Snowflake #9

UFO Sunday

OMG!  This is a UFO I am SO happy to be done with.  Now, it isn't a long standing UFO- it is just another piece of the snowflake quilt I've been steadily making progress on... I started this three weeks ago, took it off the machine and set it aside to do the charity quilts, and have been steady working on it ever since.  A three week snowflake!  (To be fair, I spent a few hours with it on the weekends, then about 15 minutes a day the other days, if at all)  Yesterday I finally sat down and really tackled it.

Pebbling is a design I hoped not to use.  Not because I don't like it- I actually think it looks great, but because it takes FOREVER.  There is just nothing that can be done to pebble quickly, and because, unlike some designs it doesn't create really interesting designs that make you want to keep going- I get bored and stop quilting and leave, and that just makes it take even longer...

But snowflake #9 is finished and I have 3 more left to go.

Unfortunately, one of them is this one.  (Note: This is a cell phone picture, not one Kevin took. He would be appalled if anyone thought he took it, as he usually does my quilt photos.)

 I had sketched out an awesome idea based on Bubble Path (but filling in the in between space more densely), but when I sewed it, it didn't work.  I used water soluble thread to try out some ideas that might work to fill the spaces that existed, but none of them looked good.  The only solution left is to rip.  (Normally, I'd just go buy more fabric -I'm out of pink- and make a new one, it would take a ton less time.  But because of the new house, my anything budget is $0, so it isn't possible. I do have an extra piece of organza if this one doesn't make it. But it is slightly different from the organza I used for most of the project, and I was hoping if it is just in the corners for the two squares I needed it for it won't stand out too much. Using it for 3 might ruin everything... already I'm sad this quilt has been such a success, because if I knew I'd rock at it, I would have used better materials - LOL)

Last night I ripped for 3.5 hours, and the picture is how far I've gotten- you can barely see progress.  I did get to watch a disc of Better of Ted though, and I love that show.

Today, no sewing- I have a lot of homework to do.  7 weeks until I'm done with my Master's!  And this morning we stained the deck getting the house ready to rent, and this afternoon I'm going rowing.  It is a busy day, and I have a really busy week ahead.

The craft room is getting packed up, so all I have left are snowflakes, white thread, my machine, and a ruler/cutter for the snowflakes.  No other projects this month! (If I have much time to sew.)  I still hope to do 1 snowflake a week.  The one I'm doing right now is Trippy Triangles.  After that I plan to do some McTavishing, and some Stippling (for the large one).  I need one more design- any suggestions?

Spool Stand

I don't think I ever blogged about this, but it is one of the greatest additions to my sewing room.  A spool stand!  Once I got into the snowflake quilt I realized that those 12" squares EAT thread.  Seriously, I had a mostly unused 1000 m spool and it was gone in just TWO squares.  

So I researched my options and found out that I definetly need to go with large spools. I order my Isacord from IMachineGroup.com  The shipping isn't cheap (it's the actual shipping price, so it is fair though, I'm just used to cheap shipping), so I usually get 10 at a time, and it is the best price per spool (with shipping) I've found online. (Have you found a better deal?)  Without shipping, a 1000 m spool of thread costs $3.25 (a fantastic price, btw). But a 5000 m spool- it costs $6.95! It would cost $10 more to buy that much thread if I only bought the small spools. But large spools, well, they don't fit on the machine.

Enter a solution.  The spool stand!  Again, I'm cheap.  I looked at those and they seem to range from $15 to more than $50!  The cheapest ones had lots of bad reviews about them being tipsy, the most expensive are decorative, and the one I decided I wanted is about $25.   Now, $25 buys a lot of fabric.  I didn't really want to spend that.

So I showed it to Kevin and he told me he could make it.  And he did. And it is perfect.  And the best part: free.  It was made entirely with scraps that were around his shop. And it fits the spool perfectly, and it isn't tipsy at all, and now I have PLENTY of thread to make snowflakes.  If you sew with the same color a lot, I highly recommend going this route.  It is MUCH more affordable!

Kevin was also very smart when he made this.  The hooks up the top direct the thread in two different directions.  The thread moves so slowly when I sew, that I really only need one.  But when I wind a bobbin, it flies off the spool- so it usually comes out of the bottom hook.  The top hook is oriented differently, so it stays in. So this does work for winding bobbins!  And they aren't hard to thread at all- there is a teeny opening on the side, so I just slip the thread through that (and that is how it escapes) I don't have to actually thread UP through them.

UFOs down!

So today is UFO Sunday, and I took it to heart.  First, let's talk about unfinished objects: anything in the sewing room, that is not done.  Even if I'm currently working on it, because once I go work on something else, I'll have to set it aside, making it unfinished!

http://freemotionquilting.blogspot.com/2012/08/ufo-sunday-1.html

Here is what I can think of.
1) "First" quilt.  Finished piecing this in 2004ish.  I need to reapplique the center square. I didn't know how to applique at all then.  Then I need to see if it is quiltable (may not be, my piecing probably stunk then) and come up with a quilting plan.  Priority: Low
2) Snowflake Quilt.  Current project, making progress.  Prioirty: High
3) Dresden Plate Quilt:  This project is stalled.  I need more fabric, and have no budget.  I also need to decide if I want to make more plates or quilt blank squares.  I need to determine the finished size, I went into this without a plan.  Priority: Medium
4) Navigator's Compass:  This is just an applique piece, glue basted together.  I need to decide what it is being appliqued on.  Another project I went into without a plan.  Priority: Medium
5) Mandala Wholecloth:  After the feather/hearts wholecloth I traced this.  I wanted to use colored threads to make it like the Mandala designs I loved to color. Priority: Medium
6-8) THREE Charity Quilts: Picked up in July, these need to be turned in at the September guild meeting.  Priority: High
9) Eye Spy Quilt:  I got some of the squares sewn together.  But I've changed my mind.  I want to machine applique them all into alphabets, so this actually has to come apart so I can start again.  Priority: Low

So what did I do?

First, on Friday I attacked the Mandala.  After having a great experience painting, I decided to paint it.  Disaster.  The paint bled into the fabric so badly!  So then I took a more viscous paint and outlined and it saved it a bit, but I decided I didn't like where I was headed.  I took a deep breathe and threw it into the trash.  Project status: Finished.

Today I attacked the Charity Quilts.  Three quilts, DONE!  I think I quilted from breakfast until about 3:00, and knocked them all out.  They aren't perfect- all have some pretty bad wrinkles in the backing  fabric, but the fronts look good.  Two of the quilts are actually quite nice.  The "fall" one was this reall ugly panel, and I wasn't sure what to do with it, so I outlined the panel, but did some design quilting on the outside sashing, so at least the sashing looks nice.

UFOs left:  5

Probably won't make much more progress, as a lot of these rely on buying new supplies.  My quilting budget until about November is ZERO.  All money is being saved to replenish the bank account after our down payment is taken out.  But I have plenty of stash to quilt with (and snowflakes to work on, plenty of thread to go for awhile!), so it will all be worth it for the new big sewing room!

Snowflake #8

Seriously?  #8? I can't believe it. I'm making actual progress on this quilt.  I need to start thinking about how I am going to do the wavy binding strips.  I'd like to do the waves, but I'm not sure I'm good enough at binding to do wave edges.  Will definetly need to practice on something else.

I got a little bit of bearding on this one, not as bad as the first two squares, so I clearly need to make sure I'm changing my needle more often.

This design is Leah Day's Brain Coral, but I think it looks like oil slicks.  Maybe because I echoed more than she did.
I'm happy with this one.

I have #9 in progress- pebbling, and not sure what to do with #10- I had a great idea for it, but it didn't really work out.  I don't know if I should keep trying to adapt what I have, rip out what I have, or see if I can find the backing fabric so I can just start over from scratch on this one.  #10 is the first one I've been disappointed with...  I'm of a mind to just finish it, and then decide if it needs to be done from scratch.  It seems like ripping it out (it's about 1/3 done) is not a viable option.

Snowflake #7

This is the first snowflake I breezed through.  This design worked up SO quickly.

I like to think it is my own invention, I call it "tire tracks".  I designed this when thinking about how the C curves fill the space on McTavishing, and decided to see how they might travel along the quilt.  Originally I thought it looked like a snake, folding up upon itself, but now all finished, I think it looks like someone might have had a wild time mudding.

I know the design isn't really original though, as it looks a lot like Bananas which I've seen Diane Gaudynski (Bouncing Bananas) do, and are a design suggestiong in the pattern by Leah Day (Swirling Bananas), but I designed this idenpendently, and I think it moves along the quilt a little differently.  My tire tracks are always a continuous line.  Looking at the picture, I think Leah's Bananas sometimes start again in a new direction (maybe not).  I don't know how Diane quilts hers.  Actually, now that I look at the picture, the proportion isn't really like bananas, so maybe this is my design.

And this marks over the halfway mark for small snowflakes!  I also got organza on top of the two I ran short on, and the giant snowflake, and uh-oh, despite it looking nearly the same, the shine is totally different.  I either hope a) the huge amount of thread piled on top of it makes it indistinguishable, or b) if I place them both in corners you can't really tell it wasn't intentional. 

We looked at more houses today and found one I really like.  I dream of a larger quilt room, even though I know I am lucky to have one at all.  Kevin also got me some foamboard insulation and we upholstered it with batting so I have a tiny design wall now.  When we move, I plan to make an entire wall a design wall.

Snowflake #6

This particular snowflake has been a pain to quilt.

I call this design coffeee beans and it is one I came up doodling during a meeting.  It is surely inspired by something I saw at the Free Motion Quilting Project previously, but I didn't look it up there.

Well, it was just slow going.  I started this square 3 weeks ago, and got about 30% done the first day I quilted it, and then left it.  Then, last weekend I did maybe 10% of it.  (The Olympics have taken all my sewing time these past two weeks.)  Friday I have half days at work during the summer, and that is usually when I do a square- well 3 Fridays, and this one didn't get done.  This Friday, I took a nap instead.  Today, I decided to finally finish it up.

Whew!  Overall, I really liked the look of it.  I cut it square and damn it-
I turned it over and I had caught the extra backing in the stitching.  I had to rip out about 3 square inches, and redo it.  I don't THINK you can tell where the fix is, so that's okay.

But I made stupid ruler mistake AGAIN.  See, I have a 12.5" ruler, which is used to make finished 12" squares.  And surely the ruler makers know it is for that purpose.  But the center of the ruler is NOT the center of the square.  No, rather than a quarter inch being added to either side- the extra half inch is on one side (like a proper ruler should be, to be fair).  So half the time I use it to square up, I'm off centered.

URGH!

In the end though, it's done, and I like it well enough to go into the quilt.

(If you see black lines in the picture it is because I hadn't ironed them off yet.  I use the Frixion pens to mark my boundaries quilting, going just outside them.  But of course, if I don't pay attention to where I am cutting, then they stay on the quilt...)

Painted Quilt

I took a Craftsy class recently about a painting a quilt.  I am SO impressed with my results.  (Although it looks better in pictures and on the wall then it does up close. ) This is definetly a technique I want to explore more.  The problem is, for this quilt, I had someone telling me exactly what to paint where- I'm not sure I have the artistic sense to figure that out for myself.

However paint on quilts is definetly going to be something I do again!

This is the pictorial quilt appliqued and but not painted.

It is amazing how the paint transforms it.  It is like a totally different thing.

The paints I used were Setacolor- they are transparent, so if there is a pattern under them it reads through it.  I got a pack on amazon and it was pretty affordable.  The other supplies I just got at Hobby Lobby. I think I'd want a better brush if I did this a lot.

Sunday edit:
I spent the day Saturday quilting it.  I LOVE it.  Which is unfortunate because as a practice quilt, I didn't use very good materials.  The blue is super thin Walmart fabric, and while the backing fabric is actually brand name-high quality, it was grab bag material and a ridiculous choice (why would it matter? It goes on the wall- well, it makes it harder to bring to guild and such where it might be seen.)  

This is my first time doing McTavishing.  I still need some work with it, but I like it.  Oddly, I did better with it with the Connecting Threads Essential (a thick cotton) than I did with the thin silk thread from the class at Pine Needles- maybe it is because it blends in, but I didn't get too much build up when I had to travel stitch.  A few times I did need to cut my threads and start over- I just got TOO stuck, but I tried to limit that as much as possible.

And here is the back- absurd right.

 But I'm showing this because, even with a practice quilt, I'm finally making it a habit to label my quilts.  I never labeled any of my baby quilts, but now, pretty much everything gets a label.  It is sewn into the binding and then I used steam a seam to hold it down.  I need to learn to hand sew, as the hanging tag hasn't been whip-stitched on.  I didn't do any quilting IN the flower (though I used invisible thread to sew down the formerly only fused applique) and I'm still trying to decide if that is the right look for the front.  I think thread will interupt the painting, so I am probably done. 

I guess now I need to decide if I want to make this same flower again with better materials.

Finished quilt...

I made this top quite awhile ago (it was a Jelly Roll Race, but I didn't use a jelly roll).  It sat, waiting for me to quilt it. Finally, I had the perfect opportunity- I took a class on basting at Pine Needles, and needed a quilt top. Thank goodness for procrastination- I had one!

The basting class was all about how to use a table top corner to pull your backing flat to your batting and then how to layer the top on it.  You let gravity do the work.  I still think it would be tough for a king size quilt, but certainly easier than crawling around on the floor.  I was about as effective at no wrinkles in the backing as normal (meaning there are one or two tiny puckers).

Last weekened as soon as I got home I quilted it.  I thought that an over-all spiral would break up the harsh horizontal lines, but it turns out you can't see the quilting at all on the front.  Still, like always, I love the back of the quilt.  I usually sit with the gray side up- it's about 60 x 60, a lap quilt.

I love it! 

A crafty day...

I have been doing sewing stuff since 7:00 this morning.  I woke up and picked out fabric for applique (I need a better selection- I have NO "mottled" colors...I had to use solids) and traced out the shapes, cut them out, ironed the steam a seam on, and assembled the applique.

Then, I painted my first quilt, as part of Annette Kennedy's Craftsy class.  It looks pretty amazing in the photo I took (on facebook for a sneak peak) and from far away- you just have to promise not to get too close...  I will post it here once I quilt it, but the paint needs 24 hours to dry completely.

Then, I was going to quilt a snowflake (I picked a new design to try), but remembered I promised my nephew I would make him a "Rosin Bag" to play with.  Well- I've never seen one of these, so I googled, and almost all of them are labeled (pitchers get easily confused?) and have serged edges.  So out came the embroidery machine and the serger...  I stuffed it with felt.  I thought that would give it a little more weight than cotton, but I didn't want to pay to mail a bean bag to Texas!  I think it looks pretty cute.

Since I was making stuff to send to Courtney, I used some of the Riley Blake fabric I got in a grab bag to make her 3 more snack bags for the twins.  I use these now for lunch and really like them- as long as they don't sit too close to a freezer meal or cold coke. Once they get wet, they are useless.  Turns out my serger tension was a little messed up, so on a the lining and one or two of the bags you can see the threads, but I fixed it on most of them.   If you can count, you'll see there are 6 in the picture.  Three are for a friend I told I would make some for -in March?-  sorry!  But I made them!  And with adorable number fabric too.

Sorry the photo is so bad- I took it on my phone.  Kevin usually does my blog photography, but he was gone, and I am impatient.

Snowflake Quilt: Blocks 4 and 5

I'm making a bit more progress on my snowflake quilt.  I've run into a problem: there just aren't 12+ quilting designs that I've mastered...  I want this to be a sampler quilt, but I also don't want it to be a beginner one.  So once I did the scallops, the spirals, and the checkboard, I was kind of stuck.  I planned on stippling the large center block, so I can't use that.  So it sat for awhile, and I worked on my Dresden plate quilt.

Well, I made some progress.  First- I bought two more sheets of felt and did the applique of the snowflake on the two squares I ran out for.  Then, I tried to figure out what to do about the center snowflake- it's huge, and I was going to have to join felt (would look bad) or use a different material.  After a few small scale tests, I decided to use fleece.  I got it appliqued and after 3 days of cutting and many blisters all cut out.  Now I'm just worried because there is a lot of excess fluff.  If me and the lint roller don't work really hard, it will show under the organza, still I think it will look better than joining felt.  Maybe I should have used batting, but I thought that would look too different from felt.

So, I was back to needing to quilt- but I still don't have mastery of new designs.  I've been sketching a lot of McTavishing, but I'm not good enough at it to want it on this quilt.  I've been drawing echo-arches, paisley, etc.  And I suck.

I am taking a class at the Des Moines quilt show with Diane Gaudynski so I researched her.  She has a design called "Diane-shiko" that I love.  Without reading the instructions on how to do it (I found them after I figured it out), I started sketching it.  Unlike Leah Day's designs, these require marking a grid on the quilt.  So I started on paper and marked a grid.  Then I circumscribed a circle along each- way too much travel stitching.  So I thought that must not be how she does it.  So then I drew the arcs inside the squares- less traveling, but still some.  Then, I figured out I got it- I drew half circles up a line, and then back down it.  YES! The drawing was perfect. So I quilted it.  No, the quilting was not- I got build up whenever I had to change direction at the vertex of the square.  Plus, the 3/4" grid I marked was too large scale for this quilt.  So I ripped it out.

And then, I figured it out- squiggle lines!  Rather than reversing direction at each vertex, cross to the other side of the line and make that arc, cross back and forth down the length of the line.  At the end of the piece- come back down the line making the other circle.  It worked perfectly.  Once you have all the vertical done, do the horizontal.  And this makes the overlapping circles, with no circles to do at all.

Here is mine:

It isn't perfect but I really like it.  If you do a marked design, you have to mark well.  I marked very poorly.  First, the 3/4" lines were done well, but the Frixion pen was very hard on the surface of the quilt, and stretched the organza, making it dificult to stay straight.  Then I eyeballed a line between them to make it 3/8" scale- and that was my downfall.  Don't eyeball things.

I'm happy to report the lines ironed out with no issue at all. 


So the second Diane Gaudynski design is apple core- a common quilting pieced design. 

This is a building block for the previous one- I squiggled up the lines, but didn't squiggle back down to form circles.  It is important on apple core to pay attention to if the block is an "in" or an "out" on the horizontal, and do the opposite on the vertical.  This one had a grid marked at 1/4" scale.  I used a Frixion highlighter and was much more accurate with my marking- the soft tip of the highlighter didn't stretch the fabric.  However, it left prominent white lines when the color was ironed out.  Except only prominent if you get really close to the fabric and look for them.  You can't see them at all at a distance, and even up close you have to look- so I'm going to just cross my fingers and hope they wash out when I wash the entire quilt, but all is well if they don't.

So now I have 7 more small blocks, plus the large block to go.  Uh-oh.  I don't know what 7 other designs I have enough mastery of to use!