Quilting & Learning - What a Combo!: wholecloth quilts

Showing posts with label wholecloth quilts. Show all posts

Thursday, December 05, 2019

More practice at Free Motion Mavericks

Welcome to Free Motion Mavericks (week 258). I'm doing double duty today, so here's the link to December's Throwback Thursday.

Practicing my free motion quilting (FMQ)

Free Motion Framework
by Jen Eskridge

After finishing up a big project (the Epic Neutral Bow Tie Quilt) and a DrEAMi! (the fabric basket) last week, it's now time to play. Of course, I couldn't resist the Black Friday sale at C&T Publishing last week and bought myself the digital copy of Free Motion Framework by Jen Eskridge.

This book is essentially about making whole cloth quilts to learn or advance your FMQ skills. I actually love making whole cloth quilts, but there is so much more potential to the book.

Since I'm not in the mood to embark on a project right now, I was going through the book and was intrigued to find on page 21, five ways of quilting feathers within a cat's eye shape.

Practicing feather shapes in a cat's eye shape

I just happened to have some fabric that sort of had this shape on it. I used a technique that I learned from Cindy Needham in her Craftsy course, Machine Quilting Wholecloth Quilts. It's called Large Print Wholecloth Quilt. Essentially it involves FMQ using the backing fabric as a template to create a wholecloth quilt in the front, on a solid fabric.

Here's what I mean.
This is the fabric that I quilted on, but the result is on the solid fabric.

This is the side that I quilted on,
but is the back of the piece

Practicing FMQ on the
patterned fabric

This is the back while quilting, but
the front of the piece when done.

In the two flowers above, I practiced the techniques that the author suggested for the feathers within the shape. Each shape has a different technique.

After that, I used the same technique on all of the shapes in the flower to see how it would look.

This is the shape with the feathers on the outside

The feathers are now on the inside of the shape.

These are feathers without a border around the shape.

What I learned

By the end of this practice, my feathers were actually getting worse - it was past the time to stop.
The point of the quilting was to see how the different feathers within the same shape would look. It was an interesting exercise.
I want to learn more feather techniques - and since I have a couple of books and classes on Bluprint (Craftsy), I will see what I can do. The fun part about learning new designs is that it's mostly a matter of doodling them, a lot!
I'm very impressed with Jen Eskridge's book, Free Motion Framework. I really hope to use it more like she suggests. Having a framework for FMQ on a solid fabric would certainly be easier than trying to piece a quilt. 😊 If you're interested, I highly recommend that you watch her video about her book.

Sunday, June 24, 2018

Lots of progress

It's amazing how portable hexies are! I've been making hexie flowers everywhere, mostly so that I can have the opportunity to take pictures of them. These are both very addictive activities. 😊

Kingfisher Stitch-Along

If you follow me on Instagram, you will see how addicted I am to taking photos of my hexie flowers among real flowers. What I like about Instagram is that you can "Like" as many posts as you want without driving your non-quilting friends crazy! I've also been saving the posts that I like so that I can go back to them on my computer and read the corresponding blog posts. Well, in theory I can, and will eventually when I find the time.

On my way to work, it made my day to stop in a little park to take pictures of my latest hexie flowers.

I love the photo below of the dappling sun on the flower and making the fabric even more interesting.

That day, I experimented with posting images on Instagram using my computer. I was able to do it, thanks to some helpful googling, but I was only able to post one picture at a time. It's good to know that it can be done.

The sun playing on one of my favourite batik fabric

The last bleeding heart flower of the season

Later I took these pictures in my back yard.

This photo is of the last flower of the season on my bleeding heart. It's gotten too hot for these lovelies.

I took a photo with a daisy, the only one growing in the garden. Technically it's probably a weed, but a flower is a flower and I have very few of them left right now.

As you can see from some of the pictures, I like to hand-baste my hexies. Actually it's my favourite part, so there's no way I'm going to glue them. That's also the part that's the most portable since you don't have to be as careful about your stitches.

I was also able to capture this bee doing its business. Isn't digital photography amazing? You don't have to process all of the images to get that one good shot. You just keep clicking and then delete all the others!

A bee doing what a bee does...

This week at the Kingfisher Stitch-Along it's time to cut out the background diamonds. I'm glad that Stitched in Colour created a good tutorial because I could see myself cutting out one diamond at a time. I'm not very good at thinking in 3D. Turns out you can just cut strips and then cut off triangles at both ends. Don't take my word for it, check out the tutorial in the Related Links section.

Hexies with background

Here is my background fabric. I haven't started cutting it yet. That's a project for this week. Also, I never cut all of my fabric at one time if I can help it, so there may be time to purchase one or two more light batiks. They aren't easy to find.

Hexies with background

The background colour isn't that obvious in this picture but it's an off-white with some pink and grey. I also have a couple of fat quarters that are off-white with some brown and yellow.

Finally here is my stack of hexie flowers to date. There are thirteen in the stack and I am basting 3 more. That's the magic number for my June OMG! I'll be posting in a few days.

Thirteen hexie flowers completed :-)

Free Motion Quilting

Outlining the pattern which is now the back of the wholecloth quilt

I've really enjoyed all of this slow stitching, but I do miss doing FMQ. Since I don't want to start a big project, I remembered that I have some thread sketching to do on my second wholecloth quilt from last year's Learning Quilt-A-Long.

Thread sketching is just FMQ in a very small area and it is good to be doing it again.

Below you can see what it looked like before I started to add colour. I just FMQ around the outline of the fabric's pattern

The front of the wholecloth quilt, before adding colour

I love doing the thread painting but it is a very slow process. I am now working on some of the leaves and the strawberries.

Slowly adding colour to this piece

For this project, I am using my collection of Kimono silk thread from Superior Threads. They are truly amazing and such beautiful colours.

Details of the wholecloth quilt. It's a very slow process.

What I learned

You can probably tell that I'm having fun with my batik hexie flowers. I love batiks, hexies and real flowers, so it's a great combination.
It's easier to do the thread painting in daylight. I've found that it's harder on my eyes to be working in the evening, even with the light on. I do want to invest in a second smaller light for this kind of work.

Sunday, April 01, 2018

March finishes and April beginnings

I've had a great time with a friend. A weekend full of playing, gabbing and eating. Of course the playing involved textile - and even paint!

Colour Vie Pigment System

In the fall, Gunnel Hag was a guest speaker at the September Out of the Box meeting. She is a textile artist who became allergic to commercial dies. She worked with a company to develop the Colour Vie Pigment System which is water-based and eco-friendly. I bought a starter set at the meeting and was hoping to visit my girlfriend, the artist, to try these out. Well my girlfriend is visiting this weekend and we've been playing with Colour Vie.

We did some experimenting with the colours and this is my practice fabric. I think I'm really going to like making marks with Colour Vie.

Trying out and making marks with Colour Vie

Do you remember the FMQ project below from my Learning Quilt-Along ? Lyne and I have started painting little bits of it. It's pretty slow going.

The back of the wholecloth quilt

The blank canvas that we are painting :-)

The painting is coming along. I'll share this with you in a future post.

Starry Bright Sky - Block 3, Origami

For our third month, Alida had us create a star with fabric doing origami.

Origami star

Free-Motion Challenge Quilting Along

I've joined Angela Walter's Free-Motion Challenge Quilting Along. I've missed a few weeks but hope to catch up, or just to do them when I can. I was hoping to make a quick Quilt-as-you-go quilt based on Angela's suggested quilt top, but that's not going to happen. I am doing a Quilt-as-you-go technique but only with solid blocks.

Every week Angela presents two FMQ techniques. Week 6, when I started, was Machine Quilting Wavy Lines & Serpentines.

Wavy lines block

Back of the wavy line block

I've been drawing the serpentine block for a couple of days. This one is very difficult for me.

One Monthly Goal

I'm hoping to finish my Postcard from Sweden quilt top by the end of the month. Technically it needs to be ready for April 3rd and then quilted by April 11th, but that's only 10 days away....so who knows.

I do have a more recent picture of what is done so far.

April OMG -

Postcard from Sweden quilt top

Great news! Susan of Midweek Makers featured my quilt top on her colourful quilts to herald spring! Thanks Susan 😊

Fibre Fling 7

Fibre Fling 7

To-Do Tuesday: This week I have to finish getting ready for Fibre Fling 7.

I have two quilt labels to sew on the back of my quilts and I have to prepare the bags to delivery the quilts in.

What I learned

I really enjoyed making different marks on the practice fabric with Colour Vie. The medium is really great to work with.
However, painting all of those really small sections of my wholecloth quilt reminds me too much of the paint-by-number that I ruined when I was a kid. There was no way that I was using more than one brown to paint the ceiling of the Last Supper!
There are a lot of very fiddly little areas to paint (like the paint-by-number), although I least I get to choose my own colours.
The Starry Bright Ski Origami block was very difficult to make. I learned years ago that I don't do origami! That's my son's strength, so I did the first part of the folding and he completed it.
I am looking forward to doing some of Alida's extra textured 3-D blocks.
I'm really enjoying Angela Walter's videos of FMQ designs. I've always had problems with "S" curves, which she calls serpentines. I'm sure that if I practice them enough that I'll get them. I start off well but eventually the echoing either starts getting flat or too curly 😊
I decided that since I'm starting the FMQ challenge late, that I would do a quilt-as-you-go quilt. It's going to be fairly simple, and I can join each quilted block (of different pinks and purples) once I'm done.
I'm following Jera Brandvig's instructions in Quilt As-You-Go Made Modern, for joining the blocks.

Wednesday, December 27, 2017

Final Learning QAL Sum Up

I haven't had a very productive month as far as quilting goes. December started out well, quilting wise, but I didn't end up making much progress. On the other hand, I've had a great Christmas and started getting used to relaxing and minimizing my obligations. All is well 😊

I've enjoyed putting on the Learning Quilt-A-Long but as I mentioned, there were very few link-ups so it's not really worth continuing. This is, therefore, my last Learning QAL Sum Up. I will, however, continue my learning journey but with less pressure!

For my December learning goal, I wanted to continue adding colour to my wholecloth quilt.

December Learning Sum Up

I only spent a few hours working on it, but it is slowly coming along. It's taking longer than I thought, mostly because I'm trying to think of different things to do within the pattern. Below you will see what I mean. I've done some lines within the flower in the middle (sort of a cross hatching) and I've done some echoing within the leaf, in two different colours.

Trying new FMQ techniques within the pattern

Here is the overall piece. It doesn't look like much progress but it was a few hours of FMQ.

FMQ Progress on the wholecloth quilt

A few more leaves now have colour

December One Monthly Goal (OMG) Finish

For my One Monthly Goal for December (OMG), I was hoping to start playing and creating an art quilt based on Jacobean embroidery of gardens. Instead of working on a garden, I found myself using some of the same techniques using Christmas fabrics from the bag of scraps that I brought up for the Christmas EPP.

I just built a background with strips and then started adding appliqué. I used the Crafty Appliqué technique for most of the appliqué. These worked out better than the large cardinal appliqué that was done without using that technique!

The beginning of a fun Christmas art quilt

I will be adding the embroidery and embellishment, once I've done the free motion quilting (FMQ). It is a great trial piece for my future art quilt based on Jacobean embroidery of gardens...that will come eventually.

Getting ready to travel

I'm going away for almost three weeks. I really, really dislike packing, especially when it comes to packing my hand-work. What to bring, how much, etc. It's always a pain because I want to get it right! I have to bring something with me other than books!

This embroidery is definitely coming with me. I've got another one started and will probably bring at least one solid fat quarter in case I decide to start others. I have visions of sketching what I see and embroidering it. Who knows, it could happen!

Packing a few embroidery pieces

For my last big trip, which was to China, I had packed some orange peels and appliquéd them onto blocks.

Orange peels project for my China trip

Appliquéd orange peel blocks

Appliquéing on the Yangtze River

This time, the trip is mostly to Spain. We start off in Barcelona.

I'm thrilled that I'll get to see the Sagrada Familia Cathedral again. It's an amazing building and its stained glass windows were the inspiration for my Art with Fabric in the fall of 2016.

Sagrada Familia stained-glass windows

Sagrada Familia Cathedral

Art with Fabric - stained-glass windows

What I learned

I'm happy that I put on the Learning QAL. It was a good idea and pushed me to learn so much more that I would have without it.
I also learned that it's a lot of work - not just writing the posts, but actually doing something!
I'm very grateful for those who put on QAL, Blog Hops and Linking Parties. I know how much work it is, but it's also rewarding and a great way to meet other quilters.

Related Links

Playing with colour and Learning QAL Goal, December 1, 2017
Christmas EPP block, December 7, 2017
Christmas scraps, December 3, 2017
Orange peels appliqué, October 23, 2014
Art with Fabric, Stained glass window, October 13, 2016

Linking Parties: I will be linking up to the December One Monthly Goal Finish Link-up. I will also link up to as many linking parties as I can before I leave :-) Check out what everyone else has done! Linky Tuesday, Let's Bee Social, Oh Scrap!, Midweek Makers, Finished or Not Friday, Can I Get a Whoop Whoop?

An InLinkz Link-up

Friday, December 01, 2017

Playing with colour and Learning QAL Goal

Welcome to the December Learning QAL Goal Setting Link-Up

I'm trying to learn from experience, therefore my goal for December is less ambitious - besides, with Christmas in a few weeks, who knows how things will go :-)

December's Goal

In November, I was able to work on two wholecloth quilts using different batting. In December, I want to keep FMQ (free motion quilting) Wholecloth 2, the one that was made with the cotton-wool batting. I'm going to experiment with colour and texture to put some pizzazz into that piece.

Here's what I've done so far:

Adding colour to the wholecloth quilt

I couldn't wait to start playing with the butterfly. I accentuated the yellow and then added some purple.

Colouring the butterfly

This little fellow came out well.

FMQ bird with Kimono silk thread

Progress to date

I've coloured some of the leaves. It's going to be a challenge figure out how to quilt them differently.

I got sucked into the vortex of Black Friday week sales. Resistance was futile - till I ran out of money :-) However, I did get a great little video to help me along with the FMQ of this project.

In the Quilting Arts 1709 episode on Free-Motion Stitching, Susan Brubaker Knapp interviews Nancy McNally who is doing FMQ on a longarm. The equipment may be bigger, but the principles are the same. Nancy McNally's quilting is really incredible and I did learn a couple of things that should help me figure out how to quilt this piece.

One Monthly Goal (OMG)

I haven't been participating in the OMG lately because I had too many things on the go. I do want to add something since I've been playing around with a fun art quilt based on Elizabethan and Jacobean gardens and embroidery. I found a fantastic book and of course just had to make something!

It will mostly be appliqué with embellishment. I just fell in love with the style of their work and can't wait to get started. So far, I've found most of my fabric for the appliqué. This project will probably take a few months to complete, but I really want some incentive to start it. I'll let you know more about the project and its progress in the next few weeks.

What I learned

I've been FMQ with # 100 Kimono silk thread. I didn't know if I would have to switch to something thicker, but so far the silk thread is doing great. It's such a pleasure to work with :-)
The hardest thing about going back to add colour is trying to keep the lines from getting too thick. Just quilting over the line makes it darker, but often I also want to make it slightly thicker. Sometimes they get pretty thick and lopsided because I've wondered too far off the original line. I'm hoping that practice will help.
The most important thing, as far as I'm concerned, is knowing when to stop. Today, I FMQ for two hours, and it was probably 15 minutes too much. It's hard to stop because I just want to finish what I'm doing, but being tired ~~can~~ will lead to trouble!
I've watched the Quilting Arts video a few times. I tend to pause it and write notes or take pictures with the Snipping Tool for reference. It was well worth purchasing, especially on sale.
I'm predicting that I'm going to like working on this project a lot!!!

Related Links

Wholecloth Quilt 2 and Goal Sum Up, November 26, 2017
Quilting Arts video 1709 - Free-Motion Stitching purchased from the Quilting Company

Linking Parties: I will be participating in many link-ups. Join in the fun and see what the fuss is about! OMG - December Link-up, Free Motion Mavericks, Off the Wall Friday, Finished or Not Friday, Can I Get a Whoop Whoop?, Midweek Makers # 100, Let's Bee Social, MOP Monday, Design Wall Monday, Main Crush Monday, Monday Making, Linky Tuesday,

I hope that you'll be able to join us on our learning journey. It would be great if you can link up. It doesn't have to be anything complicated. Probably anything that you're working on right now has a few lessons to teach you, so why not share it with us?

An InLinkz Link-up