Archive for the ‘Quilted’ Category

I took a break from binding and knitting socks to quilt this donation top of Tamera’s.

The variegated thread and Bubbles pantograph were already on the machine and were just right for this top.

Tamera used the Twister ruler for this quilt. It can be hard to find but I did a quick search and found it at this shop – I’ve never purchased anything there so this isn’t an endorsement

This is one of my tops – made with the GO tumbler die and novelty fabrics (lots of them sent to me from Cecile!).

I left the irregular edge so it should be interesting when I go to bind it. I looked through some of my books at different binding options but will probably just use bias binding.

Busy I know but it’s really cute in person and makes a fun donation quilt. It’s quilted with a pantograph called Bubbles – one of my favorites for kids quilts.

I have no problem quilting a pantograph over applique –especially on a busy scrap quilt. Pantograph is Happy Times from Willow Leaf Studio.

This is one of my UFO’s although technically Mom did most of the piecing and stitched down all the applique. It was a Block of the Month that we both signed up for and Mom finished her quilt over two years ago. I’ve learned that BOM quilts are NOT for me especially if they have lots of applique.

We needed a quilt for a gift and this was the perfect one to finish up.  I redesigned the borders and used a red inner and outer border with a 9 patch border between them and while I liked Mom’s quilt with the log cabin border from the pattern, I like the ones on this quilt better. After it’s bound, I’ll post a better photo.

For those interested the pattern is called Home is Where the Heart is by Lynda Howell and it can be found on her webpage — you’ll need to page about halfway down to see it.

Keith came home this evening and asked why I was quilting in the dark – That’s what happens when your thread blends too well with the fabrics in the top and you need to see where you’re going.

This is another donated top from Tamera.

EDIT: If interested in how Tamera made this top, she has a tutorial on her blog.

Quilted with freehand leaves and loops.

I have a couple leaves pantographs I like a lot but the Circle Lord template is still on the table and I might do one more top before taking it off so I went ahead and quilted the leaves freehand. Given how well the thread blended with a lot of the fabric, a panto would have been easier.

I’ve been piecing and quilting these tops from Coins donated during one of our HeartStrings projects and now I’m officially tired of them! Helen, one of our members from the UK offered to take the remaining coins off my hands (probably enough for another 2 maybe 3 quilts) so this will be my last one, at least for a while.

You’ll notice that yes, one again I used the Circle Lord Swirls template and I’m trying to decide if this is the last one for now or if I’ll do one more before taking it off the table and trying out the new clamshell one waiting in it’s box.

I’ve also been using this subtle King Tut variegated thread on the last 3 tops. One of the biggest things that saves me time is grouping tops together that I plan on using the same pattern and thread.  You might think it’s boring but when I have lots of tops waiting here for quilting even small things like that save me time.

As far as other items from my day…..

Red sock # 2 has been cast on and I’m working on the leg. Thanks to the bad influence of JudyL, not only did I order yarn for 2 more pair last night online but I searched out a local yarn store and bought yarn for two more…. that doesn’t include the yarn that should be here any day with my smaller needles too. (Yes, I’ll have yarn for 6 pair of socks waiting).

AND WHO KNEW that the yarn shop was on the block behind my grocery store and that we’ve driven by it multiple times to get in and out of the parking garage. In fact, the only time we drive to the store is when we buying more groceries than we can carry — yes, it’s even within walking distance just about a mile and a half each way.

Speaking of walking, it was snowing tonight so we decided to walk across the river for dinner (almost as far as the yarn shop) and played a little in the snow on the way home. Is there anything better than walking in the snow at night? I don’t think so.

I’m still on an odd schedule but I’ve been changing the date on my posts so that when I’m saying today or tonight the post matches the day I’m talking about. You probably don’t care but when I go back to look something up it helps me if the post says Thursday when I’m talking about Thursday…..because right — it’s really Friday.

To finish up the month, this donated top pieced by San and her group in NC – backing pieced by Tish (thank you SO much!). I was able to load this one tonight and quilt it quickly just before the end of the month.

A swirly version of Dwirling from the Pajama Quilter DVD - quick and easy.

I also managed to turn the heel on my red sock. Still have a few errors but not as many as on the first sock.

I started a new pair of socks before making a mate for sock #1. While the instructions in my book are pretty good, knitting tends to be more vague than quilting and I was told to knit leg to desired length….and after I was done I decided the leg was shorter than I liked.

So I started a new pair — same yarn, different color and this time I’ll make the leg a little longer. I ordered more of the beige yarn too and I plan to make a pair with a longer leg from it and then if I have enough left over from both batches, I’ll make sock #1 a mate.

I also managed to load and quilt one of my tops, the twisted Kaleidoscope quilted with the Circle Lord Swirls template.

I did mention that while that template is on the table, I’ll be doing several quilts with it. This is #2 and I’ve got at least one if not two more tops that will get this design before the template comes off.

Just another hour and a half and I was done with this donation top from Sharon that I’d spent most of the afternoon working on. I think this is a Disappearing 9 Patch but I could be wrong. It’s hard to get a good photo downstairs at night but you can see the floral prints she used and the flower quilting I used from the Pajama Quilter DVD.

And a little of the quilting on the back. This was a large quilt so I was happy to have the backing pieced for me by Sheree.

The same twisted 9 patch blocks are on my design wall but I’m slowly making progress on them. I need to go back to making 9 patch blocks now as I’ve twisted all the ones I had.

This quilt will take (48)  9 inch blocks (blocks are 9.5 with seam allowances and I started with a 6 inch 9 patch block (6.5 with seam allowance)) It will measure 54×72 which is a good size donation quilt.

I also finished quilting this top sent by Cecile for me to quilt and donate. I used my Circle Lord Swirls template. It’s been a while so I was a bit wobbly in places — it won’t be very noticeable when it’s done thanks to cotton batting and washing/drying the finished quilt.

Bouncing around in the channels with the stylus is my biggest challenge with these giant templates but I love the texture and the results I get and once I’m warmed up it’s not bad. In fact I just ordered the Pampas Clam board the other day — I’ve been wanting a clamshell version and this can be quilted with or without the *grass*.

I always make sure I have several quilts lined up before loading one of the templates on the table so you’ll be seeing a few of these in the next couple weeks although I’ll alternate with some freehand quilting too.

First, this HeartStrings top pieced by Sue or her Mom from donated blocks – quilted with a swirly version of dwirling from the Pajama Quilter DVD. Since I finished all the bindings I had here, I’m working on building up a stack of quilts to bind during the Olympics next month.

Yesterday I didn’t accomplish much, played with some yarn trying out the directions for knitting socks, placed an order for yarn and new needles for actually knitting them once I figure out what I’m doing and twisted a few more 9 patch blocks.

I haven’t written up instructions for this one yet but I’m getting some questions — I use one of Sharon Craig’s methods using skinny triangles cut from rectangles. You can see how I do them in the Twisted Happy Block instructions. These blocks are ending up at 9 inches (9.5 with seam allowances) so I’ll set them 6×8 and end up with a quilt the same size as our standard HeartStrings quilt – 54 x 72 which is just about my favorite size for donation quilts.

I also managed to get Chesty to the Beauty Parlor yesterday and I hope that Vicki notes that I left him with lots of fur so he won’t get too cold.

A small HeartStrings top quilted this afternoon – from donated blocks, assembled by Sue or her Mom (I never know which one of them assembles a particular top) .

I don’t usually like to quilt loops but sometimes I like to do these double loops.

Hard to believe this is my first top quilted in 2010. I’d better get to work and get some more done because February is going to be very busy with non quilting stuff.

We leave early tomorrow for GA and won’t be back until New Year’s Day so this will be the last top I quilt in 2009.

It was pieced by Barbara in FL and I hadn’t been able to decide what to quilt on it until last night when I decided that Baptist Fans would look great on it. So I was up very, very early again this morning to load and quilt it.

Unlike the random Baptist Fans from yesterday, these were quilted in rows – both versions are quilted freehand with no marking.

I had a couple questions recently about how I quilt these and although I’ve gone into more detail at this post, I’ll comment again here.

I quilt the fans upside down starting with the smallest arc so if the top is directional, I load it upside down on the longarm and I start at the top left corner. When I’m quilting in rows – I quilt each row all the way across the top from left to right.

In this quilt I tried to keep the same number of arcs in each fan but I don’t usually worry about that as much as filling the space I need to fill — of course, the more evenly I’m quilting the arcs the more likely there are to be the same number of them in each fan — at least in this *orderly* version.

In the random version from yesterday, I still start in the top left corner and quilt the arcs upside down – I work to fill the space, the fans can have a different number of arcs, and I work my way back and forth across the quilt rather than quilting each row from left to right.

This is really a very easy design to quilt — I’m a very average quilter so you know if I can do it YOU can!

One of the nice things about a quiet holiday with just the two of us is that I can slip away and work for a while every now and then. I’m going to have a lot of binding to do when I get back from GA on the 1st of Jan.

I was up at 6AM this morning and got this HeartStrings top of mine loaded and quilted.

Quilted with freehand Baptist Fans, these are randomly placed rather than the rows of them I’ve done on the last couple tops I quilted with BF.

I pieced a back from stash and just as I was getting ready to load the quilt I realized there was a big flaw in the backing. After debating whether to piece another back, I decided to just fuse this block that’s been sitting on my shelf for a long time over the flaw and stitch it down.

It’s really kind of random looking but these colors are in the front of the quilt so it works OK I think.

Keith and I are planning to go to walk downtown for a movie and lunch today. I hope you all are enjoying your holiday too!

I was up early this morning – the excitement of the snow and Christmas Eve I guess.

We got about 4 inches last night and it’s still coming down! Aren’t my trees out front looking beautiful. They make it a little easier not to have a tree this year.

This is something you won’t see often – our association does all the snow removal but in a storm like this it may take them a while to get around to shoveling the stairs although they already plowed the street.

And here’s my baby on his perch. He got a bath and blow dry the other day so he’s all pretty for the holidays.

Any since I was up, I loaded and quilted this gorgeous HeartStrings top pieced by Deborah. She makes the most beautiful string quilts with leftovers from her other quilts and sends them to me to quilt and donate.

A simple pantograph – Blowing Leaves by Dave Hudson and a variegated Lava thread. I’m usually very lazy about my thread and mostly use Permacore because it runs well in my machine, it blends in well with the scrap quilts I’m working with, and it’s not too expensive but I bought this cone probably 2 years ago and never tried it until now. It ran very well in my machine and has a subtle sheen that’s lovely.

And finally, at least for now here’s one more photo of the snow from my longarm room. I don’t always open the blinds down there but today I did so I could watch the snow.

I have a little cooking to do for our picnic tonight by the fire, just potato salad, deviled eggs, and some Christmas cookies. I bought a Honey Baked Ham (yum) so I don’t even have to cook that. And later today we’re going to walk downtown – cross your fingers I don’t get stuck in a snow drift!

Hope your Christmas Eve is as lovely as mine is turning out to be!

Some swirly dwirling this morning on another top from San.

And a little closer on quilting

And just in case anyone has missed it, Dwirling is from my favorite quilting DVD by Dawn Ramirez.  I’d also recommend this DVD from Patsy Thompson if you’re looking to build your basic freehand quilting skills. Patsy has other DVD’s for sale as well as some great free downloads on her site so take a look around while you’re there.

Dawn quilts on a longarm and Patsy on a regular sewing machine but in my opinion the concepts and designs are appropriate for either machine in both video’s.

Or in this case NOT so bright. I loaded a HeartStrings top pieced from group blocks by Sue (or her Mom) and just before I started to do some swirly dwirling on it (quick and easy AND looks good), I thought I’d try a heart variation.

Lets just say it’s a good thing the top is very busy and that at least the quilting gives it good texture!

And the back (one of many backings sent to me by Tish for these donation quilts).

It may be time to go back to my pantographs for a while but the good news is one more top is quilted!

It’s been a while since I’ve quilted Wonky Feathers (from the Pajama Quilter DVD) but as usual even though I’m cringing while I’m quilting, when I finish and take the quilt off the machine I’m usually fairly pleased. I need to quilt these feathers soon before I forget them again.

The top was pieced by San and it’s one of several sent to me to quilt and finish for Alycia’s Quilt of Valor project. I sent 3 finished ones to Alycia in November and another one is being bound by Sheree.  You might not think feathers are the best quilting design but this quilt has floral setting triangles so I figured it would probably end up with a *girl* soldier.

Here’s a better look at the quilting

And my living room is almost back to normal — the ceiling has to dry some before they can put the lights back up but we enjoyed sitting by the fire this evening and Chesty was very happy to be allowed to roam around again.

Finally, we’re getting a little snow tonight but the exciting thing is this forecast for the rest of the week including Christmas! There’s a Winter Storm Watch in effect from Wed – Fri and they’re calling for significant accumulations of snow. I think we’ll do our grocery shopping tomorrow night rather than Wednesday as planned.

Wishing you all a white Christmas too!

It’s been about 2 weeks since I quilted anything — where does the time go?

This top was pieced by Tamera and sent to me to quilt and donate as a part of our HeartStrings project.

It’s quilted with the pantograph WildFlower by Willow Leaf Studio and I’m not sure I’m that crazy about it. It’s the first time I used it and it’s a little slow quilting on the flowers – short sections with frequent changes in direction.

It looks better close up than in the above photo I think.

And here’s a portion of the back. All the photos will enlarge some if you click on them.

A couple hours on the computer at the coffee shop to get me out of the house for a bit.

Then some quilting – I’m ready to mail the quilts and pillow shams back to my aunt tomorrow. For the shams,  I loaded a piece of muslin, used some batting scraps and the same pantograph from the quilt (Plumage).

Still to come tonight, some binding and a few more HeartStrings blocks. Hope you had a wonderful holiday weekend. Although I spent it alone, I’m very happy with everything I got done!

I’m not sure what I was thinking when I chose Plumage for this quilt — other than it would look good. After days of chugging away at it, my aunt’s 2nd top is quilted. Now I just have two pillow shams to do for her and I’ll be done.