Month: September 2014

A Mish Mash of Projects

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Here are some of the projects I have been working on lately. It is a real mish mash of

projects but at least something is being completed.

This is a quilt that Dale made.  All that piecing amazes me.  And the top

is so flat- no puckers at all.  Great piecing Dale!

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Another shot of the blocks in this quilt top.

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Dale chose a panto named “WaterWorld.”  It is quite swirly-which

I love. I think it fits this quilt perfectly. I used a white polyester thread

for both the top and the backing.

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A more complete shot of the whole quilt top. It is hard to find a space that

is large enough to lay out the entire quilt and get a good shot.

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The backing is made up of a pink flannel.  I love flannel on the backs of

quilts- makes them feel softer and is warmer.  The quilting also shows

up beautifully as well.

Switching gears now.  This is what is on the frame currently.

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Straight lines are becoming one of my favorites right now. Funny how certain

quilting motifs or stitching grows on you.

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Look at the piecing on this baby!  Whew!  I can’t imagine the time it must have taken

to complete this quilt.  I will show you a picture of the entire thing next week.

And lastly, another project that I am working on as well. This fun pattern is

named “From Deauville to Cape Cod.”  A lady in France, named Roxanne, from

Scrap, Quilt, Stitch designed the pattern.  You can purchase it from her. It is a BOM and

I am enjoying it thus far. I have the second block but haven’t started it yet.  Too many

other little projects to be done first.

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Have a great week.

Nothing goes to waste…

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School is back in but I am stil in summer mode. Last week I did manage to

complete three fabric postcards though.

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This is my dad’s boat.  I used Inktense Pencils to color in the  picture.

Water is used to help the colors come to life but depending on the weave of

the fabric, the color may run into other colors too,  as in this case.

It reminds me of a watercolor painting.

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The same boat is used here too but I wanted to try out my Prismacolor

Pencils.  Once the coloring is completed, a fabric medium is used to seal in

the colors. Using different mediums give an entirely different look to the same

picture.

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Another boat-yes, it was a week for boats.  Prismacolor pencils

and a fabric medium were used here too.

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This is Bernice’s quilt. I love the big sqaures -what a great way to create a

quilt quickly and use up scraps too.

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I love creatively pieced backs.  It is a great way to use up all those extra blocks

that we sometimes have left over from the quilt top.

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These are the 48 blocks that I paper pieced last week and that caused me so

many problems and puckers. I was surprised that it only took me 1/2 hour to

rip off all the paper on the backs of these squares.

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The leftover scraps. I may attempt to make a quilt similiar to Kaffe  Fassett’s.

He used a triangular shape but pieced  it similar to a log cabin. I will include

pictures next week. I may try layering the strips on top of each other because

they are fairly slim.  Wish me luck. I may  have to use a stabilizer if any

puckering occurs again.  As you can see, nothing goes to waste. And yes,

I am OCD sometimes.

See you next week.

 

 

 

 

A tale of 2 feet

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This is how the tale began. I am making a fall quilt, consisting entirely of

half square triangles.  Usually, I use Brenda Hennings CD, called

Triangulations.

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If you don’t have a copy, it is fantastic.You choose whatever

size  of half square triangles  you like and print off the number of sheets you need.

This takes some time, as you have to figure out how many half square triangles

you will need for the entire quilt.  The paper does tell you how many

each sheet will make . This helps alot.

Sew on the dotted lines, cut apart, and voila-perfect half square triangles. You

don’t have to trim them down to their proper size or waste a ton of fabric. It saves

alot of time and aggravation.

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Well, while sewing, I kept getting puckers, as

shown in the next picture. This did not make me a happy camper, at all.

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I went through the usual questions: proper needle?  Proper tension on the

feed dogs?  Correct tension?  Still puckers.  Then I thought about the foot I was

using. Could that make such a difference?  It seemed like the foot was sticking

and catching on the paper.

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As you can see, the foot on the left is an  open toe foot. I am unsure of what the

foot on the right is called. If anyone knows, just let me know.  I was using the

foot on the right.  So, I switched it out with the open toe foot and voila-no more

puckers or pulling.  Can you bellieve that?

I turned the feet over and examined the backs of both.  The foot I had begun with

has 2 lines engraved in the bottom of the foot-proably for more grip on the fabric.

It did work because it was gripping the paper and making the fabric

underneath bunch up.

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The open toe foot, has only 1 groove etched into it so it creates less drag when

sewing.  I did not know this. Did you?  I have done lots of sewing of garments and

items around the house but this seemed crazy and interesting, all at the

same time.

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This is what the paper and fabric together looks like.  And I have only 9

more blocks to stitch and then I can cut all these blocks apart.  There are

still 7 blocks to be  ripped out and sewn over again. At least it is not the

whole 48 blocks.  The ripping of the paper follows.

This should be an official ceremony I think.  Helps to celebrate what you have

accomplished so far and motivates you to actually finish the  quilt you have

started.  So, this is my tale of the 2 feet. Hope it helps you somehow in your

quilting adventures.

I am hoping to have the quilt top  all together by next week and have a

picture for you. Happy quilting.