Free Motion Quilting

I had a few questions, yesterday, about free motion quilting.  As I said yesterday, not all my readers are quilters, so I thought I might give a little illustration about the process.

Have your friend stand next to a table and hold your  pen straight up and down in one position so the tip is on the table.  Tell her not to move her hand nor the pen -- Except for a second so you can place paper under the tip. :) Now, you move the paper to make a drawing of something simple.  It's harder than you think!  Next, imagine moving a 45 by 74 inch quilt sandwich around under that pen until you have drawn on every inch of your "large 45 by 74 inch paper".  Oh . . . and you have to manipulate your large paper, all crumpled up, under your friends arm, between  her body and the pen!!

Sewing this way takes practice!  It is not like sewing a straight line.  You can "doodle"  all you want with free motion quilting.  Here are a couple of blog sites and books that have examples and other explanations if you are interested.

Book by  Don Linn

I have this book and use it, but there are a few others that I would like to have:

Dancing with Thread by Ann Fahl

Freemotion Quilting by Judy Woodworth 

and sites that I like: 

SewKindofWonderful.blogspot.com
Freemotionquilting.blogspot.com

Have a great day!

In Progress!

Some time back, I started a scrap quilt and had wanted to finish in one weekend.  But, alas, life interrupts us, and the quilt went into the unfinished black hole. . . er . . . box!  I am now a guest in a friend's awesome studio, with lots of room for quilting.  I had wanted to quilt three already finished tops into finished quilts in the time that I will be here in this studio.

One block of the unfinished top

I started on the afore mentioned scrap quilt and was going along at a pretty good pace, when I ran out of the thread that I had brought.  You would think that my friend's studio would have some similar black thread that I could use and replace, but no!  I tried some thread that she did have, but I think it was a fine, silky machine embroidery thread, and it just would not work in the quilting machine!  When I put it in the bobbin case and tried to use it, it just made a mass of  loops on the bottom side of the quilt, no matter what I did!  I tried everything!  I finally gave up. (Remember, I am still learning.)  So here's what I have done so far and I will try  to finish it again today with some different thread that I bought.   BTW, this is free motion quilting, for those of you who are not quilters, as I know not all my readers are.

Same block  with finish quilting

I sure would like to finish this soon, so I can go on to the next one!  I hope to show you the finished quilt later this week!  Wish me luck!

Who Am I?

It's January and I am still in the self and creative evaluation process! January is really a reflective month for me.  Exploring my love of quilts in this post.

Exhibit at Tillamook Creamery in Tillamook, Oregon

I love to look at quilt magazines and books; sewing TV "How to Do it" shows; as well as go to quilt exhibits. I love quilts where ever I find them--on my bed, in flea markets, or as backdrops for commercial fabric vendors.  I recently bought a new sewing machine that is more conducive to quilting, with drop feed dogs and a darning foot attachment!  Much better than my old basic machine!  Love it!  But . . . I am getting sidetracked!

An early tablerunner project that I quilted

I have found that when I quilt, I am better at getting smaller projects finished than I am at finishing a large bed-sized quilt.  (Previously I sent bed and lap quilts out to another studio, Janice Jenney Studio. She's done a nice job for me on the quilting, after my patchwork was done.) This may be just that I am not as accomplished at quilting as I would like to be, and afraid that the satisfaction of a "Job well done!" will not be there at the end, if I do it!  So I have dug a little deeper into my psyche to find out about a few peculiarities about myself.

1.  I am not a "purest" quilter!  I really don't care if the corners match up with precision!   I've seen on TV:  "Always press to the dark side of the fabric!" and "Trim the little corners, so it will lie flat!" and "Always have the presser foot in the down position."  These are all good instructions, but I find that I enjoy doing it my way! I like to finish my projects satisfying my own desires to be creative.  I march to the beat of my own clock!  I don't quilt to be judged by others nor by their standards!   Call me a rebel! (And I will never win any honors by traditional quilt judges, but that's OK with me.)

2.  I love the exploring process.  Learning to complete the process, start to finish!  Learning to do free motion quilting on my own machine!  Coming up with my own designs!  Exploring color combinations!  This quilt was done because I loved the block's center pieces of pansy fabric.--I designed around those pieces and their colors.  You can see the finished quilt here, when it was actually shared in a quilt show!

Exploring fabric colors to match 

3.  I don't like using someone else's patterns!  I love the creating process!  Thinking it through, planning and finishing!

4. I love using materials that I have on hand--I personally, do not like leftovers!  I like to "Use it up!" as the old adage goes. I like using materials that are not considered the "proper" materials! I guess that stems from the artist in me! This quilt was made for a friend, who had already cut out dozens of squares of fabric that was a bit  too loosely woven and stiff for a "normal" quilter, but I didn't want to waste her work!  It came out fine as the black and white border of this bed quilt (and the girls liked it!)

Well, That's enough self-evaluation, you get the point!  Be creative and don't worry about what others think. Decide who you are and go from there to find your greatest achievements!

 Enjoy the journey and keep on learning! 

Are you enjoying the journey?

Another "Yo Yo Lady" Project

Just call me the "Yo Yo Lady"!  I make all kinds of yo yos; some for my projects, custom orders for client's projects, and plenty to sell in my supply shop.

 

Here's my latest project with yo yos --Christmas Wall Quilts! 

 

 

With embroidery and bead embellishments!

 

 

Finished!

 

 

I also am making them in other color combinations, maybe I will show them to you later this week! Or, of course, you can see them in my handcrafts shop!

March BBA Challenge - Part 2

I have finished my BBA challenge project (see Monday's Part 1 post) and was going to post it on Tuesday, but held off until today.  Several reasons for this, one was presented in the Tuesday post but the biggest reason is, I was disappointed with my resulting product.  Now, don't get me wrong, I love the color combination, which is what the challenge was all about!  I was pleasantly surprised that what I thought was a little 'out there' combination, turned out to be beautiful and I can't say that enough!

I made a quilted Easter table runner. 

As you can see, it doesn't lie flat, although it might after it is washed.  It's all cotton, so it will probably soften up in the washing process. 

Not to belabor my disappointment, but I am also just learning to free motion quilt on my standard machine which does not have a stitch regulator.  To get an even stitch you must learn to have an even moving hand while sewing in the pattern you chose.  Stops and starts cause a stitch with uneven stitch lengths.  You might be able to see them in this picture. Larger stitches can be seen at the bottom of the picture if you look closely:

And there were stitching curves that had corners in them, which is not what I was going for.  All stitch lines should have had flowing curves.  But worst of all is that I didn't think ahead to the quilting process before I did it.  I should have used a basting spray between the layers, so while quilting there would not be any layer slippage.  When one quilts on a frame, which I don't have, the three layers of fabric are held taunt.  This prevents any excessive pleats or puckers in the fabric.  Mine has plenty of puckers, which I am not happy about!

 
I was able to fix this somewhat, but it still makes me unhappy with the finished product.  Oh well, practice makes perfect, they say!  Oh boy, could I use that new machine I have been wanting that has the proper hopping foot/walking foot, that would have helped too!  But that is another story.

As to my initially not liking red and turquoise together, maybe I could have learned something from my little 5 year old grand daughter, LaRaya, seen here with her sister, Vivienne.

 Live and Learn!

P.S.  This is for the Blogging Business Artisans March Challenge.  Hop on over to our team blog to see the other participants came up with in Red and Turquoise!