Quilting & Learning - What a Combo!: feather meander

Showing posts with label feather meander. Show all posts

Monday, October 22, 2018

October updates

October is almost finished and so far I've written very few posts. I did some quilting, lots of planning and listened to many audio books. I'm also totally overwhelmed by the number of comments on my September posts and I hope to answer them....one day, or not. So please know that I really appreciate getting comments, but at one point, I may give up on answering the older ones. Sorry 😔

One Monthly Goal (OMG) accomplished!

My October OMG was to finish a quilt top for a t-shirt and dress quilt for Sonya's daughter. I had very little hope that it would get done, so I am very, very pleased to say that the quilt top is finished and the quilt is about half quilted.

Here are a few of the quilted blocks so far. I'm not sharing the rest of the quilt top yet since I'd like to keep it a surprise 😊 Since I'm planning to make this quilt my November OMG, you'll be able to see it at the end of November, if not earlier.

This first block is a variation of Peas in a pod, designed by Maddie Kertay. You can see my own doodling of it in my FMQ journal. The design is found in 180 Doodle Quilting Designs, page 99. The book is compiled by Karen M. Burns.

Peas in a pod

Variation of Peas in a pod
FMQ design

You may recognize this next FMQ design from Angela Walter's Free Motion Challenge Quilt Along that I did last spring. This is the Feather Meander and a lot of swirly variations.

Feather Meander and swirly variations

Finally, I quilted around the dolphins and then FMQ a whole bunch of bubbles.

Bubbles around the dolphins

There is a lot more to quilt, especially since I also want to FMQ inside the sashing, which I will keep simple.

Fabric acquisition for a future project

For the October's Throwback Thursday, I posted a Beatles quilt that I made using a walking foot. In the post, I said that although made for my daughter's room that the quilt had never hung there since I had taken too long to finish it and her room decor had moved on.

Well my daughter, who is now studying art history for a semester in Venice (doesn't that sound absolutely amazing?!) commented that she still wanted a Paddington Bear quilt and would love it even if her room changed. (The link to that post is in Related links below.)

Since I know that she loves Paddington Bear and that she's my number one fan, the day after she posted her comment, I went on the internet in search of fabric. I found these on Etsy and I'm sharing the links below since I had excellent service from both shops.

Lovely Paddington Bear fabric

At this time, I'm thinking of making a large Paddington Bear applique in the quilt centre and then using this and other fabric blocks around it for a scrappy look. This will probably be a winter 2019 project.

More hexies

The 100 hexies in 100 days event on Instagram is now in its eleventh week. Here are the hexies and the pictures for weeks 9 to 11. Since I haven't done as much quilting as I would like, I thought that I would try to put a little more effort in my pictures of these hexies.

Week 9 - Floral

Since the floral theme was all about colour (for me), I thought that I would use the Our House quilt to showcase the hexies I made. Here they are!

Floral hexies at Our House

A close-up of the floral hexies with "the two cats in the yard".

More floral hexies in the yard

Week 10 - Favourite Colours

It's pretty difficult to make me choose ONE favourite colour. Instead, I gathered up some of my favourite colours and made a display with my muse and my Kimono silk thread collection.

What a lot of colours - how can I choose just one?

The quilt under the hexies is a wheel chair quilt that I made for my grandmother. It's the perfect backdrop for wonderful colours.

More lovely colours and incredible silk thread!!!

Week 11 - I Spy

This week's selection is objects that are used in an I Spy quilt. It took me a while to find fabric that I mostly hadn't use on previous hexies. Thank goodness I've purchased a few fabrics recently :-)

I Spy hexies on fireman fabric

My absolute favourite is that priceless pink squirrel!

Paddington Bear makes his first appearance.

Art with Fabric, Fall 2018 Coming Soon!

The Art with Fabric blog hop, hosted by Alida, will be held between Monday, November 5 to Friday, November 9, 2018. My post will be featured on Wednesday, November 7th.

The theme of the blog hop is our favourite colour. I am doing my art piece on the colour white - which is not my favourite, although technically white includes all colours, so technically it could be my favourite :-)

My piece is based on a BBC documentary series called A History of Art in Three Colours. While the first two films were interesting, it's the third one that caught my attention. My piece will feature white and its role in the evolution of art history, particularly in contemporary art.

What I learned

I tend to practice a lot of FMQ designs on scrap pieces of paper or photocopy paper. When I get one that works well on paper and ink, I'll usually try it on the sewing machine. Generally I know that if I can draw it, then I can quilt it. I then either re-copy these in my FMQ journal or just cut and paste them in the journal. If I didn't keep track of the designs I use or can do, I would never remember what FMQ designs to us!
The 100 hexies in 100 days event on Instagram has influenced my fabric purchases! I now look for some fabrics that have interesting characters. This is not normally the type of fabric I buy, but they can be very handy to have when making art quilts.
I've been working very hard on my Art with Fabric Blog Hop piece. It's a fairly complex piece that has been both fun and challenging to make. I'll have a lot more to say on November 7th, so I hope you'll join me.

Thursday, July 19, 2018

TGIFF and Batik Lap Quilt Finish

Welcome to this week's TGIFF - Thank Goodness it's Finished Friday! It's the place to share our great finishes 😊

My finish this week is a Batik Lap Quilt for a friend. This lap quilt is made of two Los Cobos Batiks charm packs (5 inch squares) by Moda and some squares from my stash. I also quilted it using Kimono Silk Thread, which I ran out of half way through!

This was the first time that I free motion quilted (FMQ) the same design all over the quilt. It was the feather meander design that I learned from Angela Walter's FMQ Challenge earlier this year.

Finished Batik Lap Quilt

Picnic shot of the Batik Lap Quilt

I finished quilting it on Tuesday evening and bound the quilt last night. I'm pretty sleep deprived today and I promise that I won't handle heavy machinery today :-)

This morning's photo session was a real treat - sunny but not too hot. I went to one of my favourite places to photograph my work, just outside of the building I work in. Even if the grass is yellow everywhere, the brick and grasses are always great for photographing quilts.

A peak at the back

Here's a close-up shot of the quilting. The FMQ went really well except when I was quilting on the lighter blue fabric - it was almost invisible and I had a lot of trouble seeing my feathers!

Close-up of the FMQ feather meander design

What I learned

This was a really great project to practice my FMQ. The feather meander design is really great.
By the end of the quilting though, I was getting a little bored and my feathers were getting pretty creative. I just may have to play with this a little more - who knows, I could come up with a variation of my own!
I've learned my lesson - this is the last time that I will buy only 2 charm packs for this kind of quilt. It sort of defeats the purpose when you still have to cut more squares.
I was able to put this lesson to practice because I was the June OMG link-up's lucky winner a a $25 gift certificate from the Fat Quarter Shop. I bought 3 beautiful batik charm packs to make my next lap quilt. You see? Eventually lessons learned do stick (at least for a while). Thank you so much Patty of Elm Street Quilts and the Fat Quarter Shop for a great gift.

Monday, April 16, 2018

FMQ, design wall and a quilt-along

Batik Quilt

As I mentioned in my last post, I liked the Feather Meander pattern so much that I used it in my third batik quilt. I've really had a blast quilting it, until I ran out of thread :-(

Here it is, about half quilted.

The quilted half of my batik quilt 3

I used the Feather Meander that I learned from Angela Walter's FMQ Challenge Quilt Along. I wanted to use an all-over quilt design on this quilt, since I had never done this before. This is a perfect FMQ design that you can make as large or as small as you need it to be.

FMQ Feather Meander

At the top left of this picture, you can see two blocks that haven't been quilted yet. The quilting does tone down the colours but they are still vibrant. I used Kimono silk thread from Superior Threads - a mid blue for the top, and an orange for the back.

Making a design wall

I've always wanted a design wall. I bought a little one years ago but it's too small to be useful.

Last year, I read something on the web about using Craft Board to make a design wall. I had heard of using other material, but craft board from the dollar store was right up my alley.

It took me a few months, but I finally went to my favourite discount fabric store in Cornwall - Ron's Fabric. It's only about an hour away but I don't even cross town to shop, so going to another town doesn't happen often.

He has some great fabric and also great prices on flannel - which I've used before. So I finally bought a couple of yards of white flannel to make two design boards.

Front of my new design board made of
craft board and flannel

I heard that you're supposed to put a layer of batting under the flannel, but I'm not convinced. I don't need to pin anything down. Hopefully it'll work for what I need it for, otherwise, it's very easy to pull apart and fix. I just ironed the flannel and then taped it tightly to the back side of the craft board.

The back of the design wall -
another use for duck tape!

To make sure that it worked, I placed the 5 panels that I've quilted in Angela Walter's FMQ Challenge Quilt Along on the design wall. They have been there for about 24 hours and don't seem to want to fall!

FMQ panels on the design wall.

Comfort Quilt Quilt-Along

Amy Ellis of Amy's Creative Side is hosting a quilt-along to celebrate her new book, Modern Heritage Quilts: New Classics for Every Generation. We are making her Comfort Quilt and Amy has provided the calculations for making this quilt in 6 different sizes.

I bought all of that flannel at Ron's to make this quilt. I'm hoping to make at least 4 cuddle quilts to donate to the neonatal unit through the Common Thread Quilt Guild. I made a couple a few years ago, but am way behind since I've been wanting to make at least one per year.

If I get bored of making the same quilt, I can always make a couple of quilts from the other patterns in her book. I've drafted 6 patterns for 20" x 20" quilts based on Amy's book. We'll see how far I get😊

If you get a chance, sign up to join the Quilt-Along. It starts next week.