Bubble Up Lap Quilt in the making

It's almost done! I've been wanting to make another lap quilt for our love seats in our living room to keep Chevy cosy and the seats relatively dog hair free.

Bubble Up Lap Quilt - Where two spirals meet

Bubble Up fabric strips

The day that I heard that Quilty Pleasures, our local quilt shop, was not an essential service, and would have to close to customer traffic, I rushed out and supported the shop 😊 Among my purchases was a package of Bubble Up fabric strips. Enough to make one lap quilt!

I didn't get fancy, I just sewed all of the strips together. The fabric is so colourful and amazing that I didn't want to mess with it (that's my story and I'm sticking to it!)

It took me a while to figure out how to quilt it since the fabric was too busy, colourful and amazing. It wouldn't have been worth doing any fancy free motion quilting (FMQ). So I didn't.

Quilting spirals using my walking foot

In the meantime, I've been watching some excellent BluPrint (Craftsy) classes. I never used to watch them unless I was going to start doing the work, but in the last couple of months, I'm just watching them for entertainment. That way I can view many and just follow the ones that I want.

I started by watching the first of Jacquie Gering's walking foot courses, Creative Quilting With Your Walking Foot. I then watched her second course, Next Steps With Your Walking Foot. Jacquie is a really excellent teacher and her courses are interesting and instructive. I highly recommend them!

So how to quilt my Bubble Up Lap Quilt - with a walking foot using spirals. I learned so much from watching the courses and quilting this piece.

I'll be mentioning what I learned below but I did want to talk about the constructive interference that I experienced when these two spirals met. If you look at the picture, you will probably start to cringe!

Constructive interference -
when two spirals meet

Yup, you guessed it!

It looks like my quilt top wasn't quite taunt enough and trouble was coming. Anyway, I wasn't in any mood to remove any of the stitching, so I forged ahead. Yup, my quilt has some lovely pleats where the two spirals met. At that point, Better Done Than Perfect was my mantra. If you examine it closely, you can see the lovely pleats, but otherwise they are quite inconspicuous.😊

I looked in my stash for fabric to bind the quilt but really, none of it was up to these amazing colours - so I just had to find an online store in Canada that had some Bubble Up fabric. My fabric is coming to me from East Coast Quilt Co, in St. John's, Newfoundland. If I can't travel, at least my fabric can!

Since it was a beautiful day, I went out with my son and Chevy for a photo shoot to a deserted park down the street.

Bubble Up - where two spirals meet

Fun with Chevy

There's a lot going on in that quilt!

Bubble Up Quilt
basking in the sun

See the flowers blooming - oh, and there's the quilt!

What I learned

• As you know, I love free motion quilting (FMQ) but since I've been using my walking foot to make journal covers, I've come to appreciate it. I thought that it would be good to try out quilting with the walking foot on this quilt.
• Jacquie Gering warned us that quilting spirals with the walking foot could be tricky. It is! The hardest thing to master, in my opinion, is turning the quilt around while not leaving a trace on the quilting. I have quite a few tiny bumps in the quilting. I'm sure that if I had been in a more zen mood that it would have gotten better earlier in the quilting. I was getting the hang of it by the end.
• I used a colourful variegated King Tut thread for the top of the quilt - and I wasn't sure that I would have enough. I'm happy to report that I did, although I don't think that there's much left on the spool.
• I love the secondary pattern that comes from the two spirals intersecting. 
• I'm really looking forward to binding the quilt when my fabric arrives. Of course, I'll post it when it's finished! 

Related links

• BluPrint (Craftsy) courses with Jacquie Gering: 



Free Motion Mavericks

• Creative Quilting With Your Walking Foot 
• Next Steps With Your Walking Foot
• Constructive interference - when waves overlap

Linking parties
I will be linking up to many fun linky parties, including Free Motion Mavericks which is with Muv this week. Make sure that you go link up - it's not only about FMQ!
I'm also linking up with Sandra's DrEAMi quilt party, as well as many other fun linking parties. Let's check them out and see what's going on while we stay home and quilt! Peacock Party, Friday Foto Fun, Can I Get A Whoop Whoop?, Tuesday Colour and Inspiration, What I Made Monday, Monday Making,

Birds in the Air with Project Quilting 11-4

Challenge 11.4, "Birds in the Air" certainly challenged my creativity because I was determined to avoid making the traditional block at all cost! My accuracy challenged and tired brain was revolting against all of those HST (half square triangles)!

A conceptual Birds in the Air block

A conceptual Birds in the Air block

Since I didn't want to make those HST, I though of alternatives. When in doubt, I go to my strengths. Could I make a Birds in the Air block with free motion quilting (FMQ)? Sure, why not?

Ironic aside: it would have been much easier to piece the block with those dreaded HST than to figure out all of the challenges that came from making a conceptual block. 😊

I'm not sure what my thinking process was, but I tend to start with the obvious, such as birds within the HST, which then suggested a blue sky fabric. Since I've been working a lot with my dyed fabrics, I was sure that I could find something.

I made the block but since it was the size of the finished block and there was no gripping space for FMQ or embroidering, I added a square of backing fabric so that there was about 1½" extending on all sides of the block. Then I stitched the conceptual HSTs on the blue fabric.

I originally though of embroidering most of the images on the block but I ended up procrastinating long enough that I didn't have enough time, so back to FMQ!

Adding Trapunto

I thread stitched the birds and then decided to add a little bit of trapunto for the tree after watching Patsy Thompson do it on BluPrint. I added a layer of batting between the fabric and the backing and then stitched the top of the tree. I repeated the process for the tree trunk.

You can see a little bit of the Trapunto on the tree trunk, where it's puffier.

The background trees and the grass in the foreground were free motion stitched next. At this point it was Saturday afternoon and I was getting a little nervous, so I decided that it was time to FMQ and bind the piece. I could embroider the rest after I had finished the quilting.

I cut around the block and the backing, leaving the original layer of backing to extend about a ½". I cut batting to this size and then used a lovely green batik as the final backing. I cut this piece 2" larger than the block.

Free Motion Quilting

Details of the embroidery and FM stitching

I had no idea how I was going to FMQ this piece since I didn't really want to add more thread to the
piece. Then I remembered that I received a free spool of Invisible Thread at last year's Quilt Canada. I decided to take the plunge. I used the Invisible Thread as the top thread and FMQ the conceptual lines of the HST in the top half. I then stitched-in-the-ditch between the blue and green fabric and then around the tree, grass and background trees.

I bound the quilt and then started embroidering. I ended up hiding the trapunto on the tree top when I added couched fuzzy yarn all over it. I liked the trapunto effect but I like the texture more.

Does it sound like it was a long drawn out process? Well it was. I am happy with my finished piece and I learned more than I really wanted. But it's done and I think that it's lovely 😊

What I learned

• It took me a while to figure out how the Birds in the Air block was made....until I turned it on point.
• This piece almost didn't get finished. After cutting and sewing the two large HST, I had no idea what to do. As I mentioned it was too small to work on and deep down, the thought of embroidering all of it didn't appeal to me. It sat for a few days before I finally started free motion stitching it.
• When I showed my almost finished piece to my son, he said that the birds are upside down. My daughter and I both think that they're correct. Maybe there's more than one way to draw birds in flight?
• I added trapunto to the tree top. It was a little harder than I expected since I did it between the backing fabric and the stitched birds were sort of in the way of my cutting around the batting. I ended up cutting my backing fabric since I knew that it would be covered with batting and a final backing fabric. At that point, I really felt like I was channeling my mother's MacGyver energy. 😉
• I would never have tried using invisible thread but one of the teachers on BluPrint recommended water soluble thread, especially to stitch around trapunto areas. Invisible thread isn't quite the same but I used it instead and was very impressed. The thread did show up a bit, although most of it was later covered by embroidery. I believe that they sell a few kinds of invisible thread - I think that a more smokey colour would have been better. I'll have to look into that!
• Since I have less than an hour to publish this post and link up, I'm going to stop now!!!

Related links

• Project Quilting, Challenge 11.4
• BluPrint (Craftsy) Ultimate Free-Motion Quilting with Patsy Thompson

Linking parties
I will, of course, be linking up to Project Quilting, Challenge 11.4 as well as many other fun linking parties. Make sure that you visit some of these and get inspired! Off the Wall Friday, Slow Sunday Stitching, Can I Get A Whoop Whoop?, Put your foot down, Colour and Inspiration Tuesday, Friday Foto Fun, Peacock Party, Beauties Pageant, Monday Making, Midweek Makers, Needle & Thread Thursday, Free Motion Mavericks, I'm also linking up to February's Favourite Finish Monthly Linkup

Project details

Birds in the Air
7" x 7"
Techniques: FMQ, embroidery
Material: hand-dyed cotton, wool, embroidery floss

Finishing up One Monthly Goal - OMG

I can't believe that it's the end of January. It was pretty intense quilting wise. I finished my two Project Quilting and the Winter Blues project with very little time to spare. That's how I live dangerously. 😊

January's OMG 
A journal cover for my quilting agenda

My only other goal for January was my One Monthly Goal - to make a journal cover for my quilting agenda/notebook. As I'm writing this, I'm still not sure that it will get done in time. You'll find out by the end of the post (which has to be linked to the OMG linky party by tonight at Elm Street Quilts), or it will be my February OMG. Find out what happens....Can I write most of this post, go sew up the journal cover within 9 hours???

My FMQ piece for a journal cover

It took me a few days to find the fabric that I wanted to use for my journal cover. So many choices.... When I looked into my box of hand-dyed fabrics (mine and stuff that I've bought), I decided that these would be perfect for FMQ a journal cover. Most of the pieces are fairly small so they could be used for art quilts, but this is a nice alternative.

This first piece is so much fun. It was hand painted, printed and or dyed by Gunnel Hag of Colour Vie (see Related links below). Gunnel is an amazing fibre artist who gave a talk to the Out of the Box Fabric Artists Group a couple of years ago. I bought some of her fabric paint as well as a few beautiful pieces of fabric. This is the funkiest one.

Of course I forgot to take a picture of the fabric before I started FMQ, but you can see most of it here, as I started quilting it. I just love that there are many things going on that I could work around. It helped to separate the fabric into quilting areas.

The fabric by Gunnel Hag, before it got totally FMQ

The threads I used were all variegated - from Superior Threads, King Tut and Rainbows and from  Wonderfil, Konfetti. The fabric was a joy to quilt and I got to use a bunch of different designs.

I started off doing spirals around the circles (above) and then slowly moved towards the left image. Since it was more structured, I used boxes within boxes and triangles.

Adding more structured designs

I added triangles around the triangles and then pebbles around the word "Red". It was fun changing threads and seeing the different effects.

Triangles and pebbles around the word "Red"

In the un-quilted fabric, you can see a faint image of ferns or maybe spruce leaves. I went a little nuts with these. I started by just outlining the larger one but then kept on adding thread. For the other two, I restrained my enthusiasm (I got bored!)

Adding colour to the ferns

Faint outline of ferns

I added small swirls around the ferns to try to emphasize them. It might have been more effective if the thread had matched the fabric!


It was then time to outline the word "Yellow". By then I wanted to use simpler designs. I used wavy horizontal lines around the word "Yellow". In the pink above I used a design that I don't know the name of - I call them j's and f's because that's what the motion feels like when I make them. Finally on the left side I made some meandering swirly flowers. I considered using matching thread when I got out of the yellow section but it was lovely to see the effect of the yellow thread on the green fabric.

Yellow and pink at the top

A finished agenda cover

Yes, I just made it. With only 5 hours before the OMG linking party closes, I'm now showing you the finished product. 😊

This is the third journal cover that I've done, and it would seem that practice makes things much easier. I followed Christina Cameli's class on BluPrint and made lots of footnotes.  

The finished front of the agenda cover

The back of the cover

The back and front of the cover

Agenda cover with fancy fold-over elastic

For this cover, I even added a ribbon to keep my place.

My quilting agenda and notebook

What I learned

Cutting the fabric was the most difficult part!

• It took me 4 hours to FMQ this fabric piece and only one hour to make the journal cover - and things went without problems.
• I made tons of notes for myself so that I can keep making these journal covers easily.
• I had to cut some of the FMQ fabric - it was difficult. I like what I chose but I'm sorry that I didn't keep more yellow and pink in the final piece.
• I would also have liked to have the back of the cover be the front, but the word "Red" would have been upside down.
• I never throw these extra quilted pieces out, so one day, you may see that lovely yellow incorporated into another piece.
• Do you know if there's something I can do to make the ribbon a little stiffer? Would coating it with ModPodge work? If you have any ideas, please let me know.

Related links

• Gunnel Hag
• Superior threads - Rainbows and King Tut
• Wonderfil thread - Konfetti
• Free Motion Quilted Gifts with Bluprint (Craftsy)
• Christina Cameli

Linking parties

I'm linking up to Elm Street Quilts' One Monthly Goal Finish for January. It looks like I made it 😊 I will also be linking up to Free Motion Mavericks with Muv since it's her week to host the party. Make sure that you go link up too! Midweek Makers, Colour and Inspiration Tuesday, Put Your Foot Down, Needle & Thread Thursday, Off the Wall Friday, Finished or Not Finished Friday, Friday Foto Fun, Can I Get A Whoop Whoop?, Beauties Pageant, TGIFF, Peacock Party,

Dione scored a rainbow for her Outback Weather Bingo with this project! Check it out at Colour and Inspiration Tuesday

Project details

FMQ agenda cover
Pattern and instructions by Christina Cameli
8½" x 6"
Techniques: FMQ, sewing
Material: hand painted, printed and or dyed cotton by Gunnel Hag, fold-over elastic, agenda

More quilted gifts, an OMG and a Christmas runner

I can't believe that I've got so many posts this month! I've been busy finishing up my two Christmas gifts. Actually there was supposed to be one, but a squirrel came for a visit!

More quilted gifts

My December One Monthly Goal (OMG) was another free motion quilted (FMQ) fabric basket. I used some incredibly lovely Japanese fabric for the FMQ.

The light was at its best outside on the snow :-)

I took an indoor shot the next day

I also created another journal cover. Unfortunately I misread my notes and didn't cut the fabric big enough to fit the journals I had bought. So I ran out at the last possible second for a smaller journal. It was a little smaller than I would have liked but it did fit 😊

I really love this fabric for the journal cover.

I FMQ the fabric following the outline of the leaves and the flowers. I used a darker brown thread to outline the flowers. I left the leaves empty (and therefore puffy) and then just echoed all of the leaves and around the flowers.

I added an elastic but I really don't like it. It's just too jarring. I'll have to find some finer elastics in other colours, or just leave it out.

Another Throwback Thursday Christmas runner

At my brother and sister-in-law's, home I took a photo of another Throwback Thursday Christmas runner that I've never included in my blog. Sandra and I may not be hosting Throwback Thursday next year, but I'm sure that older quilts will show up occasionally.

A Christmas runner made BBE (before blogging era)  😊

What I learned

• I'm glad to report that this basket is the intended size, since I followed the instructions! 
• I also used a regular cotton batting, so it was a little stiffer. 
• That's two things that I learned from making that first basket!
• The grid that I followed to FMQ was only one inch but it came out fine. I did FMQ a half square triangle that I wasn't supposed to. I thought that it would be underneath the basket. But following the instructions properly meant that it was on one side of the basket. It's not really noticeable, unless you're looking for it. 
• I was pretty upset about making the journal cover too small. I made the side seams smaller but it just wasn't enough. Finally, I went to the store and bought a smaller journal, but it wasn't as great as it could have been. I'll be re-writing my notes before I make the next one.

Related posts

• Making a few gifts, December 17, 2019
• Learning to make a fabric basket, November 26, 2019
• The Japanese fabric is from Kallisti Quilts
• Free Motion Quilted Gifts on Bluprint (Craftsy)
• Quilting the Grid: Structured Free Motion Quilting on BluPrint (Craftsy)
• Christina Cameli
• Making a journal cover with practice piece, December 14, 2019

Linking parties
I'm linking this post to the December OMG post since my fabric basket got done! It may be unusual, but I will also be linking up to my Free Motion Mavericks link up since it's still open for a week. Finally there are lots of great linky parties around. Let's see what's going on and support these great bloggers! Off the Wall Friday, Finished or Not Finished Friday, Friday Foto Fun, Can I Get A Whoop Whoop?, Brag About Your Beauties, Peacock Party, Oh Scrap!,

I've also linked the image of the Star Runner in this post to Sarah Goer's Show Me Something With Stars link-up.  

Project details

FMQ neutral fabric basket
Pattern and instructions by Christina Cameli
8" x 5" x 6"
Techniques: FMQ, sewing
Material: lanyard, cotton

Making a few gifts

I'm really trying to avoid deadlines and I didn't decide to make a few gifts for Christmas lightly since I don't want these to be IOU gifts!

Christmas gift exchange

I am going to a potluck with my colleagues and of course there is a gift exchange. You know....unisex and under $20 (not including taxes). Personally I usually go for something edible but this year, I had a Christmas mug rug that's been hanging around my sewing room for the last year since I made it after Christmas. That seemed like a good way to start off my gift for the exchange.

Christmas mug rug and quilted mug sleeve

To that, I added a quilted mug sleeve. I made some in November but I had some great coffee fabric that wasn't big enough for a whole sleeve. I decided to experiment with an appliqué on some neutral fabric.

This one is wider than my usual mug sleeves but it worked out really well. I also remembered to make it slightly longer so that the Velcro could easily go around the cup. See, I sometimes remember what I learned.😊

The fabric before being appliquéd. 

Close-up of the quilted cup sleeve and the foundation pieced mug rug.

Progress on the second quilted basket

After making this first basket, I was so excited that I decided to make one for my sister-in-law and brother for Christmas. Since they love neutrals, I wanted to make it using two of the Japanese fabrics that I bought from Kallisti Quilts. 

My first basket - and inside, on the right are two of the
Japanese fabrics that I'm using to make the second basket.

To keep learning (and not get bored!), I decided to view Christina Cameli's Quilting the Grid: Structured Free Motion Quilting on BluPrint (Craftsy) for some inspiration. You can read a little more about that adventure in the What I learned section 😊.

FMQ matchsticks within the half-square triangles

What I learned

• The appliqué went well on the cup sleeve and it was fun to free motion quilt it since it's not really reversible.
• I decided that I needed a take-out cup for the photo shoot of my cup sleeve so I went to our local Tim Horton's. It did make a great prop for the cup sleeve and I ended up buying some of their really cute mugs - one of them to include in the gift exchange. So now I'm all ready!
• I should have watched more of the Quilting the Grid course BEFORE I started marking and sewing the grid on the fabric. It turns out that the grids are usually 1½" and larger. I made mine 1", which really is small.
• With one inch grids, it was best to keep the FMQ design very simple - so it's going to be another basket with triangles - but these will be half-square triangles.
• The fabric that I'm using has a very light plaid - and I'm not sure how that will turn out or if it was the best idea. A couple of evenings ago, I couldn't see the stitching, even with my reading glasses on. 😕
• I also had a really hard time with my top thread. It may have been too old since it kept breaking, although the bobbin thread was fine. Anyway, I found a thread that was close enough in colour and used the rest of the original thread in the bobbin.

Related links

• Previous related posts
• Making quilted cup sleeves, November 11, 2019
• Learning to make a fabric basket, November 26, 2019
• Christina Cameli
• Quilting the Grid: Structured Free Motion Quilting on BluPrint (Craftsy)
• Free Motion Quilted Gifts on Bluprint (Craftsy)
• Kallisti Quilts

Linking parties

I will be linking up to these great linky parties. Colour and Inspiration Tuesday, Monday Making, To-Do Tuesday, Midweek Makers, Put your foot down, Beauties Pageant, 

Remember to come back on Thursday for the last Free Motion Mavericks link-up of 2019. It will be open for 2 weeks during the holidays.

Making a journal cover with practice piece

Don't you love practicing on something and then being able to use that practice piece to make a finished, usable project? That's what happened to my practice piece from last week's Free Motion Mavericks.

FMQ my practice piece

My piece went from this very bright poinsettia fabric to these "cat's eye" shapes with different types of feathers within and outside of the shapes.

FMQ using the leaves as templates

The pink bobbin thread produced this flower.

Finally, adding FMQ filler between the flowers, in white thread, resulted in this!

Adding swirls, paisleys and
echoes between the flowers

A close up of the free motion quitling

It was really great to be adding this filler FMQ between the flowers because I hadn't really done that in a very long time. It's so fun to just stitch and let the quilting do what it wants. 😊

Making a journal cover with the FMQ fabric

When I showed a friend what the quilted fabric looked like, I got such a great response that I decided to make her a journal cover!

I used Christina Cameli's Free-Motion Quilted Gifts course to make the journal cover. This is the same BluPrint (Craftsy) course that I used to make the fabric basket a couple of weeks ago.

This is the front of the journal, with the elastic keeping it closed

Back of the FMQ journal cover

The FMQ journal - front and back

Journal with replaceable booklets

Inside the journal

 What I learned

• As usual, Christina's instructions and explanations were great. I had to re-do a part, but that was my mistake. 
• I should have measured where to stitch the elastic - I was able to "fix" it but next time I'll measure!
• I discovered fold-over elastics. I didn't have any, so I used a plain white elastic, but I'll be looking out for these.😊
• I really want to make more of these journal covers. I bought a package of three booklets at Winners and will send my friend the replacement booklets with her journal cover. Now I have to go stock up on these.
• This course has been amazing. I haven't made the zipper bag yet, but it's definitely going to get done...eventually. It's so hard to not get sidetracked from the stuff that I've actually committed to making! So many squirrels - so little time!

Related links

• More practice at Free Motion Mavericks, December 5, 2019
• BluPrint (Craftsy) Free Motion Quilted Gifts with Christina Cameli

Linking parties
I'll be linking up to Free Motion Mavericks with Muv this week, as well as many other fun linky parties. Let's see what everyone is making! Colour and Inspiration Tuesday, Put your foot down, Off the Wall Friday, Friday Foto Fun, Finished or Not Finished Friday, Can I Get A Whoop Whoop?, Beauties Pageant, TGIFF, Peacock Party, Monday Making, Design Wall Monday, What I Made Monday, 

Project details

Free Motion Quilted Journal Cover
8½" x 6"
Techniques: free motion quilting, Large Print Wholecloth Quilt,
Materials: cotton, elastic, journal