Saturday, August 31, 2013
Completed Quilt
I finally finished the quilt for Pins and Needles Quilt store. Later I will take a picture of it hanging in their shop. For now here it is on my wall at home.
Sunday, August 25, 2013
Scary but exciting news.
6425 Hixson Pike, Ste 1
Chattanooga, TN 37343
The owner is Stacy Slockbower and we've been facebook friends for awhile. I had gone to the Grand Opening to show my support. They have some great patterns, fabric & notions in the shop and I'd walked away spending enough that I was entered into one of the prize drawings to win a 1 night 2 day stay at a quilt retreat called Home Harvest Retreat www.homeharvestretreat.com. I got a phone call to tell me that I had won. When I went in to pick up my prize I had a talk with Stacy about possibly quilting some shop samples. Since I'm fairly new to all this I offered to quilt it for free in exchange for the experience & posting my name up and handing out cards offering my quilting services.
I was pretty frightened by the idea but excited too. To my surprise she ended up taking me up on my offer and yesterday I picked up the quilt. The quilt top was hanging on the wall and Stacy's husband who was minding the store to give Stacy a much needed break had to cut the backing and batting for me. I use an Ipad and I have a program from Kaufman Fabric called QuiltCalc http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/quiltingcalc/id390366459?mt=8 on there that will calculate the yardages for you. We put in the dimensions for the quilt and he pulled the fabric and batting out to cut. It looked like over kill but he double checked the math (sort of lol) and said I guess that is about right. When I got home the backing fabric was just right with no extras. The problem came with the batting. Now I don't really know what size batting Kaufman uses in their program but I swear I had at least 2 yards too much batting. I also have a roll of batting at home but a different brand and when I want to cut a size for my personal quilts I lay the quilt on the bed and roll the batting out on top and cut from there to save as much as I can. I felt bad that we over cut but hopefully she can just use it for some smaller twin or crib size quilts.
One of the things new to me is the way they would like the binding done. Instead of using binding tape, ribbon,or cutting and sewing binding for double or single fold, they like to cut the backing fabric at least three inches bigger and use that to flip around to the front and create an extra border/binding combo with mitered corners. I really think that is a cool idea and I'm excited to try it out. Anyways after getting every thing sewn, cut, & sandwiched it was time to baste the quilt. Now I don't know how you like to baste but I found I prefer spray basting. I normally take my quilts to my Moms house as she has a huge Garage that she converted into a nice hang out. One side has a couch, TV, aquarium and the other side is her workshop as she does woodworking projects. On the workshop side there is a ping pong table. The funny thing is people are always asking her to sell it but she tells them she cant and that its not a ping pong table. The inside joke is that it is a quilting table. It is the perfect size for basting a quilt and the line down the center is perfect for lining things up. Now the last time I basted a quilt it was too late at night to go to my Moms so I tried a method Id learned from a Craftsy Class. You pin and baste the quilt on your wall and let Gravity be a second helping hand. Truth be told it is an awesome way to spray baste a quilt and keep the wrinkles out.
Once I got everything spray basted and ready to go I double checked the dimensions of the backing fabric around the entire quilt to make sure I had enough space to do the new kind of binding. Mu trouble was when I hung it up I used the side that was even. See the backing fabric had been cut on an angle so when I sewed it together to piece the backing there was about a two inch difference on one side. I hadn't cut it off straight because I felt it was good to leave until everything was done to give me extra space to hold the quilt while quilting the edges besides I would even everything up near the end and didn't want to cut twice. Well that left me with it being a tad too short. At this point the backing could have used a few more inches when cut as length wise we were just perfect for what we needed and this angle kind of threw me off. At this point I decided to just take it to Moms and put on the ping pong/quilt table. I'm glad I took that extra time because even though I had ironed everything Mom has a new fantastic steamer that I got to use to make sure not a wrinkle was left.
Once I got home it was around 8:30 before I got the quilt on the table and under my machine at home.
So far I got some of the middle stitched in the ditch. I'm hoping to get all the sitd done today. My only worry is running out of the YLI smoke thread that I'm using. I'm new to using it so I'm not sure how much one small spool will last. Hopefully the Bernina store is open today or I will have to wait until tomorrow to buy more.
Another thing I'm doing is checking my design ideas using a great program called "Explain Everything". It is an IPad program that will let you import a project and doodle on it or take written or dictated notes and even make a slide show. Now all I use it for is practicing my free motion drawing designs. Here is my partially finished slide. The Pattern for the quilt is Honeybell to get a really good photo of it I copied it from the free pattern I downloaded from their website.
Here is what it looks like with my FMQ Feathers. Of course I will probably try a bit of marking with my feathers on the quilt just so they are a bit more uniform in size. For the blocks I'm thinking of putting in some dot to dot designs that I learned in Angela Walters class.
It may sound like a lot of work but I'm having an absolute blast working on this quilt. Please Wish me luck!!!
Friday, August 23, 2013
Angela Walters Dot to Dot Class quilt
Well I've cut the pieces for the class quilt. Im ready to sew it up but first here is the squares on my design wall.
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
Friday, August 16, 2013
Leah Days Freemotion a Sampler class
Well I finally finished the Craftsy BOM 2012 quilt. I pieced it following the BOM patterns. I was very new to sewing and quilting when I started the quilt. I learned so much from the piecing. When it came time to quilt it I enrolled in Leah Days Sampler class. This class is specific to quilting this quilt though you can follow along on a spoonflower printed fabric as well. I was very happy with the completed project and proud of how much better my quilting got since taking the class. I still have a long way to go and lots to learn but Im no longer afraid to start the quilting.
My next quilt is pieced and ready to be sandwiched. I'm working on the class quilt from Leah Days Free Motion Filler designs Vol 1.
But first a photo of my completed quilt.
Sunday, August 11, 2013
Anniversary Quilt
August 21st is my 9th wedding anniversary. I wanted to make something special for my husband William. His favorite colors are black and grey. While I'm sure I could have made a dramatic quilt in those colors I decided to add yellow to the mix. I had a wonderful time choosing fabrics. One of the constraints was cost. I'm a new quilter so I don't have a huge stash to go to so I had to purchase all new fabrics. How sad right lol. I went to my LYS Sew Bee It, Joannes, Hobby Lobby, and Walmart to buy everything. Everything I bought was either on clearance or I had a 40% off coupon. My husband works at Walmart so we get 10% off on all non food purchases. I've heard a lot of bad stories about Walmart fabric but my store just put a fabric section in and if you pay close attention you can get some nice decent quality fabrics.While creating the quilt i realized I still needed some more grey and black fabric for contrast. My friend who gave me the pin cushion had a perfect scrap of grey fabric that I used for borders on one set of blocks.
I also went to another guild members online quilt store. Http://www.persephonescreations.com She sells fabric online but you can also go to her home where she converted the entire bottom section to hold inventory and set up a store. She also does quilting on her Long-arm for customers. Please check out their web site.
Here is a photo of the quilt top that I made for my hubby. I still need to do some work getting my mitered corners on my three borders look even. If anyone has any suggestions please let me know.
Saturday, August 10, 2013
Pin cushion gift
Since I'm new to Quilting, I'm in the process of getting as many supplies as I can. I've been lucky enough to join a wonderful group of Quilters called the Chattanooga Quilting Guild. Many of the members have so charitably given me rulers, mats, pens, scissors, magazines, patterns, books & fabric. Recently I tried to make a pincushion but since I'm so new to sewing I didn't do that great of a job making it. One of the friends in my guild showed me how to sew the cushion closed properly and also gave me a really nice pin cushion that even had a storage compartment for my safety pins.
The other night I had my 14 year old nephew visiting me. Since I'm working on a new quilt I had all my supplies in the living room so we could visit while I got some quilting done. He was really interested in all of the supplies and I even got him sewing on my sunshine 16 machine. You'd think boys would be interested in that kind of thing but I think it had more to do with the fast motor and sharp needle lol.
While watching Doctor Who marathon on Netflix my nephew started playing with the pincushion putting almost every pin I own in there. Surprisingly it turned out quite artistic so I couldn't resist snapping a photo of it.
Have a wonderful day of quilting, sewing, & spending time with family and friends.
Angela Walters Freemotion Quilting class project
Ive finished the class quilt using my Sunshine 16 table top quilting machine. I didnt really have a plan for the quilting. I just randomly practised the different designs I learned from the class. Pebbles, circles, swirls, squares, wood, and several combined patterns.
This is a look from a distance of the whole quilt. I started the binding by hand but ended up machine stitching it instead. I have carpel tunnel and ulnar nerve damage and it was painful to hand bind. As this was a practice quilt and one Im giving to a family member for loving use I knew they wouldnt mind.
Here are a few close upmphotos to see the quilting. Please keep in mind Im very new to this.
Thanks
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