Last weekend, after longarming all day on Friday, I spent time on bindings. I made and machine sewed the bindings for Eye Spy and the Crazy Test. Last night I worked a bit on doing the hand sewing on the Eye Spy. Neither of these quilts will have sleeves, so once the hand sewing is done, they will be done.
Quilting Detail - front
The pattern I used to quilt this quilt with is called Double Bubble. I wanted to use the same pattern as Thoughts on Dots, but I didn’t remember to look carefully at it before I left. I am pleased with this pattern and may used it again for the FOTY 2008 quilt.
Quilting Detail - corner
[click photo to view detail of quilting]
Practice does make perfect as well. I thought I did pretty well the first time, but my stitches improved immensely this time. I didn’t add a practice piece to this quilt and it turned out that I didn’t really need it. I worked really hard at going the same speed regardless of what I was doing. I didn’t always succeed, but I improved.
Quilting Detail - back
Here is the famous crocodile fabric quilted. I think using it worked out really well.
My next longarm day is in April and then I have no more quilts to quilt, so I need to get on the stick if I want to keep up my momentum. We’ll see.
Donna has a great method for learning to use her serger. She also has a fabulous sense of color and her series of eyeglass cases shows that in living color. Take a look!
I worked on the Tarts on Sunday. I dragged myself to the machine and was resigned to a miserable afternoon. I am pleased to report that I had a good experience with Machine Applique’ and could barely tear myself away to attend to life. So, I think I will be able to move on with this project. I am only committing to one more block ;-), but it is a start.
As I mentioned previously, I was working on the cake block below. You can see the blank block in a previous post. It sat on the wall glaring at me and taunting me while I worked on the pattern. I fiddled and moved things around quite a bit before I got an arrangement that I liked. The pattern took me a long time to get right.
Cake block pattern
You may think that this is a strange way to make a pattern or that I went to an architectural copy place and had them make one of those blue architectural drawing copies. Actually, it is just pencil on white sketch paper. It was hard to photograph and, thus, very hard to see no the screen so I inverted it so you could see it better.
I plan to do a post on my machine applique’ process sometime later.
I did find the machine applique’ process to be quite fiddly. I have been in a piecing frame of mind for so long that it took me awhile to get into the groove. Once I got the pieces cut and was satin stitching, I found it to be a pleasant process. I liked the puzzle aspect of figuring out which piece went on first and what line should be stitched over, etc. I was also able to try Steam-A-Seam Lite and Steam-A-Seam Lite 2 for the first time. I liked the results! I am pretty pleased with how the block turned out.
As I stitched, I got an idea for the block for the upper left hand corner. As soon as I had a free moment I worked on that design as well. Stay tuned!
I heard about this on the CraftSanity podcast and it sounded really interesting, so I borrowed it from the library. The author said that she gave an inroduction to a variety of religions in the course of the book and crafting sounds like a great way to learn about religions of the world!
Danny Gregory has been recommended to me many times, especially by Amy of the Creative Mom podcast, a very creative and high quality podcast. I bought the book she uses as her bible (it sounds like), The Creative License after I had reserved An Illustrated Life at the library. Of course I received them all the same week. I think that this book will be by the Jennifer New book, Drawing From Life: The Journal as Art, but I will let you know after I have given it a thorough going over!
Despite the fact that this is supposed to be visual, I find myself wanting to tell a story with the pictures I am drawing. Actually, I am telling a story; I just don’t know where the story is going right now.
I bought a lot of this turquoise fabric (Botanical Pop from Baum Textile Mills/Windham Fabrics) – probably about 6 yards and made tote bags out of it. Now I want to make another and it so old (January 2008?) that nobody has it. I am hoping that one of you will have it and bargain with me for it. I would like at least 1.5 yards, but 2-3 would be better.
You probably remember the search for that Denyse Schmidt Flea Market Fancy fabric from May of 2007 in which Julie found the fabric at a random sore in her area. I am hoping that she or one of you will have the same good luck!
I don’t think I ever saw the yellow, but would like some of it, too. A little piece is fine. If any of you see it or have access, let me know. Thanks!
Fortunately, today was just the kind of weather I enjoy. It was cool tending towards cold, but clear with some big fluffy clouds around. The light was really gorgeous and it helped me get into a calm mood before I got to the machine.
I spent my day quilting the Eye Spy on the longarm machine. In my February 8 post, I old you that my next longarm session would be on March 2. Instead I went today. My assistant for Monday bailed and Friday works much better for me, so I changed the date. As I sit here, the Eye Spy is completely quilted. YAY!
I woke up with one of those “who stuck a knife in my temple/forehead” kind of headaches. They happen periodically especially during times of stress, but I wasn’t happy about it. I drank a whole bunch of water and caffeine and ate more protein than should be legal so I could go on about my day. Amazingly, longarming is a good antidote to a headache!
I was more familiar with most parts of the process this time and the session went a lot better. I completed a larger quilt in a slightly shorter amount of time. I didn’t have to stand as long and it was slightly less expensive.
I used an easier pattern which contributed to completing the larger quilt faster. I tried really hard to manage a consistent speed and to make the designs larger. As the day went on I did tend make smaller motifs, which I will have to work on.
The crazy part about the whole process was the back. I spent last weekend, when I wasn’t shopping for headstones and wasting time, making sure the top, which has a lot of bias, was stable. I only started the back and figured I could do it this coming weekend. Then I changed the date of the longarm session and totally forgot I hadn’t made the back. Huh?? I don’t know what I was thinking. Fortunately, I remembered on my way home. I spent the evening, in between life stuff, making the back. They never go together as quickly as I think they should, but it all worked out.
During my last session, I felt like I had a really steep learning curve. This time, I had more of an idea of what was happening and knew, basically, what to do when prompted. By the end of the day I was starting the rows myself without assistance. I really in absorption mode – trying to absorb the process. I didn’t take as many notes. I still needed a lot of help and reminders, but I have made a lot of progress and was much more confident. I do want to go over my notes tonight and see how they jive with what I remember now that I have two sessions under my belt.
I don’t know where this month has gone. Frankly, I am glad February is coming to a close, but I still wonder what happened to the days.
My next longarm day is March 2 and the Eye Spy is in line to be quilted. As a result, I needed to make a back and get the Eye Spy in shape for finishing. I put the diamonds in to fill in the diamond shaped space, so that I wouldn’t have to hack through any of the hexagons (which is what most patterns recommend). I didn’t want a zig zaggy border, so I started out by cutting off the excess from the diamonds. I had intended just to leave the edges straight after cutting – no borders.
While cutting the diamonds in half, I realized that the middle of those diamonds was one big bias edge. This brand spanking new bias in addition to 3 sides of each hexagon being on the bias was asking for trouble during the quilting process. The top needed some stabilization, so I added some borders and corners to the odd shaped corners of the top.
Corner detail
The little star printed piece is the patch I had to insert into the corner to make the corner a 90 degree angle. You can see it really well above.
Above is a picture of half of the top. The quilt top is another monster and I gave up on moving furniture to fit the whole thing into one picture. I am going to have to think up a way to photograph whole quilts, especially these huge things I seem to be making.
I used a new (to me) method of measuring for borders. I measured width-wise (across) and lengthwise (down) in three places on the quilt and cut the borders to the average size. I did have to ease, but the top is flat and I am happy about that. I found one little tuck that I will need to fix before the longarming. All in all it worked pretty well.
Scary backing fabric
I acquired the crocodile fabric a long time ago, perhaps in the early 1990s from a woman named Joan who was getting rid of everything. It is a Joe Boxer fabric and I never saw anything like it. I also never heard of Joe Boxer selling fabric, but they totally should, because their fabrics have such a sense of humor.
At one point, I thought I would cut out the alligators (crocodiles??) and applique’ them on something, but the inspiration never struck. Also, I only have about a half yard, which limited what project I could complete using the fabric. I came across the fabric over the weekend and proposed it as a backing fabric. The Child took a liking to it, so I will use it as part of the backing. Shopping in my fabric closet can be fun!
hexagons on the back
I had some leftover hexagons, so I put some straight edges on them and will also use this piece for the back. I need to find a nice way of making this bit play nicely with the crocs.
I was on my blog and directing traffic and tweaking a lot during the past three or four days. The blog move has been somewhat time consuming, but is mostly done, and worth the effort so far. One of the things I did was scroll through recent posts about four hundred times. In doing that it dawned on me that I was in avoidance mode because nothing I posted was quilt-related.
Origami Train Dude
Sketches
More Sketches
None of that is quilting and since the blog is about quilting, I needed to get back to it before all of you got fed up and went and read some other blog. I needed to take stock and figure out what was going on.
It turns out, after a little investigating it is all about The Tarts Come to Tea. I faced up to reality that I am really in avoidance mode over that project. Some of the issues I discussed about change of focus in a previous post are so true with this project. I am not enthused with machine applique right at the moment and I want/need to redo several of the blocks, because they don’t fit my current interest or style. It just seems depressing. The sad part is that every time someone enters my workroom they gush over it and say how wonderful it is, which enhances the guilt factor. Bleah.
Design Wall 2/22/2009
I was able to avoid a bit more this weekend, because I realized that my longarm day is next Monday and I haven’t done the back for the Eye Spy project, so the back had to go to the front burner. My quiltmaker SIL was also in town so I spent some time at Always Quilting with her. I bought the fabrics above. The smaller pieces were all in a pack that I had been coveting for awhile. I got home to find buyers remorse waiting for me, though, because when I unwrapped them, some of the fabrics are a bit off the colors I thought they were. I was thinking of doing something like the Yellow Brick Road (from Terri Atkinson) quilt with them. I still am, but will have to go shopping in my stash to replace some of the greens. More piecing, you notice and not machine applique’.
I was able to continue to avoid the Tarts on Saturday because of family obligations, which isn’t to say I haven’t been working on them at all.
This is the layout/design drawing for the block in the middle on the right of the photo of my design wall above. It has a green background. What I decided was that I would make one block and see how I felt about the project afterwards. I need to find my notes on machine applique’ – or ask someone – because I can’t remember what method I used or any method, frankly.
I feel a strong need to make some kind of effort, but this piece is definitely teetering on the verge of abandonment.
I have learned something about myself since I dragged The Tarts out. Leaving quilts laying around with the top half finished doesn’t always work for me. I need to think about bring them to a logical stopping point (e.g. the top and back are done and are waiting on quilting).
I am on another CraftSanity jag and listened to an episode where Jennifer Ackerman-Haywood interviewed Meg McElwee, owner of Sew Liberated and writer of the Sew Liberated blog. Jennifer is a huge fan of aprons and these look really fun. I have been thinking of making a bunch to entertain some friends and relatives at Christmas, but we will see.
Meg has a nice way about her and I enjoyed her calm speaking style. I took a quick look at her blog. She takes gorgeous photos and I am looking forward to seeing the result of her new book project.
As you probably read yesterday, a couple of us are doing a little creativity project. My first sketch is the blog moving sketch, but I had some time in the afternoon, so I decided to do another sketch. Enjoy
