Almost and almost

What a beautiful weekend. If I hadn't been on deadline for sewing I might have spent part of it out working in the yard.

Instead I just enjoyed the view from inside and made progress on my list of to-dos. I had hoped to finish quilting the Triple Star, but it's not quite there – almost. I'm over halfway done with the piano key border and just have a tiny outside border to finish. As I was quilting yesterday I started watching the thread and worrying – why didn't I buy another extra when I ordered this spool. But I think I'll have enough. I guess I'll know this evening.



Last week, while I was quilting the first sections, I got my sweetie to video me quilting one of the flowers. I had to convert it to a smaller format to post, so here it is.

My quilting design is winding vines with very simple leaves. The flowers have a spiral in the center and petals curved like the top of the heart. I think it looks great, and pretty complicated, but all of the components are simple.

Other progress, I got Boxy Stars laid out for pinning and am about half done with pinning. I need to decide how I will quilt this one quickly, as time before the show is getting short.

Changing gears yesterday, I pulled out the sewing machine that I hope to use for demonstrations at the quilt show. It's a Singer 15-30 with Tiffany decals that a friend gave me last year. It's a treadle machine, but had a motor and light added at some time. I started the cleanup by taking off the motor and light and wiping it down with a damp cloth to remove the loose dirt and spiderwebs. This picture is after wiping it. It was moving very stiff – probably not oiled in years – so I gave it a good oiling with Tri-Flow synthetic oil, and left it to sit and soak in.

With a little luck, I can put this together with a base and simple top to make a traveling treadle.

Time to get to work, more later.

Back to the studio

Well the thread emergency was averted. My package arrived yesterday on schedule. Lesson learned, it's a lot cheaper to buy more thread than I think I need, rather than pay for two-day shipping to get it in an emergency!

I took a trek to town yesterday to meet members of our guild at the library to set up a display case with information on our show and on quilting. We're two weeks away from the show! Wow. I've been involved in planning events before, but I had no idea what was involved in putting on a quilt show. We've been  working on it for two years, but a lot of my work, as publicity and program chair, gets crammed into the last few weeks. Next time I'll remember to get my own quilts done earlier so I can concentrate on the show instead of trying to do everything at the last minute!

On a non-quilting note, while I was at the library I cruised through the Friends of the Library book sale. I picked up a few older quilting books, some hardback novels and some paperbacks. I was talking with another customer about how hard it is to remember whether you have a particular book and she showed me her list. Well, I used to keep a handwritten list but that was many books ago. So last night I checked around for book catalogue software and found one for Macs that I am impressed with.

It's called Bookpedia. You can download a demo for free, which I did, and buy the full software for $18, which I will do soon. I entered some of my new books and all I had to do was enter the ISBN to pull up all the information on the book. Once you save it you can sort by title, author or other criteria. You can also use a scanner to scan the barcode, rather than typing in the ISBN.

I don't know that I will ever enter all my books, but I think it would be worth the time to catalogue my quilt and fiber related books, and the ones by my favorite authors. Sounds like a good project for those cold winter evenings.

Looks like a busy weekend and I have a long list of things I want to get done.

A thread emergency – almost

Now here's a sight to get you worried!  Once I started quilting the Triple Star I realized that the thread was going a lot faster than I had expected. I usually work with cones of thread, so it hadn't occurred to me that one 500-yard spool wouldn't be enough to quilt a queen sized quilt. But it isn't.

Monday night I completed the rings of quilting on the muslin around the stars and had to decide, continue quilting the colored sections with the same thread, or switch to a different thread. A solid thread could have worked, but I really like the effect of the variegated, so I checked and found a couple of places online that had the thread. Yesterday my sister stopped by her local JoAnn's to see if they had it, they didn't, so I ordered some from Red Rock Threads.


Wow, they have a lot of great threads. I ordered another spool of the Pixelles, plus two other threads, with two-day delivery and got the notice this morning that it had shipped. As long as it doesn't show up with a note in it that it's back-ordered, I should be fine. Just in time, of course, since I completely ran out tonight.


But I have plenty to do while I wait. Tonight I'll prep some more hanging sleeves and start getting my Boxy Stars ready for pinning. That's the last one I have to quilt for the show.


Back to the sewing room. More later.

Treadling on to another finish!

Busy day! I woke up at 5 a.m. and couldn't get back to sleep, so got busy on organizing everything for our quilt show program. After collecting and listing all the ads and items I still need, I was ready to start typing in descriptions to enter in the program. Fortunately our show chair had already organized and listed all the entries on a database, so I'm able to build on it and will copy and paste into the program. Thank goodness for computers! I had a dream (nightmare?) a few nights ago that it was the day before the show and I was trying to type up the program on an old electric typewriter. I guess it could have been worse, I could have been using the antique one I have for display.

As far as quilts, good news and good news. Last night I finished hand-stitching the binding on the Cool Jazz quilt and (I hope) finished burying threads. That means all it needs is a sleeve and label and it will be ready for the show. I love the colors in this one and think the quilting really plays it up. These pictures are the finished quilt and a detail shot of the quilting.

I'm also making good progress on the Triple Star. I had originally hoped to have my industrial Pfaff set up to quilt this one, since it's queen size, but I've really had less trouble than I expected using my Singer 15-30.  I guess it helps that I'm quilting a little more loosely than on some quilts, and that I'm quilting in smaller areas at each time. That makes it easier to "puddle" up the quilt to work on each section, then move on.


Enjoy! More later.

A good day for quilting?

It's raining! I know for some people that's a problem, but we've had more than 100 days of temperatures over 90 this year, and, after a fairly rainy early summer, we've had only one day of rain in the last month or so. So a nice, soft steady rain is just the thing.

I have come to the conclusion – a no-brainer, really – that if I am going to do many large quilts I will have to come up with a bigger ironing and pinning area. Fortunately my current setup, a regular ironing board and small dining room table set on bed risers, work for the wall hangings and throw to twin size quilts I usually do. But this queen size Triple Star is like wrestling an elephant. All of my sewing time yesterday went to prepping and pinning, and I am down to the last couple of sections, so today I should be able to actually quilt. It should be a good workout!

I sewed the binding on Cool Jazz Friday night and started the hand-sewing while we watched a movie. I'll say one thing about my binding/sleeve sewing marathon lately. I haven't had to look far for a hand-sewing project to work on while watching TV!

I was looking at one of my favorite online fabric sites yesterday, Connecting Threads. Drooling over the new batiks, to be exact. I noticed that they have a section with free patterns and tutorials that I hadn't seen before. I spent a while looking through and found some really cute things. There's a Christmas tree pincushion, and a peppermint candy pincushion that would be great stocking stuffers for quilting friends. There are some pretty wall hangings/table runners/table toppers, designed to use their fabric of course, but could be used with other fabrics as well. And a really nice selection of ideas/patterns for English Paper Piecing. I may have to try the little Christmas ornaments. It's worth some browsing time. Just go to the site, choose patterns, then free patterns.

Time to get busy, more later.

Scribbling on fabric

I'm still relatively new to free-motion quilting and there are days when I feel like I'm getting pretty good at it, and days when I wonder why I want to make such a mess. But as many people have said (not just about quilting) if you want to be good at it, practice, practice, practice.

One of the most useful things I do is do test swatches and warmup pieces. Test swatches are just what they sound like. I use a single piece of fabric and try out designs so I can see how they look and how easy/hard they are to do, without the distraction of pieced blocks behind them. The test swatches usually end up a major mess, as I'll try different things as long as there's room to squeeze them in, or designs will morph from one to another. Very frequently, I'll get an idea, try it out and decide I don't like it, or make changes to the design.

After picking out free-motion quilting in two huge sections of a quilt last year, because I decided I really didn't like the design, I've decided it's well worth the time to test in

advance.

The other thing I do is warm up blocks. When I want to do mindless sewing, I make crumb blocks. I trim these up to about eight inches square, then layer them with a double layer of batting and keep them near my machine. When I sit down to begin free-motion work, I pull one or two or these blocks out and warm up by doing the same design I'm planning for my quilt. This can really help to get the rhythm going if it's been a little while since I worked on the quilt. These quilted blocks become potholders, eyeglass cases, etc.

Once in a while I feel like I need to a little extra testing. For my Triple Star quilt I've been picturing a vine with flowers and leaves, in bright variegated thread. I looked through some quilting ideas and saw a flower, then did some scribbling on paper to decide I liked the flower with a spiral in the middle. During a break from finishing the Cool Jazz quilt I tried the design and decided I liked it. With Cool Jazz done, last night I threaded up the machine with the variegated thread I bought for Triple Star and tried it. I love it, just what I've been picturing. Now I need to decide on bobbin thread and do one final test, then I'll be ready to start quilting as soon as everything is pinned.

I'm looking forward to a good weekend of quilting. More later.

I love colorful fabric

No one has ever accused me of liking boring colors! That occurred to me as I walked past my table this morning. It is piled high with the Cool Jazz quilt, which is now quilted and waiting for binding, my Treadle On hearts quilt, which I'm putting a sleeve on, and the backing for my Triple Star quilt, which I was measuring, getting ready to stitch. It's certainly a cheerful sight to start the day.

I think every quilter has a favorite "genre" of fabric, the one they are automatically drawn to. For me, it's certainly bright and colorful fabrics, jewel tones, brights, batiks, and so on. Some lucky people can focus on their favorites and pretty much ignore other types of fabric, unless they are making a quilt for a specific purpose.

I thought about this the other night at quilt guild. One of our members, who also loves brights, brought in a beautiful quilt made in pastels. It was a gift, made to suit the colors of the recipient. Another guild member loves Civil War repros, to the extent that she has gotten rid of most of her other fabric.

In a way I'm envious. It must be nice to know your focus and be able to pick fabric that always goes together. I'd certainly have less fabric if I didn't love all of it. But while colorful fabrics are my favorites, how could I live without all the other fabrics I love. The subtle colors and prints of Civil War repros, the cheerful pastels of 30s repros, the graphic impact of black and white, the possibilities of floral and landscape fabric, the whimsy of novelty fabrics.

No, I just can't do it. It would be like going to a buffet and only eating steak. I enjoy steak, but I want some vegetables and shrimp and potatoes and cake and..... You get the picture.

I am excited that I finished the quilting on Cool Jazz last night. I decided to stick with the same quilting I'd done in the center sections, since anything more elaborate really wouldn't show up against the print fabric in the border. I've decided to quilt the Triple Star next, since it's the largest and will take a little longer – I'm starting to worry about time as the show gets closer. I did a test swatch last night with the design I want to use, so just need to try it again with the thread I picked out to make sure it will work. So, I just need to get it pinned (my least favorite part) and I'll be ready to go.

Time to get busy. More later.