets the border and I do this all around the quilt. If there are multiple borders I stitch in the ditch for each border. Cherry Blossom has a 1/2" pink inner border so I stitched in the ditch on either side of the pink inner border. I do not stitch around the outside edge of the quilt.
5. Once the quilt top has been stabilized with stitch in the ditch I can quilt the border. Cherry Blossom has an 8" border with a vine so I drew the spine of the vine with a blue fabric marker, pinned very well on either side of the vine and then stitched the vine with invisible thread. I remove the pins that are close to the vine but leave all other pins in the border. I remove them as I quilt the leaves that sprouted off the vine.
6. Once the border is quilted I l trim the quilt to remove the excess batting and backing and I bind the quilt.
7. Finally I go back and quilt the body of the quilt. And since the border is quilted it is flatter which means that the bulk is reduced. Since the quilt is stabilized with the stitch in the ditch there is no problem with the quilt shifting!

The key is to make sure to stitch in the ditch of all major seams. In Cherry Blossom there is no sashing but if there were, I would have stitched in the ditch on either side of each sashing.

I hope that this information has answered your questions but if not feel free to ask! I am more than happy to share with you what I do and how I do it!

Phew! Too much writing! How about some pictures of the four blocks I am working on. They are the corners for the border of a quilt. The applique is going well and there isn't too much left to do. I've been working on this quilt off and on for a year. I'll keep you posted and the reveal will be in the next few weeks!

Finally don't forget to visit Quilting Gallery's Show and Tell. The theme this week is patriotic quilts and I am the guest judge! How am I going to decide? There are so many wonderful quilts! To see all of the quilts and vote for your four favourites go here!

Until I post again, happy sewing!

Embroidery and applique

I am spending my days with my Mom helping her out and caring for her. I don't when she will be able to sew again but it is looking like it will be a very long time before the bone heals. I've decided to enter her quilt of embroideries that she made for me in Quilting Gallery's Show and Tell that starts on Friday. I'll post a picture of the quilt tomorrow or Friday. For now I'll show you a few more close-ups. These blocks are roughly 3" x 4".

When I am with my Mom I don't have access to a computer or my sewing machine so I've been doing some hand sewing. And this is what I've been working on. Everything is basted and the applique is in progress.

These basket blocks are the corner units in a quilt border. The quilt will be loaded with hexagons and stars. I can't wait to get the quilt top put together but it will be some time yet I think!

Until I post again, happy sewing!

Baskets and Nine Patch (the final stretch), test sandwiches and more from the Nostalgia quilt

I’m in the final stretch of the Baskets and Nine Patch quilt. I’ve decided to use gold The Bottom Line thread by Superior to quilt little circles (also called pebbles) inside the feathered square wreathes. The fabric includes some metallic gold lines so the thread accentuates the metallic. This is one of my first attempts at circles so while they aren’t perfect, they’ll do!

Each time I sit down to quilt I have a routine I follow to make sure that everything is in tip top shape including me. One of the things that I do is warm up my quilting on a practice sandwich. If I’m trying out different techniques or motifs the sandwich takes on the appearance of a sampler. Here is one of my test sandwiches and it is getting filled up although there’s still a little more space. I was thinking it would be interesting to apply some colour and beading to this piece….maybe even a little applique. Could make an interesting little wall hanging!

 

And now a few more close-ups of the embroidery in my Mom’s quilt Nostalgia. Many of the flowers and bugs are found in her garden. The first picture has a bit of a story. Mom and my brother are both avid gardeners. He is always bringing her interesting seeds and plants. Since orange flowers are not as common as other colours, when he came across some seeds that promised lovely orange flowers he snapped them up and gave them tom Mom. She planted them thinking that they would be a lovely little plant with a pop of orange. The seeds sprouted and started growing, and growing and growing! By late summer the plant was more than 8’ tall! They didn’t plant those seeds again!

Crazy, big, orange plant!

Sampler

 Sampler

Violets

 

The theme for Quilting Gallery’s Show and Tell starting Friday, May 3 is applique so I’ve entered Floraand Fauna, Parts of the Garden. The voting will open on Friday morning. I’ll post a link so you can view all of the entries and vote for your favourites!
 
Until I post again, happy sewing!

A great marking tool, quilting baskets & nine patches and chickadees!

Marking dark fabrics is challenging but this tool solves that problem! It is a mechanical chalk pencil made by a French company, Bohin. The pencil comes with a little package of six refill chalks. The chalk makes a lovely fine line. It was expensive (I think it was $15 Canadian) but it works so well that it was worth the investment. I especially like the fact that I use it with a stencil and the chalk does not come near the stencil because it is protected by the silver cap. When I use a chalk pencil I find that the edge of the stencil rubs the chalk and makes problems for me. The Bohin mechanical chalk pencil solves that problem!



I’m mking progress quilting my baskets and nine patches quilt.

 

 

The quilt is anchored vertically and horizontally with stitch in the ditch. I discussed this technique in my April 23 post, machine quilt a big quilt on a domestic machine my way. The solid squares have feathered wreaths quilted but haven’t decided what motif I will quilt in the centre. Maybe I’ll just stipple but I'm open to suggestions! I have some really pretty gold Bottom Line thread (made by Superior) which I think I will use.

I envy quilters who know exactly how they are going to quilt their piece in advance. I am more of a “fly by the seat of my pants” kind of quilter. I like to let the quilting evolve organically which generally means I don’t have a clue what I will do but just hope that I’ll know when I get to the point where I have to make a decision! And that is what happened with the baskets. I figured out what to do with the setting triangles and am quite pleased with the result.

 

BUT I still had no idea about the baskets. The solution for me is to set the quilt aside for a few days and do nothing. At some point I just start doodling on paper to see what happens and the answer eventuall comes to me.

 

The quilting design gradually evolved from the doodling. I am satisfied with the result. I think it has just the right flourish! I could have quilted more but the white fabric has a finish that makes it very difficult to quilt so I think that I will stick with this simple design.

 

Once I've finished quilting the baskets (I'm about a third of the way done) I'll bind the quilt and then I’ll go back and finish the centre and that includes quilting all of those nine patches. I did a few with a neutral colour Bottom Line thread. This is what they will all look like when quilted. I have my work cut out for me!

 

I leave you with a picture of a little embroidery done by my sweet little Mummsie!  You may recall that I appliqued four of them in my quilt Flora and Fauna, Parts of the Garden. Looks like Mom also loves these little birds! This little chickadee measures a tiny 2 ½”! My Mom does such lovely embroidery. I'll be showing you much more of her work in the coming weeks.

 

 

If you haven't visited Quilting Gallery's Show and Tell please do so. There are some really interesting wall hangings to see - there's loads of inspiration to be found. Mine is titled Flying Fish School. So pop on over and vote for your favourites before Monday at 6:00pm EDT.

 

Flying Fish School

 

Until I post again, happy sewing!



New Partial Seam Tutorial, Nine Patch Quilt with Baskets and one more curio

I’ve posted a new tutorial on partial seams. The tutorial demonstrates this simple technique along with instructions for the simple 9” block shown above. The concept of a partial seam can be applied to a blocks that appear to have a piece that is set in. I hope the tutorial is fun and informative. I used this technique in a block of the month pattern that I did for my Guild. My inspiration for the patterns is Canadian art. Maurice Cullen’s The Bird Shop, St. Lawrence Street was the inspiration for this pattern. I’ve posted the pattern and a write up about Cullen under the Block of the Month tab. Enjoy!

I may have already mentioned that I am hooked on 3” nine patch blocks and have made thousands of them over the years. This humble block is made up of nine squares.

 

By simply changing the placement of light and dark the blocks become more interesting.

 

 Fussy cut one square and put it in the centre to create even more interest!

 

Try setting them on point for yet another look.

 

 

 

Directional prints such as stripes or bits of border prints add yet another dimension.

 

 

Nine patch blocks are in my view a perfect block for beginner and experienced quilter alike. The construction is simple but they can be made to look more complex through fabric choice and fabric placement. They are beautiful and there are endless possibilities for turning them into a quilt!

 

 

There are literally hundreds of nine patch blocks in my stash and I add more blocks every time I sew! Recently I did a demo at my Guild. I showed the members how to build a nine patch stash and I went home all fired up! Isn’t it funny how sharing with others can renew your excitement! Anyway, I pulled out my stash of nine patches and promptly made three quilt tops! It barely put a dent in the pile of nine patches! This is the first of the three quilt tops.



It is based on an antique quilt. I drafted a pattern based on 3” blocks. I selected blocks made in muted colours to give the quilt a aged feeling. A border of baskets on three sides finished the top. I experimented a little and was able to come up with a simple way to construct the basket blocks. I used my homemade spray starch on the fabrics and that ensured that the blocks were precise. I like to have at least one complex element in a quilt and since the main part of the quilt is relatively simple I think that the baskets add the right amount of intricacy and they contrast nicely with the humble nine patches.

And now it is pinned and ready for quilting! I really like the softness of this quilt but think it would be striking made up in bright, modern, vibrant prints!

And now for a curio. What the heck is it? It looks like it was at one time attached to something but what? I found it at an antique sale – I was buying a pitcher and and asked the price if this "thing" and the man threw it in for free. I absolutely love the birds and berries motif and think it would be a starting point for an applique piece. If you have any ideas as to what it is, please post a comment and let me know! Or just take a guess as to what it might be!

 

 

That’s it for today. Time to get cracking on that nine patch with baskets quilt. So until I post again I leave you with one more close-up of Flora and Fauna. Happy sewing!