It's Spring

Life became hectic and now I'm relearning how to use my Handi Quilter.

After avoiding it for ages, with two charity quilts and five of my own, I really had to bite the bullet and get back into the good space that I was in six months ago.

So...

Small Sudoku quilt is loaded and ready to go. Yes I had problems with the tension, the thread, the needle and the frame level, however, all problems seem to have been solved - some hours later.

Now I am selecting a digital design from my growing collection.

Looks sweet. It was made using the leftover bits from my first Sudoku quilt. I note that I have to smooth the side but I haven't tensioned the sides yet.

Back on track

It's March and I've just started quilting again. Don't know what happened in January or February. I did do quite a bit of piecing, binding of quilts, putting on hanging sleeves and a major sort of my ridiculously large stash. It's now organised into colours, projects and solids. This unearthed some UFO's which I have been finishing - you know - adding borders, completing that last row, fixing up the dodgy block that caused me to hide the top in a box.

Projects

Now I have some exciting projects to quilt. Photos later but...

1. "Child's Play" by Zen Chic - definitely a keep.

2. "Lollipop" - finally finished last year and now I have decided how to quilt it. More on that later.

3. "Boy Crazy"  Charity quilt for Anne's group- my first charity quilt.

4. Fig Tree Jelly Roll Race. Made last year and now I know how I will quilt this one. This will go to Zoe and I think she will really love the quilt design.

Digitized designs

This is what happened. For quite a while I have admired many quilts and quilting designs. I've tried free hand and using rulers and templates and I am not very happy with my skill. On the other hand I have found that I can use computerized quilting (QBot) and vary given designs to fit my quilts.

I decided to search for digitized designs and eventually found a few web sites that offered these, so this started the experiment of downloading files - making sure that they were the correct format for my QBot, saving them on computer, transferring to an SD card, testing them on my Handi Quilter.

Yay! Success - after a few minor glitches. Only one web site provided scales and units of measurement so I've had fun quilting practice designs and finding out the dimensions of each design. These designs will allow me some breathing space while I improve my free hand quilting skills.

Design Software

I wondered how people made these digitized designs so yet another search led to a very promising program. It's called Art and Stitch. There are so many things that can be done with this program and of course the last is saving the program in the format for many different longarm quilting machines. Handi Quilter and QBot are included so I could use it.

A trial copy can be downloaded - with minimal save features, however it will enable me to decide if this is the program for me. Yes, it's pricey but this is my life and major hobby.

I've watched a number of tutorials and videos on this software- looks promising. But for now - I'll use the designs that I've downloaded and quilt the above four quilts.

Christmas Stockings

With very little time I made three Christmas stockings for the g-kids. If I get time, I will applique initials on the cuffs but if time runs out, a card will be attached.

 I selected some attractive "organic" cotton. Front and back are different

Stockings are quilted and lined. I used the decorative stitches on my Pfaff sewing machine to quickly quilt the layers. I now have some ideas on future stockings to make and will do a tutorial page when not so time poor.

Aunty Norah's Quilt

Not really a UFO as I only started this quilt a couple of months ago. It was the first major quilt task on the long arm - as it was a quilt requested for another person.  At her 90th birthday party, my aunt saw images of my quilts and liked them. A quilt for mother's day was the request from her daughter to which I happily agreed.  Well it didn't happen then but I kept thinking about a quilt for Nor then I decided that would be a project for the long arm.

I prefer to make modern quilts in bright colours (like Mind the Gap) but I know that she would prefer something feminine.Her favourite colour is pink and I had very little pink in my stash so I had to search for pink that went with my colours.

This is the result

The border of pink roses makes it a very sweet quilt.

The swirling heart pattern is just right for this quilt and the recipient. This is the back - small green dots.

 I thought that the back needed a lift so I inserted various test blocks that I made while I was designing the quilt. I was playing around with equilateral triangles and seeing the designs that they made. At one stage these blocks were going to be the quilt but I chose the simpler geometric shape it is.

The binding took forever. I made silly mistakes as I rushed to finish it as my aunt is very ill. Finally, it is finished and  it has been posted to my aunt. I do hope she gets to see it, hold it and stay with us till next winter so it can keep her warm.

Break from completing UFO's (yes there are still more) and see if I can create Christmas stockings in a few hours.

Puppy Quilt

Completed binding "Puppy Dogs" quilt. I designed and pieced this quilt recently. It was planned as a gift for someone who has a lot of puppy dogs. I started quilting it with my Janome sewing machine. I was reasonably happy with my free motion quilting however it was not an easy task.

I completed quilting it using my long arm and eight different patterns. I'll take photos of the eight patterns before I give this quilt away.

Using coordinating solids and the fabric selected for the border, I made a back of columns. I like this structured pieced back.

The quilting really shows up on the back - even my wobbly free motion.

Now onto sewing the binding for Aunty Norah's quilt. She turned 90 last year and she was impressed by my quilts so she's getting one. Her favourite colour is pink - not my favourite and hence very little in my stash so I had to do a bit of searching to find a pink that would coordinate with fabric in my stash.

I put trial blocks into the backing as I though it was a bit bland and needed a spark.

I'll then make the backing for "Lollipops" and load it onto the long arm.

Coffee break needed.

Lollipop WIP

I wonder when I started this top? The pattern was dated 2008. I could only find one page of the pattern so a little bit of creativity is called for. I recall that when I bought the pattern, the fabric line was no longer available so I chose random bright colours planning to give this quilt to a child however anyone in the family can put their dibs on this. I like it myself.  Great colours and I have some leftovers that will go into a modern quilt - one of the many that are running through my mind as I complete UFO's.

Found the fabric that I had chosen for the borders, binding and backing and I appear to have sufficient fabric. That's a relief. Brown 2.5" first border then four different colours for the 6.5" second border.

Borders completed.

The quilt top measures 67" square so it's a fair size. I suspect that I put it aside when I realised that quilting it on a domestic machine would be a major task. Now I have the pleasure of quilting it on Agatha.

I observed that at that stage in my piecing, I was spinning my intersections and actually have very precise joins. That's a good method and I must remember to use it for simple joins.

Now I must return to binding another UFO before I can quilt Lollipop.

Starry Quilt

This one stays with me. It was pieced from a "jam roll". I think that's the right name - a roll of 1.5" strips. It had been sitting around for ages. I loved the colours so on a whim I joined the strips together and played around with my strip ruler. The stars developed on my design wall. As it was an older fabric line, I had a little bit of searching to do to find a toning fabric for the border and binding but was eventually successful.

I'm pleased with this quilt as it was made with scraps.  Improv piecing of course.

The backing contained test squares and various scraps.

This quilt was my first try at custom quilting where I had to resize and rotate blocks. I also experimented with using my crosshatch ruler. And not to be content with trying those things, I also experimented with using a different colour thread in the bottom. The latter was not as successful as "eye lashes" were slightly visible however it did indicate that my tension needed attention.

My starry quilt makes me happy.