Free Motion Quilting Challenge - September

After some absence, I really am hoping that I will post more regularly. I think about what to post here often but the leap from my head to my blog just doesn't happen!

I am participating in the Free Motion Quilting Challenge at Sew Cal Gal's blog. Each month there is a video by the featured quilter with machine quilting tips and techniques as well as sharing some great machine quilting patterns for us to use. This has been in place since January 2012 and I have learned so much! Haven't always submitted my "homework" on time but it is the learning experience that counts.This is one of those rare months when I have completed my homework and submitted it in time to be eligible for the monthly prize package - yippee!

September's featured quilter is Paula Reid and she has shared her "Fluff & Stuff" technique for quilting large quilts on a domestic sewing machine. This woman has quilted more than 1400 quilts on her domestic sewing machine NOT a long-arm quilting machine - amazing - and she said that 3/4 of them were queen or king sized. So good to know that it is possible to quilt the larger quilts without using a long-arm!! Basically, Fluff & Stuff is what I have been doing myself, although I might not be as deliberate in my "fluffing" but I will be working on that. Paula is suggesting that you fluff the quilt up on to your chest and then stuff the quilt through to get quilted. The fluffing is what helps to keep the quilt from getting hung up while feeding through the needle and keeps things moving smoothly.

In addition to the video Paula had several great tips that I will definitely be trying like working in 90 minute increments and then making yourself stop and do something else for awhile - anything to help maintain good stamina and focus is good for me! She also suggests using a straight-stitch throat plate - I haven't tried it yet but her reasoning really made sense to me and since I have such a throat plate I will be trying it out. Also she uses a jeans needle instead of a universal needle because the jeans needle is sharper which allows for straighter quilting lines. The one suggestion she has which I won't (or can't) do is to put your sewing table in a corner so that the back and one side of the table are against a wall thus keeping larger quilts up on top of the table so you aren't fighting them all the time. I can't do this because no matter how I configure my sewing room I just can't get my table in a corner and still be able to open doors or move about the room so I must pass on this suggestion, although it sounds like an excellent idea!

Finally, Paula shared a quilting pattern with us and I quilted it up using the transfer technique that Don Linn taught us earlier this year. I don't know how often (if ever) I will use this pattern. It was not specifically for continuous quilting and so there are a lot of lines that must be re-traced which made it very difficult to quilt.

 Here is how mine turned out:

Another trip

We are off on another trip - Upstate New York this time. My family has a summer cottage on Skaneatelas (skinny-at-lass) Lake. It is one of the Finger Lakes that stretch across Central New York. The cottage has been in our family for three generations now and it is a treasure to us all.

I guess I won't be doing much quilting because the belt is broken on the lovely old Singer sewing machine that is here and I just can't seem to remember to get a replacement!

When I return to KC I will have 1 1/2 days at home and then it is off again for a Crazy Quilting retreat in O'Fallon, Illinois for six, yes six, days of free-for-all crazy quilting. We went last year and had so much fun we just had to go again this year. I like to go to retreats where there are classes but I would really rather just do my own thing. This particular retreat will have many "teachers" who will show me plenty of new things while I am there!

So while I am here I will be doing some work on my crazy quilted Winter Scene - I would love to finish it so I can have some show 'n tell at the retreat! Also, there is an intriguing book that I want to read called "The Creative License - Giving Yourself Permission to be the Artist you truly are" by Danny Gregory. I hope the book is as interesting as the title.

In addition to those two things above, I should read up on the June Free Motion Quilting Challenge tutorial so that I have the reading portion done and can, hopefully, get the sewing portion done before the end of June so I qualify for the June prizes!! June's featured quilter is Cindy Needham. If she is like the other featured quilters she will have lots of great quilting tips for me - can't wait to hear what she has to say.

Picture below is of our family cottage in Upstate New York followed by a shot of the Judge Ben Wiles, a lake tour boat that comes by each Sunday afternoon.

Free Motion Quilting Challenge - May 2012

I have been participating in the Free Motion Quilting Challenge at Sew Cal Gal (http://www.sewcalgal.blogspot.com) Each month a well-known machine quilter is featured. They do a tutorial about machine quilting that is full of their own tips and tricks. The tutorial is followed by some exercises that are done to incorporate the new information that has been presented by the featured quilter. These exercises are uploaded to the Sew Cal Gal website. Although this challenge has been going on since January, this is the first month that I have had it all together in time to submit. Eventually I will submit all twelve months but won't be able to win the monthly prizes for the late months but I will be eligible for the grand prize if I have all twelve exercises updated.

SO..... May's featured quilter is Leah Day, a sweet, down-to-earth quilter who had some great advice for us. Since I have been machine quilting for 15+ years I have the basics down but there are always new products and products I haven't thought I needed to use.

One of the products that I actually had on hand but had never used because it is kind of cumbersome, is the Supreme Slider. The Supreme Slider is a Teflon sheet that sits on top of the sewing machine bed and has a slightly tacky underside to keep it in place. It creates a very smooth surface which assists with moving your quilt around under the needle while you are quilting. I pulled my Super Slider out of my closet and tried it - the jury is out... maybe I already had a smooth surface so I didn't need it as much as other machines. I mentioned cumbersome, it makes it inconvenient to change your top-loading bobbin out since you must remove the slider to get access to your bobbin case. I will probably keep using it until I get tired of it being in the way....

Another new product Leah talked about is Bobbin Washers. They are wafer-thin Teflon circles that go under your bobbin, inside the bobbin case. Because they are Teflon they help the bobbin spin freely and will help eliminate backlash and birdsnests from the backside of your quilt. Haven't tried them because I haven't found the correct size for my machine PLUS they are rather pricey - about a dollar each for a wafer thin circle of Teflon!

One last product that Leah mentioned that I was interested in was a brand of polyester thread called Isacord. I have never heard of this thread before and couldn't find it at the quilt show I just attended so I guessI will have to wait to try it out. Leah uses this thread exclusively. I looked at the prices on her website and it looks to be about the price of Superior threads - $6/1,000 yds for solids and $9.95/ 1,000 yds for varigated thread. It would be worth trying.

Leah had a great idea to help with machine quilting "practice". She has you make up at least 12 "layer cakes", or "sandwiches" as I call them, and keep them near your sewing machine. I like to make large layer cakes (at least 10" square) so that by the time I have completed the practice session, I really can remember the motions that were required to make this pattern. I will try to practice a quilting pattern as often as I possibly can - it can be a new pattern that I saw and liked or it can be one I have already practiced and had a hard time with and so I still need the practice. When I know that I will be using a particular set of quilting patterns on an upcoming project, I will practice them for a few days before I use them. This improves the "muscle memory" for these patterns. There really is a "memory" of sorts in your hand and finger muscles -I have definitely felt this to be true when I am making small circles or pebbles - the first circle I think about but the second circle just happens because my muscles remembered the motions of the first one. IT'S TRUE!! Another reason Leah has for practicing often is because we may go for months and months and not quilt anything and this keeps our machine quilting fresh in our minds.

I really liked the tip that Leah had for hiding dangling threads - although my thread cutter cuts off the thread so close to the fabric it is hard to make this work on my machine but I could use it on the beginning threads. First you pull up the bottom thread so that you now have two threads in hand. Thread a self-threading needle with those two threads and then take those threads between the layers of the quilt to hide them. I thought this was a nifty way to do this!

The exercises that Leah had us do were two "overall" patterns that she said she used a lot. The first one is called Double Stippling (below on right) and the second one is called Railroad Tracks Stippling (below on left - basically Double Stippling with a twist). They are double stippling because you lay down a stretched-out stippling line and then stipple across it - thus, double stippling.

My samples are below. If you would like to participate in the Free Motion Quilting Challenge, just click on the icon in the upper right hand corner of my blog.

Thanks for reading and Happy Quilting!!

I love a Quilt Show!!

Last Friday was my birthday and I celebrated in the best fashion I know - I went to a quilt show with my quilting buddies. We went down to the Machine Quilters Showcase in Overland Park, Kansas and it was well worth the drive.

I am completely blown away by the quilts that are coming off the beds of our sewing machines these days and what I truly am amazed at (and inspired by) is the fact that many of them are being done on a domestic machine, NOT a long arm quilting machine.

I took tons of photos to show the different quilting patterns that were on display and some of the great top designs. I do this at all of the quilt shows and now I have a pretty good dictionary of quilting patterns on my laptop. Of course it isn't organized in any manner but by plowing through all of my photos I may find one that unexpectedly jumps out at me instead of the pattern I was looking for.

This particular quilt show, Machine Quilters Showcase, is one of my favorites because there is so much emphasis on machine quilting designs and I am currently working diligently at improving my machine quilting skills on my Janome sewing machine. The abundance of quilts done on the smaller sewing machines has really given me a boost of confidence and great hope that more quilts, including mine, will be done on domestic machines.

It bothers me when I see a beautiful quilt that was pieced by one person and quilted by another because the credit is given to the person who pieced the quilt and often the quilt is spectacular because of the quilting NOT the piecing. We never had this problem when both processes were done by the same person. With more machine quilting being done on our domestic machines, maybe we can get back to the way it used to be - a quilt that is pieced and quilted by the same individual. Then I won't be so bothered.....

Let's hope that this is done sooner rather than later!!

National Scrapbook Day - Virtually!

I have been having a blast participating in an online celebration of National Scrapbook Day that lasts all week long - April 27th - May 5th! This event was just what I needed to give me a boost to get going on some long awaited scrapbook pages. 

Each day there is a challenge posted online, you make your page(s) and then upload them to the Creative Memories Home Page on Facebook.  You can see all of the other pages that have been done, too, which is wonderful to gather new ideas. Today's challenge is to make a page with a picture from childhood and journal the memory that goes with it. Well, I have lots of pictures right here by my desk waiting to be scanned in to my laptop but the hard part will be deciding which one(s) to use on a page! I have been able to do two out of the four challenges posted and I really hope to get today's done - I have until midnight!!!

Challenge #1 - Use Colors that were given to us - I used Orange, Grey and Baby Blue

Challenge #3 - Use tags in an unusual way - as you can see I used them for the bunny's ears and for journaling - not the best bunny around but it works  :)

Spring Cards

I have to admit this.... some of my "Christmas" cards still haven't been sent. As the month of January marched on and on and I still hadn't sent out some cards it just became too embarrassing to send them out so I didn't. 

For the past several years it has been mid-January, or so, before my holiday cards were sent out. I have seriously thought that I should send Spring cards in March or April. This year I did it on a small scale. For the remaining ten or fifteen holiday cards that weren't sent, I am sending the Spring cards pictured below. 


Next December it just makes sense that I should send my cards out in the Spring. It will be a rather strange feeling because the card making process is always foremost on my mind throughout the month of December (even though nothing ever gets accomplished). 

I may have to send some holiday cards because I still have 20-30 hand made cards leftover from this past year that I just couldn't let go to waste. Maybe I could donate them to one of the many charitable auctions that I participate in each year.....
 
These cards came out so cute I just love them, especially the 3-D butterflies. It will be interesting to see if I get any feedback on this new tradition. 
 

Meghan's Bull's Eye Quilt

OK - where is she? who has kidnapped Mary so that she can't write in her blog???? No one - well, I guess that means that Mary has been neglecting her little ol' blog lately... sorry.

First of all, my beloved Kansas University Jayhawk's basketball team lost in the NCAA Men's Finals last night. Even though they lost they played their heart out for the entire tournament and are winners in my mind. It has been so much fun watching the team go so far in this year's tournament and now I can finally grow out my fingernails that have been chewed to nubbin's in the last two weeks. So many close games!!

A lot has happened since I came back from Florida hopefully most of the high points will show up in subsequent blogs. I had two quilting retreats in March, yes two retreats. It was great and I definitely could do that more often because I just love getting away for the weekend and quilting, laughing, shopping and eating junk food with my girlfriends! Our preference is a 4-day retreat : Thursday - Sunday. You can really get so much more done when you have two full days to sew.

For several months now I have been working on a quilt for Meghan, my 28 year-old daughter. The main body of the quilt is the Bull's Eye block with 4-color squares for the border. The fabrics are from Amy Butler and, because I needed so many different fabrics, some just closely resemble her fabrics. The reason this quilt has taken so long is partly due to the fact that the colors and patterns are very wild and vivid and it has been a struggle to keep things in line, so to speak. It has been a huge learning experience for me and not everything has been done exactly to my liking but I think the end result will be a fun and colorful quilt.

With such wild blocks I felt it was necessary to put a sashing in to give the eyes a rest while viewing the quilt. I looked for over a month for the perfect sashing and finally found it when I was about to give up and use something predictable like a plain green or orange. The sashing is a slightly darker green background with small stripes that match the colors in the quilt perfectly. It is a little muddier than I would like but it works - as with life, not everything is a perfect match.

Ironically, I did end up deciding upon non-patterned fabrics for the final border because I didn't want to introduce a new Amy Butler fabric and didn't want to use any of the fabrics that were already in the bulls-eye blocks. I am using 4-color squares, or quarter square triangles, not sure what to call it using the colors of burnt orange, green, orange/red and periwinkle. Sounds weird but I think it will be just the ticket for the last edges of the quilt. I will add a picture of the border squares as soon as i have one made up.

When I asked Meghan if she wanted it professionally quilted or if she wanted me to quilt it she said that she wanted it quilted by me - so sweet but it is a very large quilt to do on my domestic machine. I have done a queen sized quilt and know that I can manage that so what I am going to do is quilt it before i add the border so that it will be smaller. The batting and backing will be the actual final size and I will have to roll and pin them to keep them out of the way. We'll see how it goes...

Close Up of Meghan's Bull's Eye Quilt