Thread...

I'm stitching out free motion samples in tons of different threads to review.

I just found the first thread my machine does not like.  I actually didn't even finish the 5" square for worry of my machine.  It was making the most awful clunking noises. I rethreaded top and bottom, I oiled, I changed tension to heavier, I changed tension to lighter, I used 4 different bobbin threads, I changed the needle, and still the machine CLUNK CLUNK CLUNK.

It's not the machine, switched to another thread and it is running smoothly again.

This is the first time I've really understood what people meant when they said their machine didn't like a thread!


More coming soon! (Including tell you what this thread is!)

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)

AQS Show

I have to say it: Entering the AQS show was the best thing I've ever done in quilting.  I knew I wouldn't win (I had my fingers crossed for a 4th place ribbon...)

First view of it, in the Machine Quilted Wall Quilts section

It was so gratifying to see my quilt hanging up there. As if I fooled the jury into thinking I am a real quilter. And more than anything, what made me feel like a real true quilter was I didn't think my quilt looked out of place.  People (well, most of them, I think) didn't walk by it and think "how did this get into the show", they walked by it, and then they stopped and took a closer look.

PROUD quilter!  Drove all the way to Des Moines to see the quilt that hangs in my guest room.

I'm not too proud to admit I stalked my quilt just a bit. Stood nearby to listen to what people had to say.  They were amazed by the small stitches, interested in the fact that each square had a different design. People remarked how long it must have taken (a few "there is no way that's worth it"- oh, but little do they know, it so was!) and how precise the work was.  People talked about which square was their favorite (quite a few liked the one I did first- which made me laugh, as that was when I was still so new this quilt was supposed to be a practice piece, it became a show quilt on accident.) I heard a non-quilting man say to his wife "I like this one because the different designs each have a different texture".

See- I'm such a stalker. But I only took one picture of people looking at my quilt. They spent quite awhile examining it. And that girl walking up did stop to take pictures :)

My favorite comment was "Wow. Look at this detail work. This is really amazing. Oh, and ever square is different. How does this not have a ribbon?"  I wanted to hug that person.    I did have my critics though. One woman didn't even stop walking to look at the section my quilt hung in (any of them...) she just walked by and said "Snowflakes shouldn't be pink. I don't like that one.") It kind of made me laugh. The snowflakes are white...

My tag

Over and over I heard people try to figure out what technique I used, how were the snowflakes, which have no stitches, appliqued (did they miss the stitches around them? I guess if they don't know about the organza...) Many people wondered what made it shiny.  One pair decided I must have painted the pink part.

I happened to run into the woman with the quilt next to mine. She lives in Brazil and this was her first time entering an American quilt show. I can't imagine entering an international show!

Listening to them talk about my quilt echoed my thoughts and wonder about the great quilts I saw at the show- and there were so many; it was just awe inspiring and a bit discouraging all at once ("how can I ever make a quilt as good as these?").  It was absolutely amazing to be displayed side by side with many of these other quilts.
AQS does not allow the posting of photos on blogs, so unfortunately, I can't share the hundreds of quilts I took pictures of (and there were almost 2,000 quilts shown in a variety of exhibits including the contest).

This photo gives you some idea of the scope of the show. This was only half of one room. There was a whole other room. There was the main contest, the modern quilt contest, and many special exhibits (miniatures, Quilt Master's, Silk Road, Cow Quilts, Egyptian Quilts, Color Play panels, and the local Des Moines quilt show)

 But I want to share this: if you have a quilt, and you think it is fabulous: chances are someone else will think it is fabulous too.  Enter it!  You'll be so glad you did.  You might need to be perfect to win, but you do not need to be perfect to show. And no one who sees it hanging is going to have any idea it isn't perfect. I think that is the secret the show quilters keep among themselves. Don't let them know I told you that my quilt wasn't perfect- they might kick me out of the club.

Really want to add a thank you to Leah Day. She designed this pattern, and a few of the free motion designs were either hers or inspired by hers.  But mostly, her attitude toward quilting empowered me to learn to quilt, and to make a "practice piece" that was good enough to hang in a national quilt show.

No ribbon...

The winner's list for Des Moines is out. Winter Wonderland did not get a ribbon.

I can't wait to go see her on Saturday though!

Huh?

This test has you put colors along the spectrum in order by hue.

I expected to do quite poorly: color is the hardest part of quilting for me.

Nope, I did really well.

So why do I suck at picking out colors?

Halloween shirts

Oops, I forgot to post last weekend.  I finished the one block wonder kaleidoscope quilt top.  I might quilt it tomorrow, I'm not sure.  I need to do more with triangles- they are so hard.  This actually turned out fairly well, but there are a few areas that are puckery.  Lack of pre-washing really should take care of it though.

For Halloween, I embroidered shirts for all the nieces and nephews.

Initial shirts for the young-uns.

And a super awesome design for the grade schoolers.  (This may be my favorite design ever; it turned out really nicely.)

Because embroidery supplies are so freaking expensive, I only have one hoop.  It is very difficult to hoop t-shirts in it (though I've done it before, with sticky backing and lots of pins) and these shirts already had a really long involved stitch-out, with lots of taking the hoop off the machine to put in new fabric; so I decided to take a short cut.  Each of the designs is embroidered on black fabric, and then the fabric is put onto the t-shirt like a patch.  I really don't think you can tell from a few feet back.  I also don't really expect season kids shirts to get too much actual use.

The other issue with them is the little kids shirts have pockets.  I debated removing them, but worried it would leave thread snags in the t-shirts, so I just left them, half under the design.  It was nearly IMPOSSIBLE to find black short sleeve t-shirts in September.  I wanted t-shirts because Texas is usually warm until Halloween, and gets a cold snap that night, just in time to ruin your costume. I found some specialty websites, but shipping cost like $15, so I ended up with these Old Navy shirts- the little kids cost $2.06 each, the big kids $6 each.

I really hope the kids like them!  (Also, if you are into machine applique embroidery, I highly recommend PlanetApplique.com  I'm not affiliated, didn't get compensated to say this, but these are their designs, and I just LOVE them.)

One Block Wonder

This weekend I spent some time making a One Block Wonder quilt.   Here is the progress so far:

My one block wonder layout.  Now I have to sew them all together. No Y-seams though. They are only trapezoids, so I will sew them as strips first.

 I bought 4 yards of a large scale print fabric, and then tour it in half, so it was 22 inches wide and 4 yards long.  (Just to make it easier to handle width wise.)

This is what the fabric look like uncut. Isn't it so neat how the character of the fabric changes in the kaleidoscope effect?

Then, I aligned 6 repeats of the fabric into a stack, and cut 3.75" strips. From those strips, I cut equilateral triangles.  (This is a fairly simple process- I didn't buy the book.)

Well, I meant to cut equilateral triangles.  The first ones I cut, I lost about 50% of them to poor cutting. They did NOT make regular hexagons, the triangles were not even close to equilateral. It was very upsetting.  The second half of the fabric, I managed to cut ever single one of them so it aligned correctly- yay!

So what did I do differently? Well, I had read some handy advice by a woman who made tons of these quilts to NOT use the truncated top that some of the 60 degree rulers have. So I didn't. And apparently, this would have worked well, if I am skilled at cutting, but by not having that top to align to the top of the strip, I apparently let my ruler move.  Which caused major issues, I guess.  The second half of the fabric I cut using the truncated top and it worked much better.

So, I set aside all the bad blocks and sewed them into hexagons (the good blocks are sew together in strips, to avoid set in seams).  Once I had the hexagons, I sewed together the ones closest in size, hoping to have enough for a charity quilt. I did all of these with Y seams- the first time I've ever done them, they came out okay.

Wow this photo is blurry, sorry about that.  This is just a tiny quilt, but all the hexagons were done with Y seams! Yay for new skills!

It wasn't big enough for a charity quilt (a second border would have made it the right size for still born quilts, but I didn't think it was at all appropriate for that), so I am giving it to a neighbor's daughter for a doll quilt.

Since I'm into feathers right now, I tried them again. Since this has been washed, I'm not sure how well you can see the quilting. Oddly, the thin thread made them harder- it was much harder to travel stitch on such tiny thread.

Feathers.  Oddly, the picture loaded upside down, so this is upside down feathers.

In other quilting news- this is the layout I'm going to use for my King size quilt. Except I think I need a lot more fabric. (The white squares are going to be large dark squares. I just haven't cut any yet.)

Feathers

Every month, I try to quilt 2-3 of the charity quilts our guild has. I don't usually post about them, because they are generally very simple. Sometimes I make a design, but I often just stipple to get them done.  This quilt came in and it was a GORGEOUS top. I thought it needed more time than just a quick large stipple.

I've been doing a lot of feather doodling lately, and decided to put some feathers on the quilt. I still need a lot of work on these, but they are much better than my last attempt 1-2 years ago.

Mostly because my travel stitching is better.  Traveling directly over the lines makes a HUGE difference.

This thread is much too thick for good feather work, Connecting Threads Essential. The build up is too severe. But I still think it looks alright.

I forgot to take pictures of one of the triangle sections. Oops.

Two of the triangle sections I filled straight up and down.

Two I filled with kind of a curve, I like the curve better.

Another triangle section

I still am not good with the 'inside' curves. This one is kind of awkward.

Two projects

I made a pillow using this tutorial.  I really like the pillow, but I think I did something wrong when I dyed it.  (I used the same gray she uses in the tutorial and then overdyed with turquoise). It is beautiful, but feels crunchy.  I also fused down the first few stripes, because they tend to pucker up, and they aren't holding, the fusible peeled right up. That's annoying.  Still, I like the pillow.

I also did a little mini 12 x 12 in wall hanging for work.  I don't have much Hawkeye stuff, and the new job requires that I be a fan.  This is shadow trapunto, but I have to say, I don't like the way the off-white organza looks over the black batting.  It grays it out too much. I think I'll stick with bold colors that can pastel, and whites. But it was a good little quilt to experiment on.  I used white thread to do the quilting, and I think if I had used yellow it would have made the quilt look a little brighter.  I tried using black, but it looked really bad. 

You can't really see the quilting. It's just stippling. I'm lazy...

The guild is looking for workshop ideas for the upcoming year, and if they can't bring a teacher in, I might volunteer to run one on micro-quilting and do a project like this.  I can't give a tiger hawk pattern out (though I don't think I'd want to be paid, as the participants would be guinea pigs as I learn to teach a quilting class), but it is really easy to tell people to print one on 8 x 10 paper and bring it with them.

I bought 20 yards of fabric today at Pine Needles buy 10 get 10.  I think 14 of them are black and white fabrics, and I hope that is enough to make a king size top. I got some pink I might mix in there too, but I'm not sure.  Kevin and I are "racing". He has to make a king sized bed-frame, I have to make a king size quilt. It's going to be a slow battle to the finish...  Honestly, I'm most nervous about basting the thing. Who has room to lay out a king size blanket? Maybe sweep the garage out really well?

Another letter!

Winter Wonderland was accepted into the AQS Des Moines show! This is super awesome because it is really close to my house, so I'll actually get to go see it. 

Only 176 quilts are in the show (I'm not sure, but I thought 300 were accepted into Grand Rapids).  This is silly, but I really hope if I don't get a big prize at Grand Rapids, that I don't get anything at all (I feel like my best shot at an award is a 3rd place ribbon...) A 3rd place ribbon would take me out of the Des Moines show, as any cash prize makes you ineligible (or maybe it has to be from a previous year? I'm not clear on the rule), and I really want to be able to show there.  Plus with fewer entries, that means my chances are better for a big one, right?

I think my most realistic shot at an award are going to be Best Machine Worksmanship (long long long shot) or a 3rd place ribbon (long shot).  I think it is completely out of scope that this quilt, which I did as a beginner, is going to get Best of Show. I mean- come on. That would be crazy.  But I really do feel like if what they are judging is the machine work; then I did an awesome job.  The category I'm entered in is Wall Quilts, and I imagine that there will be ones better than mine, hence the reason I won't get 1st place, but I don't necessarily think that the machine workmanship will be better, if that makes sense.

So either I win big, I win small, or I won't win at all (most likely- I've been to these shows. The quilts are amazing. What is mine even doing there?)  But my quilt is in the freaking show. You have no idea how proud I am.  I mean, I was SO new when I started this quilt.  I cannot believe it is in a national show. (Two, actually!)

For anyone who is making quilts- enter them! I cannot believe my work was accepted. I am a beginner.