Winter Windows

A couple of days ago my Winter Windows quilt was returned to me safely, along with a copy of Australian Patchwork & Quilting Vol 21 No 11. I'm thinking of replacing the quilt on the wall in our bedroom with this one if it isn't too long.

 

 

I've shared quite a few peeks at the quilting on this one ( 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, ), as I'm so proud of it, and I hope you'll indulge me while I share a few more today - but I'll never know if you scroll past them while you roll your eyes!

 

Without wanting to repeat too much of what I've already said about this quilt, it was designed to use up the star blocks which I made the wrong size for another quilt.

I used a double layer of batting (one plain cotton, one wool/cotton) to help the detailed quilting stand out. While it definitely achieved that, and I won't rule it out in future, it's not something I'd do again in a rush without a long-arm, as it was a pain to manoeuvre, and this quilt isn't huge (approx 52 x 65in; or 133 x 166cm).

All the quilting was done using Superior BottomLine thread, in white and light aqua. I used a variety of marking, freehand designs and filler patterns. All marking was with a Sewline vanishing marker; the marks totally vanished quickly - from memory they were faint after about 3 hours and completely gone within 12 hours. I used the same pen again recently and the marks lasted much longer, and eventually I lightly sprayed them with water. This has the effect of instantly making them really, really bright, but they fade and vanish quickly. Some reappeared a little when sprayed a second time after drying, but then remained gone. I noticed this time that the marks on the plain homespun (solid) lasted much longer than those on the batik prints, which vanished on their own in about a day.

The lines and swirls on the star block (above) are done completely freehand; no marking.

I created a template and used it and a ruler to mark the quilting lines and a few guidelines for the main motif between the stars:

I used a ruler to mark the triangles in the border:

I free-hand marked the ends of the curved cross-hatch lines (both in the borders, and in the blocks), then drew the lines in freehand before quilting them:

With all the dense quilting, I really wich I'd taken note of my machine's stitch count at the start and finish, but based on the stitches in the queen-sze quilt I just finished, I estimate this to have in the vicinity of 250,000 stitches and include about 2km of thread.

I love the filigree filler I used in this areas, but did get sick of quilting it towards the end. Amazingly, after the filigree, the pebbling in the border triangles seemed almost fast!

The colours in this quilt were difficult to photograph accurately, and even with some editing aren't spot-on. The photos where the dark teal is greener (rather than blueish) are the closest to the true colours.

I initially tried a different pattern (parallell lines) in the alternate triangles in the border, but the curved cross-hatch ended up being a much better option, and worth unpicking the 2 or 2 trial triangles.

It's featured as a project from page 104 of the new issue of AP&Q, and I included detailed instructions and a couple of templates to replicate the quilting as well as the piecing.

Rainbow explosion

My sewing room looks as though it's been host to a rainbow explosion!

For a while I've been wanting to make a quilt using equilateral (60-degree) triangles. The main thing holding me back is that I didn't just want plain triangles, and as far as I know, my EQ7 design software won't allow me to design triangle-shaped blocks - although it will do a one-patch quilt layout in any 3- or 4-sided shape. Which of course also means it can't then generate templates and so on if I want them. I'm quite capable of most of the maths (some of my high-school maths teachers would be pleased with how much geometry and trigonometry I use - and would probably have been even more pleased had I realised back then how useful I'd find their subject and focussed a little more!) but because it wasn't an option, every time I started playing with designs in EQ, they would never be triangle-based. As a side note, if you ever need to calculate triangle measurements, websites such as this triangle calculator  will do it for you; as long as you know at least 3 details (all 3 side measurements, 1 angle and 2 sides or 2 angles and one side) it will work out the rest for you!

So a couple of weeks ago I sat down with a pencil and started sketching ideas and worked out a few concepts I liked. But when I used EQ to create a layout of plain triangles to give me more accurate final dimensions, I realised my drawings had been out of proportion, despite my best efforts, and instead of needing a 9 x 10 layout, what I needed was 11 x 9! So I printed out the layout, and then pencilled in the piecing within each triangle (I kept it fairly simple) and adapted the design as I went.

I thought I had a ruler for it (which was part of the reason for wanting to make it), but a lot of searching only yielded a right-angle triangle, so I went and bought one - by this stage I was too committed to pull out! My studio is well overdue for a thorough sort and tidy, and I do wonder if I'll find it when I get around to tidying up...

Another of my aims for this quilt was to use larger pieces to make the fabrics a focus (easily achieved, since I was designing by hand!). And I had in mind that I'd actually use a single range of fabric. I have a few stacks I was considering, and was leaning towards some Amy Butler. But then I settled on a name for the quilt - Hide and Seek; it's going to be a little girl's bed quilt. And what could be more perfect for a quilt of that name than Tula Pink fabric, with all the hidden creatures? It didn't take me long to decide to cut into my stash of The Birds and The Bees, and soon I had a few rainbow piles of triangles and associated shapes ready to piece together. Another bonus of this decision, is that I can enter Sara's Tula Pink Sew-along. I've already joined the solid components to the prints to make the complete triangles, and am now laying them out according to my design to get a good balance of colour and prints across the quilt - but only 4 of the 9 rows fit on my sewing table! I think I'll layout and sew them a few at a time, and hope that with a bit of care, I'll be left with a decent selection for the bottom few rows, and won't have to unpick earlier ones and swap them around!

 

 

 

Swooned

I have finished quilting this large quilt at last, but don't have a properly flat section of wall large enough (in either direction) to photograph it! I took a few with it draped over our monkey bars late yesterday afternoon (too late really; the sun was almost gone, and was too low to really define the quilting. This one shows the pattern radiating from the centre block quite nicely though:

It's school holidays here, and James and Eleanor are at my parents' and staying for a 
sleepover. I took the quilt with me when I dropped them off in the morning and used one of their walls to photograph it, and tomorrow will post it back to Milly, who has the binding all ready to attach.

I'll wait to share photos of the whole thing until Milly has done the big reveal on her blog. But in the meantime, I have another customer top waiting to be quilted, and the last two evenings I've started piecing a new quilt, which I'll share tomorrow.

Dividing and quilting

And on it goes! I've ended up taking a lot longer over quilting this than planned, but I think the quilt deserves it. The first photo below shows some of the quilting I'm doing between the outer Swoon blocks - dividing the large spaces to a) make them more manageable, b) allow more variety in the quilting and c) make the quilting design more formal and dramatic.

I mark the lines, but theyr'e free-motion quilted. Then I freehand fill the gap beween the lines with a large filigree design. Then I echo the edges of the feathers and fill the gap with McTavishing, and then quilt in the ditch around the next Swoon star. I'd hoped to avoid the ditch quilting, but it's really necssary, and makes a huge improvement. But it all takes time. I've done six of the eight.

Interspersed with this, I'm doing some of the quilting around the centre block. This is similar to what I'm doing around the edges (filigree in the centre) - but with feathers added. I use rulers positioned using certain intersections of the swoon block to mark the lines, and I'm marking the feathers to keep them even - using the rulers as a guide to position. The blue and green block is the quilt centre, and the lines radiate from the centre of it.

Today I drew up a new quilt design, which I'm desperate to whip-up, then wasted ages hunting for my previously unused 60-degree ruler. I eventually found a different (also unused) triangle ruler, and now wonder if I ever had a 60-degree one! I might go and get one tomorrow... This quilt will feature largeish pieces from a single range (when I can choose one; I have several options!) and a single coordinating solid. Quite unusual for me.

More swooning

I mentioned yesterday about my first feather starting a different shape when it's not next to another feather - here you can see just how different; these are the feathers I drew compared with what I eventually quilted!

I finished all the feathering and have moved on to filling the little arcs and corners at the side of the quilt with McTavishing, to tie in with that in the centres of the feathered circles and inside the circles around the stars in the middle of the Swoon blocks. I start by echoing between 1/8 and 1/4in around the feathers, then fill the remaining space:

There are only a few more of these to go, then it's on to filling the gaps in the middle (partially visible on the left in the photo above). More McTavishing will be involved.

Feathering frenzy

I have been busily quilting feathers around the edge of this customer quilt. I started by using a large platter (with pieces of tape as guides to help with positioning) and curvable ruler to mark the spine and the edge of the feathers where they don't go right up to the edge of the quilt or a change in fabric.

Then I marked 5 or 6 feathers on either side of the spine. I did this partly to see how they would fit in the irregular shapes on the inside of the spine, but mostly because I always find that I shape first feather differently, and when I get back around to it, it leaves the last feather an odd shape. So I don't actully quilt the first few I draw, and start at the third or fourth one.I basically ignore what I've drawn for the first few when I get back to them.

When I do get back to the start, I pause with space for about 5 feathers, and work out exactly how many will fit, and whether I need to adjust the sizes up or down a little to keep them looking fairly consistent (rather than suddenly finding the space remaining means that the last one is horribly skinny or really fat, and stands out like a sore thumb!).

Because I'm quilting double feathers, that means going around the quilt twice for each side of the spine. So far I've done both passes on the outside, and am still doing the first one on the inside - which is why the ones you see on the left are still single.

Once the feathered border is done, there are still some other spaces to fill, but it's getting there.

Jumping

For Christmas a few years ago, we got James and Eleanor a Springfree trampoline. They're fantastic, and the safest around, and now I've entered this photo of them on it in the hopes of winning one for my sister and her family. I'd really appreciate it if you would follow this link and vote for our photo! You might need to scroll through a few pages to get to mine; they're shown in order of vote numbers.

Thank you.

Next post will be quilty again, I promise.

A quilt behind Eleanor

I didn't do any quilting tongiht; though I really wanted to. But I did at last finish off all the instructions for the quilt that's hiding behind Eleanor, which desperately needed doing.

Tomorrow night I'll finish marking the border guidelines and start quilting it; I'm really pleased with my idea and can't wait to see how it looks when done.

Inter-swoon

While I'm busy quilting more of the same, here's another look at the quilting on my Winter Windows quilt, which will be in the next issue of Australian Patchwork & Quilting (v21 n11) in a few weeks.

These are from the back - I'm so glad I used a solid which shows all the texture (and effort!) The photo above shows a single block (plus a bit), while the one below focuses on the motif created by the corners of four blocks.

I tried tracking the time that went into quilting this; I'll have to go back and see if I can find enough notes to add it all up. I wish I'd also checked a stitch count - something which I am doing on the current quilt. I noted my starting point, and as long as I don't sew anything in the middle, just need to remember to check again when I'm done. I think it'll take me just over the 2m mark.

Swooning along

I'm making progress with the quilting. I finished the feathered circles I mentioned in my last post and have quilted a similar design in the stars at the centre of each swoon block; McTavishing inside a centre circle, with feathers filling the points:

It's hard to see the feathering, but basically there's one large and one small plume in each of the eight points.

Then I moved on to the the large, pale points around each star, using lightly different feather design to fill the narrower points (above) and the wider ones (below). For both I'm using the Sewline vanishing marker to roughly mark the central registration lines, but they're all quilted freehand.

 

I'll go back later and quilt some swirls into the eight dark diamonds, but for now, I've quilted the light sections of 4 of the 9 blocks.

Starting to swoon

Last night I cleared the decks to sandwich a large (95in square) customer quilt:

I've worked out some of the quilting design, and will work out the rest once I see how it's looking. I've started by McTavishing around the stars at the centre of each of the 9 Swoon blocks:

It's already clear how well made this quilt is. It lies amazingly flat for one so large, and the seams are all flat and even. The fact that the seams have been pressed open really seems to help minimise any bulk, too. Even while quilting right at the centre, look how much space I still had to move (allowing for the extra allowance at the edge, there's a full 50 inches of quilt to the right of the needle:

Next I've moved onto these feathered circles. There will be 4 of them. I used a platter and 2 bowls to mark 3 circles (a large one as a guide for where to end the feathers, a small one for the feather spine, and a slightly smaller one for the innermost circle and the interior arcs). The middle of the 3 quilted circles was done by eye - as were all the feathers.

There's still a long way to go, but it's looking good so far (about 6h in).

Bauble quilt

Melody used my Winter Baubles pattern from Australian Patchwork & Quilting Vol 21 No 8 (she's been very quick; it only came out in July!) to make her own version of the quilt, and sent me a photo the other day:

She says she didn't think she could do it the way I did, and I think she's appliqued hers. Isn't it lovely? Thank you so much for sharing it Melody!

Giraffe Quilt

The giraffe quilt was gifted to its new owner today, so I can share the whole thing. I hope the recipient was as pleased as my customer. I'm really proud of this one.

The initial brief was for one of  my trees, but with giraffes.

I decided that the tree needed to be more in keeping with a giraffe's environment, and had fun drawing out this new tree. The way to do the patches of leaves came to me very early on, and I enjoyed picking out the different green fabrics, drawing the organic shapes and adding the darker and lighter patches.

I wasn't too sure how I'd manage the giraffes, but I'm delighted with them.

I had a few goes at drawing them freehand, but gave up and did an image search for giraffes. It took me ages to find photos of the postures I had in mind (you'd think the upright one would've been easy, but most of them were facing the wrong way, had too much of their bodies obscured, or otherwise didn't meet my needs). In the end for that one I used two separate images; one for the body, and another for the head (the image for the body had the giraffe turned facing the camera, rather than naturally forwards). I saved copies of the photos, used photoshop to define the edges, plonked the new head in place, and printed them to size. Then I traced the rough outlines and a couple of major details, made some alterations, then marked them on fusible web, using separate pieces for the tails and manes.

The pale wood fabric was an inspired choice for their bodies, even if I do say so myself! The bodies, tails and manes (like the tree and leaves) are appliqued using machine buttonhole stitch.

Then I fused a chocolate hand dye to Lite Steam-a-Seam2 and cut out loads of randomly-shaped pieces (well over 200) in varying sizes. Positioning them was like doing a puzzle, and quite enjoyable.

They're appliqued using free-motion straight stitch; I went around each shape twice, but that was still infinitely faster than using the buttonhole stitch again around all those small pieces, and I think it has a better effect. The hooves are appliqued the same way.

 appliqued some of the small edge patches using a paler (but heavier) thread, to make them less prominent, and used a few different threads to add some lines and shading (mostly to the faces) with thread painting. This was all prior to quilting, though I did quilt over some of the lines later on as well.

I was especially please with the giraffe's face above; helped along by the (partly fortunate) positioning of the fabric, with a knot accentuating the eye, the lighter patch at the forehead, and the contours working with the face shape.

After the tree and giraffes were done, we decided to add some grasses to the background. I drew a handful of these freehand on fusible web, then fused them randomly to a small selection of suitably grassy fabrics, cut them out, and played with combinations and positions until I found something I liked. They're appliqued (and then quilted) freemotion. I'd intended to add some more subtle grassy tussocks in the quilting, but found it wasn't overly effective after a couple, and left it at that.

When it came to quilting the ground, I had no clear idea of what to do until I started, when the larger-than-usual McTavishing came to mind. The lines are about 1/2in apart, to match the planned density over the rest of the quilt. It gives a nice subtle grassy texture.

For the sky I chose the swirly pattern I've been using a lot recently. The more I practice it, the more even I get, and it works nicely to create the illusion of a breeze

The border fabric was a chance selection; browsing through my stash, I saw I'd have enough of it, and it was the right sort of colour, so I laid it out with the completed centre, and it was just right. I filled the border with free-form feathers. For these I worked otu where I wanted each spine, and quilted that first, then just went along and freehand quilted the feathers along each side, filling the gaps as I went. I didn't see any point doing anything fancier, as it would have been lost in the print.