Quilting and Other Stuff

Thank you - very much! - to nine of you who took time to comment on my last post about the Turn-Sharp rotary blade sharpener. That post has been viewed 590 times (so far), and it's your comments that mean so much and make me want to continue writing posts.

Through the past week I've been quilting and quilting, creating customized designs on my "Zing," patterned improv quilt. Quilting is with a walking foot and free motion foot, with top thread colors changed dozens of times. No doubt that's another reason quilting seemed to take so long.

It was satisfying to square the quilt top in preparation for sewing facing to the edges. (When I sew binding to a quilt, I don't square-up the quilt until the binding has been sewn on.) 

Do you ever face your quilts, rather than bind them? Some quilts seem more suited to facing than others. 

My favorite facing method is Easy Quilt Facing found on Bernina's WeAllSew blog. I like it because there's no need to fuss with mitered corners. Instead, each corner has a 5" fabric square that's been folded into a triangle, and sewn with the facing strips hidden under the triangle. 

I'm hand sewing it down now. 

Why is it that evenings seem more suited to hand stitching? For me, it snuggly-comfortable because I have my cushy swivel-glider, and LED light from a Slimline floor lamp. Handwork is so relaxing. 

A couple evenings ago I finished kawandi #5; it's the third kawandi I've made using my grandma's vintage fabric scraps and is 15" X 15". 

I don't have vintage pieces large enough for backing, so I look to my stash for something suitable. Isn't the "you can't buy this" label perfect for this piece?

Last week, after attending the South Florida MQG Zoom meeting - where we watched a great program by Ohioan Cassandra Beaver (TheNotSoDramaticLife) - I followed up on two SFMQG requests for charity quilt blocks. 

Here are five 13" X 13" Tossed Nine Patch blocks made according an Eleanor Burns video. We could use any fabrics to make a nine-patch block, but were asked to put a 5" white solid square in the center. After piecing, the nine patch is cross-cut twice, rearranged, and reassembled.

The second charity block request was for two Organic Diamond blocks. Free instructions on the MQG website. Blocks are a combination of foundation paper-piecing (on the right side) and piecing (a single Flying Geese block on the left side), and finish at 10". A whole quilt of these blocks made with solids would be beautiful wouldn't it? I see a search light in the design. Do you remember those? Back in the 'ole days?

Since I'm about three hours north of SFMQG chapter members, and won't see any members in person, both sets of blocks have been mailed to their respective coordinators. 

Since last fall, I've been a long-distance member of SFMQG, and it's been a very positive experience. During the past few days I worked with two other SFMQG officers to develop a SFMQG challenge called "Curve Around." I designed a logo and set the challenge parameters that will be introduced March 20 and due as a finished quilt in November. Can't wait! 

Locally, this month finds me wrapping up my Central Florida MQG executive committee position as Media Coordinator. I've held the position since starting the chapter in the fall of 2012. After 8½ years of taking pictures; maintaining the CFMQG website including posting to the blog and Instagram; handling publicity for guest and member speakers and programs; arranging Zoom meetings; and the like, I'm ready for someone else do the job. New executive committee members will step into position April 1. 

Book Recommendations  

I've been on a roll, listening to some great books over the past month. These two are worth adding to your list.

The Peacock Summer by Hannah Richell ticked all the boxes for me - the setting, and the accents. In the English countryside is the magnificent estate: Cloudesley. The owner is charming and overbearing: Charles Oberon. Young Lillian is trying to the wife he expects. When a handsome artist is commissioned to paint a room at Cloudesley, using the walls as a canvas, Lillian finds herself weighing the value of people in her life. Parallel to Lillian's story, 60 years later, Maggie Oberon returns to Cloudesley to find it. and Lillian, in decline. While attempting to figure out how to save Cloudesley, Maggie learns about herself, and secrets Lillian has hidden for decades.  

 Linda's score: 4.7/5.0

My Australian friends alerted me to the much-anticipated release of The Survivors by Jane Harper. Having previously read books by Ms. Harper, I put it high on my must-read list, and enjoyed it as much as I anticipated.

The story takes place in Evelyn Bay, Tasmania - the first book I've ever read that takes place in Tas! The rough ocean, and rocky, cave-strewn coastline comes to life as the reader follows Kiernan (a man), his partner Mia, and their infant Audrey on a weeklong stay at Kiernan's parent's beachside home. They're visiting to help his parents pack for a move, and it's a chance for Kiernan to reconnect with friends - the people he shared a tragic experience with more than ten years ago. Life abruptly changes when a body is found on the beach. Past memories are resurrected... an afternoon spent in the caves, with the tide coming in, and a big storm brewing. The story sucked me in and didn't spew me back out until it was completely finished. 

Linda's score: 4.9/5.0

On February 22, a reporter and a photographer from the local newspaper The Daily Sun, interviewed me for an article about my quiltmaking. It appears in today's, March 4 issue. A few statements aren't accurate, but I was flattered to have been contacted.  

The piece is about my pandemic quilting activities - my 2019 temperature quilt; taking virtual workshops; presenting a webinar; learning kawandi and making them with vintage fabrics; and creating improv quilts. 

There! If you've been reading my blog, there's nothing new to learn from the article. 😀 Linda

Clothes and Quilting

I've recently enjoyed garment sewing, making four leggings and four tops. I don't have a dress form on which to display clothes for pictures, but here are two favorite pieces. I adore the color and cutwork at the ankles of these leggings. This lovely knit is from The Sewing Studio in Maitland, Florida.

I'm especially pleased with one of the tops I made because it's patterned from the pieces of an old, favorite, but now pilled, knit top. Believe it or not, I bought this size 14 children's top clearance-priced from Kohl's! 

As I took it apart I discovered that the top had been pieced first, and then painted with stripes! Is that a faster way to manufacture clothing? The seam allowances have no print. 

My top cost $13.48 to make, plus thread. It's a Riley Blake knit from Fabric.com. 

This keyhole back opening is a unique feature. I'll definitely be sewing this pattern again!

Since that spurt of clothes-sewing, I reconfigured my sewing room for quilting and pulled out my already pin-basted Plaidish quilt. I began quilting diagonal ruler-guided arcs across the quilt.

Aurifil 50-weight aqua-colored thread is in the bobbin, and YLI variegated polyester thread is on top. The YLI is some of the $300 worth of thread I won in 2013 for placing third with a domestic machine quilted wall hanging. I don't think I'll ever use up all of it!

After ruler quilting, I used the serpentine stitch to quilt wavy lines through the skinny strips. On my Bernina 770QE I chose stitch 4, and then set the stitch width to 5.0 and length to 1.90.

The top is so busy the variegated thread colors and quilting don't show. So here's the back, a pretty Kaufman wide back.

Binding is up next, as I listen to an audiobook. Linda

Modern Retreat

From last Thursday through Sunday I retreated with 20 other quilters from the Central Florida MQG. It was a wonderful time! This is what our sewing room looked like.

For the first time ever on a retreat - and I swear I've been on at least 40 of them - I took along paraphernalia to do free motion quilting. This is my pre-trip pile that includes two sewing machines, and three tables!

I'm tired of having a stack of quilt tops waiting to be quilted, so retreat put me a long way toward catching up. If you're following my Pfaff Grand Quilter quilting saga - skipped stitches and breaking threads - the machine continued to do that on retreat, though not quite as frequently. Frustrating though, nonetheless.

First I quilted "Cartwheels Quilt," a foundation paper-pieced pattern by Lee of FreshlyPieced. I'll be teaching this project in the Beyond First Time Quiltmaking class that begins Monday, September 26. Registrations for this two week workshop are now open at the Lifelong Learning College. I'll also be teaching domestic machine quilting.

I spent most of Monday taking pictures of the process for sewing binding to the Cartwheels quilt. While I typically would have chosen the gray background (Widescreen) fabric for binding, the photos are needed for a binding tutorial. Aqua and pink fabrics as binding show up better in contrast to the backing color.

Cartwheels has a single layer of Quilter's Dream Poly, and is quilted with Aurifil 50-weight thread.

Machine-sewn mitered corners

I also began quilting The Rebel quilt, a pattern by Libs Elliott. Oh how I love this one! This 72" X 72" quilt is destined as a gift for my cardio-vascular doctor. He's taken such excellent care of me with PAD, and atrial fibrillation, and is going through his own very difficult business problems, so this is the least I can do to show my appreciation for his medical skill and attentiveness.

After quilting three large spirals on it, I decided to take a break so as to put it up on my home design wall to assess where the rest of the quilting design is headed.

The last project I worked on at retreat was this "Building Fun" quilt by Geta Grama. Each castle block is fast to sew, once all the fabrics have been chosen. Background fabric is white Widescreen, and all the colors are Blueberry Park... still a favorite collection. Three more castles to go!

Our guild is booked for Luther Springs again next year during the same time frame. I'll be there, and hopefully will accomplish as much as I did this time. In any case, it's sure to be fun! Especially if I can spend it with these same good friends:

From the top left: Laura, Debbie, Diane, Jamie, Judi, Cindy, Kathy, Kelly, and Lynne
From the bottom left: Monique, Mel, Janice (AKA Mamasita), Karen E., Linda T., Dee, Karen T., Jill, Carol, Sue, Lora, and me! Linda

Quilting

Where does the time go?! To say it's been busy around here is an understatement, but it's mostly good stuff, so no complaints. 

Last Wednesday was the first class of Beyond First Time Quiltmaking. It went pretty well, though I'm getting some feedback that this quilt design is too much for eight class hours. However, several of the quilters have said they're enjoying it. So, I'm thinking that for next fall's class, I'll design a modified version of this one so students have two options. Each quilter likes to work at her own pace, so having two designs will hopefully fulfill that need. 

54" X 60" (not yet bound)

Over the weekend, I was able to finish quilting it with a combination of easy designs - channel lines, stippling and circles... 

 - and more challenging designs like feathers, 

and snail trails.

My intent was to show a variety of quilting designs to inspire students to quilt their own, at their own skill level.

I will also teach them my favorite binding method by demonstrating it, and providing a hand-out. I hope students feel like they've gotten their money's worth for the class, and not that I've loaded them with too much information. 

Over the weekend I pin-based a big, 78" square quilt top. For the first time, I layered two batts: on top of the backing fabric is Quilter's Dream polyester, and on top of the poly is Quilter's Dream wool. When interviewing winning quilters in Paducah, I learned that a number of them were double batting their quilts because quilt folds didn't show after being shipped and hung, and the extra dimension shows off the quilting. A few quilters said they used Hobbs 80/20 in place of the poly layer.

 In any case, I'm giving this a go. This is my test piece, a mini version of the big quilt.

It looks poofy, doesn't it?

I want to put some special quilting into this quilt, so I took a photo of it, used iPhoto to change the color photo into black and white, and printed out several copies. I'm using the pages to try out quilting designs. I haven't settled on anything yet, but it's going to be my road map for getting started.

I've resurrected a UFO. Well, truth be told, it isn't even my UFO! Back in 2011, Julia, who lives in Australia, offered a blog giveaway of these four 15" X 15" Kaffe Fasset fabric blocks made from the Piece 'O Cake book "Aunt Millie's Garden." Julia exquisitely hand-appliquéd the blocks herself, and I won them! After some Kaffe fabric shopping in Paducah, and a generous scrap donation sent from Elizabeth (she made the Lollypop Trees quilt seen here), I've got what I need to make a top. Julia didn't have any of the background fabric, nor even knew what it is (a teeny, aqua-colored microdot), so "lake" Architextures crosshatch fabric is what I'm going with. Of course, I wouldn't have enough of it in my stash, so now this project is stalled until a Hawthorne Threads fabric order arrives. 

In the meantime, I'm enjoying real flowers just outside my sewing room. Lovely yellow hibiscus, 

pretty yellow allamandas, 

and the next door neighbor's gorgeous crape myrtle. We couldn't grow any of these flowers in Iowa.

The rest of this week is be pretty laid-back, as Wednesday finds me having yet another catheterization procedure (my fourth visit to that lab since last December), to clean out plaque within the stent that's in my left femoral artery. After I thought I'd put all that annoying peripheral artery disease (PAD) behind me, I learned last week that the intense left leg ache I've been experiencing when line dancing or walking at a steady pace, is being caused by poor blood flow because plaque is pushing through the stent the doc inserted last December 13. Hopefully, after tomorrow's "roto-rooter" job, I'll be line dancing again without discomfort. Linda

Friday Flaunt - Fruit

And now for something completely different...

You know how it is when you're plugging away on a project and it seems like it's taking forever to make discernible progress? Maybe you just want to shove it aside and move on to something else? Just something for a change of scenery, so to speak?

On Wednesday as I was pulling fabrics for a project, those feelings came over me when I found this "lost" fabric. I remembered buying it, but three weeks ago, after turning my stash upside down, I gave up looking for it. Then, wouldn't you know, I lifted the lid on a bin, picked up a piece of green fabric and voila...there was the lost fabric.

This piece came from Block Party Studios right here in Iowa. The company makes all sorts of word fabrics. This is a Bible verse: "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control." Galatians 5:22-23

Thinking to make a special block, I pulled out my favorite block book. I needed an on-point block center that finished at the odd size of 4-1/2". Nothing suited.

So, I simply used my trusty triangle measurement chart to cut squares that I bisected diagonally to make setting triangles.

Instead of being prudent, and choosing prints matchy-matchy to my home decor, I went on a whim and chose brights.

By Thursday evening, I ended up with this colorful 23" X 27" wall hanging.

Find the fruit prints? Bananas, lemons, raspberries!

I've found that when quilting on a domestic sewing machine, it's way more easy and fun to machine-quilt a small quilt than a big quilt.

I made an unsatisfactory first-time effort to draw the quilting motif on Glad Press 'n Seal and then machine quilt through it. A gummy needle, and Sharpie red ink under the quilting thread doesn't work for me.

Golden Threads paper remains my favorite free-motion quilting product.

Whew. I feel better for getting that change-of-pace project out of my system.