Actual Quilting

My sister Jill was here last week, and between her feeding me and watching her bustle around, I got inspired to finally start quilting this. It had been lying on the frame since March, but I haven't had much energy.

It went pretty smoothly until the end, but I had loaded the backing a little skewed, and couldn't finish. I'll have to change it around to finish the last row. 

David and Claire arrived Friday evening and wanted to understand how the quilting machine operated. They spent a lot of time Saturday evening choosing some quilts to take home with them.

Mother's Day

Time to come out of hibernation, blog-wise. First, to wish my mother a happy Mother's Day. She raised 4 happy, healthy, close in age kids and did a great job. Love you Mom!

I have been quilting but still haven't finished anything since late February. This medallion featuring a feathered star had been on my UFO list for many years, as I couldn't decide how to finish it. I finally added a last border and now it's quilted but not bound. When it's really done, I'll try to have more pictures and tell you more about it.

This strippy quilt is on the frame now. It should have been pretty quick to quilt, but my back was hurting for a few weeks. I'm starting to make progress again now though.

What's Up?

It rained over night, but today is blue sky and fluffy white clouds. Some of those clouds could still dump rain, because the next dry phase isn't supposed to start until tomorrow, but it is pretty in the meantime. I put away the last project I had on the design wall. It was just not inspiring to work on, perhaps because it was fall-like colors in the heart of spring. So, after a couple of weeks of no progress, I packed it all away in a bag (including the pattern), so I could work on something else.

I have been quilting though. This is another medallion of Carol's. Unlike the first one, she did all of this herself and it makes a real difference. The other was well-made and lay flat, but some of the color and design choices had me scratching my head. This one is much more cohesive and pleasing. I still spent quite a lot of time choosing thread colors and designs. While waiting on that, I stabilized the whole quilt by stitching in the ditch between every border.

Now I'm working my way back through the quilt and adding the quilting designs to each border and the center block.

Quilting Sassy

Since Jane Sassaman recently came out with a second book, which features her fabrics in relatively simply pieced designs (which equal sensational quilts), I thought I should finish up a couple of quilts inspired by some of the original quilts on her blog. This one is actually the second one I pieced. It sat around for a long time because I couldn't come up with a border I liked. I finally decided it didn't really need one. (The first, smaller, one has a traditional looking, 3 fabric border.)

The quilting is going slowly and has been difficult. The fill pattern I'm using in the background is OK, but initially had a lot of tension problems with the bobbin thread slipping out of the case. In the center portion, I'm following lines in the fabric, and that means going slow, and bending over to see better. It feels like work,  not fun, but I'll probably like it once it's done. It's too hot to quilt this weekend anyway - highs in the low 90s. Not used to that at all. 

Quilting Blue Mountains

This one has been in my UFO pile for a few years. I think I blogged about it in the design phase, but I'll have to search back in the archives for when. I haven't quilted it before because I couldn't decide on what design would fit in these odd-shaped ridges. I finally decided to just use two different filler patterns, one for the blue zig zags and another for the white. And a 'featherish' design for the border, a la Sue Patten. It's going fairly well, except for not being able to see the royal thread on the blue. I'm sure I've crossed over or doubled up more than once due to not seeing where I've been. Oh well.

Zigzag

I'm not exactly sure when I pieced this, but it was within the last two years. I was trying to be more 'modern' by using a solid gray between the different blue prints, but I really don't like gray all that much. Maybe if it had been a lighter gray, it would have worked better. Anyway, I thought maybe I could change the tone of the dull gray by the quilting thread I used.

It's a bit hard to see, but on the left scrap, top to bottom, there is a matching light gray thread, then a blue-violet that I'm using on the prints and the back, then a very light, shiny gray. On the right scrap, there is a muted pinkish-violet. I chose to go with the shiny light gray.

It is a type of thread I've never tried before, Art Studio by Superior. I had a lot of problems balancing the tension at first, but finally got it looking nice top and bottom and finished one row of gray yesterday after loading the quilt. 

But when I started up again this morning, I only did half of a row before it started shredding and made a big mess. After I unpicked the stitches back to an acceptable point, I found that the top thread was wrapped several times around the spool holder before hitting the tensioning guides. I wear reading glasses on a neck cord while I'm quilting, and hang them over the touch screen on the front when I'm done. I think the cord must have slipped down to the thread path, and when I grabbed the glasses, brought the thread up with it. Either that, or the pixies were playing with the machine in the night. I rethreaded, and did a couple more rows without incident. 

Next!

After finally putting the last borders on this top, I pressed the wide Stonehenge backing fabric and got the quilt loaded on the frame this week. What with having to get more fabric for the border, and looking for a back, I've had plenty of time to think about how to quilt it. I'm doing some fairly simple designs, but treating the borders, sashes and blocks separately. We'll see how that goes. This is maybe the largest quilt I've done so far on my Avante.

Progress

I got this top done and on the frame. I've been mainly quilting with So Fine thread (and liking it), but I thought the mostly solids in this could do with a variegated thread like King Tut. But that gave me a lot of tension problems at first. And when the tension did appear balanced, the top thread kept shredding and breaking. So there were a lot of adjustments and rethreading in the first couple of passes. Finally got it to an acceptable balance with no more breaks in the navy/purple section. Tomorrow I have to change threads for the pale yellow skull, so I may have more opportunities for testing tensions :).

Quilting Again

I wasn't feeling well yesterday, but the extra rest led to more activity today. I got the Scrappy Trips quilt loaded on the frame, and started quilting it. I'm trying out wool batting for the first time. I thought the little extra puffiness would help with the slight wonkiness of these blocks, and make it a cozy sofa quilt as well.

Winter Weather

Snowed off and on over the weekend, and continuing this week. I got my errands out of the way on Saturday, and Sunday just enjoyed the prettiness without having to go anywhere.

I rearranged blocks on my design wall, but didn’t make any real progress. I had 26 blocks made, and decided I need 36 to finish. That will make a decent throw-sized quilt. Once I get a tentative layout I like, I can make the other blocks to fill in the gaps.

I did spend time on quilting though. I prepped the front and back of the Batik Tracks quilt, and loaded it on the frame. It’s been such a long time since I’ve done that, that I reviewed some videos on method just to refresh my memory. It went on pretty smoothly, although the back and batting are a little skimpy for the width of the quilt. I will have to take extra care to keep things lined up and square. I quilted one pass across in swirly curls. It’s a little difficult to see where I’m going and where I’ve been as the teal thread really does blend into most of the fabrics.