Free Motion quilting

Recently I have been doing mostly stitch in the ditch quilting and not very much free motion. When I quilted my bathroom quilt I knew I had to do some free motion quilting but I have let my skills get rusty and I didn't want to do something that would beyond my skills. I ended up with a quilt that I am not very satisfied with. I love the bright colors and the interplay of pattern and color but my quilting makes me really unhappy every time I look at it.  I meant the quilting to be liberated and what it looks like is poor craftsmanship. On Frieda Anderson's Wednesday blog  this week she said the most important thing is to practice, not just once in a while but to keep at it.

So that is what I am going to do. I put some narrow borders on this 12  inch block and decided that I was going to use it for a protective pad on my hutch so it is not something I have to be afraid of spoiling. In the past I have found that I can practice all I want on layered up muslin and batting but I don't really improve until I quilt something that I actually want to use or give away. This was a perfect  practice piece. It didn't take long, it was fun to do, I have something finished to use and I like it. It's not perfect; it isn't something that anyone will ooh and ahhh over. I am not sure how much I can expect to improve. My hands and eyes aren't what they used to be and shoving a  quilt through my Bernina is HARD WORK but I think it is probably worth while. Besides, who  says I have to finish everything in a big hurry; when I get tired I can stop and come back to it later.

 I have a stack of practice sandwiches from years back that are stuck away and I only look at them when I am looking for something else I was looking at  them and they look OK.  I remember they were fun to do so I think I am on the right track. I will do some more practice on small stuff and then I am going to do some FMQ on the quilts I have layered up that I have been putting off because I have no interest in quilting them.

More small stuff

My daughter came over last Friday and she had my great grandson with her  so I had to child proof my sewing room and make room for him  to play and work at one of my adjustable height tables. That meant putting things away and rearranging the room. So.... I am not set up for quilting anything very big.  I decided before I put it back for quilting again I would work on some smaller things that are easier  to do when I am not set up for quilting.  I made place mats and pot holders with the same fabric I used for the mat I made of the hutch. I asked Jack what he thought and he said they were bright and cheerful and maybe we shouldn't use them and  mess them up.  Ahhh well, the bright and cheerful was the answer I was looking for.

There was another set of potholders nearly the same that my daughter took home along with the two table toppers.

She saw  these top two mug mats and told me she needs more mug mats. I bought these two 5 x 7 pieces at a quilt show 2 or 3 years ago. They are discharge  printed and I never did  anything with them until last week. I made 2 more using the  print that I used for the  binding on the first two. I should give them all to my daughter as I made her an apron last summer with that floral print fabric.

I liked the floral teacups so I looked through my stuff to see what I could  use to make some  more. I found a lot of floral  fabrics I could use and I like this nice springy mottled green for the background. I probably need to make a bunch more for all the girls in the family. While  I was  rummaging around I found some fabric with  fishing flies that would be perfect for the fisherman  in the family.Then would have to get  some football fabric or  something sporty for the other guys?  They probably wouldn't even care or would think it was dumb and I am not sure I want to make this a long term project.

I have one 12 inch block left over from my February  BOM sample blocks and I think I might just border it and use it for a hot pad when I need an extra layer on the table or the other hutch. Or.... maybe I should give it away or maybe I should  just put it away with all the other left over blocks from years past.  I'm thinking about it.

Finishes - Small Stuff

I have been spending a lot of time fiddling with my computer ....again. This time it was some sort of power glitch during the night, neither of us could boot up in the morning. We both finally got going after different solutions for each of us.  I had pages I needed to print and that required some more fiddling. I'm not sure how I feel about Windows 7. Anyway not too much sewing got done for a few days.
 I have some larger things to quilt but I finished up some small things just to get them out of my way.

This table topper is 26 x 26. it has 4 - JP Star blocks and though it is quilted and bound I may do something to bring the turquoise into the center; and then again maybe not. I have been making so many things this size that I am getting quite a collection of table toppers that I am not going to use.                                    

This piece is made  with 2 - 12 inch Jacob's Ladder blocks; I am going to use it on my hutch that sits next to the table in the dining room. I put the bread basket and dessert plates etc there during dinner and I need something (pretty) to protect the surface. I made the blocks for our Block of the Month for our group at church.  I had one  completed and one to demo the steps. I am not going to make a quilt out of my blocks for 2 reasons. first, I don't need another bed or lap or throw quilt and second I only bought a fat quarter bundle of this fabric and an extra yard of the red. I am starting to really like the colors  so maybe I will buy more and make a  quilt after all. Or.........with all the small pieces and the rest of the bundle I will make place mats and pot holders.

This is what I did with the Quails nest blocks I cut into quarters and rearranged. The Quails Nest pattern got lost in the busy background and red and green print so I decided maybe I would rescue the blocks by cutting them up. I really like the red and green (and yellow) print and I  wanted  to use the blocks. It is better this way but here I am  with another table  runner.  I like the colors and the way it turned out,nice and bright and kind of sassy.These are all my favorite colors that I wear all the time but they do not fit with any of the colors in our decor so I will probably pass it on.

I make things because I am excited about the fabric and I want to play; then I really don't have a use for it myself. Maybe I should concentrate on getting excited about something I can use in a new quilt for my bed. Something made with new fabric and not from my stash, which is dwindling anyway there is  not enough of anything to make a bed quilt.  You know..........I can't believe I am  thinking along these lines I have more than enough bed quilts already and I have ONE bed and not room to store more quilts. Oh well........................... we'll see.

Collaborative piecing

On Saturday we decided that we would  concentrate this month on making filler strip and border sections. We are all  going to make tubes with 5 1/2 inch by half the width of the fabric strips of black  on white  fabric (mostly white) and 2 1/2  to  3 1/2 inches by half  the WOF of bright fabric. We will slice the tubes into rings and cut the white fabric  a bit off center and sew the resulting strips  together. It was Fran's idea to do it this way and I like it. 



I wanted  to see how it was going  to look, this is step by step how I did mine. 



Step 2



Step 1

Step 1 The  2  strips are sewed  together and pressed to the bright



Step 2 On the right, fold up along the length so  the right sides  are together and the raw edges  meet and stitch to form a long tube. Don't press the seam at this time.

  

Step 3 Cut the tube into strips (rings) of various widths  I think I like 2 3/4 to 3 1/2 inches. I forgot to take a picture of this step.

Step 4



Step 4 Fold so the seams are  offset by 1/4 to  3/8 of an inch and cut the white fabric with a scissors. Press to the bright fabric at this time.

Step 5 Sew the strips  together with a 1/4 seam.  Press all the seams in one direction.



Step 5



 

Step 6  Trim to the determined size. We will  be trimming to 6 1/2 inches. You can see that the top strip here will determine where this piece is trimmed as it is  narrower than the other strips. The reason for that is that I had 2 1/2 inch strips of that white fabric and made a regular strip set, my bright fabric was cut at 3 inches. To be able to get a good offset I should have made the bright strip 3 1/3 inches. I think maybe the bright strips should all be closer to 3 1/2 inches give or take an 1/8 inch. It  would  give enough variation  to just vary the width of the slices, that would make it easier to offset. Next time I will know. Maybe someone else  will have a better idea. We are  all  doing this off the top of our heads so there are bound to be more ideas. It  seems to me a good  idea to pretty much  line up one side when sewing the strips together as you can see on the  right  side in Step 5.

Here is the strip all  trimmed. The photo on the left shows the top 3 strips are wider. I thought they looked too chunky and stitched  another line 1/4 inch away from  the existing seams between the blue and red and the red and yellow. I like it better.

Next month when we get together we will all bring the tubes and  we will slice them up and mix them up and stitch them together. 

So far we don't have a concrete plan about what we will do with them.  Will they go on the  quilt  we  have  been working on or will  they go in another quilt?  We'll see. Sounds like fun to me.

 

Saturday Sewing

Our Saturday group met today. We are glad to have Kathy back with us; she has been tied up for a while with caring for her dad. She tried to step back and get herself out of the picture but Fran snagged her and gave her a hug and I snapped the picture. Kathy is the shorter one here.

Jan brought her Happy Village piece from last month. She and Lori are at about the same stage of adding doors and windows and roofs. It makes me want to locate my pieces and parts and get to work on it.

We got started on our collaborative quilt project after everyone was there and we stood/sat around and chatted and caught up with the latest goings on in everyone's life.  Lori and Diane started putting blocks up on the design surface and arranging them and Judy set up her machine and started adding frames and pieces to make smaller blocks fit. These 3 did  most of the work of arranging and putting the top together. The rest of us were not idle; there was a lot of discussion about how it looked and what to do about a border and we critiqued Jan's happy villages and Lynn made some wonky stars and houses and we discussed lunch.

Lunch is always fabulous; the food is always  good  and so is the  conversation. We always linger over lunch and it is hard sometimes to get focused again on our work.

After  lunch Judy started sewing the blocks  together with the help of Diane, Kathy, and Lori.  Before long they had the whole body of the quilt together. There was a discussion about the borders and I am not sure what decision we came to or maybe we didn't make a decision.

While the quilt top was coming together Fran, Jan, Lynn and I did  some planning for filler strips or border strips. Fran came up with a easy way to make them and we are all going to bring the strip tubes next month for slicing up "bargello style". 

There was  also talk about the "next quilt" so we will be doing this again. We will be needing another quilt in which to use those filler/border strips. I heard some talk  also about 12", 9", and 6" blocks. Judy is going to email all of us the particulars on that. We didn't really have any sort of plan for this quilt other than bright colors and 6 inch blocks. Now that we have done this one the ideas are starting to flow. Sounds like some fun coming up.

Houses

Our Saturday group is meeting this week and we have decided  to work on a collaborative quilt. This may be something we do kind of in the background for a  while or maybe we will get excited  about it and  put it together quickly. We go with the flow. We are  all making 6 inch blocks using bright colors. The inspiration is the collaborative quilt books by Freddie Moran and Gwen Marston. Those are the only guidelines. It will  be fun to see where we go with  this. 

I made these 6 blocks today. It is not easy for me to do improvisational piecing. I am always cutting things too small.  Sometimes I get carried away with cute and  cuteness gets in the way of what I really want to do. The houses I like best are the  bottom left and center houses, nice and simple.  Just in case you wonder where the chimney's are, most of these are all electric  houses with Geothermal heating so there is no need for a chimney. The one in the center on top is a  beach cabana which doesn't need to be heated.

I spent my day doing this and I was reminded tonight that tomorrow is our Friendship block swap group and  I do not have my blocks made. I am not sure I will get them finished. My ears have been loudly ringing for the past half hour and that is usually the  first sign of vertigo. I took a pill and since it is bedtime  (for normal people anyway not usually for me ) if I go to bed now maybe I will  be OK in the morning.

Man-dress

One of my 4 year old great grandsons likes to help his grandmother cook and he told his mother he wanted a man-dress (apron).  Don't you just love it when little kids don't know what to call something so they figure out how to let you know what they want. Yesterday when we were out shopping my daughter was  going to buy an apron for Ben. I knew I could do better than the one she picked up for $13.

I found some bright blue fabric in my stash and then I found some fabric that I had left from making a summer dress for myself, probably 25 years ago. It had bright colored giraffes all over it.  My granddaughter (Ben's mother) asked me to make her one just like it for her 5th birthday. I had some pretty good sized pieces left and I can't believe I still have it after all those years. I made it reversible and fused a giraffe on the blue side and zigzaged around it. It would have been free but it cost $1.50 because I bought D rings to make the neck strap adjustable so it would be more "manly" than  tied in a bow at the neck. 

 I remember that when I made the dresses I thought about how I could fuse the giraffes from the leftover fabric onto something. That was before paperbacked fusible web. I used WonderUunder to fuse fabrics together but it didn't have paper backing and I never got around to figuring out how I would fuse the giraffes.

In case you wonder, I really did wear the dress......... with a red belt and red shoes and red wood beads. If I still had it I would wear it again today. And you know what? I am going to fuse some of those giraffes on to something and make something for me and my granddaughter.

Bathroom quilt done

Done and hung. It was not easy to get this photo. There is nothing  spacious about my bathroom. It is a bit less than 5 feet wide so it was hard to back up far enough to get the photo. I had to sit (guess where) and point the camera up  to get the picture. The top of the  quilt is about 1 inch from the ceiling and about 7 inches from the tile around the tub on the left side. On the right side the photo show the door and how close it is to the corner.

It adds alot of color to that white on white room. I like it. Next up....shop for towels.

Liberated Blocks

I have been playing with blocks from "Collaborative Quilts" by Gwen Marston and Freddie Moran. I got them out today to look at them because our group has been thinking of making a collaborative quilt. This is a sampling of what I have.  I think  we are going to start out with 6 inch blocks and then take it from there. Some of my blocks here are 6 inches and  some are not but when I made them I was just having fun and not aiming for a particular size.

For some reason I have several boxes of bright fabrics,some are scraps and  some are larger pieces. There doesn't seem to be any reason why they are not all  together except maybe I sorted some of them out for what I was working on at the time and there they stayed. Maybe I can get this down to 2 boxes and gain some shelf space. then again maybe I should chuck the organization and "just do it".

I am currently quilting my bathroom quilt and I am thinking I could play with some of these in

the 6 inch size when I get bored with the quilting

Our group at church is  going to be doing a block of the month which will be more precise piecing and I am looking forward to that too but I really have more fun with the more relaxed wonky piecing.

More about this another time.

Borders

This is what I spent my day doing.

I decided that this will be a great bathroom quilt. I won't have to decide on any one color for towels I can have all the colors I want.

I planned to make a 3 part border with the center strip pieced with 2 inch squares alternating bright and cream fabrics; the other 2 border strips would be 2 inches wide also. After I got the first strips on 2 sides I thought it was looking rather large and I measured the wall from the ceiling to the top of the tile and it was 45 inches. I was already at 44 with 8 more inches to add. I had already made the pieced borders. I trimmed the borders that were already on the quilt to finish at 3/4 of an inch and I did the same with the other borders. Well..... it fits the wall.  I'm not sure I like it but I am going to leave it. I am going to bind it with the Kaffe fan fabric that is on the left of that corner block because it has a lot of colors in it. I could have save myself a lot of trouble it I had taken the time to hold the quilt up against the wall just once.

Jack's comment about the quilt.......it will  be a lot easier to hang than wallpaper.

Happy Valentine's Day

I had big plans to make a big bunch of these mug mats but these are the only 3 I finished. I sent them to 3 of my friends. well I did finish the Home is Where the Heart is quilt and I hung it in my bathroom.

Yesterday as we were sitting down to dinner I looked out the window to this magnificent sunset. This is a picture of what I see above the buildings across the street. I took this from out living room window. I played with adjusting the color but this doesn't really show how red and gold it actually looked. That purple (which is very nice) was  not what I was seeing in real life. This was around 6 PM, the days really are getting longer and that sure cheers me up.

Last spring I was inspired to make these blocks that were on Bumble beans  15 minutes of play. I put them up on my wall over a week ago and have been looking at them all that time. This morning I started sewing them together. The photo on the left is half of the blocks sewed together in a square.  Above  is the rest of what I have sewed so far. I am thinking that I would like to make a quilt to hang on my WHITE bathroom wall (there is also WHITE tile in the bathroom).

 I have enough blocks to add to the 9 block  square and the 5 block strip and put it all together to  do this on the right. Bigger would cover more white. I thought I would make one bigger quilt with all the blocks but I want to keep at least part of these blocks for something for me and I do not need a bigger quilt. I am leaning toward the 5 x 5 square with a pieced border.............we'll see. 

Another Block for the Party

 This is my Modern Block submission to the Block Party. It is a Quails Nest block which is an old  traditional block that has been cut into  4 equal sections, the sections rearranged and then sewn back  together. I would like to give the block a catchy name but nothing comes to mind.
  


I  first  saw the Quails Nest block on Love Laugh Quilt and thought maybe it was Beth's original block but Beth assured me it was not and to  go ahead and post it.
The two blocks above, set on point, are blocks my Friendship Group made for me when it was my month to receive blocks.  I am not sure I will cut them all up and rearrange them because I really like the Quail's Nest block.

The red, yellow and black block is the first one I cut apart. When I put these 2 print fabrics together the octagon hiding behind the Churndash got lost or maybe it was the churndash that got lost..... anyway something got lost  I liked the combination and the fabrics so I thought maybe cutting and rearranging it like a Disappearing 9 Patch would help. I think it is better. At the right is a block cut apart but not rearranged yet.
When I cut the first block I divided it a quarter inch off center. I was thinking "12 inch block" which is the finished size not the raw edge block. I had to trim it a little to make it go together and that cut off the points in triangle squares and made the center square "float". Now I have to figure out exactly what I did so I can repeat it and use all these blocks together.
I have found that what works best for me when dividing the block in equal parts is to use the measurement of the center square and move my ruler back and line up the edge of my ruler on half the center square. That way I don't have to think about what size to cut the whole block which may not be exactly the size I was aiming  for.  After the sections are rearranged the new block is one that lends itself easily to squaring up to the right size.

I wish I had more patience so I would stop and think before I charge ahead. Then I wouldn't have to  figure out how to fix things. Maybe if I had more patience I wouldn't have as much fun. I think I will hang on to that thought because I am probably not going to change.