Blogger's Quilt Festival

Again this year I am participating in Amy Ellis' Blogger's Quilt Festival. I entered one quilt last year just to get my feet wet, and see how it worked. It didn't require too much effort on my part, so I upped the ante this year by entering three quilts. Amy Ellis is a fellow blogger who has branched out into designing and publishing - she is much more driven than I, that's for sure. Her blog alone makes me tired! *Not that hard to do, actually.*

Regular readers here will surely recognize all three quilts for I have written about them often. First, you can look for my little Pincushion Stars in the mini quilts category. It earned a big ol' ribbon at the Ross County Fair, so we will see what a wider audience thinks of it.

In the hand quilted category, I have entered Six-Point Stars. It has gotten lots of positive remarks from you kind folks who leave comments. I sure feel the love!

Finally, I am entering Elisa's quilt in the original design category. Now I have a confession: I mistakenly entered it in the modern quilt category; it was total brain-fart on my part, but it's there, and I don't know how to remove it. This means, then, that I will get to see how it stacks up in this category, as well.

So what I ask of you is to go visit the festival site and vote for all the quilts you like. Of course, if you are so inclined, a vote for yours truly would definitely be appreciated. I think you will find lots of quilting inspiration and ideas. The world of quilting varies widely; seeing all the quilts in this festival will definitely make that readily apparent.

Enjoy and be inspired!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

The BEAST Is Finished!

Beast. Behemoth. Hulk. Colossus. Any word you can think of that connotes something huge, then that would work if describing this finish. And, it's not just the size of the quilt I'm referring to. Over time, the size of the commission became just as huge, largely by my own creation - but that's a story for later.

For now, let's just enjoy the finish! Working to accomplish this finish accounts for my absence from blogging these last couple of days.

Copied from Pinterest - or Facebook - or Instagram - unsure of origin!

"The hills are alive, with the sound of . . .  relief! Gee whiz, but I sure dragged my feet on this quilt.

Yes, I have finished Elisa's quilt and will be delivering it later today. We are going to unfurl it on the bed it was made for, and I will surely take pictures. (Elisa is an artist; maybe I ought to have her take pics.)

The bed in these pictures is a double bed, consequently this king-size quilt hangs off at the bottom and on both sides.

I have worked most furiously this last week. I finally had some sort of epiphany about working toward a finish and not toward perfection. This ah-ha moment gave me the push I needed to buckle down and get to work. And, of course, it was much easier than I'd been imagining. It just took lots and lots of time.

I have written about this quilt in previous posts, but just to quickly recap: Even though I'd never previously used the quilt-as-you-go method, I would say this qualifies as just that. After sewing all the strips together in long vertical sections, I machine quilted each section vertically in random distances. I tried to keep the stitching straight, but I didn't obsess about it if there were wiggly parts. I had to mentally think about how I would close the back after I'd sewn the front together, and this caused me lots of consternation. I eventually figured it out, and I am happy with the results. I will put together a post later to explain the process more fully.

Click here to read about the beginning of this quilt's journey. Here are a couple of posts from the work done over the summer - the piecing and the quilting.

Added Sunday, September 25: I am entering this quilt in Amy Ellis' Blogger's Quilt Festival.  Check out the Modern Quilts category and the Original Design category. While you're there, go ahead and vote for me! Thanks!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

WIP

My current work in progress is one that I just continue to drag my feet on. But I have made some recent progress, and I figure I might as well share it.

This is three of five long parts that will become Elisa's quilt. I have these three quilted; the other two await quilting. I don't know if it's readily apparent or not, but the middle part is narrower than the two outer parts. This is by design, and the remaining two parts will be one of each width.

I've tried folding under the excess batting and backing, so that accounts for the lump. I wanted to lay them out side by side to see the general effect. I am happy with it and just need to keep going.

These last two picture are closeups that I hope show the quilting a bit better. I have done all vertical quilting with varied spacing between. 

I keep saying I want to get this done; I just have to make myself stay at it.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Back to Elisa's Quilt

My commission work on Elisa's quilt has been sporadic over the last month. As I reflect on my minimal attention to it, I think I am learning that sewing for others on a commission-type basis is not really my cup of tea. When I sew for myself, I can put projects off for long periods of time and not feel any real rush to get back to them. If I get an urge to work on something different, I do.

With commission projects, I really ought not to work this way. I need to be more disciplined and devote myself to the job until it is finished. It then becomes obligatory, and I find that I just don't enjoy feeling obligated. On the one hand, I am excited to see this quilt finished, and I think it is going to look fantastic, yet on the other hand, this long stretch of actual work is not thrilling me much.

Conflicted. That describes me. 

Well, with that grumbling out of the way, I will show you briefly what I am doing. It is not all that different from what I showed the last time; but I will focus this time on the process.

The long bar of the kitchen counter becomes my work space. I clear as much off as possible, then stretch the backing on it and use painter's tape to hold it taut.

I rolled the backing (the black fabric) up on a tube and pulled it taut; so that took care of positioning the backing. Next, after pressing the top and the batting together with starch, I aligned these two layers as one single layer onto the backing. I've got the bottom end of it rolled on a different tube. Then starting at the top, I begin pinning. I pull the tube with the batting/top to an acceptably taut position and pin my way down the strip.

When I get this section done, I get my long ruler and mark vertical quilting lines on the quilt top. I have tried a couple of different methods of handling those tubes. I am still experimenting with what works best. But it does do a good job of keeping the three layers taut and flat. The tubes? They are the legs from my Q-Snap quilt frame.

From here, I pull off the tape and head back upstairs to the sewing room and begin quilting.

I hope to knock this commissioned quilt off my list in the coming week or so. That will feel so, so good.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

This Awaits

I go on and on quite a bit about gorgeous fabrics. Generally, the current quilt is the most beautiful ever. So I've gone from any of the French General fabrics to Roman Holiday to Kaffe Fassett and so on. My current love is Lorraine by American Jane/Moda and Lorraine's older complementary line, Savonnerie by the same designer.

I gaze at this lusciousness every day I'm in the sewing room, as it adorns my design wall. Some of the rows are sewn together, some are not. I think a bit of rearranging will occur before it all comes together, but what a feast for the eyes in the meantime!

Lorraine must wait in the wings until I finish 2 more urgent projects. First, I am machine quilting Elisa's quilt and having the most devilish time of it. I'd rather not admit to how much unsewing I've done lately. This coming week I will get it right!

PMA!!
Positive Mental Attitude!

The second is my hand quilting on the 6-point star quilt. I am so, so close to being finished. Mostly just the edges remain to be quilted; I am so anxious to remove it from the frame do the binding.

Have a great Sunday, folks, and stay cool, if you can!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Now To Begin Quilting

The quilting will soon be commencing on Elisa's big quilt.  To make sure I knew what I was doing, and that all would go as intended, I did a little trial run with some bits cut to a little quilt size.

My plan is to make vertical stitching lines at random widths on each panel. I don't want to mark anything; instead the intent is to "eyeball" the lines, and keep them as vertical as I can. I did mark the first line I stitched, just to make sure I began with a line that would be perpendicular to all the horizontal rows of fabric. The rest is total randomness.

I took several pictures because some of the stitching shows up better on certain fabrics from different angles.

I sent all the pics to Elisa for her opinion, and once again I got a very positive response. I just love how we have been on the same page with this quilt almost from the very beginning.

The backing will be flat sheets. I know. That is like blasphemy to a long-arm quilter. I wasn't so sure I could do it on my little Bernina, either, but above is the backing made of sheeting, and I did not have the slightest trouble with it.

One thing I did before quilting this little quilt was to very heavily spray starch and press both the top and the back. I think my results worked so well because my fabric was so stiff. I plan to do this with the quilt, as well.

Last evening, Elisa and I texted back and forth quite a bit about the loft of the batting I should get. I am going to go with a poly-cotton blend in a loft on the high side. Not totally puffy, but she wants this to look like a bedspread, so I mustn't get one that is too low-loft. I am headed out to make the purchase now!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Custom Design

This week I have finally made some really significant progress on the commissioned quilt for Elisa. One might thing that I'd been ignoring it, but in reality my head has been working overtime on it. Once I finally thought through the entire process for finishing this quilt, I felt better about getting actual, physical work done on it. Click here for a post that includes our inspiration photo.

I finally have all the columns constructed. In previous pictures I've used here on the blog, the columns had been in sections. The pictures here show just three columns, but in actuality there are five. The bed I use for my photographs is a double bed; this quilt will be for a king bed. I will need to use the floor - or better yet, go outside and use the yard - in order to show all five columns fully.

My brain work was mostly focused on how to finish the quilt - the quilting, in particular. I would normally sew all the columns together and then prepare a back, buy a batting and then send the entire business off to my longarm quilting friend for some loose meander-style quilting.

However, Elisa is an artist, and as such has an eye for design. Her thinking is that this very linear quilt needs to have linear quilting done on it. And I have to say I agree with her. So my plan is to quilt it myself.

GULP.

This is the frightening part for me. I think I know how to do it, but the actual doing it is a difficult step to take. Taking the plunge into the unknown is just a bit daunting.

I will do a trial run with some remnant ends of these strips. I think I can construct a little quilt in the 12"x15" range, make my layers, and run it through my machine using the walking foot to quilt it. This will give me a visual of how the larger quilt will look. I am both apprehensive, yet eager, to do it. I've never created something so original - ever!

 DOUBLE GULP.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Celebrate Freedom!

The celebrating of our Independence Day is rather damp today - rain, rain, rain. But the crowd we hang out with did the big picnic and fireworks event last evening, and all went off without any problems. The only complaint was that we were cold! What??!!!? A cold Sunday in July?!? Yessirree. We all wore jackets and wrapped up in blankets. (No quilts were harmed or misused in the course of our celebrating.)

We had a great visit yesterday afternoon with DD Erin, DSiL Jeff, and his mom, Char. Casual conversation on the screened porch (we got cold out there, too!), after which we all headed over to friends for the picnic and fireworks. Great fellowship, great food and great display of 'boomers and poppers' in the sky.

Today and tomorrow I will put much of my energy toward working on the long segments for Elisa's quilt. I have been steadily working on it, but need to amp up the pace this week, if possible.

I believe I have run this picture before, but it's been awhile; I  have many segments similar to these that now need to be sewn into the long columns.

I  have figured out how to quilt as I go with this project. I am going to make long 'quilt sandwiches' of those columns and machine quilt vertically. After each column is quilted, I will attach the top layers by machine, and then hand stitch the back closed.

I serious doubt that my explanation is as coherent to a reader as it is to me in my head; I will demonstrate it more fully when I get to that point.

Happy Independence Day, and Happy Quilting, Friends!

Gray Stripes, Anyone?

I haven't been overly busy this week on Elisa's modern king-size quilt, but I have made significant progress - enough to know that I am heading in the right direction, and that it is going to come together very easily. Besides working on this, I am continuing my hand quilting on the 6-pointed star quilt.

If you recall, I cut all the strips into two lengths - 18" and 24". That 24-inch measurement is going to be adjusted eventually, because not all my fabrics were exactly 42" wide. So the resulting measurement might be more in the range of 21 or 22 inches.

But that's a problem to work out later.

Right now, my goal is to sew all the long columns together. I decided to go with doing all the 24-inch columns first, to see if I have cut enough to make a king-size length - somewhere in the range of 100-105 inches.

I brought all my 24" strips over to the sewing machine, and began randomly grabbing two at a time, sewing them together in chain-piecing fashion. What started out as neat and orderly stacks quickly became a tangled mess, but the system worked, so I kept going. Click back here to see "neat and orderly."

After pressing all the random pairs, I took the strips to the guest room and spread them out on the bed to see how they'd look. Through all, I am trying to be as random as possible.

I snapped the pictures and sent them to Elisa. Waiting on her reply was excruciating - like waiting to see if your name has been drawn for a grand prize - but I didn't have to wait long and she gave it a resounding thumbs up. She used words like "pumped" and "OH.MY.GOODNESS" - I think I'm doing okay. *grin*

Since these pictures were taken, I have sewn more 24" strips together, pressed them, and laid them out on the bed. I will add on until I get 3 lengths in that king-size range.

In addition to working on this quilt, I had to read a book for our book club meeting (later today). This month's selection was Still Life With Bread Crumbs by Anna Quindlen. I spent Wednesday reading it, and it was a mostly satisfying effort. It was a bit impatient at times, for it seemed like she could have been a bit less tedious in unfolding her narrative. On the plus side, I liked the characters and her skill with describing a setting is magnificent. I won't hesitate to read another of her books, certainly.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Cutting for a Commission

The big quilt I've been commissioned to make for Elisa has been weighing on my mind, so I figured I'd better just get busy on it.

Last Tuesday, when Sharon was here to sew, I worked entirely on cutting.

I have to say that this is a quilt I am inventing as I go; consequently, I am also making decisions as I go. My original thought was that I would use 3 widths of fabric - 2 inches; 3 inches; and 3.5 inches. That is what you see above.

As I have no idea how much I need to cut, I just stopped there, and gave more thought to my process. I checked the inspiration picture that we found on Pinterest. This made me think I needed more size variety.

Back to cutting - this time doing more narrow strips - 1.5 inches, and more 2 inches. I also added more of the darker fabrics, as I understand that Elisa prefers this quilt to be darker to match her bedroom decor.

It still looks too light as I study this big pile of strips.

Maybe it will be darker as I begin sewing the strips together.

I have spent a good amount of time thinking about how I will construct this as efficiently as possible. I know that I am going to have 5 vertical sections on this quilt, which is to be king size. I estimate that I will go with 24", 18", 24", 18" and 24 ". This comes to 108". It may actually end up being slightly smaller, but still will turn out to be king size, even if it goes down to 105". I have cut all these strips into 18" and 24" segments, and now I am ready to do some power sewing.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

King-Size Commission

A few posts back, I wrote about the possibility of having several quilts commissioned to do. One has been confirmed and the fabric purchased. It will be a king-size quilt for a young married couple, and will have a modern feel to it. Elisa has requested black, gray, tan and beige for her color scheme, as this matches her existing decor.

Here we have the fabrics which will go into the quilt. I had a blast selecting them, and Elisa was in agreement with all of these. (I bought one additional fabric which we have rejected.) That's pretty good odds, and if we are on the same page this early in the game, I think I can create something for her that she will love.

Would you like a closer view?? I expect I will begin this quilt as soon as spring semester ends at the end of the month.

Happy Quilting, Friends!