Back in September, I showed you two banners that I had made for my church…..
They were no longer needed and had sat on my shelf for several years and I wasn’t sure what to do with them. When I asked my readers for an opinion, it was unanimous….
Turn them into quilts!!!
So, I took one and did just that!!.
I debated about picking the seams to release the top from the upholstery fabric backing but quickly decided that it wasn’t going to happen. Instead, I cut off the last navy border, leaving the bias piano-key one…..
Since the edge was bias, I added a line of stay-stitching and then basted it….
Now it was ready to quilt.
I wanted to do it quickly, so picked an easy design…..
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As promised in the video, I will be giving more information about the Sway Rulers soon!!
I loved finishing this quilt so quickly and it has now been gifted. I hope that it brings much warmth and comfort!!!
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Do you struggle to decide what to quilt in your blocks? If so, check out my FREE series…..
But, when it came time to square the quilt up, I realized that I had messed up much of the straight-line quilting on the right-hand side of the quilt. I was so frustrated, I didn’t even take a photo to show you!!
The middle section was okay, but the top and bottom were definitely slanted!!
WHAT TO DO???
Of course, the answer is to pull out the seam ripper and start clipping threads!!!
I started with the top section, removing about 12 inches of quilting. Once it was out, I sprayed it liberally with water……
….and let it sit overnight to dry.
The following day, it looked like this…..
So, I ironed it in place again and added some guidelines…..
Now it was easy to ensure that the quilted lines were staying straight…..as long as they lined up with the drawn lines then I was good!!
Once I saw that the top section had worked well, I repeated the process on the bottom section.
But then a new problem arose. The thread spool was getting low and I REALLY didn’t want to change threads in the quilting.
As I quilted each line, I looked up to see how much thread was left. The final tally…..
YIKES….that was cutting it close!!!
Okay….now it is quilted, squared-up, and ready for finishing…..
OR IS IT????
Yes, you guessed it….. I had one more issue!!
Come back tomorrow!!
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In this blog, I post DAILY stories about creativity, techniques, tools of the trade, and lots more about the wonderful art of quilting. If you are enjoying these posts, please subscribe to be notified of each new blog as it becomes available.
I know when you read this, you will think of a particular type of feather….something like this…..
But this time I am talking about a feather that would be attached to a Dreamcatcher!!
Here’s the story…..
I had planned to have three feathers hang from the quilted Dreamcatcher on my latest quilt…..
I was happy with the feather design that I had found until I saw THIS one…..
Now these plain old feathers just didn’t seem special enough……
What to do????
I started looking for other feather designs and came upon these two……
I liked both of them but was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to do the big one justice.
So it was time to do some practice….
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I was happy with the fancy feather but still wasn’t convinced that I could do justice to it on the actual quilt.
Interestingly, editing this video and watching myself do the quilting convinced me that I COULD DO IT!!
AND…..spoiler alert….. I DID IT!!!
The straight lines did not turn out as well as I hoped….but come back tomorrow for that saga!!
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In this blog, I post DAILY stories about creativity, techniques, tools of the trade, and lots more about the wonderful art of quilting. If you are enjoying these posts, please subscribe to be notified of each new blog as it becomes available.
Over the last few days, I have been talking to you about the MQG Fabric Challenge that I am working on….
In particular, I have been gnashing over how to quilt it!!
I finally made some decisions, including adding another set of arcs to the Dreamcatcher and decided to use the “arrows” for the Dreamcatcher outline…..
So now it was time to sit down and start quilting!!
Why don’t you join me…..
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The next stage of my decision making relates to the feathers…..
Stay tuned for more!!
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Do you struggle to decide what to quilt in your blocks? If so, check out my FREE series…..
But, there were still a few decisions to make, so I wanted to practice first!! I drew off the basic design on some waste muslin…..
….and sat down at the machine.
My first decision was what to quilt in the rim around the outside. I want to fill it in with some design and there are TOO many to choose from!!
My first thought was straight lines…..
But I am going to add a lot of straight-line stitching in the background and am concerned that it may be TOO many lines!!
Next, I tried circles but they will be too hard to keep even…..
How about some loops or zig-zags….
Maybe “ribbon candy”??
….but definitely NOT Wishbones…..
After all of my tries, I am still not sure…..
…although I am leaning toward the ribbon candy. BUT, as I look at this photo, I am drawn to the “arrow” design at the upper left!!
Next, I started quilting the arcs, including trying to give the lines a little more weight…..
After a while, I decided to forget the circles…..
….and then I decided that I might double the arcs to fill it in more….
IF I have time, I might add some beads to each of the intersections, although that will be 140+ beads…..do I have time for that???
I pulled out my bead collection……
…..and picked some colors that work with the fabrics…..
I tried attaching them (without the stitching showing on the back)…..
OKAY….I think that this might work!!!
My final thought is to add a circle of fabric to the center of the web. That way I won’t have to worry as much about where the lines intersect in the center. I would applique it AFTER I do the quilting…..
…..and maybe a few beads on top of it…..we will see!!!
So I think that I have done as much practice as I can so it is time to start quilting!!!
But before I can do ANYTHING, I have to clean a bit…..
Join me tomorrow!!
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In this blog, I post DAILY stories about creativity, techniques, tools of the trade, and lots more about the wonderful art of quilting. If you are enjoying these posts, please subscribe to be notified of each new blog as it becomes available.
