Showing posts with label minis. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 30, 2021

Mallard Duck Mini Finish with Free Motion Mavericks

Even without my favourite sewing machine, I was able to sew and quilt with the walking foot, my son's Mallard Duck mini. When I showed it to him, he said that he would find a spot for this one and the other two that I've made for him.

Finishing the Mallard Duck

As you saw in my Making a Mallard Duck Mini post, the foundation paper piecing went well. I always manage to make at least one piece that doesn't have enough selvage but I'm really good at problem solving 😊 I would have loved to go crazy with the free motion quilting (FMQ) but this little guy got off easy.

Finished Mallard Duck mini

In a previous life I was a planner, but you wouldn't know it based on most of my quilting. I had planned to use my extended-border binding technique where I extend the backing fabric to make the binding, but I wasn't thrilled with the backing fabric as a binding. I ended up trimming the piece but if I had through it through, I would have added at least a half inch to the outside so that my binding would be wide enough to look like a frame.

Carefully measuring the binding for a ½" frame

So, more problem solving to be done. I cut the binding fabric 2" wide but didn't double it. Instead I very carefully measured the front of the binding so that it would be a ½" wide all around the piece. I should be measuring my binding all the time since I tend to have some wider areas. Accuracy and consistency are not my strengths but that doesn't mean that I can't try!😊

Looking for that perfect button

When it came time to choose the perfect button, I went to my giant jar of buttons. I thought that it was a good idea to have all of my buttons in one jar (and it looks good too!) but having to find one tiny button in that jar might not be the most efficient way of storing them...

Writing the label on fabric backed
with freezer paper

The back of the mini

In case you don't know this trick, the next time you need to write up a label, iron a piece of freezer paper to the back of the fabric. It will stabilize the fabric so that it's easy to write on.

What I learned

I'm really happy with my finished Mallard Duck mini. I spent a lot of time getting the binding to be the same width so that it looks like a frame.
Sometimes I make fancy labels but I kept this one simple. Using the freezer paper really helps me write on the fabric.
I'm not sure what I'm going to do with my button jar. It's not like I need buttons very often, so it may not be worth changing it...again!
I would have loved to FMQ this little guy - I even found a great picture to follow to make it realistic. Oh well, maybe the next one.

Related links

Making a Mallard Duck Mini, November 17, 2021
Extended-border binding technique

A loon, a bear and a binding tutorial, November 25, 2018

Made by Marney website and her patterns on Etsy

Linking parties

I'll be linking up to many fun linking parties. Check them out! November's One Monthly Goal (OMG) Finish, Monday Making, Design Wall Monday, Patchwork & Quilts, Oh Scrap!, Put Your Foot Down, Off The Wall Friday, 15 Minutes to Stitch 2021, Needle & Thread Thursday,

Project details

Mallard Duck Mini, pattern by Made By Marney

8¾" X 8¼"

Materials: commercial and batik cotton, button

Techniques: foundation paper piecing and quilting with a walking foot

Free Motion Mavericks

Welcome to week 358 of the Free Motion Mavericks' linking party. Last time, Donnalee linked up her red birds on an improv background. She FMQ her background with a serpentine design. It looks very effective. If you didn't see her post, check it out here. She also discovered that using safety pins is a good way to keep her quilt sandwich together. What do you use to keep things together (if you're not using a long-arm)?

DonnaleeQ: Red Birds Improv

Now it's your turn.

Wednesday, November 17, 2021

Making a Mallard Duck Mini

About a year and a half ago, I promised my son a third mini for his apartment entrance. My timing is off since he’s moving in a few weeks to another apartment. I really hope that he’ll have somewhere to hang up, or even use these as mug rugs.

Foundation Paper Piecing a Mallard Duck

I’ve used a few of "Made by Marney" foundation paper piecing patterns. I particularly like her Woodland Animals series.

Mallard Duck mini - so far

I love this little guy. As you can see, I haven’t cropped it yet.

Since my Jag is still in the shop and will be for another few weeks, I decided to do some basic quilting with my walking foot. It went ok. I had a hard time seeing if the stitching was going in-the-ditch or next to it. It was generally good enough – it’s not my favourite thing to do and frankly I’m only slightly better at it with my Jag 😊

Un-stitching the quilting

I got ambitious late one evening when I should have known better. I decided to use my walking foot to follow the not-so gentle curves of the water. Of course I wanted to get right to it, and didn’t adjust my stitch length, which would have been fine if the stitching had been good, but as it was terrible, I had one heck of a time un-stitching it.

I remembered a tip from Jackie Gering in her Craftsy class, Creative Quilting With Your Walking Foot. If you are very, very careful, you can remove your quilting stitches with your rotary cutter. You just very gently rub the edge of the rotary cutter over the stitches, between the batting and the fabric. I figured that I had nothing to lose, because if I couldn’t un-stitch it, I was going to re-do part of the piece (I’m not sure if that was possible, but I would have started over if that’s what it took!) I’m very happy to report that it worked wonderfully. You can see the results in this image.

Once it’s pressed, I’m sure that it'll be fine. The next step is to practice on a quilt sandwich. I know that I can follow the curve of the fabric if I’m very, very patient. That’s not my forte, so I’ll have to be in a good place 😊

Bear Foundation Paper Pieced,
pattern by Made by Marney

This little piece is my November One Monthly Goal (OMG), so I’ll finish quilting it with my walking foot. I’ll post the results on my next Free Motion Mavericks post (it’ll be a couple of days early, but I’m hoping you won’t mind!)

What I learned

I’m sure that when I started quilting the curves that a voice in my head suggested that I not do it....but it didn’t scream and I wasn’t listening....so now I know that I can use my rotary cutter to un-stitch the quilting.
I hope that my son will put up this third mini along with the others. Now that he won’t be living alone, it will have to be negotiated! I may have to make a couple more for his girlfriend...but I won’t suggest it since that could take me another few years (sigh).
For some eye candy, here are a couple of minis that I've made with patterns by Made by Marney.
I’m using my old sewing machine. It’s a Kenmore from the 1980’s. In theory it can do FMQ. I lowered the feed dogs but it’s very difficult to get the quilt to glide – now I know why they invented products like the Supreme Slidder. I’ve never had an issue with this on my jag, but then, it is a jag!

Moose Foundation Paper Pieced,
pattern by Made by Marney

Related links

Made by Marney and her Etsy shop
Jackie Gering's Craftsy class, Creative Quilting With Your Walking Foot
November's OMG - All for One, November 3, 2021

Linking parties

I'll be linking up to many fun linking parties. Let's see what everyone is up to! Midweek Makers, Patchwork & Quilts, Monday Making, Design Wall Monday, Put your foot down, Off the Wall Friday, Oh Scrap!,

I've linked up this post on DrEAMi. If you want to see the finished project, my latest post ~~will be published Tuesday, November 30 at 8pm~~. is here!

Free Motion Mavericks

Welcome to week 356 of Free Motion Mavericks. It's been a long time since I hosted my last party. It was good to have a rest, thanks to Muv, but now we will be resuming our regular fortnight schedule.

Thanks to all of you who linked up. It's always difficult to choose one quilt to feature and I do try to feature quilts and quilters who are at different levels on their journey to mastering FMQ. However, I had to feature Sandra's Fleurs quilt. What a beauty! She does all of her FMQ on a long arm, but she's the one in charge 😊! You can see the whole quilt in Sandra's post. I really had to show you the details...Wow!

Fleurs by Sandra at mmmquilts

Now it's your turn!

Sunday, January 10, 2021

Project Quilting 2021 - Grey and Yellow

I hope that 2021 has been good to you so far. I've been working away at this year's first challenge of Project Quilting: Illuminating (yellow) + Ultimate Gray. These are the Pantone colours of the year for 2021. I guess just having grey as the colour of the year could have been dull, so these are lovely colours together.

Project Quilting Challenge 12-1

I decided to keep it simple. As you may have read in my last post, my word of the year is calm. I took the opportunity to make myself of reminder of my word and intention.

Keep calm & stitch

It was a very straight forward piece. Find yellow and grey scraps and start sewing pieces together. I just had to go into my stash for a little more grey. I decided to keep it simple and created a log cabin improv block with the grey in the centre and yellow on the outside.

I put the block together in one evening but it took most of my free time this week to stitch it. There is no doubt that slow stitching is just that....slow! It did remind me to stay calm.

Stitching in progress

After stitching most of the inside grey section, it was time to square off the piece. Lesson learned: if I don't do this before the piece is finished, I'm bound to stitch where the binding goes and cut off some of the stitches. At this point I prepared the scrappy binding and attached it. Then I finished stitching, knowing that I would now stay inside the lines!

Adding more stitching once the binding is on

Here are views of some of the details.

The grey was stitched mostly with running stitches

For Christmas, my son got me the paper copy of Sharon Boggon's Creative Stitches for Contemporary Embroidery. I used Sharon's book for inspiration. I didn't want to get too fancy with stitching but I used some of her ideas for the stitching layouts.

Adding beads
and couching

Adding beads and
trying out stitches

What I learned

Yesterday I got a little panicky about finishing the piece on time. So I took a deep breath and decided that it was no big deal if it wasn't finished by the deadline - I could just post it after the party. Problem solved, back to calmness. 😊
I absolutely love Sharon Boggon's new book. Sharon is the lady who hosts TAST or Take a Stitch Tuesday on her blog, Pintangle. If you like embroidery, check her out (see Related links below).
Now that I have this new project out of my system, it's time to work on my son's quilt!

Related links

Linking parties

I will be linking this post to Project Quilting 12.1. Make sure that you check out what wonders others have created!

I'll be linking up to many other fun linking parties. Let's see what's going on in quilting/stitching blog land! Sarah Goer has a new linking party - Show me something that's a challenge, that I've linked up to.

Oh Scrap!, Slow Sunday Stitching, Patchwork & Quilts, Colour & Inspiration Tuesday, Design Wall Monday, Monday Making, To-Do Tuesday, Needle & Thread Thursday,

Project details

Keep calm & stitch

15" x 11"

Materials: grey and yellow scrap quilting cottons, beads, buttons, embroidery floss, perle cotton

Techniques: improv piecing, embroidery stitching, beading

Wednesday, July 01, 2020

July is here!

I can't believe that July is already here. It must be Canada Day because it's really hot and muggy in Ottawa. It may get lively in the burbs today as people who usually head to Parliament Hill stay home and have small parties. I watched a few fireworks from my studio last night - that was a treat.

Happy Canada Day!

Fireworks in July (2015)

I thought that I had only made one other Canada Day quilt, but when I looked at my old posts, it turns out that I made quite a few Canada minis for Canada's 150th in 2017. I must have forgotten them because I gave them all away except for my Canada 150 Art Quilt.

Canada 150 - Beaver block
designed by Sew Fresh Quilts

Canada 150 Logo
Designed by Dana Szucs Hayden of SeaSew

Sergeant Sesquicentennial block
from Quilting Pleasures

Canada 150 Art Quilt

I hadn't planned on doing a Canada Day quilt show but here it is 😊

What's on this week

I'm working on all of my hand stitched projects right now (Meditation blocks, Traveller's Blanket and the Community Stitch Challenge - Week 2 Re-do [I need a better name for this one!]).
This week's Stitch Club 2020 is hosted by Sue Stone. We are making a woven background with stitching. I'm really hoping to get most of it done by Friday. If you're wondering, "ciboulette" is chives - but it sounds so much nicer in French!

Ciboulette Stitches in progress

What I learned

I was pleasantly surprised by my collection of Canada Day minis. In 2017 I hosted several months of linking parties for Celebrate - Fêtons 150! It was great to look at those posts again - I also remember how much work all of this took but I really enjoyed it.
It even had it's own page and button!

Related links

Canada Day

Fireworks for July's Landscape Art Quilt, July 29, 2015
Canada 150 - Beaver block - March Finishes, March 29, 2017
Canada 150 Logo - Celebrate - Fêtons 150 in May, May 01, 2017
Sergeant Sesquicentennial, June 04, 2017
Canada 150 Art Quilt - Today We Celebrate - Fêtons 150, July 1, 2017
Celebrate - Fêtons 150!

Slow Stitching ongoing projects

Meditation blocks and Traveller's Blanket, May 19, 2020
Community Stitch Challenge - Week 2 Re-do, April 16, 2020
Stitch Club 2020 and Sue Stone

Linking parties

I'll be linking up to Free Motion Mavericks since it's Muv's turn to host it this week. Make sure that you link up also - no need to be doing FMQ to link up! Let's see what everyone is up to - check out these fun linky parties. To-Do Tuesday, Colour & Inspiration Tuesday, Monday Making, Midweek Makers, Put Your Foot Down, Needle & Thread Thursday, Off the Wall Friday, Peacock Party, Can I Get A Whoop Whoop?, Finished or Not Finished Friday, Friday Foto Fun, Slow Sunday Stitching, Oh Scrap!, 15 Minutes to Stitch 2020,

For our neighbours to the south, I hope you have a fun and safe Fourth of July!

Sunday, December 29, 2019

Best of 2019

This year has been very productive if not overwhelming at times. I had a great start to 2019 with many art quilts for two Out of the Box (OOTB) textile artists group exhibition. That kept me creatively fulfilled until I over-did it. After that I enjoyed working on more traditional quilts and minis.

Art Quilts

I made 4 mini art quilts and learned a lot since they had to been seen as a particular colour and were mounted on canvas. It was tricky and my first one was very monochromatic, but they got better as I made more.

Peek-a-boo Red

Blooming Yellow

Green Garden Gate

Blue Moon

I also made a an art quilt based on the art piece, Ultramarine Blue by Ron Martin, which is at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. That was a really great learning experience.

My Blue Painting

My final art quilt of 2019 was Gaïa's Garden.

Gaïa's Garden

Blog Hops and events

This year I joined quite a few blog hops and other events. The first one was Dust off a Quilt Book Blog Hop. I made a Mola. It wasn't an impressive finish but I did learn a lot. The second one was All About Strings Blog Hop. I think that it's my favourite finish of the year. It had everything I love about quilting - improv, scrappy colourful piecing, free motion quilting (FMQ) and hexies!

Tries to Play Nice With Others

I also discovered Project Quilting and joined in the last week. That was both challenging and quick. I'm going to be participating for the full project in 2020.

Chocolate Cravings

For the second year, I participated in One Hundred Days of Hexies on Instagram. It's always enjoyable. I love making the hexies and going out on photo shoots. It's so lovely to see everyone else's hexies.

Beautiful hexies

Lovely creatures

Sewing Notions

Another Instragram project was the Summer Book Club Quilt-Along
It was so much fun making these book blocks. I made individual blocks and finished them as minis.

Bambi book block

The Earth is Not Flat book block

I also used the book block pattern to participate in the Nifty Novelties Blog Hop.

Paddington Bear book block mini

I now have two more colourful UFOs from the Summer Book Club event that are almost done.

Free Motion Quilting

Hosting the Free Motion Mavericks linking party with Muv has been a lot of fun and has made me practice my FMQ so that I have something to show on those days that I host.

My favourite FMQ finish is this Garden and Pond mini. There sure is a lot of thread on that baby😊

Free Motion Quilted Garden and Pond Mini

I also made a few FMQ gifts before the holidays. They were very both practical and a great way to practice FMQ.

FMQ Journal cover

FMQ basket

Second FMQ Journal cover

Second FMQ basket

Quilts

I finished one UFO quilt, the Epic Neutral Bow Tie Quilt as well as the quilt top on another UFO, Kingfisher Stitch Along Hexie Quilt.

Epic Neutral Bow Tie Quilt

My Kingfisher Stitch-Along hexie quilt top is finished. I hope that 2020 is the year that I quilt it!

Kingfisher Stitch-Along Quilt Top ready to be FMQ

Linking parties

I am linking this post up to the Best of 2019 Linky Party hosted by Meadow Mist Designs. Thanks so much Cheryl for hosting this great yearly event.
Make sure that you go see what other quilters were up to in 2019! Off the Wall Friday, Friday Foto Fun, Can I Get A Whoop Whoop?, Brag About Your Beauties, Peacock Party, Oh Scrap!, Colour and Inspiration Tuesday, Put your foot down, Finished or Not Finished Friday,

Thursday, October 24, 2019

Nifty Novelties Blog Hop at Free Motion Mavericks

Welcome to week 252 of Free Motion Mavericks and the opening day of Nifty Novelties Blog Hop, hosted by Marian of Seams to be Sewn. Marian has obtained some great giveaways, so please read below.

Paddington Bear visits Nifty Novelties Blog Hop

Last fall on Throwback Thursday for October, my daughter reminded me of my promise to make her a Paddington Bear quilt. I promptly bought the fabrics, and then all kinds of art quilting deadlines happened! I've got a good idea of the quilt's design but I have a couple more quilts to do before I can get to this one. The Nifty Novelties Blog Hop was the perfect excuse to make her a Paddington Bear book mini until I get the real quilt done.

Paddington Bear book block mini

Here is a close-up of the book cover

Paddington came with us to a fancy restaurant tonight and became acquainted with my daughter 😊 I'm happy to report that Paddington Bear was on his best behaviour and my daughter loves her mini!

Paddington Bear among the fresh green sprouts

These are the novelty Paddington Bear fabrics
that I bought last fall. They come from around the world!

I hope that you'll visit the other participants in the Nifty Novelties Blog Hop. The links are at the bottom of this very long post!

Giveaway

Marian of Seams to be Sewn has received a whole bunch of fat quarters for the Nifty Novelties Blog Hop. I'm hoping that Rafflecopter will be easy to use. The giveaway is a Timeless Treasures Fabric Bundle. You can find the raffle details on Marian's post. BTW, I will pay for the shipping of the bundle for the winner of my post 😊.
Update - Dix in Canada is the winner of this Timeless Treasures Fabric Bundle. Thanks to everyone for leaving a message and Marian for organising all of this.

What I learned

I was going to appliqué the Paddington Bear pieces without using anything behind them (my usual way!) but it became obvious that I needed some kind of stabilizer. I decided to use the Crafted Appliqué technique. It was perfect for this project.
I stitched the pieces to the front of the book cover with Kimono silk thread without a problem but then had major tension issues with the FMQ. At least the tension was so bad that I was able to pull most of the thread out without effort. This is the first time that this has happened - I think my Jag is due for a tune up.

Related links

Book block related posts

Fantastical book block on Free Motion Mavericks, October 10, 2019
Book covers with Free Motion Mavericks, September 25, 2019

Summer Book Club QAL on Intragram with Quilt with Kate (quiltwithkate.com)
Tall Tales pattern
Crafted Appliqué technique
October updates, October 22, 2018

Linking parties
I'll be linking this sweetheart at many linky parties. Also, don't be shy. Join us with Free Motion Mavericks this week. Your project doesn't have to be free motion quilted. Colour and Inspiration Tuesday, Midweek Makers, Put your foot down, Needle & Thread Thursday, Off The Wall Friday, Friday Foto Fun, Monday Making, Moving It Forward, Design Wall Monday,

Project details

Paddington Bear book block mini

7½" x 8½"

Techniques: foundation paper pieced, crafted appliqué technique, FMQ
Material: cotton

Free Motion Mavericks
There were some lovely projects linked up last time. Quilting Gail finished a 2008 UFO from a Japanese star stack and whack class that she attended. Here is a close up of the piecing. If you didn't see it last time, take a few minutes to visit.