Quilting & Learning - What a Combo!

Thursday, February 06, 2020

Free Motion Mavericks

Hi! Welcome to week 266 of the Free Motion Mavericks linking party!

A production of quilted journal covers

A lovely neutral cover

If birds can have their own special words for groups, then I choose a "production" for a group of quilted journal covers.😊

The very first one!

My own colourful
agenda cover

The newest members of the Production of journal covers

Using dot-to-dot quilting

A friend from the quilt guild gave me several bags of scraps. Some were much more than scraps since she decided to get rid of fabric that she would never use.

Well, I might not use those fabrics either, but for this project, I used the quilt panel fabric on the back and sewed the front of the journal cover using the bobbin thread.

I really like the effect of the dot-to-dot quilting without really having the fabric delineate the blocks. Once again I used variegated thread in the bobbin.

FMQ on this panel to make the
yellow journal cover

The supplies for making the
yellow journal cover

This fun coffee fabric has been FMQ. Now to make the Coffee Lover's journal cover.

Aren't these great? If they look
familiar it's because I've made a
few hexies with similar fabric

The blue-green polka dots will look
great as a background fabric

An update (February 9, 2020): My Coffee Lover's journal cover is finished. I'd rather update this post than write up another one, so here it is!

Coffee Lover's journal cover

The back of the Coffee Lover's journal cover

I just love the inside of this one!

Tall Tales Book block UFO

One Monthly Goal for February

Tall Tales Book block UFO

This month I will finish one of the Tall Tales Book blocks that I started making during my holidays last fall. You can check out the links below.

Oops, it would seem that I forgot to link up to the February OMG goal link up. Oh well, I still want to get these two done!

Related links

Finishing up One Monthly Goal - OMG, January 31, 2020
More quilted gifts, an OMG and a Christmas runner, December 26, 2019
Making a journal cover with practice piece, December 14, 2019
Free Motion Quilted Gifts with Christina Cameli on Bluprint
Tall Tale Book blocks - September 25, 2019 and October 10, 2019

Linking parties
I'll be linking up to many fun linking parties. Let's see what's going on out there! Friday Foto Fun, Beauties Pageant, Off the Wall Friday, Put Your Foot Down, Can I Get A Whoop Whoop?, Colour and Inspiration Tuesday, Monday Making, What I Made Monday, and DrEAMi with Sandra at mmm quilts!

Free Motion Mavericks

We've had some great projects linked up last time - thanks so much for joining us. I'd like to give a special mention to Muv of Lizzie Lenard Vintage Sewing, my Free Motion Mavericks partner. Her free motion quilted piece, A Lane in May was undeniably frustrating to make, but I believe that it was ultimately a wonderful project. 😊 If you haven't seen it yet, go check it out.

Friday, January 31, 2020

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.

Sunday, January 26, 2020

The colours of books

To an avid reader, there is nothing more lovely and colourful that a library full of books.

Colours of books

I'm not a team kind of person, so when Challenge 11.2 of Team Colours came out for the Quilting Project on Sunday, I was stumped. My two favourite things, other than my family, are quilting and reading. These are things that I usually do by myself, but they are my teams - I love being in a library or a book store and talking about books. I feel the same way about quilts - which I share with my team of virtual and real friends. It's a lot like going to a sporting event to cheer for your team, but much quieter. 😍

My Team Colours - books of all colours 😊

I have to admit that I've been looking at making a bookcase quilt for a while. I've made mini book quilts, but never a full library of books - how exciting, and scary to do this in a week! For anyone who is interested, I've included a link to my favourite site in the Related links below.

I started by making a quick sketch of what I might make. I needed to figure out if this thing would be a mini or a medium sized wall quilt. Since I wanted to play with my free motion quilting (FMQ) I opted for medium size.

One of the many bookcases in the house

Then I went around the house taking pictures of the many bookcases that we have. I didn't even bother going into the basement and at the bottom of my closet, where most of the books I own are!
This gave me some ideas for the bookcase itself, the books in it as well as the objects that I could include in the bookcase.

Stitching books together

By Tuesday evening, I was starting to cut and stitch books on shelves.

I kept at it for two evenings and most of Saturday. It was officially finished last night! 😊 Of course, there were pictures to take and a post to write...but I'm almost ready to publish and link up....can you feel the excitement!

So without further ado, here are the finished pictures of My Team Colours Challenge: The colours of a library.

My team colours: The colours of a library

Here are some details.

Plants go so well with books, when there's enough light!

The middle shelf has my favourite bookend.

The real bookend

There's always a travel memento somewhere on a bookshelf!

What I learned

Although it was a large project to make in one week, it was very straight forward with little un-stitching to do!
I was very careful in my measurements for the bookcase, so even that went well. 😊
The best part was, of course, the FMQ. That was a real treat to decide on the thread colours, the designs and then doing it!
I put on the binding with the walking foot again...it's now ingrained in my quilting brain. I love it!
I am really happy with this quilt. My only indecision was to FMQ the wood grain onto the bookshelf. The only reason that I didn't is because this would have to be done all over the bookshelf and I like the way that the bookcase lets the eyes rest. What do you think? I would really value your opinion.

Great News! I won prize #13 for Challenge 11-2. It's a Harper’s Garden Charms by Sherri & Chelsi and the Cupcake Mix Recipe 3 from Moda Fabrics! Thanks Kim and Moda!

Thursday, January 23, 2020

Welcome to Free Motion Mavericks

Hi! I'm glad that you dropped by for week 264 of Free Motion Mavericks.

It's been an incredibly busy week with my post for The Winter Blues Blog Hop on Tuesday and a finish required by Sunday morning with Project Quilting. I would love to say that I FMQ something just for today....but that didn't happen. Instead, I'm just going to show you my Cold and Sunny quilt and get on with the link up for the Free Motion Mavericks.

Cold and Sunny

Free Motion Quilted using Leah Day's designs

Cold and Sunny

Here is the schedule - see what's
keeping quilters from getting the Blues!

If you want to read more about how I did it and what I learned (it was a doosey!), then check out the post - but don't forget to come back to link up to Free Motion Mavericks and check out the entries! 😊

Linking parties I'm linking up to some fun linking parties. Come see what's happening! TGIFF, Off The Wall Friday, Friday Foto Fun, Can I Get A Whoop Whoop?, Monday Making, Design Wall Monday,

August 20, 2020: Show me Something Free Motion Link-up,

Free Motion Mavericks

We had some really lovely posts linked up last time.
Caryl is learning more FMQ designs and Karin was trying out the Half Carat Diamond Ruler. I want to share both of these with you this week, in case you haven't seen their post last time!

Half Carat Diamond Ruler work by Karin

Caryl is practicing some FMQ designs

Now it's your turn!

Tuesday, January 21, 2020

Cold and Sunny at The Winter Blues Blog Hop

Welcome to my post in The Winter Blues Blog Hop. A big thank you to Carla for hosting this great event!

Cold and Sunny

For years I've been wanting to make a quilt block that looks like the sun. I found the pattern, Sunnyside, in Spotlight on Neutrals, Quilts and More for Any Decor by Pat Wys. Since I only make one large quilt every two years, making a full quilt for this blog hop wasn't an option, but I still wanted to try out the block.

Cold and Sunny

Challenges

I realise that I haven't pieced a new quilt block in months. I'm going to use that as my excuse for all of the effort this lovely took!

It's always tricky to pull apart the instructions for a large quilt and break it down to a single block. I managed to inverse the colours for one of the section, in the instructions that I wrote for myself. Then, as you can see, I sewed some of the pieces not in the right place. Oops!!!

Oops!

Block is properly pieced with
a velvet border

The pieces weren't the only challenges. For this project, I used some hand-dyed fabrics by Elaine Quehl, a renown fibre artist. The yellow is simply stunning. For the blues, I had bought a Textile Temptation Pack that included dupioni silk and silk-rayon velvet, again all hand-dyed by Elaine. Making this blocks was difficult enough but adding these fabrics to the mix did not make it easier. However, I believe that the pain was worth it. I have the bluest blue that I could find with a bright happy yellow. What more can an art quilter ask for?

Ready to FMQ

Free Motion Quilting (FMQ)

The good news is that FMQ on these fabrics was lovely.

I did a lot of research and finally used two of Leah Day's quilting designs for the sun - Gentle flame (#3) and Sun Medallion (#254) from her Free Motion Quilting Project.

I was considering putting flames in the blue dupioni silk fabric but thought that it might be too much. I'm glad that I decided to use wavy lines, like the heat shimmering from the sun.

Details of the Free Motion Quilting

Cold and Sunny

What I learned

I wish that I was the kind of person who could make a practice piece before tackling the final one. I have no doubt that it would result in a much better final product. Unfortunately, no matter how useful it would be, it's not likely to happen. The best that could happen is that I'll use this pattern for another, different project. Then, at least, I might apply the lessons I learned.
Using different fabric would have made my life much easier, but these were perfect for this project...so I adapted!
Until yesterday afternoon, I had no idea how I was going to finish this block. Finally I added two inch strips to the borders and just turned it under. The back is very messy and uneven, but the front is fine.
I drew the FMQ pattern for the Sun Medallion several times, but I should have practiced quilting it. I just noticed that it's in Leah Day's advanced designs, so a little more practice would have been good.