Houses are HOT!

With all the talk of "safer at home", "staying at home", "quarantined at home", etc., quilters are making house blocks and house quilts in record numbers.

I wanted to make one too BUT:

1. I have a great house quilt I made a couple years ago, called The Village

2. I am too busy with deadline projects--like usual

SO, when I saw a great house quilt top made by a friend who recently passed away, I snapped that up in a hurry!

It is an unusual size and as I look at it I think I will remove some of the lower rows to make it smaller and have more houses/trees for another small quilt. It also needs another border or two. My husband saw it on the design wall and said "That's nice--when did you make that?"  Thanks to my friend for making it--little did she know, I would buy it and it would be mine.

My quilt, The Village--a great workshop quilt I have taught several times. The next time I teach it, we will do freezer paper piecing--teaching a new skill for most quilters:

I finished Foothills, washed and dried it, and we have been sleeping under it--a great topper for our king-size bed. My husband likes the AC at brrrrr level so we need extra cover at night. This is one of my most favorite quilts I've made, so glad it is done:

 The pattern is available Here.

This week I am quilting the "secret sewing" quilt and loving how it is coming along:

Using Superior's Microquilter 100 wt thread for all the ditch work, it can hardly be seen. The thread color on the back matches so perfectly that when I do need to take a bit of it out because OOPS happen, it is very hard to see the stitches. When all the "bones" are added, the stitch in the ditch lines, I will use a larger thread, probably King Tut or So Fine 50 wt, to create more texture and designs on the quilt. It is SO hard not to show it to you, but eventually...

This is blackberry season in my yard, which lasts about two weeks. Where I turn this:

 into this:

Never forget to put a cookie tray under a fruit pie before it bakes. SO glad I didn't have to clean the oven after this was done. And it was as yummy as it looks. The rest of the berries will go in the freezer to become Blackberry Cobbler for Christmas dessert.

Are YOU making house blocks or a house quilt? What else are you making that has a connection to the COVID-19 time in our life?

Let's quilt,

Barbara

QUILTING--By Hand, Machine or None at All?

Tops are done, it's time to quilt.

Recently, I finished machine quilting Foothills on the Bernina Q20 Sit-Down Longarm:

I adore this quilt and have written about it before:  The Quilt A-Long, and Changing My Mind as well as a few other times--use the Search box in the upper Left for Foothills to find them all.

The quilting designs I came up with please me and, overall, my free motion and ruler work quilting are getting better. Binding is almost done, sleeve is in place and the label is ready to attach.

Hand quilting is also something I enjoy though I do less of it now than I did years ago. My older hands feel the strain of such repetitive motion so I save it for special quilts.

This year I was fortunate to get accepted into the doll quilt swap run by Needle Thimble and Thread on Instagram. It is a small group swap and those who participated the year before get first chance at signing up for the current year. If there are any open spots, a couple new folks might be added.

I got in! And the rules are simple: no smaller than 14" X 14", no larger than 18" x 18", handquilting only, wool or cotton batt, reproduction fabrics, and your best work is expected. And stick to the timeline. Reasonable requirements. You can see many photos of these quilts in progress on Instagram:  #ntatdqs2020  Many of them are amazingly beautiful and complex!

The day I was accepted, I made my top--from 3" blocks made with the Stay at Home sampler patterns from Temecula Quilt Company on Instagram

I have been handquilting on it this past month, off and on. A few more nights and the handquilting will be done--the binding, sleeve and label are made. I find stitch in the ditch quilting by hand repetitious and boring so was very glad when I got to the outer border and could do a little fancy work:

Later in July it will be sent off to it's new home...

And, then, sometimes, I make a project with no quilting at all. I  saw these silhouette projects while teaching in Texas last year, and bought one. This week I finally took the time to make it:

There was very little time involved--watching the video was especially helpful:  Stirrups and Stitches
There is a wide variety of patterns available, no sewing at all, so this would make a great project to do with an interested kid. Hung in a window, the batik fabric really glows.

So there you have my quilting life at this time. Do you prefer to hand or machine quilt?

Let's quilt.

Barbara

Time for Free-Motion Quilting

The other day I did my least favorite thing in the quiltmaking process: I basted a quilt for free-motion quilting:

Here it is, all folded up--it's 70" square and this is the back. No, I can't show you the front yet...

I have a detailed Tutorial on how I pin-baste for machine quilting. The quilt in the Tutorial is larger than this one. For this one, I used my dining room table, laying out the back, batt and quilt top centered on the table. I taped and clamped the back down, then pin-basted the center of the quilt. NOTE: I don't close the pins until the entire quilt is pin-basted. Once the center section was pinned, I un-taped and un-clamped the quilt, slid it over to one side, and re-taped and re-clamped the back. I put pins in that side, then did the same on the opposite side.

Once all the pins were in place, I carefully turned the entire thing over to check for pleats or puckers.  There are always a few near the outside edges. It is a simple matter to remove the offending pins, flatten out the 3 layers again, and re-pin. When it is completely flat, no puckers or pleats, I turn it over and close all the pins.

This process took about 2.5 hours. I should  have been playing music because I just don't find this task fun. Necessary but not fun.

UPDATE: There is a fantastic video in the Classroom of The Quilt Show, featuring Cindy Needham and her table method for pin-basting:  Pin Basting with Cindy Needham. I sure wish I had seen this BEFORE I basted this one. What a great way to be sure the back is flat and square! Just another reason every quilter should be a member of The Quilt Show--with the current "Staying at Home Special" of $19.95 for 6 months or $39.95 for a year, I truly believe this is the best bang for your quilting buck. Join Now!

Next I made a "test" quilt sandwich from several of the fabrics in the top, the same batt and back:

This will be used to test a variety of threads, their colors, and set the tension for each. It is also used to warm up before tackling the quilt each day. The batt is Pellon Wool Blend, soft, with some loft, that will give dimension to the quilting. I have several ideas for quilting designs I am eager to try on this.

Before I jump into quilting this one, I will finish the quilting on my Foothills Quilt, which I began quilting in April. I wrote about that HERE. It will be good practice to get loosened up for the quilting on the "mystery" project:

 Fortunately, I kept a sketch of the quilting design, along with the rulers used for those designs, handy, until I could get back to the Foothills quilt:

Another thing I do as soon as I baste a quilt, is cut the extra back fabric for the Sleeve I attach to every quilt I make.  The fabric is cut to approximate size and I put a note on it that says "Sleeve" so I don't accidentally use it for some other purpose. Since I know what the binding fabric will be, I have also made that already--it is saved with the sleeve--in a safe place. And that place is noted in my Journal, on the page that lists "Where Did I Put?"

I will be glad to have Foothills quilted and be ready to get to work quilting the mystery, soon.

What is your least favorite part of the quiltmaking process?

Let's quilt,

Barbara

Free Motion Quilting--Ruler Work--Quilting Sizzle Quilt

UPDATE NOTICE--lots of photos have been added showing how I quilted the Cool Sizzle quilt.

For a lot of quilters, deciding HOW to quilt our quilts is the biggest challenge. It certainly is for me. I really like Ruler Work so do as much of it as I can.

This week I finished quilting the Cool Sizzle quilt, with the pieced borders:

While quilting it, I thought "who can I give this to?" Our niece, Kallie, who is expecting her first baby in just a couple weeks did not get the traditional "college graduation Super Star quilt" I make for all our nieces and nephews--she wasn't an official part of the family then. A couple years ago she told me turquoise was one of her favorite colors. It just seems like she is the right one to get this quilt.

Sizzle was designed by Becky Goldsmith for The Quilt Show. It was the 2019 Block of the Month. Now Becky has the rights to her pattern back and is working on having it published. She enjoyed seeing some of the border variations members of TQS did on their quilts and this is a border she wants to include. So good photos are a must.

Once the quilting was done on Cool Sizzle, I jumped on to Foothills:

I really love this quilt and am keeping it for  myself. See these posts for more information:

Last Chance

Change Your Mind

I worked with plexiglass and a dry erase marker, trying out a variety of design ideas after going through a lot of Free Motion Quilting books and YouTube videos:

I also played with paper and pencil:

When I had a plan, I just started. Only have a few blocks done so far but I am happy with the designs overall:

For Free Motion Quilting, I am working to master a few designs I really love and those will become my "go-to" designs for most quilts. Feathers are high on the list so I might quilt a simple feather border on the narrow outside border. On second thought,  it really might be too  narrow for feathers so loopy leaves is another design I enjoy--that is fast and fun.

I will enjoy quilting several blocks on Foothills each day, now that I know what the plan is.

What are you working on? Does the quilting part come naturally to you or is it hard to decide what to quilt?

Let's quilt.

Barbara