A quilted Christmasy quilt

Today's quilt is one I quilted for my friend, Susan. The pattern is called Wrap It Up and we made it in a class at our LQS. It uses just three colors, but has a nifty interlocking "box" look. She used black with beautiful gold metallic swirls, red with gold dots and black with gold dots. Christmasy, but not too christmasy.

I have a harder time using pantographs, so I've been practicing my freehand allover designs. The only way to get better at it is to just quilt some quilts.  So I took the plunge and quilted her top using a freehand allover holly leaf and berry swirl with some pine branches thrown in. I used black Omni for the top and black So Fine in the bobbin with black 80/20 batting.

A berry grouping with a flourish

 

A lot of texture without being too distracting but lending to the Christmasy flavor.

Here you can see some of the holly leaves and pine branches.

 

A helpful tip: I always practice on paper or a whiteboard first. Once the quilt is on the frame, I put my big piece of acrylic (with colored tape around the edges to mark the boundaries) on the quilt top and doodle the design. Then I really get an idea of how the quilting will look on the quilt. I'll try and get a picture of that for my next post.

Quilting Interconnections

 

It's crazy how the quilting world, with the help of the internet, has become so interconnected. I started this post & then realized how MANY different quilting and idea resources we have at our fingertips - it's never ending! So here goes:

 

NJ1. Extra bits & pieces from a quilt that I work on off & on. The quilt pattern is by Sandi Irish using her Quilted Jewel template and was in the Summer 2013 Quilt Trends magazine.

2. I love the Comma fabric by Brigitte Heitland of Zen Chic, farbstoff-bridge.blogspot.de.  Love her blog, her fabrics and her patterns. (The black & white is something else)

3. My DIL asked for mother & daughter aprons for Christmas & I found a neat pattern by Mary Claire Allen, splendorfallsmc.blogspot.com in the 2012 Modern Patchwork magazine. The photo looks like linen combine with quilter's cottons, which I've been wanting to try, so it's perfect.

I happen to have some linen and I'm staring at these extra bits & come up with a way to make a pieced panel that's topstitched onto the linen apron, kind of like Mary Claire's chevron panel. So voila:

A modern retro look?  Piecing with Comma fabric using the Quilted Jewel template following Mary Claire's pattern!  I attached the bias tape using my new bias binding foot, which I figured out how to use by watching You Tube videos. See! There's no end to the learning and new ideas to try. So thank you to all the quilters who are so willing to share!

Mommy apron

 

 

and Daughter apron

 

View shared p

A furry foot wrap

I got some really cute snuggle fabric with some of my birthday money, but wasn't sure what I was going to make with it. I always keep a little blankie under the covers to keep my feet warm and my M.I.L. mentioned getting cold at night and so ah ha! I knew exactly what to do.  I popped those puppies on my longarm (no batting needed), did some loops and hearts with blue Omni thread. Added some blue binding and voila! A super soft throw to keep the toes warm and toasty. What a fun project.

A Christmas quilt in process

I saw this charm pack (that's 5 inch squares) called Aspen Frost that just appealed to me. I was doing my birthday discount shopping at the quilt store and couldn't resist.  I think it will make a really nice throw for the couch during the holidays. It's a simple pattern that I just made up.  Sometimes I get such a great feeling of accomplishment seeing all the pieces come together so nice and neat.

A Quick Little Bag

I got this kit for a trick or treat bag at the Quilt, Craft, Sewing Show last month and finished making it this weekend.

It has pieces of metal ruler in the front and back orange part so the bag stays shut. I'll make some more of these, but I'll change a few things: I'd make them a bit bigger and the stacked prairie points bigger too. It would be fun to do some white ghosts or something on the black straps. Ooh, a button or embroidery on the purple points would be fun too.

You can't see it, but I did free motion quilting on the black part. For me, it's sooooo much easier to quilt on the longarm than my DSM. I have the hardest time getting the tension right - extreme pokies on the back. I finally got the extra bobbin case, loosened it 3/4 of a turn and cranked the top tension to 6. The bobbin thread still just lays on the bottom fabric but at least most of the pokies are gone.

This is a good size for my youngest grandson.

Help I Can't Stop

making fun pillowcases that is. They're a fast, useful project and it's just fun to pick out colors that go together.

What delicious colors! I love how the purple and chartreuse pop. These are for the grandkids.

Had to Have this Fabric!

Isn't this just the cutest Halloween fabric?

 It's call Mona Makes Magic by Alexander Henry. And the cats are great too - so fun!

So they both had to come home with me and become pillowcases:

I did some decorative stitching on the skinny accent piece with glow-in-the-dark thread (how fun is that). This one kinda looks like spiders:

and this one is like the bubbles in the witch's brew:

 

 

Poppa says Grandma steals his pillow, and I had some extra pillows so these are going to their house! 

longarm quilt #44 A Fun Project on the Longarm - Tootie Fruitie

This is a really cute little girl quilt I did for my greatniece a couple years ago:



I got the idea from watching Linda Taylor's quilting show on the web. Pam Clark was a guest and she quilted the background and then added the applique all with the longarm. I fussy cut the flowers and used loops and zigzags to attach the shapes.

I used King Tut thread in Harem and peach So Fine in the bobbin. The Harem variegated thread had the perfect colors to go with the flowers. I also added those crazy 3-d strips to the sashing with the longarm.

I took a 2" wide strip, folded it in thirds and sewed it down the middle on my DSM. Then using a scribble stitch with the longarm, I added folds and "ruffles" to add some dimension. It would also be cute with buttons. I used Hobbs Polydown batting so all the different background quilting really showed up and added more fun dimension.  A little different view:

By the way, I keep a list of quilts with notes so I can look back & see what I've actually accomplished and that I'm getting better with practice. I'm really happy with how this turned out; I may need to do another one like this soon!

Sewing experiments

My granddaughter had on a cute skirt last time she visited so I found a nice pattern to play with. I thought I could make it fancier or more unique than a store-bought skirt.

 

Here's the muslin test. It's been a loooong time since I've tried to sew any clothes. I played with some decorative stitching and tried out my new binding foot to add the trim at the bottom.  No hemming needed and it looks kinda snazzy.

  

 

I also found a free pattern on craftsy.com for a boy's bowtie (thanks to asundaygirl.etsy.com).

I used fabric I had left over from making bags for beadsofcourage.org  I think it turned out pretty cute.

 

A lovely fabric find

I took a few days off this week and worked on the flag quilt. Was just supposed to get wide backing fabric,  but look what I found! The colors are awesome and the fabrics are so soft. They washed up beautifully and I can't wait to use them - maybe some lounge pants or something to wear. 

The stripe is by Kaffe Fassett and the solids are by Pepper Cory. I found her blog when I got home with some interesting info about her new peppered cottons fabric collection: peppercory.blogspot.com 

I may need to get every color!

More spooky pillowcases!

I made a few more Halloween pillowcases. I got a small pillow insert and made a tiny pillowcase for my grandson that matches the one for his Daddy. 

What I'm working on today - a sneak peek

I got a special request from one of favorite people to see this secret collaborative project that I'm working on. My honey
  
:)  is helping me create a special quilt for one of his friends.

This is a picture of pieces of it stuck to my design wall. He picked the design, helped me with the placement of the stars and is drawing up a really cool design for the quilting. I'm sewing on some of the stars this morning and then I'm off to a class on machine quilting on your home sewing machine.

Even though I have a longarm, I want to get comfortable with quilting on my regular machine for small projects. Quilting on a longarm is very different that quilting on a sewing machine & I'm much better on my longarm.

Eye Candy & Encouragement

Isn't this a great quilt! I love the pink and orange batik on the back. The front has 2 long pink ruffles.

This is one of the first quilts I made and I quilted it for beautiful Hailey on my regular sewing machine. It didn't take long to decide I needed a longarm. I call it "Grammy, let's be butterflies."  I quilted it with loops and flowers and a swirled vine. It just makes me think of Hailey and smile. Even when she was little (she's a big first grader now), we would play and climb trees and have tea parties.

Hopefully as we look at my projects over the past 4 years, you'll see that my quilting has gotten better and you will be encouraged to persevere!

First Quilt on the Longarm

I find it hard to practice on muslin. I have no real direction and it's so different than quilting on an actual quilt top. So after a few muslin practice runs when I first got my longarm quilting machine, I quilted this really cute panel:

I call it "Is there something to do?" cause at the time my granddaughter was only 3 and that's what she would say whenever she came over. LOL.

Here's a closeup of some of the quilting:

I did wavy lines in the picture area, some very sad hooks in the frame around the picture and a triangle shape in the sashing. Wow, that's some wonky, jaggedy quilting. But I'm still proud of it. For a baby quilt, it's cute and the texture of the quilting is nice when you don't look too close.  :)  That's it for tonight.

First Free Motion Quilt on the Longarm Machine

This is the third quilt that I quilted on my longarm machine, way back in 2010. I know it's the 3rd because I actually keep a list. Because I work full time, I was getting frustrated with my lack of accomplishment so I started a list. The list is kinda long now, but lately I've been distracted with my embroidery machine (we'll save that topic for a later blog). 

Anywho, the quilting on this was all done freehand. I had to figure out how to move from one area to the next without a lot of stops and starts. I have a big piece of plexiglass that I draw on with a dry erase marker. I can put the plexi right on top of the quilt and draw designs to see how they'll look on the quilt and to figure out how to move from each design. I put colored tape around the edges of the plexiglass so I don't slip and draw on the quilt top - that would be a bad thing :(

The quilting isn't that great, but I figure you have to start somewhere; and I get better with each one. I used yellow variegated thread and the backing fabric is black with tiny white dots, like stars.

Star Light, Star Bright

 

I recently sent it to Quilts Beyond Borders, quiltsbeyondborders.wordpress.com to find a wonderful new home. Let me know if you have any questions about the quilting.

what I did this weekend

A couple quick pillowcases with some cool Halloween fabric. A special person said she loved the skull fabric I was using to make a hotpad so I got some more today.  The bones on the other one glow in the dark. How neat is that?!

Sneak Peek

I promised a sneak peek at the 2 quilts I'm working on for QBB, quiltsbeyondborders.wordpress.com to take the place of the twin quilts that they're auctioning at the Houston Quilt Festival.

I'm a sucker for Halloween fabrics and have quite a few focal fabrics. So what if I do long wide strips of all the accents with some eye-popping color combination skinny strips between them... ah ha!

This one's ready to go on the longarm and get quilted.

For number 2, I discovered Marianne Haak's blog: thequiltingedge.com  Her work is fantastic and she uses a technique of doing quilt as you go. She mentions Sharon Pederson's book More Reversible Quilts so I got the book and #2 is my experiment with quilt as you go in Halloween fabrics.

The purple with the green dots will be the sashing between the blocks.

 

Cool news about the twin quilts!

I sent the twin quilts to Quilts Beyond Borders, http://quiltsbeyondborders.wordpress.com/ and they asked if they could auction them to raise money for their charity.

 

 

They'll be on display at their booth at the Houston International Quilt Festival (Oct 31 - Nov 3). That's so exciting! If you're at the show, please check them out and take some time to learn about QBB.

 

I did plan on them going to kids so, of course, I'm working on 2 more quilts to take their place. Stay tuned for some sneak peeks of the works in progress.

What I learned about quilt pattern decisions

Wow, I'm super happy with how this turned out! It's going to look awesome on Susan's bed. I think the quilting really makes it pop. This proves that a simply pieced top with two basic colors (rust and gold) can be the perfect choice. I tend to be attracted to fancy, busy patterns, but now I realize they can overpower a room.

what's on the longarm today?

Today is "whatcha workin on?" day

this is my friend, Susan's, beautiful prairie companions quilt top.


As you can see, I'm quilting seedlings and hooked swirls in alternate rows. I'm using Superior's Omni thread in Rusty on the top and a similar color of Superior's So Fine in the bobbin. I almost always use so fine in the bobbin so there's less bobbin changing. This is a big quilt; I've already used 6 bobbins and I'm just over halfway finished. This is about 108 x 120 so it's the biggest top I've ever quilted.

Previously, my daughter's birthday quilt, "Katie's Choice" won that prize. Yep, I name all my quilts. You spend so much time with them, you become close. It also helps me remember them & I add the name to the label. I might share this one next.

Here's a detail shot:

I like the way the Hobbs poly shows quilting definition. This isn't a real busy quilt so it's nice to have the quilting visible to really add zing to the top.

quilting detail - the twin quilts Part TWO!

I can't believe I forgot to talk about the embroidery part and the feathers! Here are the twin quilts again.

I quilted feathers in the red areas on the green/gray quilt. I can't even see them when I zoom in - probably cause I used Superior's So Fine thread.

I also quilted this one first. I wasn't sure how to handle the machine embroidered area and on the first one I did wavy lines in the white around the embroidery. It didn't thrill me but it was okay. In the embroidered hearts on the red quilt, I did one-way hatching right thru the embroidery with So Fine white and I was surprised with how good it looks.

If you're not into quilting, this is probably way too much detail; but if you quilt, maybe this is helpful. I study other people's quilting blogs, especially longarm quilters. I always learn a lot from their sites and everyone has great ideas. If more detail would interest you, please let me know. thanks

quilting detail - the twin quilts

For those of you who want to know about the quilting part (that's when you sew the 3 layers together -the top the batting in the middle and the backing), here's some detail on the quilting designs. For the green and gray one (the one I think of as more boyish), I quilted hooked spirals in the green border, circles in the skinny border, wavy lines in the gray and peacock paisleys in the jelly roll part.

sketch of peacock paisley

In the more girly quilt I did seedlings and hearts in the jelly roll parts around the panel and meandering hearts in the bottom bird print area. Here's a closeup of the back so you can see the meandering hearts quilting design.

sketch of seedlings

I used an oval ruler for the arches in the border. Ruler work is a little tricky so I'm still getting the hang of it.

Ah ha! here's the rest of the jelly roll part on the back:

I had a lot a fun with these 2 quilts and I'm pretty happy with how they turned out. You can see the complete quilt tops in my previous post. It always helps me to see how other people quilt their tops so I hope this helps you and gives you some ideas.

When a jelly roll race quilt doesn't finish the race

When the jelly roll race quilt doesn't work, cut it apart and make TWO quilts.  These are the twin quilts I'm sending to QBB tomorrow. Just finished the labels this weekend.

I wanted to do something a little different when I finished the jelly roll race top (a good example is the orange, pink & black quilt at the top of my blog). see? ah, very nice. BTW a jelly roll is a roll of 2 1/2" strips from a single fabric collection so they all play well together.



 

This time I cut it in 4 big pieces and flipped them to make a giant pinwheel. Well, it looked more like a giant swastika, NOT the look I was going for. My lqs (local quilt store) quiltbaskettucson.com had the cute panels on sell from the Flirt fabric line that went with the jelly roll. So I ripped the 4 pieces apart and designed 2 different quilts. Can you find parts of the jelly roll in each quilt? Can you find the machine embroidery I added to each top? And yes, I'm having way too much fun with machine embroidery too - more on that story later. Also "how did you quilt that?" at a later date too.