Field Trips in Fiber - Adventures in quilting, hand dyed fabric and fiber art.

Mom's quilt

When Mom found Stack  n Whack quilts she found her genre. She's made lots of them and they all look great. I like quilting these for her because I can have some fun with them. I guess it's safe to assume that my attraction to kaleidoscope quilts is genetic.

Here's Mom's latest quilt that I finished this weekend.

This one is done in columns. My photos aren't the best but you will get the idea.

These were taken in the foyer with the door open. This one is from the door so the color is the most accurate here.

I quilted this one completely with ruler work. I know that most people hate ruler work but I love it. I used 2 of DeLoa Jones' Boomerang rulers and a wavy ruler by Off The Edge. I think OTE is out of business. DeLoa is in business and her Boomerang rulers are my absolute favorites.

I had been wanting to try Kathy's Curved Echo border and the blue columns were perfect for it. 

For the blocks I used Superior Metallic thread and did a continuous curve in the medallions and wavy whiskers between the blocks. I couldn't figure out what to do between the blocks until Mom told me she is giving the quilt to my brother and SIL. They are cat lovers so they got whiskers.

In the sashing I quilted wavy lines. I used metallic thread in the Asian print and So Fine yellow in the rest of the quilt.

Here's the back.

I must have been a good girl last week because the bobbin ran out with the last stitch! The bonus is that I don't have to bind it.

 

Design Wall Monday

Miracles do happen because I finally had a really productive week and got pretty much everything I wanted done last week. First, I finished putting together my Back To Square One sample for Judy's mystery quilt project. I wish I could share it because I am absolutely in love with it. I knew I would like it after seeing the EQ mock up and once I got the center done I knew that the fabrics were perfect but adding the gradient border at the end (which is not a secret clue if you purchased my kit) seals the deal. It's my new favorite quilt and Chris agrees. Whether you are using one of my kits or not, if you are doing Judy's mystery you are going to love the end result!

But the productivity didn't end there. I continued the quilting on Mom's quilt.

I have finished all of the blocks. I cc-ed around each block and added these wavy lines in the yellow background. The whole quilt is done with ruler work and I wasn't int he mood to do a lot of filler stitching so I decided to use the same wavy ruler that I used in the narrow sashing for this part. Once Mom told me it was going to my brother and SIL who are cat lovers I knew that whiskers would be a nice humorous touch.

The columns of blocks are separate by some narrow sashing areas and some wide blue print columns. The only thing I knew that I wanted to do with this quilt was this Curved Echo Border treatment that I first saw on Kathy's blog. I needed a larger curved cross-hatch ruler and it arrived in perfect timing just as I finished all of the other quilting. This photo is from the back because you can't see one stitch of the blue thread against the blue print fabric on the front and that is why I will spend a couple of hours removing all of this stitching and start again with yellow thread. You really need to be able to see that stitching because otherwise it looks very flat and uninteresting. I told Mom that I wasn't going to get too worked up about this quilt and just get it done but I just can't continue with that boring blue thread. 

While I am frogging, go check out what everyone else is doing at Patchwork Times and don't forget to enter my Thankful Thursday drawing for a hand dyed apron.

Kim and Jamie's Wedding Quilt

(10 months late)

I forgot to measure it before I gave it to Kim it's big...about queen sized.

Blogging is great because you can keep track of your projects. Blogging is not so great because it keeps tracks of your projects and is there to confirm how long it has taken you to finish a project. In this case, it was 5 years in the making. Kim asked for this quilt when she first saw the fabrics and it was her wedding that finally motivated me to finish it.

I delivered it to her last week and she says that she loves it! I meant to get a photo of it on her bed but forgot to take my camera with me.  Fortunately she posted photos on her blog!

I cut the blocks from 4 layers of fat quarters and designed the blocks to take the most advantage of the size of the fat quarter. Each block has 2 brown fabrics and 2 pink fabrics so I just stacked the parts and shuffled them. 

But this quilt is all about the quilting. When I started to think about quilting I was going to just do ann all-over feather meander and that would have been very pretty on this quilt. But I wanted to do more because I knew that Kim would appreciate it.

I loaded the quilt without a plan and I decided, for the first time, to ignore the piecing lines. Instead of quilting the sashing I created the cross-hatched diamond shapes. I started by doing the outline of the big diamonds first to stabilize the whole quilt and then went back to do all of the cross-hatching in an off-white thread.

The blocks are a feathered circle withing a feathered circle. If the center of the block was pink then the smaller feathered circle is quilted in pink and the outer circle is quilted in brown (the chrun dash color). So the blocks alternate the color placement of the feathered circles. Honestly, it was a waste of effort. The pink and brown threads are so close in value that you really can't tell a difference. Live (or quilt) and learn....

I was going to make a hand dyed back but I think this print fabric is a much better fit for the quilt and quilting.  This shot shows how I quilted the pink stop border and the wide print outer border.

One more photo of the back just because I want to memorialize the 25+ hours that I spent quilting this one!

I'm proud of this quilt. It marks a major improvement in my quilting and it could not have gone to a better home.

 

Kim, it's done!

Well, it's not ready-to-put-on-your-bed "done" but all of the quilt is done and it's off Willie and that's a major victory. Now I have until February to get the binding done.  I think I may need all of that time. When I laid it out in the floor last night Chris said "wow, that's big." 

Miles of binding ahead.

That's all I have for today. I'm getting ready for a few days at the river. I hope your Thanksgiving plans are coming along well too. If you are lucky ( or smart), like me, you have invited yourself to someone else's house for dinner!

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I Heart Willie

When I was longarm shopping I went to 3 different shows over 2 years to test drive them and I talked to a lot of owners. One thing I asked every owner was about maintenance and repairs. Consistently I heard from APQS owners that they almost ever have to do any maintenance and when they do, they can do it themselves.

They were right. I've had Willie since the week before Katrina hit and I rarely have to do anything to it and, so far, I have done every adjustment or repair myself. Yesterday was a case in point.

I've been working on Kim's quilt and noticed that when I take a single stitch (like to bring the bobbin thread up) that often the thread would catch something under the quilt and I'd wind up breaking the thread or bringing up several loops. If finally got on my nerves enough to try to investigate it.

A quick look in the maintenance manual suggested that the cause may be that I needed to adjust the mag collar (whatever that is).

Every page of the maintenance manual has very detailed photos like these. I removed my sole plate and, sure enough, when I did a single stitch my bobbin case looked like the one it the top right photo......in other words, wrong.

Ten minutes later I had the back cover off and was making an adjustment to the mag collar (it has a magnet in it). 

Ten more minutes and Willie was back together and I was back to cross-hatching and stitching perfectly again. I should finish all of the cross-hatching today because I am totally engrossed in an audiobook and will quilt as long as the book lasts. With the cross-hatching done I will be half done with the quilting on this one and so far I am loving it......even if it is pink.