Oh my…this is going to be fun!!

Yesterday I described my ARGHHHH day and ended the post by saying that I would try the machine quilting again….maybe…..or maybe I would start a new project. I am sure that it is no surprise that I STARTED SOMETHING NEW!!!!

When I had my “Inspiration Day” last weekend, I found one fiber art piece that looked like fun and would give me a chance to try some different surface techniques. During the week I gathered up my supplies and today I made a test piece to see how things would work and see if the paints that I owned were appropriate.

The first step was to cut little swatches of lots of the fabrics that I had pulled….

I moved to the machine and free-motion stitched them down, using the full-circle darning foot rather than the open toe. This keeps the foot from getting caught under loose edges…..

Then I mixed up a few of my Setacolor paints. Before I show the result, let me tell you about my paint collection. Many years ago (maybe 15 or more) I happened to be in a Michaels store when they were obviously dropping the line of Pebeo & Jacquard paints, and I bought them for 25 to 50 cents per bottle. Needless to say, I stocked up. This is what I still have left after all of these years…..

Most of them are in pretty bad shape, either very thick or almost empty, but I am always impressed with what a little bit of water or a mixer such as white or black can do to revitalize them. Someday I will need to replace them but today is NOT that day.

I mixed up a small pot of blue and another of green and started painting……

The middle stripes were applied with a stiff brush and I think that the paint is a little too thick. The two outside rows (green on right and blue on left) were applied with a makeup sponge and I am much happy with their appearance. I also know that using a sea sponge would change the texture.

I was pleased with the coverage that the paint brought to the 3-D “stuff”, and especially happy with the flannel, burlap and color catcher…..

I don’t see the point to using silk unless I spend some time to ravel the edges and I have just had the idea to maybe cut out some circles and ravel around them. (See…this is why I blog….I get ideas as I write)!!

As I just now looked back at the project that I am emulating, I think that the paints were too thick and I will water them down and try to make it more of a wash rather than heavy paint.

Now I patiently waited for it to dry…..NOT SO MUCH. I laid down paper towels on the paint and used a dry iron!!!

The next step was to try stitching on it and seeing if it would work over the paint and especially over the raised embroidery work. I started with some basic stitching with regular thread…..

Then I tried one of the “buttercups”, made with Tulle and thread……

Probably too much Tulle, but I can adjust that as I go. ALSO, I just realized that I was supposed to use Organza rather than Tulle so that will make a huge difference!!

Final step was to try one of the Daisies. I decided to test my machine out buy using two threads at one time…..

I also slowed Juanita down to the turtle position…..

…..and started making LONG stitches by moving the fabric quickly when the needle was up……

This is certainly not perfect but at least I have an idea that I can accomplish it!!

I enjoyed playing with some threads that I have collected from over the years but never used for quilting purposes……

Finally, I took some red paint and tried doing a little dry brushing on the raised embellishments. I think that I might use this, especially if I put a group of embroidery flowers in one area.

Bottom line….I cant wait to get started on this project!!!!

It was an “ARGGHHH” sort of day!

On Saturday, I had one goal….finish quilting a piece that I started several years ago. I had been excited to use some of my new-found ruler technique and Thursday I had tried it out on one of the borders. I didn’t do any measuring nor really try the pattern so it was an unmitigated disaster!!.

On Friday night, I patiently pick out ALL of those stitches including all of the places that I had traveled over previous stitches.

When I started working on it again, I decided that I would do some practice and figure out the sizing of the design and do it right. This photo is three different tries with various spacings……

Once I thought that I had a good feel for the design, I tried it on the quilt. The design looked OKAY but not great and, when I looked at the back, I could see that the tension was horrible, so I picked it out AGAIN!!

Now I moved back to a practice piece and started trying every ruler that I could find and every 5 to 10 inches the thread would jump and wrap around the needle and, of course, cause a huge thread nest. Believe me, there were MANY spicy words spoken!!

I was describing what was happening to my husband, Michael, and had the thought that I needed to go thru my list of settings and see what was different. What I found was this……

The ruler foot has a spring at the back with a thumb-screw on top.

This determines how close the circular foot is to the fabric. If it is too close, it binds the fabric against the machine and it can’t move. If it is too high, the fabric moves around too much and the needle and bobbin thread cant nest properly and THE THREAD GOES HAYWIRE!!!

HURRAY….I figured out the problem.

At this point, there was no way I was going to work on an actual quilt so I spent the next 30 minutes just quilting all over my practice piece. This is what frustration looks like…..

At lunch, Michael mentioned that he needed to make a stand for a piece of steel that is used to protect equipment that he needs when doing firearm reviews. As we talked about possibilities, I started channeling my Dad (who loved to do projects like this) and thinking about how to build one from leftover lumber in the garage. Now the challenge was on!!!

I got all of my tools out…..

….and yes that is a quilting ruler!! I mean, what else does a quilter use when she wants to draw a straight line!!!

In a little over an hour, this was my accomplishment…..

It works perfectly and at least I accomplished something for the day. It is always amazing how the act of creating something makes my day!!

Tomorrow I will tackle the borders again…..maybe……or maybe I will start a new project!!

Stay tuned!!

Travel Log Quilt #2

Last time I showed you “Take Me Back To Guana Quay“, the FIRST in my unintentional Travel Log Quilt series.

This second quilt is called “Bells, Baths and Bidets” and, as every good quilt should, there is a story behind it!!

In 1998, Michael attended a conference in Florence, Italy. We decided that the kids and I would join him after the conference was over. We visited Florence, Stresa and Venice but, by far, our favorite was Rome.

When we arrived in our hotel there was a church bell ringing. Having now spent a month in Rome, I know that it is not an unusual occurrence, but being from Watkinsville, Georgia, we were not used to that sound. The family rushed to the closest window to see where the sounds were coming from…..

….and found this gorgeous bell tower just across the street…..

Being good tourists, we now headed to the bathroom to check out the amenities……

We found a curtain-less shower and a bidet….something VERY unusual for our kids. BUT, what caught MY QUILTER’S eye was the ceramic tile in the top center of this photo……

Sorry for the bad photo….but this was 1998!!

Much to my children’s embarrassment I pulled out tracing paper and traced the design in full….

Note….I am not sure WHY I had tracing paper with me but it was certainly fortuitous!!!

When I got home, I did some additional work on the pattern……

It was certainly a fiddly quilt to make including some machine applique and paper piecing…..

….and just a lot of intricate, time consuming piecing!!!!

But, I loved how it turned out……

When I started thinking about a name, it had to be “Bells, Baths & Bidets!!”…another reminder of a fun hotel in Rome!!

Ruler Machine Quilting – Day 3

Since I had such good luck working with the straight rulers, today I decided to try out one of the other rulers that I already own. This time it is a Westalee ruler in a flower petal design…..

The first thing that I tried was an all-over fill design that I saw Angela Walters demonstrate. You start by quilting around the design once……

And then, without moving the ruler, you backtrack around a little ways…..

Next you turn the ruler at an angle and repeat the process. After a few minutes, I had an entire section filled with these designs……

Looking at this I realize that I need to add more variety in the angles so that it doesn’t look as much like one long strip.

Speaking of long strips, I tried doing a border design and ended up with this…..

By keeping the ruler completely still, it is so easy to backtrack…..you can see that I messed up once!!

Next I wanted to try making a “leaf wreath”. When I was watching another video about using one of these rulers, she talked about the hole for the tack…..there’s a hole for a tack???? Oh that is why the ruler set came with 2 tacks!!!

Well look at that!!! By centering this hole over the tack it means that the ruler freely turns in a 360 degree circle!!!

Now for the hilarious part…… in November of last year I was practicing ruler quilting using a charity quilt and I talked about using a tack when working with a circle ruler and showed this photo…..

Notice that the tack is facing down which really worried me because I was afraid that I would scratch my machine. Today I learned that the tack is supposed to be inserted at the back with only the point on the quilt surface!!!! Well that makes a LOT more sense!!!

I started playing with the design with this being my first attempt…..

Not too bad for a first try….just a few sections that I needed to work on.

On about the 4th or 5th attempt, I made a video of the process…..

This has been another fun experiment and I am looking forward to using these new-found skills in a future quilting project!!!

Ruler Machine Quilting – Day 2

To quote Herman’s Hermits…..”Second verse, same as the first”!!

Today I drew out two 6.5 inch squares (because that is what fit on the practice piece) and did two more Square Spiral designs. The first was a 3/4 inch spiral and the second a 1 inch spiral…..

The only problems that I had were in one corner and I believe that was because I was right at the edge of my fabric and couldn’t get a good hold to help move the fabric properly …..

For these long lines of quilting, I have been using a ruler that I purchased at our last guild quilt show…

It is made by “Angel Oak Stitchery” and you should check out their online store for more well made rulers.

At the gym this morning I watched two videos….one by Angela Walters showing how to use her ruler named “Sid” (gotta love that she gives each of her rulers a name)!!!

There are a few things that I really like about this ruler. First of all, having all of the registration lines is amazingly helpful. Secondly, the lips on the outside of the rule (at the bottom in the photo) help to line up exactly 1/4 inch away from where you want to stitch…..

So if I have this mark lined up in both places then I know that I will be stitching directly on the line as I move down the ruler. This makes traveling over existing stitches so much easier and accurate.

The final thing that I like about Sid is that he has a rough surface on the back side which helps to grip the fabric as you quilt. On the other rulers that I own, I have had to add my own non-skid tape to it.

The second video that I watched while I Eliptical-ed (is that a word) was from Natalia Bonner. She showed another straight line design for borders and I decided that I would give it a try.

The first step was to draw out my faux quilt

Ignore the horizontal line on the right!!

….consisting of 2 four inch blocks, a 1.5 inch inner border and a 3 inch outer border.

I made a few registration marks just so I could tell when the edges and centers of the blocks would be and then started sewing, using SID this time.

The thing that I found hardest initially was to figure out where to hold the ruler to make the needle end up in the right position…..

How do I hit that blue mark???

….but it did get easier with practice.

I started with the design that Natalia had demonstrated…..

….and then kept adding on and on and on and on……..until I ended up with this design…..

Except for a few thread breaks, the entire piece was quilted in one continuous session.

What did I learn……

using the markings on SID made easy work of keeping the lines straight
I need to figure out how to keep the spacing correct when using straight line fillers. This was easier when I spaced them 1/4 inch apart because I could use the ruler foot as my guide…..

when I could see the last sewing line just outside of the ruler foot that means that it is a correct 1/4 inch.

I often struggle with how to turn the corner on a border and really like this corner treatment…..

Okay…enough practice for the day!!! Now I need to get started on quilting a few REAL quilts but will certainly feel more at east to add in some straight line designs in as I go.