Marking Plans

I was asked last week how I will mark my quilt so here goes.  I made some changes to my design, but only added some more detail.  Then I drew it all over again!  By drawing the design on paper you build muscle memory, but it is not quite the same as working on the machine.  In the recent issue of AQS magazine RaNae Merrill has an article on how to use a plastic guide to practice your quilting before you try it on the machine.  Next, using sandwiched samples you practice your design with the sewing machine before you let the needle puncture your quilt.

I made templates of the shapes that have to be perfect.  Shapes that I can't free motion without a guide.  I had a bunch of poster board that I don't  anticipate using in the next 50 years so I drew the template shapes on them, except for one.  I don't know, but suspect that template plastic is more expensive and certainly less available in my small town.

Templates for internal shapes in my design.

The one template that is made from plastic shows 1/4 inch guidelines that mirror the outer shape (the curved triangle-ish one above).  This will be used to mark the grid that will fill it.  I don't have the fancy rulers being used for ruler work, nor do I have the necessary foot.  I can do this just fine without them as long as I have a drawn line to follow.

1/4" guide for a grid.  I'll clean off the pencil smears before using it.

I find I can follow lines with the needle quite well, but I can draw them better by hand, so I mark anything that has to be fairly perfect.  I need to mark this design (scroll down to last week to see the unfinished drawing) on an 8 inch black border.
     *Blue wash-away pen won't show.
     *Purple air-dry pen won't show.
     *Pouncing chalk makes a mess and smears.
     *White pen does not work for me.  It always disappears too quickly.
     *Frixion pens leave chemicals that come out to play if the quilt gets cold (winter mail).
     *I hate messing with that thin tissue you can sew through and find it imprecise.

My choice is my Sew-Line ceramic/chalk marker.  I love it.  It works like a mechanical pencil and rubs off if necessary. It comes with an eraser on the top, which is great for small goofs. However, if I have a big goof I put on my machine quilting gloves and rub the error out with those.  I have never had it stay if I didn't want it to.

Sewline marker and refills.

TIP:  As I mark around a template the line is a little thicker than a pencil line so when I quilt I stitch at the inside edge of marked lines.

Of course there is a downside.  It will eventually rub off as you manipulate your quilt.  The solution?  I mark as I go.  By the time I need to mark my quilt it will all be stabilized with ditch stitching. The internal part of the quilt should be totally free motion with little or no need to mark anything except grids.   For the border I will mark 1/8 of the border at a time.  At this time that is the plan.

For the feathers I mark only the spine and then do the feather loops free hand.

The feather spine is the curvy line on the bottom.  Looks strange without the
feathers, but it will do the job.

TIP:  Practice your feathers.  Soon you too will be able to mark only the stem and freehand the feathers with your needle.  You can also draw a freehand guide line for the outer edges of the feathers to keep them contained.

I am eager to get going on this and I got my batting and backing fabric, but I think I will finish my collie dog first.  She is very close to done.

Sew some happy seams this weeks.  I wish you time to practice your quilting skills this week.

Quantum Mechanics and Me

I have been reading a fascinating article about nano sized microtubules made of protein that live within our nerve cells.  They are being studied as the possible residence of quantum mechanics particles, which may be the basis of consciousness.  I know...that's a bit deep, but I am thinking that this week my quantum mechanics have taken a vacation.  I have not been sewing.  I have erased my way through pages of tracing paper trying to achieve a viable quilting design.

My sewing room, ironing board and sewing machine are under siege, covered with pencil, eraser, poster board patterns, used and unused tracing paper, a silk liner glove that needs repair and DH's dirty clothes hamper.  A card table fills the only free space in the room.  It is a mess, but when I sit at that table drawing, erasing and ultimately creating designs I am lost in contentment.  In spite of the frustrations, I can still find peace as I temporarily let the world take care of itself while I take care of me.  Those infinitely small particles in my brain are coming back into line as I scribble my way to a design that I think will complement the quilt.

180º view of my mess.  With the design complete I will once again
create order before I begin to sew.

The ideas I have lived with for over a year have not worked out to my satisfaction.  The center of the quilt has many small sections that I will quilt individually because I like their interactive shapes.  The outer reaches of the quilt leave vast spaces for quilting.  I have tried ideas for drawing desert scenes.  I have tried integrating several geometric borders.  Nada.  Now I am back to feathers.  I love feathers and so far they are looking the best to my mind as something I both like and am able to do nicely.

Design, which shows completed ideas as well as some of the trial ideas.

Taking a photo of this I see that I don't like the way the grids cut across the corner.  I have since draped the feathers over the grid so the almost straight line is broken.  I have plenty of time to review and revise as I stitch in the ditch.  This tracing paper will be pinned to my design wall.

Sew some happy seams this week.  I wish you time for contemplation to keep those quantum particles under control.

Designing Quilting Motifs

I finished the top!!!  When I got it all together I just slumped.  We have been without sewage disposal for three weeks now.  The septic field has failed.  The pipes have dislocated. As I write we are scheduled to hook into the city system, but the plumbers were supposed to hook us up last Wednesday - no show.  Then Friday - still couldn't do it.  Now it should happen Monday.  We finally let them set us up for three nights in a local hotel.  In some ways it is hard to be creative, but I find that it takes my mind off the presently unsettling vagaries of life.

Update:  As I am getting ready to post this they have just delivered the big digging machine so they must be planning the job today.  YEA!

I have been having fun designing the quilting for the finished top.  It does not lend itself to gorgeous, united quilting motifs like Margaret Solomon Gunn creates.  I am a great admirer of hers, if you haven't figured that out yet.  My quilt is an interlocking mosaic of color with lots of different inner designs to look at.  The more you look, the more you find.....almost an "I Spy" quilt.  I pondered the process of designing while I stitched, and have previewed lots of ideas.  No space for fluffy feathers nor would they complement the design.  I have looked at Pinterest, Google Images, books, and magazines.  These ideas get jumbled and have to be sorted out to maintain some sort of continuity throughout the quilt, and I am doing that with pencil and eraser.  I will quilt this to death.  

The quilt will be about 60 x 60 inches and I couldn't think of any way to manage designing on a full sized piece of paper so I finally printed one quarter of the quilt (all quarters are the same).  I had to break that quarter down into four pieces to print, and then taped them together.  This gave me a 15 inch square mock-up to mess around with.  I covered it with tracing paper and went to work with pencil and eraser.

Tracing paper makes the photo fuzzy.  General ideas in pencil.
(Since I took this photo I have made a lot of changes but you can get the idea of the process.)

TIP:   I love tracing paper.  You can see through it easily.  It is nice to draw on.  Pencil is easily erased when necessary.  You can turn it over to get the reverse pattern.  You can fold it to trace the mirror image of a motif.  You can retrace your lines with pen to show through fabric on a light box for marking said fabric.

Clearly the mock-up above does not deal with the actual sizes I will be quilting.  I am using some of my paper-piecing patterns to work out correct sizes of individual elements.

Actual size designs.  These don't all go together in the same block, but I
was able to determine the size of of the grids and other details.

TIP:  You can use paper clips to hold tracing paper to the pattern paper, but staples are more secure and don't catch on other things or fall off.

The first quilting will be in the ditch.  I will stitch every seam in the ditch before adding decorative elements.  That will take a long time, and I will get very good at it and very tired of it by the time I am done, but it makes the quilt look so nice.  I will then be able to work anywhere I want to without worrying about quilt distortion.  Time to get out to buy batting and backing.

Sew some happy seams this week.  I wish you hours of fun designing and creating.

It Is The Little Things

It is often the little things that catch the eye and spoil the view or enhance interest.  That happened to my quilt this week. The main focus is a complicated design in an on-point square.  In the middle of each side is a triangle that suggests a hidden square behind the on-point square.  You have seen lots of quilts like that...right?  At the last minute I was looking at the graphic of my design on Illustrator and realized that two lines were "off."  See below in the magenta circle how the turquoise border and the turquoise, pointy piece inside the red border look mismatched.  Intellectually they should be fine as they are unrelated design elements, but my eye was offended.  According to my brain the lines should line up, but they were about 1/2 inch off.

Graphic showing the disconnect!

My first attempt at righting the wrong, was to take the turquoise border off the side triangle.  Then I
inserted a 1/2 inch orange border and put the turquoise outside of it.  Now it is at least the right size.

Narrow orange border inserted.

Next I reapplied the triangle so the turquoise border to lined up the way I wanted it.  Now, that is better, but I am still not happy.  The line is OK, but it looks like an animal took a bite out of a presumed connection.  Hmmmmm!

Turquoise lined up.

How about putting a tiny, turquoise triangle in there?

Cut piece of turquoise set on top for testing my idea.

That little piece of turquoise fills up the barren territory and makes it look like the border (upper turquoise) travels under the red border to become part of the main design.  I don't know if anyone will ever notice it, but it is the kind of quirky idea that tickles my fancy.

TIP:  Take time to look at your work critically as you move along.  Fixing something in the early stages is much easier that having to go back later.

After a couple of  hours I have now carefully ripped a few stitches and inserted four little pieces to my satisfaction.  For the final two sides I will first insert those little triangles before stitching it all together.  Glad I caught it when I did.

Sew some happy seams this week. I wish you no mismatches to contemplate.