Longarm Quilt 29: New quilting techniques

This is a cute panel I got from my local quilt store that is now closed. L  See my post on 3/26; that’s where I took my first quilting class.

Besides taking classes at local shops, I have learned so much about quilting from the internet. I often stay up too late on a work night drooling over all the fantastically creative people who are willing to share their ideas. The net is where I first heard about McTavishing and ordered a couple of Karen’s books, designerquilts.com. I practiced a lot on paper, saw this cute panel and decided it would be a great place to try some McTavishing.

A panel is really a great place to test quilting designs on something useful. They’re usually pretty small so it doesn’t take as much time to complete some intricate quilting; and they make a nice finished piece to give as a gift or to decorate your home. This panel is 24x43.

I also tried out micro stippling and pebbles:

 I love the texture the McTavishing added to the background. One more look:

Great texture!

Longarm Quilt #35 Autumn Wedding Quilt – using a panto for free motion & other firsts

My friend, Susan, had me quilt this as a wedding gift for a relative so I was REALLY nervous.  But, of course, I had to incorporate a lot of firsts - making a stencil, using pounce chalk and learning a freehand design from a panto.

It’s a small quilt using the Potato Chip pattern from our LQS, thequiltersmarket.com. I wanted some fancy custom quilting since it was for a wedding. I used a really pretty stencil from Urban Elementz called Dusty Miller for the plain blocks because I knew it would really show.

I knew the quilting wouldn’t show much in the blocks with the print fabric so I found a simpler design in my Quilting Dot to Dot book from goldenthreads.com by Cheryl Barnes. I drew the design onto stencil plastic and cut it out with a stencil burner.

The Homemade Stencil Block

The Back

I used the Aloha sashing pantograph, also from urbanelementz.com for the borders. So I used 3 different designs that had a similar "feeling". 

I didn’t want to turn the quilt to line up the panto, but I thought I could get the design into my muscle memory and quilt it freehand. I used my trusty plexiglass on top of the panto and traced over and over (and over) with a dry erase marker. (For more details about this technique, see my 8/26/13 posting.) Then I drew it on plain paper until it was in my head and it worked!

The freehand sashing!

A view of the back

I still remember taking a deep breath before quilting every block! But looking back, I'm really happy with how it turned out.

Longarm Quilt #89 Wind in the Leaves - what I'd change & a mystery

Every quilt is a learning process – which thread is best, which quilting design works, a new process like appliqué on the Longarm (see my 9/17/13 blog about Tootie Fruitie - A fun project on the longarm).

This is a quilt I finished over the Thanksgiving holiday in my favorite colors – fall colors. The pattern is a real simple one that I made on up my design wall and you can see the Before is kind of boring:

But I planned it that way. (tip: that’s what you ALWAYS say when it didn’t work or there’s a boo boo!).  Actually, I really did plan it this way; I wanted to use solids to accent the quilting (another first). I used Superior Rainbow variegated thread in Autumn Leaves – the perfect thread for this project:

What I’d change: I wish I had continued the swirl quilting all the way across each row of blocks instead of breaking it up with the figure 8’s. Sometimes you use the piecing as a quilting guideline and sometimes, you should just IGNORE it!

A mystery: My top was square, but I had problems with a pucker in the backing toward the bottom right side which I had to rip out. I used a beautiful purple minkee backing which I know is slippy, but I’ve used minkee before with no problem.

I used cotton/poly Legacy batting which seems more slippery than my usual Hobbs 80/20, so maybe that contributed to the problem.  Maybe I should have done stitch in the ditch (SID) first. Do you always SID if you’re doing different quilting in the blocks and sashing???

Anyhoo, this is my car quilt and I’m pretty happy with it.  Oh, don’t you just LOVE that red/orange binding with the purple backing?  Ahhhhh~

Longarm Quilt #62 - When variegated thread is perfect!

This is a really fun 1-piece (I guess that qualifies as a wholecloth) top that made up quickly into a super cute baby quilt. Just popped the 42x52 piece of fabric on the longarm with batting and backing and started quilting.

I used King Tut variegated in Cleopatra on top. See, isn't it perfect? It has all the bright colors of the quilt!:

I used So Fine Ferrari in the bobbin. Ferrari is this bright neon green that I seem to use a lot! I freehand quilted it with a design I call palm frondish - it kinda reminds me of palm branches and is sort of jungley (I'm sure that's a word) like the African animals. I get a lot of quilting ideas from books and this one is from Dawn Ramirez, Pajama Quilter. She has such a friendly, relaxed way of teaching that it just helps a nervous, new longarmer feel more confident. thanks Dawn!

Sometimes it's hard to tell where the quilting lines go, so here's a sketch on top of the photo to give you an idea:

It's such a great allover design cause it's so easy to meander around, fill in all the tiny places and change direction easily. In this pic, you can see how the thread color changes look on the quilt:

I tried to angle the light so you can see the texture of the quilting:

Of course, I had to use more brightness on the back - a blue with crazy green dots.

That's a lot of pictures, but it's such a fun, happy quilt; maybe it will bring a smile to your day.

Longarm quilt #88: Baby quilt finished just in time - my own design!

The baby wasn't due til February so I thought I had a little time. Then the ladies at work told me on 1/16 that the shower was 1/27 - aeeeeieiiiiiiii!  I kinda had an idea of what I wanted to do - random rectangles and squares and not symmetrical. So you know what I've been doing the last 2 weekends; and I was madly sewing on the label yesterday afternoon.

The focal fabric is from the Les Monsieurs collection by Tamara Kate kayajoydesigns.com (she has some great stuff!) that I bought a few months ago with no project in mind. I have a hard time finding boy fabric that I like so thought I'd better snap some of this up from hawthornethreads.com.  See, you never know when buying that random fabric that's calling to you is a good idea! I already had the other fabrics in my stash and all the little pieces are from my scrap baskets so I'm proud of reducing my stash.

Here are some closeups of the quilting. I used 3 different thread colors: white, black & teal.

I really like how this section turned out with the sky fabric above the rocketship and the little patchwork section beside it:

For some parts, I used the fabrics as an idea for how to quilt that section.

I used a snuggly flannel for the backing, hobbs 80/20 batting and a teal So Fine thread in the bobbin. I added the blue outside borders after sending a pic to my daughter. She's a wonderful artist and it definitely gave the quilt a warmer feeling for a baby.

Let me know if you have any questions. I learn something from every quilt I make. I'm happy with the quilting, but I'm still learning what thread colors are best. I don't know what color I would have used if I had to stick to just 1. I only used 3 bobbins, but switching the 3 different colors added a lot of extra time and I did stitch in the ditch around all the dark gray sashing before doing the fancy quilting. Could I have gotten away without SID first? Would a long wavy quilting line in the sashing been an okay substitute for SID? I may need to try this design again to see if no SID would work. I am super proud of my design and love how this turned out.

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.

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.