Proof of Concept and more Shadow Trapunto

I'm home sick today- I've had a cold all week, first a sore throat, then a runny/congested nose, and last night a terrible cough.  I guess I should be happy I only get one symptom at a time more or less (still a bit of a runny nose, but not as much).  I stayed home today and am mostly just sleeping. I walked up a flight of stairs and felt like I had run a marathon. I should go back to bed.

But first, let me share what I've been working on for the past few weeks.

The main project I've been working on is a proof of concept for the next show quilt I want to do- I wanted to see if the idea I had has enough interest and visual impact to invest the time to make it into a 50" square quilt (this is a 16" square...)  This was done very quickly, when I make the real thing the letters will be stenciled nicely- this I just wrote them with chalk and outlined them!  The threads aren't the actual colors either- they are what I had on hand that best matched RGB and CMY.    It probably isn't ribbon worthy, but I like the idea, and it will give me the opportunity to do a lot of quilting.  (For those who see black on black, go ahead and get your comments in, that way the I told you so's have more ring later.)

 

Only about half the checkerboard actually got quilted. I like the idea for the background, but plan to put it on point.  I will also do the words in trapunto.  I think a large quilt with that much background will be boring, so I think I am going to hide motifs in it- a spiral, a feather, a maze. I'm not sure.  I need to play with how to do that. It will all get quilted black on black.

Although I am very proud with how good the feathers look (yay me!) I've decided they won't actually work.  On a large quilt, I'd have to make the feathers larger, and then they wouldn't have the right scale to the rest of the quilting (already the feathers are very open).  I suppose I could hyper quilt to fill inside of them, but I think I will have to come up with something else instead.  I love the silver metallic, but the idea of putting it into the black field was shot down- many people thought it would distract from the center design.  What about black metallic for some feathers in the background?

 A woman at my guild has also told me I should make the quilt round... I'm not sure. I will have to try some bias binding and see how it goes.  One thing this tiny quilt taught me is that it is really hard to square up a heavily quilted design and keep corners even. So I think I might leave the idea of anything near the edges out. So I think I might need a second round of proof of concept- maybe a 24" square, to try the motifs in the background....

Second, this is Leah Day's Feather and Hearts wholecloth. I've quilted it before, but this time I decided to do it as Shadow Trapunto. 

 

I wanted a thread other than white, but apparently the white blue doesn't show up on the green fabric.  Oh well... At least the fabric shows nicely- I dyed it myself.

 I am likely going to teach micro-quilting to my guild next year, and I think I may do it on this quilt. (I might need to get Kevin to learn to quilt so I can practice teaching it. I mean, can't you just say "do what you normally do, but do it smaller." haha)

Microstippling Adventures

So what does the quilt look like now?  Well- pretty awesome I must say:

Last week I got asked "what is microstippling".  Well this:

 

Stippling is a meandering design that travels across the quilt in random curving motions.  Micro stippling is doing it very very small.  I had Kevin use his macro tube to take a close up.  Without the dime, I think it would look like regular stippling, but this is very small.  Actually- I don't think it is even nearly as small as Leah (the quilt along host) does it, but I'm pretty impressed.   I'm also really impressed with the stitch quality- the Isacord is fantastic.  All the pictures are of the backside.

So why microstippling?  Well, first, because there are some really tiny areas to fill.  At my regular scale maybe only one or two curves would even fit into this heart.  That doesn't highlight the design at all.  The stippling serves two purposes- one it flattens the non-highlighted fabric, so the design puffs out and two- it forms and almost solid backdrop.

 

You may not ice that the hearts have lines running from the outline to the inline.  I actually didn't do this when I traced the design- I prefered the clean look of no line.  But there were a lot of ends to tuck into the quilt- two per heart.  Then, I realized if I didn't do them each stippling would have to do that too.  And all the little areas between the celtic knot triangles, and the area where the feathers switch directions.  I decide to go ahead and draw the lines, and just travel stitch over them.  The stippling was done with a continuous thread (woo!).  I think I changed the bobbin twice- the thread is thin so a lot fits.  My travel stitching is also getting a lot better.

The only problem is the areas I did travel stitch while outlining are pretty thick.  I think you can't tell when you aren't up close to the quilt though.  But now they have 4 layers of thread.  (The one on the right.  The one on the left is only from the outlining- and I missed a bit on the traveling...)

What is done? What is not done?

Not done- My paper.  BUT once I finish this blog post, I have gotten ALL distractions out of the way (except maybe dinner.)  Seriously. I have to stop procrastinating...

What is done- tracing the wholecloth with thread.   This took me a little under an hour and a half.  It went better than I expected.  I was worried because I've been having a lot of trouble travel stitching on the quilt I'm doing. I'm now blaming a) the heft of the twin size quilt or b) the weight of the cotton thread.   Travel over the Isacord was a breeze (as was moving the tiny quilt sandwich).  The other nice thing about Isacord is that as long as you are pretty close with the travel, it looks nice.  It is thin thread, so even if it is side by side instead of right on top, there isn't too much build up.

Beautiful Backside

So there are a few mistakes- where I wobbled off the path, where I took an absurd route that required too much back tracking, where my chalk lines were off, thus forming a strange shape, or where my line wasn't completely straight- but for the most part, I'm pretty happy with it.

In other news: marking with chalk is MESSY.  My foot kept filling up with chalk dust.

I'm quite worried about the next step: micro-stippling.  Teeny tiny stitches are not my forte.  My hands move too fast, and I feel out of control if I make the needle move super fast.  I'm not sure if I'll keep the top the top or not.  If I flip it over, it will be easy to see the lines I need to fill in,but I worry about getting chalk into my machine.  If I don't flip it over, it is hard to see the lines I need to fill in.

Chalky front side.

I wish I could wash it- but I think there is no way to do this at this point.  It would remove the starch, and who knows what other mysterious shifting/extra shrinking might occur?  So I'm not sure.  I think fear of dusting up the machine is going to win over not being able to see.

Wholecloth Adventures...

Leah Day is doing a wholecloth-quilt a long, that I have been intending to join since the beginning, but haven't been able to.  Well, today, I have time to quilt!  (Well, actually, I need to be writing a paper, but this is more fun.)

The very first step was a departure from my normal quilting routine: pre-wash the fabric.  That wrinkly vintage look I love on my quilts is not something that is desirable here.  So the fabric needs to get any shrinking out of the way.  I washed once, on hot.  Hopefully that is enough.

Then, like always, I starched the fabric.

And so begins the wholecloth adventure.

I don't have a light box, so I used my door:

Mistake #1.
I thought it would be easiest at eye level, so I don't have to crouch at all.  The problem was that meant some of the design was a bit too high for me.  I had to stand on my tip toes to get the top part.

 It was actually harder to race than I expected.  My left arm hurt a bit when I was done. I can't imagine how difficult it must be to mark a bed sized quilt.


This is what mine looks like right now, ready for the lines to be quilted.

I ended up using sidewalk chalk.  I'll have to wait to wash it out to find out if that is mistake #2.  I was going to use the Frixion pens, but decided not to.  Leah actually wrote a post about why she recommends not using them.  It was basically "what chemicals are you putting in your quilt?"  That really doesn't concern me.  I've written to Pilot and learned they are acid free.  Plus, this is a practice quilt.  It doesn't matter to me if it doesn't last long enough to be an heirloom.  But this is what bothered me:

Kevin took the good camera, so I can't get a picture but I did a test.  I wrote "test".  I ironed it off.  The ink disappeared.  The word "test" stayed!!!  When I ironed it off, it bleached out the fabric.  So it isn't that it won't last long enough to be an heirloom, it will be ruined from the start.


So what color thread to use?  I have a blue that matches perfectly, but a perfect match- while great for an heirloom isn't good for learning.  Do I want dark pink or yellow?  The pink might be hard to see against the blue, but blue and pink look great together.  The yellow will really stand out.