Showing posts with label Chevy. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 03, 2021

All for One

In July, I wrote a post "Trying to get from fine to great!" This was about my embroidery of Chevy, my daughter and I doing our "All for One" move. It was bitter sweet doing another embroidery since we are missing Chevy so much, but I did want to get this second one done so that my daughter and I would each have one.

All for One Embroidery

This is the original embroidered piece, after fixing it up. It was actually easy since the fabric is mounted on a canvas. All I did was tighten some of the loose stitches from the back. It looks much better now. This is now in my daughter's room.

All For One - Take 1

The new embroidery is very similar. I used slightly different threads and finished the collar in a different pattern, closer to Chevy's Princess Warrior collar.

All For One - Take 2

This is the photo that the embroidery is based on.

All For One!

What I learned

I re-did some of the second embroidery because the thread colour didn't stand out enough. I would have thought that the cream colour would have stood out more, but I think that it might have been too close to the fabric's warp colour.
I considered doing something different for this second one but I really like the simplicity of it. I used my favourite stem stitch but was more careful with my stitches.
I'm surprised that I didn't think of tightening the thread from the back on the original piece. Since it's mounted, no one will see the back.
I'm not sure that I went from fine to great but both of these are definitely better. We are both happy with them. 😊

OMG for November

One Monthly Goal for November

This is my OMG for November. I've already started but I want to finish piecing and quilting it! It's the Mallard on The Lake, a foundation paper piecing mini by Made By Marney. Wish me luck!

Related links

Trying to get from fine to great!, July 16, 2021
Mallard on The Lake by Made By Marney

Linking parties

I'll be linking up to many fun parties, including Free Motion Mavericks with Muv - remember, you don't have to be doing FMQ to link up! One Monthly Goal (OMG), Monday Making, Midweek Makers, Put your foot down, Needle & Thread Thursday, Off The Wall Friday, Finished or Not Finished Friday, Peacock Party,

If you're looking for Free Motion Mavericks for the week of November 11, 2021, go to Muv's blog. See you next week!

Thursday, August 26, 2021

Remembering Chevy

Chevy came to us 5 years ago in June. I remember feeling that she had pushed her way into my heart within hours!

Chevy - our Warrior Princess!

Last Christmas my daughter and I bought Chevy a new collar from Pooch & Tabby of Toronto. It was called Warrior Princess and it was perfect! Chevy was feisty, protective and full of love for her adoptive family and of food (not sure in which order!)

My favourite picture of Chevy sleeping on her quilts!

Chevy was also part of my Muse. Taking our walks has lead to a few of my favourite art quilts. This is one of them.

"Ca va bien aller" - at the beginning of the pandemic

One of the art pieces inspired by our walks

Warrior Princess Collar - perfect for our Chevy

"All for One"

Chevy was very good at giving us her paw, especially if there was a treat involved. From there, it evolved to "All for One" between Chevy, my daughter and I. This is the picture that I've been working on embroidering. I have the second one almost done but have decided to change one of the thread colours since it doesn't stand out quite enough.

"All for One!"

First attempt at "All for One"

Keeping me company

Chevy was usually only a few steps behind me. She would follow me around the house and make sure that I wasn't up to mischief! Here are a few of the pictures that have been posted on the blog in the last 5 years.

Chevy soon after her arrival into our home and hearts

Chevy supervising the sandwiching of the king-sized bed quilt
Always happy to help 😊

Chevy making sure that my first fabric dying attempt is a success!

Always happy to pose

Chevy's spot in my studio - it's feels pretty empty now 😔

Chevy posing with more hexies

Chevy posing in her spot on the couch with
hexies made of doggy fabrics

What I learned

Opening up your heart to a doggy leaves it vulnerable to being broken - but it's totally worth it.

Thursday, August 19, 2021

Free Motion Mavericks Link-up

Welcome to week 344 of Free Motion Mavericks. I'm afraid that I have no free motion quilting (FMQ) to share with you today. All of my attention, other than the Instagram posts for my #100dayschallenge (which will probably start slowing down) have been given to Chevy. She's now blind and very anxious, poor thing. When she's not pacing in circles around the first floor, she's passed out, exhausted. So I'm sharing this picture of my still cute Chevy, who gets stuck, even behind the curtains.

Chevy pacing and getting stuck

Chevy sleeping, exhausted

Linking parties

I will be linking up to a few linking parties as a reminder to come and link up! Midweek Makers, Put Your Foot Down, Needle & Thread Thursday,

Free Motion Mavericks

It's been very quiet here. I hope that you'll join me, even if your project is not free motion quilting. Thank you Gail for linking up your Fabric Bowls tutorial. I now have something to do with all of those narrow strips of batting that I couldn't part with! If you didn't see her tutorial, I suggest that you check it out!

Gail's Fabric Bowls

It's now your turn.

Wednesday, November 20, 2019

Chevy on Free Motion Mavericks

Welcome to week 256 of Free Motion Mavericks. Thanks for dropping by.

Chevy on Free Motion Mavericks

I'm shamelessly using Chevy's picture to attract you to the post 😊 because this week isn't going to be about my free motion quilting (FMQ)!

Chevy, sleeping on two quilts!

It's not that I didn't do any FMQ, but rather that I have nothing new to show you. I did finish quilting the Epic Neutral Bow Tie Quilt on the weekend and was busy sewing on the binding last night. I don't want to share it with you until I've finished hand-sewing the binding and then I've washed and photographed the quilt!

The two quilts that Chevy is sleeping on are the Colourful Scraps Quilt that I posted on Throwback Thursday last May and Bandit's first quilt.

Related links

Throwback Thursday - Colourful Scraps Quilt, May 6, 2018
Remembering Bandit (2002 - 2014), December 12, 2014
FMQ the Epic Neutral Bow Tie Quilt, November 6, 2019

Linking parties
I'll be linking up to many linking parties, just to get the word out about Free Motion Mavericks. I hope that you'll link up your projects below and visit these linky parties. Let the fun begin! Design Wall Monday, What I Made Monday. Colour and Inspiration Tuesday, Midweek Makers, Put your food down, Monday Making, Friday Foto Fun, November's Whims and Fancies,

Free Motion Mavericks

We had 8 wonderful projects posted on Free Motion Mavericks the last time. Remember that you can link up any project you're working on, even if your not FMQ. I think that it's safe to say that we are all addicted to anything made with fabric - so please don't let a little thing like free motion quilting stop you from linking up!

This week's featured quilt is free motion quilted and in Issue 31 of Make Modern magazine. Join me in congratulating Devoted Quilter Leanne on her lovely orange peels quilt. I'd love to make a variation on her quilt....but I'm not committing to anything right now! You can also get the pattern if you buy the digital Make Modern Magazine.

Saturday, July 09, 2016

Only 146 blocks to go!

Splashes of Color Quilt

Many years ago I fell in love with the Splashes of Color quilt at allpeoplequilt.com – with a simple pattern of pastel batiks, it looked both soft and yummy! Perfect for sweet dreams. Over the next few months I made the quilt.

When it was finished, I was disappointed. It didn’t look like the quilt that I had fallen in love with. I put it away since I wasn’t ready to quilt it yet. I didn’t have a sewing machine that did FMQ and I was told not to hand-quilt it since batiks are dense and difficult to hand-quilt.

About a year ago I found the batik quilt top. With trepidation, I unfolded it and lay it over my bed. Wow! It was stunning! It may not have been the soft quilt I wanted but I love it! On my king sized bed I noticed that it almost fit. I showed it to my husband who liked it, so I decided to finish this quilt for our bed. At a retreat I made a few more rows so that I wouldn’t have to fight my husband for my share of the quilt as we slept!

I bought some Tula Pink fabric for the backing as well as king-size batting. I was now ready to sandwich this monster. One day when I had the house to myself, I removed all of the furniture from our kitchen eating space, vacuumed and then lay down the batting. It took the whole space!

It's the size of the kitchen eating area!

Chevy in the middle of the action!

It was a rather long and tedious process. I placed the quilt top on the batting, tapped the top to the floor, pinned it and then flipped it over. I did the same to the backing. When it was pinned to my satisfaction, I put the table back, sat down and basted the sandwich together.

I then quilted every block. This helped to stabilize the quilt and I was happy to see that I had done a good job of sandwiching the quilt since there was very little puckering.

I FMQ (free motion quilted) between the blocks using Superior Thread’s Bottom Line in both the bobbin and top. I wasn’t sure what thread to use for the actual FMQ of each block but decided to keep using the Bottom Line. It’s very fine and won’t take attention away from the quilt itself. Besides, every block has different colours – changing and deciding on the colours of the thread to use in each block would have been impossible.

Here are my criteria for choosing the quilting design in each of the 8 inch blocks:

Not very small or dense so that the quilt remains supple;
Simple enough to FMQ on my home machine (this is a king size quilt!);
Experimentation, repetition and learning is encouraged; and
It can be a stenciled pattern, a dot-to-dot pattern or anything else that fits the above criteria.

Since there are 169 blocks to FMQ (13 x 13) this will give me plenty of opportunity to practice these designs. Here is a sampling of the 23 blocks that I’ve done so far. The stencils are mostly from The Stencil Company while many of the FMQ comes from Angela Walters' Shape by Shape book. The marking on each block hasn't been ironed off yet.

An old fashion stencil, circa 1850

Dot-to-Dot Fan

More Dot-to-Dot quilting with echoing

Dot-to-Dot

The Stencil Company (Celtic Flower 7")

The Stencil Company (Continuous Teardrop 6")

The back of one block

What I learned:

You won't get a soft pastel quilt if your fabrics are dark!
Beware of those expectations. Allowing time to pass can help you change your perspective.
I have done some FMQ designs that really don't show well, but it's good practice and they are very lovely from the back (see the picture below).
This is an excellent way of practicing my FMQ. The blocks are not perfect, but the overall effect will be stunning I'm sure.
These blocks are very time consuming. I've put the quilt away for now so that I can work on other projects.
Chevy wants to be included in the pictures - besides, pictures with animals are always popular!

The back of a couple of blocks based on Angela Walter's designs

I will be linking to these Linky Parties. Come see what everyone else is doing! Free Motion Mavericks, Can I get a Whoop Whoop! Off the Wall Friday. I've also linked Chevy's picture to Pets on Quilts 2017. Check out the cute posts 😊

Only 146 blocks left to go!

Tuesday, June 28, 2016

Another Baby Quilt

Fox in a Box by Row House Creations

Last week I made a baby quilt. It was easy since I designed it to include the things I love; some colour, very few blocks made from foundation paper piecing and a lot of FMQ.

However, I have a quilt that I've promised to make for my friend Sonya. Since I made her two other babies a quilt, I had to make one for the third child. I had seen a beautiful quilt at the show-and-tell part of our Guild meeting. I googled for a baby quilt with foxes and sure enough, found the pattern. It's a Row House Creations pattern, called Fox in a Box. Sonya loved it so I ordered it.

All the triangle and background pieces cut out

It took me a few months to find the right fabrics and then a day to cut the fabric. Cutting fabric for the whole project is not something I usually do. I generally cut my pieces as I go along but I knew that everything needed to be cut before I started.

I slowly worked on the piecing, but I didn't get far. It's a good thing that I took it with me at the quilting retreat. I was able to piece most of the various geese blocks there. Unfortunately I didn't work on it when I got back to home and reality.

The last two weeks have been incredibly productive (quilting wise - nothing else!), and after finishing a totally unplanned baby quilt, I started feeling very guilty about not finishing the Fox in the Box quilt. I think William will be one year old soon - it's past due!

The background is almost done - while Chevy supervises!

Here are the boxes, without borders or appliqué. There was no way Chevy was letting me take this picture without her. She wanted attention since I've been quilting too much!

Ready to sew on the appliqué

The next day, the foxes and tree are ready to be appliquéd. Some minor glitches in putting the foxes together, but it all worked out. Last night I finished appliquéing all of the pieces. It just needs to be sandwiched, basted and then FMQ. Should be ready in a week or so!

What I learned:

When picking out a pattern, I need to work more to my strengths - that means less piecing and minimal appliqué. I hope I remember this when I'm caught up in the beauty of the quilt pattern!
It turns out that I didn't place a couple of the large square-triangles in the right spots. My son noticed it right away, but only after it was all sewn together. I could call it creative design or rather a sign of my human imperfection. I can definitely live with that.
I was very careful about cutting the appliqué pieces correctly, although they are on solid fabric, so it wouldn't have made a difference. What I wasn't careful about, however, was placing the fusible webbing on the correct side of the pieces. Oops! The placement of the foxes isn't the same as the pattern, but really, it worked out fine. This one I'll call a creative design :-)