Forward Motion

....progress on the quilt at last.  No more pillows or puppies to interrupt the process.

I have a 4 inch wide border on my quilt that I am filling with a continuous feather that curves around itself.  After the feathers were done I went back and embellished them with gold, metallic thread.  I was going to fill the stem with pebbles, but when I got finished with the gold thread I noticed that the stem really stood out and looked pretty cool.  No pebbles - great idea!  I am calling this quilt "Desert Mosaic" because it is made up of the colors that represent our Southwest:  red, orange, yellow, turquoise.  It is a pattern of geometric interaction.  What do feathers have to do with geometric design?  They are a foil to the harshness of contrast and hard lines.  As it turns out the embellishment makes me think of cactus with their spines, centipedes, spiders, tarantulas and snakes indigenous to  the desert.   That may be kind of weird, but that is where my brain took it.  What do you think?

Feathered border.

The feathers in each section are exactly the same or the reverse.  I am a symmetrical person.  My quilt is a symmetrical design.  They are not perfect.  I am only human and sometimes the needle takes over and I have to say, "OK" or rip it out.  How do I mark these long feathers and related designs on black fabric?

1.  I draw the designs out on tracing paper.

2.  For the feathers I transfer the basic shape of the stem onto an old manilla file folder and cut out the shape.  I use the old childhood magic of heavy pencil lines, turn the paper over and rub the back until the pencil line transfers, then cut it out.  You can also cut up the tracing paper and trace around it, but I prefer not cutting up my basic design if I don't have to.

Transferring design elements (see below for the individual small patterns)

TIP:  We have tons of useless folders from DH's working years but cereal box cardboard works too.  You can tape pieces together for a long form, and it is a lot cheaper than template plastic especially if you will never use these patterns again.

Large manilla patterns.  The big one is for the basic feather stems.

3.  I pin the cardboard pattern to the quilt (down into the cork board under my ironing board cover), and trace around the shape with my white ceramic pencil.

4.  From there I draw the additional elements by hand with a white ceramic pencil.

5.  For smaller elements that need to be very precise I make little patterns out of the manilla folder.

Small patterns for the final border.

I have another two inch border yet to do, but then I can move on to my first attempt at prairie points, with some experimentation for a different sort of point.  I'll share with you how it turns out, but that is down the road a bit.

Sew some happy seams this week.  I wish you fun making cheap patterns from a Captain Crunch box.

Block Party Adventure

I am on a roll.  Every new block that requires a design ends up getting changed.  Should I have done some sort of overall design for this quilt?  I keep second guessing myself, but the mosaic-type design and bold colors don't lend themselves to an overall design in my mind.  Maybe I am losing my mind!

Case in point:
I have four turquoise blocks that anchor the corners of the design.  What to do with them?  I came up with a design I liked and I posted it last week, but here it is again.

When I look at it I see some wimpy red feathers and a bunch of pebbles that compete with the feathers.  It looks OK, but I want more than OK.  Yesterday I did a second one and made some changes.  I added mini-spines in each leaf of the feathers and in the process built up the red thread in the main spine.  Wow!  What a difference.  Now the feathers are calling to the eye to look at them.  I quit for the day before doing the pebbles.  Oh my, I like it better without them.  The photo doesn't really show the puff, but now the center is enhanced by a puffy frame.  The design is delicate and bold at the same time.  This block is only 4 inches so the frame isn't huge.  I am going to rip out the pebbles of the first block and do the rest without them. I can always put something in there if I want to.  Maybe it needs another line to echo the outside curve.  Time will tell and I will decide when I can see all four corners finished.

And that, my friends, is how I quilt:  by the seat of my pants with the seam ripper nearby.

Sew some happy seams this week.  I wish you adventurous quilting to keep you fresh.

Decisions and Thought Processes

No matter what kind of quilt you make, at some point you must figure out how you will quilt it.  Maybe you like stencils.  Maybe you trace someone else's design. Maybe you draw your own designs.  No matter the origin you have to figure out placement, marking methods, thread choice and factor in your own capabilities.

I'm almost ready to quilt.  I have the thread except for the order that should arrive today.  I have the batting and backing.  I have 2/3 of the quilt sandwhich pinned together.  I wanted to try using Misty Fuse, but with blue marker designs all over I cannot use the iron....so back to the old faithful safety pins and a bandaid on one finger to prevent abrasion.  I tried a thimble, but it was too annoying.

One more problem to solve.  I have a one-inch, dark blue border on the outside of my quilt.  I have tried a wider border on the digital version of the quilt, but one-inch is what speaks to me.  How am I going to quilt it, considering that I need to have room to put a binding on it too?  More problematic is that the quilting design must not get caught in the binding unless I do something like stippling or straight lines.  The dark blue abuts a medium blue and I tried dense, straight line quilting across the seam.  No go.  I don't like it, and trying to use two thread colors was mind-bending, and my mind refused to bend.

Reject!

I could do diamonds as I will be doing on a one-inch border within the quilt, but I was afraid I would have trouble lining up the points and not catching them in the binding.  Perfection might be hard to achieve.  On the other hand, it would echo the quilting on an internal border.

Diamonds on the tester do not sing for me.

Now I am contemplating a tiny feather line, but I will have only 5/8 - 3/4 inch, and I can't let it get caught in the binding, but it is more flexible than the diamonds.

Should I do it after I sew the binding on the front, leaving it open to be hand-sewn to the back later?  It works nicely on a tester, but I don't know about the corners.  Time for another tester.

I like the feathers and they echo the rest of the quilting designs.  Click to see large
and you will see the binding seam at the top sewed before doing the feathers.

What about blocking?  Block it after the binding is stitched to the front and quilt when dry?  Will the after-the-blocking stitching alter the shape?  I know the quilt can be blocked after the binding is on.  I can also block it before sewing the binding down on the back.

I could mark the border with a ceramic pencil and keep the feathers on the inner side of the line  Block and bind after stitching.

This is what I will be contemplating as I sit down to stitch every seam in the ditch, before doing the fun, decorative quilting.  It will be awhile before I have to make a decision about that border.

TIP:  Take the time with thought processes such as these.  Do the testers.  You will be more likely to end up with a product that you like.

Sew a happy seam this week.  I wish you lots of ideas from which to choose.

SaveSave

Frogging

Do you know about "frogging?"  Rip it, rip it, rip it.  In spite of all the suggestions and solutions in my last post, in spite of all my planning, in spite of all my practicing, in spite of quilting half of one side of my border and walking away happy.... I later noticed a glaring, ugly line where I wanted a free-flowing curve.  I like to backtrack on the spine of my feathers to bring out the curvaceous base design.  However, if the base design is faulty it shows up like a spotlight.  No photo because it looked too ugly (besides I didn't think to get the camera!).  I sat through two episodes of "The Mentalist" while I ripped out a lot of stitches...carefully.

It didn't take long to solve the problem as it was all due to a poorly designed corner.  I had turned the corner awkwardly and that caused all the spine lines to go the wrong way.  Thus all the ripping.  The next afternoon I re-marked the border and stitched it up again.  Now it looks graceful and I am sooooooo glad I took the time to redo it.  Below is the final feather quilting complete with marking lines and even a dog hair if you hunt really carefully.  Dixie dog likes to add her two cents.

Please don't get the idea that I always make mistakes.  This blog is generally about dealing with problems and my only experience is my own.  Mistakes are OK as long as you learn from them.  Have you ever heard that one before?

TIP:  Don't get discouraged.  It happens.  Encourage the bulldog in you and rip with care.  As you are frogging, your creative, flexible brain can preview options, ponder alternatives and produce new ideas.  Just do it!

Dixie

See a painting of Dixie here.

Near Death Situation

I had a near death situation this afternoon.  My sewing machine began to clank and chirp.  My husband listened and said, "Stop right now and take it in."  So I bundled up to beat the major incoming snowstorm, drove an hour off my mountain, and visited my very accommodating sewing machine guru.  Of course  the ornery thing didn't clank and didn't chirp for him, and his diagnosis was that it is OK.  He said to take it home try again and if it still makes ominous noises bring it back.  Sure thing....in the predicted two feet of snow???  Not going to happen until the roads clear so, dear machine, you had better work!

 I have feathers on my mind and the final border awaits:  a 2 1/2 inch width to quilt with feathers.  I am told that all quilting designs should be worked out when you first start planning your quilt.  I disagree.  As I piece my fabrics I get better acquainted with my quilt.  I suck in ideas from all around me.  I create ideas in my head.  I think about quilting in my dreams.  Finally, except for fillers,  I sit down with my pad of tracing paper and start drawing.  Many times my planned designs land in the trash and I end up with totally different ideas based on something I just saw somewhere.  I don't start drawing until an idea crystallizes and that sometimes doesn't happen until I am ready to work on a particular part of the quilt.  That's OK...for me anyway.

Here is the paper design for the spokes I mentioned last week.  I was so excited as I liked the look.  I printed the feathers on Sulky Sticky Fabri-solvey, but realized immediately that I had a problem. I thought that the size of the drawing was exactly the right size, but too late I realized I should have printed it smaller.  Oh well, that didn't spoil the idea so I printed a sheet the right size and stuck it to the quilt.  Then my needle gummed up very badly as it tried to negotiate the adhesive and two layers of batting.  This definitely was not going to work.

Tracing paper design

N.B.  I have used the Sticky Fabri-solvy successfully before and have recommended it to you.  However, I think the problem here was the thickness of the batting or maybe they have changed the adhesive.  Whatever the problem, it didn't work this time.

TIP:  Measure before you print, measure before you sew, test ideas and products for each individual quilt, exercise your mental flexibility.

I have read of quilters who draw the spine of a feather on their quilt, and then let the needle figure out the feathers.  I am a line-follower and was reluctant to do this.  However, on my dark fabric, I could see no other solution.  I began hesitantly, and guess what, I did it!  I have drawn so many feathers on tracing paper over the years, and that skill just communicated itself to the needle.  I learned a few things as I progressed through twelve spokes, and I am happy with the results.

After much figuring of dimensions and practice with pencil and paper I have finally started the outer borders...free hand.  I marked only circles and spine on my quilt.

Basic design marked with white ceramic Sew-line pencil

Incomplete freehand feathers.

TIP: When you are practicing with paper and pencil take careful notice of where you have to erase.  What was wrong with that line?  How can you avoid sewing a bad line like that?  Solve the problems ahead of time so you don't have to "erase" your sewing.  Train your eye to look ahead.

TIP:  Bite the bullet and try something new!  Draw your ideas on paper first.  You may be in for a big surprise as to the capabilities of that needle.  I certainly was.

BTW my sewing machine was not sick.  I have always had problems winding the bobbin on this machine and it ends up with a rat's nest at the beginning.  That's what was jamming up the works.  My faithful repairman showed me a different way to wind the bobbin (not in the manual).  I can pass the thread through an almost invisible, tiny hole in the top of the bobbin and hold the thread end until the thing gets to winding properly, then cut it off.  So easy...and it works like a charm!  No more snarls from me or the machine.

Negative Space

RETRO:  Before I start this post I must refer back to my last one.  I never mentioned the value of "needle down" for FMQ.  If your machine has it, use it.  It is invaluable for keeping the quilt in place as you reposition.  Also, I didn't mention that I do all my quilting on my Viking Sapphire.  No space for a long arm machine.

TODAY:  Now for a discussion of negative Space:  What is it?  What am I supposed to do with it?  Is it important?

Negative space is a place where nothing lives.  It can be a plain block between colorful pieced blocks or it can be empty space around a central motif.  Note the quilt below.

Look at all that black around the spiral design.  It makes the spiral look a little lost.  I had finally reached the place where I was able to draw lovely feathers and all that space is heavily quilted with trapunto feathers.  I used a dark grey to stitch the feathers.  When you get up close you can see the quilting, but from a distance it might as well not be there.  The spiral itself is all done with stitch-in-the-ditch quilting.

Galaxies detail

This quilt was juried in to two quilt shows and I was quite pleased with that, but didn't win anything.  One judge dinged me for too much negative space.  The other judge found seam(s) that didn't match up.  Two lessons learned and acted upon with following quilts.

What is to be said for seams not matching?  Not much.  It takes fastidious pinning, sewing and persistence to get it right when there are several seams coming together in one place.  Next time I am going to forget the pins and glue baste.

TIP:  If you are interested creating exquisite quilts, it is important to pay attention to technique from the time you cut fabric to the time you finish the binding.  This is critical if you want to show your quilts.  If there is a mistake, the judges will find it!

As to negative space there is a lot that could have been done and my instinct kept nudging me that I needed something in those corners.  I didn't listen.  Another lesson learned!  I could have put a colorful quarter star in each corner or some sort of appliqué.  I could have quilted with a bright color of thread.  I could have (and may yet) added color to the feathers with Shiva Paintsticks.

TIP:  Pay attention to your creative muse.  It is usually right.  A creative muse is a source of knowledge reflecting an inborn sense of design, experience, vision, inspiration, technique, and external learning.  It will guide you to excellence, but only if you listen and act on what it is saying.

Off Topic:  Can you figure out how Galaxies was made?  I'll share that next week.

Quilting the Spiral

Most of the spirals I have seen are circular, also called mandalas.  Most of them are placed on a rectangular background.  This results in a lot of negative space in the corners that is crying to be included.  Left alone, the mandala can look lost and cause viewers to lose interest.  There are a ton of ways to decorate the corners, but in this case my feature fabric had such lovely flowers and leaves that I created mini-bouquets in each corner and tied them together with a 1/2 inch border.

I learned the hard way how to quilt a spiral.  A friend suggested that I use wool batting because it "quilts like butter."  So I put the fluffy wool batting into my quilt sandwich and began my quilting.  I soon realized that my quilting designs on the spiral turned it into a flat and fluff mishmash gridded with seam lines.  It looked awful!  In despair I very carefully took out all my quilting and started over.  I couldn't figure out what else to do so I quilted in the ditch of every seam, and it looked wonderful.  I now do that on every spiral quilt, and have discovered that I can do some overlay quilting if I want to, but don't have to.

Quilting plays a critical part in filling up the negative space.  When I made this quilt I was just beginning to venture into Free Motion Quilting (FMQ) and had only done simple stuff.  I was just easing out of the broken needles-shredded thread stage.  I had not educated myself regarding the importance of the right needle, the available threads or the critical need for them to work together.

TIP:  Take time to learn about threads and needles. BTW I am a staunch fan of Superior Threads.  They have excellent quality thread and many opportunities for education.  Subscribe to their newsletter, which always has a funny joke or story, in addition to valuable information, and of course, deals.

You saw this quilt in my post two weeks ago, but here it is again so you can look more critically at the finishing.

Reverie

I was eager to try my hand at feathers, so I gathered my books, pencil, eraser and tracing paper to create a design.  I never thought to look on the Internet for ideas on making my feathers artistic and interesting.  Below, you can see the feather design up close and personal.  That is all there is to it.  I look back and wish I could do something more interesting, but I was already stepping up to a new level.  I did it, my FMQ improved, and I felt really good about it at the time.  It filled the empty spaces.

Reverie Feathers

I was terrified of those feathers.  I knew I couldn't backtrack accurately so I designed the feathers in a way that avoided as much of that skill as possible.  My stitches are not perfectly even, which takes a lot of practice on a domestic sewing machine with no stitch regulator.  I had trouble stopping and starting again without making a jog to the side.  I had fused the appliqué flowers in the corners, but didn't know if I could quilt through the fusible because it was a little stiff.  I bit the bullet and did it anyway.   These challenges improved my FMQ immensely just because I was trying new things.

TIP:  Look at other blogs, show quilts, and Pinterest on ideas for quilting designs.  Go ahead, fly out of your comfort zone.  It is amazing what you can learn to do, but you have to start somewhere.  You will quickly forget your fear.

I am not much of an embellisher, but I went ahead and hand stitched gold Razzle Dazzle thread around the center motif, the spiral itself and the binding.

My quilt went on to win "Best Machine Workmanship" in the 2011 Hoffman Challenge, and has been shown across the country and in Ireland.  It has also been shown in some special exhibits.  I am soooo glad I braved the unknown and stepped into new territory.  Pick up a copy of the Dec/Jan issue of Quilters Newsletter Magazine.  My essay about this quilt is in the column "300 Words."

BTW I am entering this quilt in the Bloggers' Quilt Festival  in the Original Design category
this week.  Voting will be November 1.  You can also click the button on the right sidebar.

Bella Bella Blue

I saw a fascinating quilt hanging in a local quilt store and loved the color and design.  I asked about it and quickly bought "Bella Bella Quilts" by Norah McKeeting, which I read through carefully.  I had to make one of those quilts and I settled on the one she calls "Venice Rose."  I call mine "Bella Bella Blue."

Bella Bella Blue 72" x 72"

It is made in an interesting way with excellent instructions in the book.  No sense going through the whole process here.  The design is constructed with two spokes, one the reverse of the other, and they are quite long.

The two spokes of the wheel.

The pattern comes with the book with paper piecing directions.  Instead of using the usual foundation material I used freezer paper.  I did it the usual way, but instead of sewing through the paper I ironed it down, folded it back, added the next piece of fabric, and sewed alongside the fold, catching only fabric.  I found I needed to put a pin in the last piece sewed just to be sure the pattern didn't slip.  This thing gets to be a snake by the time it is finished.  The freezer paper foundation can be used over and over and there is no paper to pull out later.  Putting the spokes together requires great care in matching the angled seams.  I did and redid many of these intersections.

TIP:  Matching seams is critical for a top notch result and a good method is shown on this website.  She talks about getting points right, but the same method works for matching seams.

TIP:  You have tried twice and still the seams don't come together with precision?  Carefully pin again as directed in that website, then turn your quilt over and sew it together from the other direction.  This almost always solves the problem

As to adding the circular border, I direct you to the book.  I designed my own appliqué, but I didn't want to needle turn the edges, and I am not crazy about satin stitch (probably because I don't do it well).  I discovered Ricky Tims' "Rhapsody Quilts" and was interested in his method of using machine blanket stitch for appliqué.  I used it on my motifs and was very happy even with this first attempt.

The quilting is all feathers with one in every piece of every spoke.  In the diagonal joins I did a wiggly grid.  It is hard to see on the front in these photos, but here is what the back looks like.

Backside shows the quilting.

My problem #1:  I ran out of the dark blue.  I had that fabric in my stash for years and loved it, but it never quite went with anything else.  Finally, here is the place for it.  Then I ran out!  Fortunately, I had a piece of selvedge, which showed that it was a Jinny Beyer fabric and I was able to buy an expensive one yard online.  I finished the quilt with a small handful of very small scraps.  Too close for comfort.

TIP:  Figure your fabric before you sew!  You might not be as lucky as I was to still be able to find an almost outdated fabric.

My problem #2:  I carefully marked the quilting design with blue marker on the white and a Clover iron-away white marker on the dark.  By the time I finished quilting the first two spokes the white marker rubbed off all the rest of the quilt.  The blue marker stayed the duration.

TIP:  Test your marker by rubbing it with your hands and scrap fabric.  If it doesn't stay you may have to mark as you go along, which is what I did.  Remember, practicing the quilting design with a marker will help you do a better job with the quilting.  I love the "SewLine" ceramic marker, and it has different color refills.  It rubs off and if there is any residue, it washes out.