The Casual Quilter

Tablecloth Quilt

2012-02-12T11:52:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking a lot about making a wholecloth quilt and I happened to be browsing vintage linens and found THIS. It's a vintage tablecloth with applique done on netting. Beautiful!! So... I bought it.

There are a few problems with it, some small holes in the netting and some of the applique is loose.

I can just imagine this set on top of the white cotten sateen that I got for the wholecloth. Not exactly sure how I'm going to use it, will have to see more when I receive it. It could be layed over the sateen just how it is and then quilted. Could sew it on with 100 wt silk thread on all the lines, cut away the netting, then quilt it. Could even put it under a thinner top with a color (Tiffany Blue) behind it like shadow trapunto. Even simply use it as a pattern and trace around it through the netting onto the wholecloth.

Lots of possibilities but it's so pretty that I just had to get it.

Little progress

2012-02-10T09:05:00.000-08:00

Haven't done anything on this for a few days, been too tired after work and now I have to work late tonight and this weekend. :-(

I'm wondering though if there is too much green, not enough blue, in this section. Maybe I should keep the green/blue dark print but change the lighter green to a blue. The outside fabric looks very green but it's actually a dark turquoise.

The second picture is more true to color than the first. It's funny how things can look so different in pictures. On the first picture the 1/4 circle is the same fabric as the light small circles but it doesn't look like it is. One looks white and the other looks green!

The Quilt Show BOM January is done

2012-02-08T08:31:00.000-08:00

Love how this is coming out! And I'm sure glad that I didn't trim the dark blue ring on the outer edge before putting it all together. It's a little off, a little smaller than it should be if I had trimmed it. I think the bulk of the stabalizer is the main cause of that since it is sewn on the lines. I tried a little bit to tear the stabalizer off of the center star in the seam area but it's not easily torn like paper. I'll try again since I'm not sure that I want to quilt through it and the seams are pretty bulky.

Started on the February pieces last night. I think I got all of the points printed that I need but the printer ate some pieces so I need to check that I re-printed everything that I needed to. I am using a LARGE roll of freezer paper so I have to cut 8.5" x 11" pieces for the printer. What a pain!! I ordered two 50 count packages of pre-cut printer sized last night since there is A LOT of printing to do. Those should be delivered Friday from Amazon so I can work on it over the weekend.

Trying out colors to use for the blanket stitch applique of the points. All those green threads look the same in this picture but they're not. The darkest green in the large spool looks to be the best. That is So Fine! from Superior Threads so will use two strands of it. I used Sharon Schamber's technique of putting the freezer paper pieces on the right side of the fabric, cutting the shape, then glueing the wrong side to the background with Liquid Stitch before removing the paper. It is pretty quick and easy and it sticks so well that when I had to remove the bottom 1/4 circle that I messed up on, the piece tore in half.

The Quilt Show BOM started

2012-02-06T11:24:00.000-08:00

I received the fabric that I ordered for the BOM last week and got it washed and dried so I was able to work on it over the weekend! I'm using Ricky Tims Stable Stuff and it's really not that hard of a pattern to do with paper piecing. The trickiest part was sewing the dark blue outer ring to the inner ring but with careful clipping and pinning it's just the awkwardness of sewing a circle. I haven't sewn the center star to the first border yet but I don't expect it to be any different (knock on wood).

I don't like iron-on applique so I used Perfect Circles to make the 1 1/4" circles and the large center circle. After doing a couple of them with the gathering stitches by hand I switched to the sewing machine and a 3.0 stitch. Just gather them around the Perfect Circle, press, spritz with starch, press, and remove the circle. Used a tiny blanket stitch to sew them on.

The outer points don't get sewn on until they're combined with the February pieces.

Machine Timing

2012-02-03T12:07:00.000-08:00

Some time ago I tried to time my machine but I was unable to get the front cover off to adjust the needle bar height. I tried getting one of the screws out until my hand was red from the screw driver. What I ended up doing was loosening the needle, pulling it down just a hair, and tightening it back up. I know that wasn't the best thing to do but I couldn't get that screw out.

My son came by on his was home from work a couple of days ago and he tried, resorting to a power drill to get the screw out. He and I then went through the timing steps and did some tests. It looks really good! I'm not going to be jumping for joy just yet because when I'm working on a quilt I do a test every time I change anything and it usually looks just fine on the test. It's on the quilt that I get knots, loops, loose, etc. The last time I used it I even cleaned all the rails and wheels with alcohol to get off any grease or lint.

I AM going to get a new machine this year. Want to get my taxes done and see how that goes as this is the first year that I will be including the rental property. I'll also be receiving a quarterly retension bonus at work and that will cover a nice chunk of the cost of a new machine.

Yellow Flowers

2012-01-29T20:47:00.000-08:00

I was thinking tonight that the green I just got in the mail might work for the pink flower quilt and then I thought, "Why not do that quilt in the things I got the green for in the first place?"

This came a few days ago from Thousands of Bolts and was only $4.45 or so per yard. I loved the yellow flowers against the blue and was lucky enough to find fabrics that would go with it. After seeing them in person they match it perfectly! The dark yellow looks slightly different in the picture but it is the exact color of the darkest yellow in the flower.

Think this would make a sunny, cheerful quilt for a little girl's room or I could imagine it draped over a white wicker sofa on a sun porch with a pitcher of lemonade. It would also be half the fabric cost compared to the Moda Athill Range design.

I'm kind of in-betweek quilts right now. I have the simple Moda Marbles one that I'm working on and waiting for delivery of things for The Quilt Show BOM but nothing else really has my attention.

Along with the order of this fabric I got backing for the Never Ending quilt, just a tone-on-tone beige. I've been wondering how I'm going to transfer the quilting design to the quilt since it's my design, not stencils, and figured that I'd have to lay it under the top and trace it. Then I saw something called DBK Stencil Plastic that comes in a 16" x 4' roll. You can draw the design on it, stitch over it on a sewing machine to make holes, then use a Pounce pad! Perfect!!

Don't know what's wrong with my blog

2012-01-27T06:43:00.000-08:00

My blog has had a problem loading for awhile and I wondered if it was just me, my laptop, or my network at home but I tried it from work yesterday and it's the same thing. Is it a Blogger issue? I did a couple of searches but trying to find "what's wrong with Blogger" brings up waaaaaayyyy too many things to try and determine that!

I thought I would see about using a different template and went to Leelou Blogs, where my current template comes from, and it took a very long time for each page to load so I wonder if the problem is starting there. If the template changes, this is why. I find it very annoying how my blog is coming up so I expect others would too.

Well, after doing some looking around at other blogs I find that it's just not mine. Please get this fixed Blogger!!!

Ordered Fabric for the Sedona Star

2012-01-25T20:08:00.000-08:00

I got out the fabrics that I have and other than 8 yards each of the seafoam green and the palest, water color blue, I only have about a yard each, give or take. So... shopping I went! First stop was one of my favorite online fabric shops, Thousands Of Bolts.

I got 19 yards of fabric for $102, and that's including shipping! Quality fabric too, even some Jinny Beyer.

I tried to kind of match the tones of what I already have so that I can mix and match, add some interest instead of every element being the same. On the left are the fabrics I have and on the right is what I got to mix with it.

It will be another week before I can start on this and I also ordered some Ricky Tims' Stable Stuff. Want to try that for the foundation and the applique.

The Quilt Show BOM 2012

2012-01-24T21:21:00.000-08:00

The Quilt Show BOM this year is beautiful! I have looked at it several times and I didn't like the colorway of either of the examples and just wasn't in the mood to figure up something different. Today I saw that they have a blank one to color in yourself. I wish it was in EQ but I did a screen shot of it and opened it in MS Paint. I copied in pictures of some Hoffman fabric that I have for another project that I just can't get into and used the eye dropper tool to pick up the color and filled in the picture.

Now to figure up if I have enough of each fabric. If I'm going to do this I need to start now, hate when I'm so behind on a BOM.

One Little Girl

2012-01-20T22:43:00.000-08:00

I'm making a couple of quilts for my grand-neices and asked what colors they like. One likes pink, green and white. The other likes pink, purple, and blue. I could have guessed that! I tried out a few designs and wasn't liking them too much so, I went simple.

The first one is done except for the border. I think I will use the green since I need the rest of the pink for the other quilt. I used almost every bit of the print fabric and may only have enough to do the edging on a pillow case. For the other quilt I have the same print with a blue background and a matching solid blue.

The panto for these has flowers and butterflies, like the fabric, and is just too cute. Really looking forward to doing that one for the first time.

Quilt done and off the frame

2012-01-20T12:23:00.000-08:00

It took a few days to do this one as I was only doing a few rows per night but it's done and ready to bind and wash. I'm almost positive that I have some of the border fabric left to use for the binding but I might have to dig for it. I boxed up a bunch of scraps and stray jelly roll strips recently trying to get things cleaned up and organized in the sewing room.

My cat perched on the highest spot in the room (except for the top of the refridgerator). She's sitting on the boxes for the two laser levels I got to help in squaring up quilts.

An older top getting done

2012-01-16T20:35:00.000-08:00

I made this quilt top probably in 2009 and I started hand quilting it. I just don't want to do the hand quilting so I ripped out the 1/3rd or so that I had done and put it on the frame.

After thinking and drawing for days I finally decided to just do a panto on it. It wasn't going to show a whole lot of the quilting anyway and at least it will get done quickly.

I finally got a zero center tape and it's very helpful in keeping the quilt straight in the center and on the ends. This is the best loaded quilt I think I've done and the panto is going just right.

Today I ordered some stick on velcro and some elastic to make secondary leaders and side clamps ala Sharon Schamber.

Sharon Schamber - Part 1

Part 2
Part 3

Also threw in a Easy Dresden ruler and a Prairie Pointer pressing tool. Can never have too many gadgets.

Something pretty

2012-01-11T10:00:00.000-08:00

Perusing fabrics online I found a new Moda line called Athill Range, by Cabbages and Roses. The pretty and delicate roses appealed to me so I created this pattern to use them in. This is 59" x 85" and according to my quilt sizing chart a twin sized mattress is 39" x 75" and a twin quilt size is 63" x 87". Maybe I can add a row of sawtooth HSTs outside the thin pink border in dark pink.

The problem is that I went to order the fabric and found that it's not released yet!! I entered a reminder at one of the big fabric sites to notify when the fabric is available. That's ok, I guess. There's always something else to work on.

Also figured up exactly what I needed, with the help of EQ7, and what cutting to do.

It is also comes in a blue colorway.

A simple quilt this time

2012-01-10T08:00:00.000-08:00

I started working on this quilt last month or so and went back to it over the weekend. It's a simple design with big blocks, 13.5" ones to be exact. I got some Moda Marbles Warm, a jelly roll and a FQ bundle, and love the rich colors. I used every bit of the 10 fabrics in the bundle that I could and luckily I had a bit of Marbles in black for a few more pieces that were needed.

I used JR strips to make the 9-patch blocks by sewing two colors with a white / two whites with a color, cut them into pieces, them sewed them back together. The QSTs are made simply with a white and a colored square sewn together up the middle, cut apart, put back together with the colors on opposite sides, sew up the middle again and cut apart.

All of the QSTs are done to be to sewn into stars and the strip sections are done and need to be cut apart for the 9-patch. Been thinking about quilting designs but haven't settled on anything yet. I need a motif that will fit in the white spaces and something for the star centers. Suppose I have time to figure that out. ;-)

It's D-O-N-E

2012-01-09T23:50:00.000-08:00

Washed, layed out and pinned square, dried, trimmed, and BOUND!

Blackbird Acres

2012-01-08T08:00:00.000-08:00

As I was cruising the end of year fabric sales I came upon the fabric collection called Blackbird Acres on sale for $3.85 to $4.45 per yard, including the seed packet panels. I thought they were really cute so I ordered 2 and 3 yards of the top fabrics, 2 panels, and 1 yard each of the other fabrics. Those were all of the fabrics that the site had of the collection and I figured that I could make some wall hangings out of them.

After importing the fabrics into EQ7 I started playing around with them, my favorite computer activity, and came up with this. I am not totally sure of the scale of the print but from the stated size of the panels, I think it's pretty close. Instead of piecing the black and white border I can probably find a checkered fabric in the right size and use it for binding too.

Each panel has 15 seed packets so I could make 2 wallhangings (9 packets each), 8 placemats (1 packet each), and 4 potholders (1 packet each). That would make two sets of a wallhanging, 4 placemats, and 2 potholders,

Secondary Patterns

2012-01-07T15:01:00.000-08:00

I have Jinny Beyer's book The Quilter's Album of Patchwork Patterns, More Than 4050 Pieced Blocks for Quilters, and it is a great resouce for a quilter to have. Blocks are grouped together by their grid pattern like 2 x 2, 9 x 9, and 15 x 15. That's not the inches but, the grid that the quilt is based on. She also encourages quilters to try putting different blocks together to see what patterns they make.

I just received this fabric in the mail (like a present every time I open a package) and I was looking for blocks to use the striped designs in.

These two blocks are 2 x 2 grid and they look fairly ordinary on their own.

This is what they make put with each other.

I could spend hours and hours playing with EQ7... and I do! So many possibilities, so little time! I really like this pattern but I'm not thrilled with how one of the only stripes that fits in the star doesn't look quite how I would want it to. I REALLY like the strip in the other block and it fits the 2" design perfectly. It took several tries to get the scale of the fabric right in EQ7. I took the picture of the fabric from the thumbnail online when I ordered it and enlarged it until the 2" stripe, when imported into EQ7, fit into the 2" block piece.

This quilt is definately going into the bucket of things to do. Maybe not this exactly but the overall concept with maybe something other than the star so that the fabric fits better. The black fabric is Moda Marbles so I know that is readily available.

Vintage quilt is done

2012-01-05T05:46:00.000-08:00

All but the washing, blocking, and binding. I say that like it's nothing but that's still a bit of work to do.
This is the most quilting I've done on one quilt yet and the first time I've done quilting around applique. I am pretty happy with it though my perfectionist bent leaves me knowing that it could be better. I found that I actually liked the stitch-in-the-ditch more than the freehand work. Maybe that is a good thing for me because I admire the quilts I see that are done so well with ruler work and such perfection.

Tin Lizzie finally came out with a 1/4" foot! I kind of assumed that the foot I had was 1/4" but using a ruler showed me that it wasn't, it's smaller. That was a bit of a challenge doing SID, let me tell you! I ordered the foot even though it's highway robbery, the price they charge for it.

Been a long time

2012-01-04T09:03:00.000-08:00

Rather than get into lengthly explanations I'm just going to jump right in. What's been in the works? Not a whole lot new actually. I finished the Faceted Jewels quilt and gave it to my daughter for Christmas. It turned out OK (my longarm quilting needs a lot of practice still) and I love the rich colors in it. Doesn't it look great on MY bed though??

Love the crinkly look after washing.

The Never Ending Quilt top is done too!!

That's the next one to be quilted as soon as I get this one done and off the frame. Only have the white areas to fill in and the bottom border to do.

Applying Applique Vines

2011-12-11T15:16:00.000-08:00

Using Elmer's Washable School Glue and a fine metal tip.

Best of Show

2011-06-07T09:15:00.000-07:00

Picked up my quilt from the county fair yesterday and found out that it won best of show (I wasn't able to attend the fair). I was really shocked, really. I wasn't happy with the quality of the stitches because of my machine but, thought I would go ahead and enter it anyway.

Turned the quilt

2011-05-10T07:37:00.000-07:00

Finally finished top to bottom! I was so excited to take the quilt off and see the back. It's always a little apprehensive for me because of my machine often doing very bad quality stitches. I did find a few little loops of thread that I believe are caused by back-spin. I am using the teflon disks in the bobbin and I put a drop of oil in it. That doesn't seem to help any. When it's done I'll need to sit down and go over the back inch-by-inch and tie a thread onto the loops, knot and bury them.

Overall, I like it. :-)

Almost to the turning point

2011-05-07T20:40:00.000-07:00

I've been working on this quilt exclusively the past couple of weeks, almost every night after work for a little while at least. Only have 1/2 of two blocks left to do, one arc and the corner, then the border on this end before I turn it to do the sides.

After many attempts to get the curved cross hatching right I gave up and just did a curved line into each arc, meeting in the middle. The problem was trying to get things to come out right (or even to look good) where two arcs meet along the edge.

Working on the cross hatching

2011-04-27T07:51:00.000-07:00

The templates did come yesterday so I worked on it last night. It took me quite awhile to decide on what to do. The templates aren't long enough to do the arc of the section so, I did this.

I really don't know what I'm doing. I searched last night about how to do this but the one thing I wanted to know, I couldn't find. I assume that I travel in the outline to get to the next row but there IS no outline quilting on this. It just looks bad around the edges. :-(

I think I need to take some longarm classes.

Hope the templates come today

2011-04-26T08:14:00.000-07:00

I'm done with the first row of blocks! It only took two days to get this far. Maybe I'll be done with it next weekend since I have a day job. The curved cross hatching templates should be here any time. I got an email last Wednesday with a question about my order and she said she would be mailing them that day. I had them delivered to work so they don't go missing off my porch.

Don't want to go much further without being able to do the cross hatching along the edges. The blocks meet at the top border and frame the cross hatching area so I thought it was ok to go ahead and do the first row of blocks.