Back to work in my Quilt Cave

I am back to work in my Quilt Cave, working on a Coffee quilt for my husband. He chose the fabrics while we were on a shop hop last June in the Shipshewana, Indiana area. When we got home, he chose a 3 yard quilt pattern and I set it aside ... now that it is winter, I decided it was time to get it done!

 I found a quilt design that he approved of and set up the machine ... I am happy with my new machine - having the robotics has been a blessing as my hands and wrists have not been liking the cold weather this year.

 Those fabrics are so much fun! AND if he were to spill his coffee on them, most likely no one would ever know!

I need to get this (and a couple other quilts) bound ... but I have been procrastinating because my sewing surface is full of project detritus!

By the way ... if you are looking to buy batting for your projects, check out Batting Super Sale, I have been pleased with their products and service (above link is an affiliate link).

Challenge Three Project Quilting - Tool Time

The third challenge for Project Quilting is Tool Time. We are to give homage to FOUR tools...and what better way to do that than with a Quilter's Chatelaine? Or at least that is the direction that my brain took me when puzzling out the challenge.

I started out with one of the Army Guy's ties for shape and size. I put it around my neck to determine how long to make the chatelaine and went on designing from there.

I used the gold decal on my Featherweight to give me a design element that gave a touch of elegance to my chatelaine as well as inspiration for my main fabric.

I chose my fabrics and went to town...the black is the main fabric, the red is an accent and the novelty print is on the back.

I drew out the design detail from the featherweight decal onto water soluble stabilizer, sewed over it with a sample of gold glitter thread that I had waiting for the perfect project. This seemed to be it :)

I used the same technique to put pins on a pincushion and scissors, needle and thread on pockets (I only have one shown here).

Next I sewed up my pincushion, inserted some plastic inside (I don't want to poke them through to my chest!) and then stuffed it with polyfill.

 

 I quilted the chatelaine with straight line stitching so that it emphasized the gold detail and then basted the pockets and other elements on before sewing on the binding.

I love those new binding clips...I found them in my Christmas stocking this past Christmas...what a sweetie my Army Guy is!

I tossed the whole project into the wash to get rid of the wash away stabilizer and now I have a great way to keep my tools handy while I work (I seem to always be running back and forth because I leave things at the wrong workstation).

and a closer shot of the pockets with various items tucked inside.

Happy Quilting!

Scrapbusting Mystery Clue One

Clue One

Shout4Joy©2012

 

*From assorted light fabrics cut 64 - 3” squares

-put these squares into a bag.

*From assorted medium to dark fabrics cut 64 – 3” squares

-put these squares into a bag.

*Taking one random piece from each bag, sew together in pairs of 
one light and one m/d 3” square.

NOTE: random means whatever the next piece is
...try not to overthink this
...it is supposed to be SCRAPPY!

*Sew the pairs together to make 32 four patches 
measuring 5 1/2” each.

*Set these four patches in a safe place and wait patiently for clue #2!

NOTE: if you have other piecing to do, you can use these 
for leaders and enders...

thanks to Bonnie K Hunter at Quiltville 
for the great info on leaders and enders!

Shout4Joy©2012

Finishing up my Project Quilting Entry

This is the wrap up to my Project Quilting Making Music Challenge piece...if you are not familiar with Project Quilting, check it out at Kim's Crafty Apple blog.

After getting the elements fused and sewn to the field of the quilt, I chose this outer border...This is actually the reverse side of the fabric, the front side has LOTS of gold on it and I found it way too distracting for my quilt.

Then it was on to layering the quilt top, the batt and the backing together and start quilting! I chose to outline the heart and hands and do a radiating design from the heart to the red border. I put a freehand swirl in the outer border.

 This is the back of the quilt to give you an idea of the quilting design...Yes, it has some coffee stains on it!

To get my lines to be straight and somewhat evenly spaced, I used a piece of thread pinned to the center of the heart. I measured specific spots on the red border and lined the thread up to give me a guideline of where to quilt.

After quilting, blocking and trimming the quilt, it was time for binding. I chose to do a binding of the same color as the last border, but with a flange of red to tie it to the center of the quilt (plus the batik just looked boring when used as the binding up against the border). This requires cutting two narrow binding strips, the flange strip being 1/4" wider than the binding color. Sew them together and stitch them to the back of the quilt with the flange color UP (as shown above). Attach binding, flip to the front and stitch in the ditch between the binding and flange and you are done!

And a detail shot of the hands, with a hint of the binding  at the bottom:)

My second challenge has been met! I have named the quilt "Melody of Love"

Now back to work on the house...

Project Quilting Music Quilt part 3

For the next element of the quilt, I needed hands. I took pictures of hands and gathered my supplies. You see, I remembered that long ago I read about using colored pencil on fusible interfacing...so I though this would work out just right! I imagined a bit of text being seen through the translucent arms/hands...

 I dug out my itty bitty light table and started tracing the hands onto the fusible interfacing.

So far, so good! (ignore my hands, I've been working on prepping walls and painting and they are rough and a bit swollen). The tracing went well and the hands look wonderful!

So, I colored them in, working to get the shading right (double checking the photos frequently!). They looked so good!

And then I put them on the quilt *sigh*

They did NOT look good with the words of the text coming through. They faded to nothingness and all the hard work of hand coloring the hands was for naught.

I put a piece of white fabric under them, which helped, but they needed yet another layer, a layer of shadow to make them stand out from the background. It was the right touch, but by now those hands were stiff as boards and I found out a disadvantage of the fusible interfacing...it fuzzes. The more you work with it, the more it fuzzes. I am not happy with that! Maybe by writing it down, I'll remember to try some other method next time!

One the bright side, the dark shadowed outline really was the right choice :) I'm pleased with that! 

I wish the hands wouldn't fade out so much in the pictures *sigh* They have more color in person!

Next post I'll finish up my quilt!

Project Quilting Music Quilt post 2

For a major element of the quilt, I wanted a heart...remember the lines from the second stanza? "He put within my heart a melody, and I know its there to stay" Well, that  told me I needed a heart element :)

I could have just cut a heart out of fabric, but what fun is that? And since I like to have my artier (is that a word?) quilts have parts that are a nod to traditional quiltmaking. SO I made two halves of a heart with assorted red fabrics and joined them to make a heart:

The plan is to applique the heart over the lyrics, using the method Eleanor Burns teaches, where you sew fusible interfacing to the front of the piece, turn it and stitch it down.

When I put the heart on the words and started to audition fabrics for borders, nothing made me very happy, they were too tame...so Princess Sunshine gave me the best design advice and I ran with it...she said it needed to have an inner border that was scrappy and like the heart. Give that girl a cookie! It was the perfect solution to my design dilemma :)

I pieced strips on some scrap paper and trimmed them up...

Perfect!

Next time I'll show another design element...

Project Quilting Challenge Two...where am I going with this?

The second challenge for Project Quilting is Making Music. This was a happy challenge, because it meshes perfectly with our guild challenge for the year which is song/music. I've been thinking of various ideas and rejecting them as new ideas poke their heads into my imagination. Now that I am forced to choose and go forward it was almost a relief!

I laid in bed Monday night rolling ideas around in my head and this one came to the fore - I guess you could say, "I came up with it in a dream" (my kids will know what I'm quoting here).

I envisioned the song In My Heart There Rings a Melody done in Subway Art style, with elements that focus on the first line "I have a song that Jesus gave me, it was sent from Heaven above" and another line in the second stanza "He put within my heart a melody, and I know its there to stay."

So, first challenge is to work out the Subway Art element. I worked it up in Word, ironed my fabric to some freezer paper and sent it through the handy-dandy Epson printer...and it printed without a top margin :( I worked the file, prepped another piece of fabric with freezer paper and printed it off *whew!* it worked!

I now had a sample to cut up and play with before committing to using the one for the quilt. I couldn't find any tea, so I used some instant coffee. The fabric came out a uniform color and didn't have the blotchy/old look I was going for, so I put some granules on the wet fabric and let them blotch away:

It turned out!!!

Shoot, I didn't take a picture after I rinsed the excess off and ironed it...you will have to come back for more quilt process on the next post...it will have the rinsed and dried fabric in further stages :)

Monday...Design Wall and Project Quilting

My design wall has nothing new that I can show you...I am working on a mystery quilt for my quilt guild (I will post instructions here after I share them with my guild members). See some great design wall inspiration over at Patchwork Times.

And, to add to my craziness with our moving in a few months, I decided to take part in Project Quilting, Season 3! What am I thinking????

The first challenge for PQ was Architectural Elements, so I had to think what would inspire me to make a quilt? Our town has tons of Victorian homes and some very interesting buildings downtown, so I drove around and came across this building and was inspired by the art deco details.

So I designed a Square in a Square block and agonized over how to execute it. Do I dye fabric and use a resist to put the design on the fabric? Do I draw it in with fabric markers? Should I use raw edge applique? I ended up with raw edge applique...

First I drew the design on Freezer Paper and colored it in. I ironed the freezer paper to my chosen background fabric. Then I transferred the design to paper back fusible web and ironed that to my chosen fabric. I have to say that cutting those tiny lines was nerve-wracking! I was so afraid that I would cut one of the other ones as I was trimming!

After that, the skinny little pieces were ironed on to the background fabric, using the lines from the freezer paper as my guide.

I paper pieced the pediment inspired corners and assembled the block. This is what was on my design wall on Saturday, btw!

If I were to do this again, I would not iron on the pieces until AFTER the block was pieced. Even though I did everything possible to get those points to point at the corner, two were off when the corners were sewn on and I had to reposition them (not fun!!!!).

I chose to put diamonds in the corners of the block and put a narrow border around the block to set it off.

Choosing how to quilt it was also a hard thing for me. I prefer free motion all over designs and this quilt would not accept such a thing! It called for echo quilting. I used my walking foot for the straight lines but had to eyeball it for the center...and my eyeballs must be a bit wonky!

I am pleased with how it turned out (though the color is NOT right in this pic). And now that I am not so close to it, the quilting isn't as wonky as I feared (just don't look from 8 inches away!).

Hope your quilting week is a good one!

Monday? Hey, I have something to show!

While I cannot show what is on my design wall (I have a secret that will be revealed later) here is what is on my design ironing board!

This is a block I made for a quilt someone else is making. The quilt is for The Ginger Ford Northshore (Louisiana) affiliate of The Fuller Center for Housing and they will be celebrating their 20th anniversary. Since housing is their focus...a house quilt is an appropriate raffle item!

For some delightful eye candy check out other design walls from Patchwork Times!

EDIT to say: the block is found on about and many other places on the internet. I just added details, a button for a doorknob, a wreath, window sashing and some flowers.

Design Wall Monday November 28

 I did get a little bit of quality time this week with my sewing machine and fabrics :) I completed one more "block" in the waterfall quilt (still has most of the paper on) and started playing with a big block to decide how to make it into a baby quilt for the local crisis pregnancy center.

What is on your design wall? Check out the links from Patchwork Times!

Design Wall November 21

Not much...just the field of a doll quilt. And a lonely extra block along with the Waterfall quilt that has no more progress. The major progress of my week was getting some cleaning done in the Sewing Dungeon.

I put away quite a bit of fabric and there are a few spots that are cleaner than before. BUT it still needs a lot more work *sigh* And I'm trying to find a piece of fabric that I bought last year for a Christmas project (didn't happen) and I really want to get it done for this year!

For more design wall inspiration check out Patchwork Times.

Monday, November 7, 2011

Where is the time going???? Maybe I'm just too busy for my own good...I am Quilt Guild Vice Chair, I am Chair of a Pastoral Search Committee at our church, doing two craft shows this month all while trying to be wife, mother and homeschool teacher. I'm sure I am forgetting a few hats in this mix...I'm just too busy to remember them right now!

On my design wall this week is the Waterfall quilt:

 For those who can not see what is happening (hi, cousin!) here are some basic elements so far in the quilt:

 I've been working hard at getting things ready for a craft show coming up...some sewn items and lots of soap:

Design Wall Monday 10 10 11

I'm still plugging away at my Cynthia England quilt. It is going to be beautiful, but I am not sure that I will attempt another one any time soon!

Some of those pieces are SO tiny!

On thing I am doing differently is using a glue stick rather than pins. I could not get those pieces to line up with the pins, they were always a smidge off. It was ok with just two pieces, I could readjust one of the pattern pieces. But when I had an intersection I couldn't always adjust. Now I am ironing the seam allowance under on one piece and then gluing it to the other seam allowance and sewing on my ironed line. I am much happier with the results :)

For more design wall Monday posts visit Patchwork Times

Design Wall Monday

Not much on my design wall this week...just some 6" blocks for a project :) I'll probably be making another set as I've had some requests to make it into a pattern and I have to keep plugging away to get it just so!

For more design wall inspiration visit Patchwork Times