Trying new quilting challenges

This week I forged on--past anywhere I had gone before--way out of the comfort zone of my quilting life thus far. Up until now, I had taken baby steps forward, slowly, a little at a time, trying new things.

I was smitten by a pattern for a table topper--the Swirling Stars-Card Trick Table Topper by Vicki Purnell at the following:

http://www.vickisfabriccreations.blogspot.com/.

Her design just called to me, so I decided I had to give it a try. I first saw this pattern on the Quilting Board, a lovely on-line community that provides a wealth of information for all things quilting. The pattern was really different and I was totally intrigued by it. I'm not sure what made me think I had the skill level to try such a thing, but I wanted to give it a whirl...or should I say a swirl.

This project is made of triangles. Every quilting experience I've ever had with triangles has been near disastrous, but I decided to wade into it anyway.

Since I was going all out, I decided I would walk further down the gang plank by making the decision to machine quilt it when it was done.

First I cut out all the pieces. I've made six quilts and several other projects, but this is the first project that I've been able to use my newly-purchased 1/4" quilting foot. I'm not sure this made a marked difference, because I think my 1/4" seams were pretty close anyway, but the little guide on the foot was somewhat helpful. So once the cutting and sewing were done, it was surprisingly difficult to figure out how to arrange the pieces. I mean it wasn't obvious just by looking at them, like a simple block would be. Since I had the pattern in front of me, I referred to it often.

Then it was time to quilt. I did some stitch-in-the-ditch quilting in the seam areas. That turned out pretty well. Then I decided to sew straight lines along the edges of every other strip. That went well too. I was on a roll, so I decided to do stippling in the centers. I like stippling. I fell in love with this technique years ago when I first saw it at a quilt show. I never dreamed I would ever do it myself, since I wasn't even a quilter then.

I liked the stippling, so I decided to make a curved line in the middle strips, just to offset all those angular lines. Easy, I thought. I practiced doing some gentle curves on a throw-away quilt sandwich. When I thought it looked good enough, I drew it on this piece and stitched away. I was having great fun, thinking that I had finally bitten the free-motion-quilting bullet.

Trouble is, I didn't like how it looked It resembled a snake crawling along the strips. Rather than take out all those too-tiny stitches, which I know would have ended in disaster, I decided to embellish the line. So, I took a deep breath and began drawing leaves along the snake--er--vine. I liked it. It looks rather 'artsy.'

The final challenge was the binding. I never even gave this a thought until I noticed the You-Tube tutorials on the instructions for binding mitered corners, inside angles and joining binding.

This was far from a rectangle, which I was used to. So as I cut and joined my strips for the binding, I closed my eyes, gave myself a quick pep talk, and jumped in with both feet. I watched the videos, took it all in, and followed step-by-step. It was actually easier than I thought it would be.

I'm pleased.

Bonding with my sewing machine

Happy New Year!

I hardly noticed the date change since I've been spending time bonding with my sewing machine. I'm pleased to say we are becoming good friends. I believe 2012 will be a very quilty year.

Since I wanted to learn to machine quilt, that is what I set out to do. I'm fairly happy with the results, not because I'm good at it, but because I see where with plenty of practice, I could be good at it.

 
The Christmas table runner I was working on during my previous post Attempting to learn hand-quilting, has turned out pretty well.

Thanks to a quilting pro friend of mine, who does longarm quilting and does some of the most beautiful work I've ever seen, I learned that my bobbin tension needed adjustment as evidenced by the photo.

That makes sense. I had a terrible time trying to get the stitches to be uniform in size. They still aren't, but at least now I know what to do. My first couple of tries were definitely not good. I attempted to unsew them, that is, take the seam ripper to all those stitches. The stitches were so tight though that it was next to impossible to sneak the point of the seam ripper under them. I took great pains not to cut the fabric in the process, which was a failure. I actually did poke through it in a couple places. No problem, though as this table runner became a practice piece as soon as I made the decision to give machine quilting a try.

I actually think I could use this piece again, albeit under something larger than the tiny Christmas tree in the picture.

By next year, when it comes back out of the attic, I hope to be much more skilled at using my machine. I hope to laugh at myself the next time I see this piece because I will be so much better. So, onward and upward in this new, previously unexplored world of quilting.

Attempting to learn machine-quilting

Image via Wikipedia

I am attempting to teach myself to machine quilt. I remember the first time I saw stippling used on a quilt. It was at a quilt show in Peotone, Illinois, where I first got bitten by the quilting bug. This small project, hanging in the First Presbyterian Church there, was a quilted scene--a wall hanging. I was really impressed by the look of it. I had never seen anything like it, but then I was experiencing quilts for the very first time.

Since then, I have seen some of the amazing work done on long arm quilting machines, something I know I will never be able to afford myself. There is nothing more exciting than a beautiful pieced quilt that is expertly quilted. Wow!

I had never really entertained the idea of machine quilting. Truthfully, I was just glad I could master the art of quiltmaking. I love hand-quilting and want to continue to perfect my skills. There are so many different steps to making a quilt. Each one contributes to the overall project, which makes all of the steps important. One failure in design, color, cutting, piecing, sewing, and finally quilting, and an entire project can suffer. When all those things work together, the result is astonishing.

I've always felt that for some reason, machine-quilting seemed like 'cheating.' I do prefer the feel of a hand-quilted project. But, I am dismayed by the time it takes, not to mention the wear and tear on my hands. Four years for one quilt is just too long, though. The other day, I figured, what the heck. I may be a senior citizen, but I like instant gratification too.

Now that I have dabbled at machine quilting, I am pretty intrigued by it. This is a good challenge and there is nothing I like more.

The hardest part was getting my sewing machine to cooperate. I spent almost the entire afternoon yesterday playing with tensions and different colored threads. Several more hours were spent trying to figure out how to 'stitch in the ditch' in a straight line. I can see where machine quilting for straight line work could speed up projects substantially. My recent log cabin quilt was all straight line work. I can see where a combination of machine and hand-quilting might be beneficial.

One of the things I love about quilting is the precision. Today's tools allow for good cutting and good quart-inch seams. There is nothing better than good sharp points all in the right places and corners that match precisely.

So far I'm not all that impressed with my machine work. It seems really cumbersome and odd to manipulate the fabric that way. I can see though how practice might help greatly. I do, however, enjoy the speed at which a project could be completed. There is nothing like a completed quilt. And, of course I love a good challenge.

When I was little, one of my favorite toys was the Spirograph. I used to doodle with it for hours, creating the most intricate and beautiful designs. I would make a simple design and then add designs to it in  increments. What resulted was a beautiful, intricate motif. A long arm quilting machine reminds me of that toy. I would love to make stitches like those designs. To me, those would be the ultimate quilts. Perhaps I will win the lottery one day. If I do, I'm going right to West Plains, MO to the Gammill sewing center store.