Friday Finishes - Tote Begun and Finished. . .

Friday is once again upon me.  My weeks fly by with all the hats I am currently wearing:  quilt shop owner, art quilter, pattern publisher, teacher, pillow maker (my main income source).  Additionally, I leave next week for Texas where I am the key speaker and teacher for a guild.  It is my first national engagement and I am very excited and a bit apprehensive.  Of course, I am no way completely prepared and working hard to get there.  I did, however, take time out to make myself a new tote to take along (my old one was shredding :(  

The pattern is a diaper bag in a Leisure Arts book that was adjusted somewhat to fit my travel needs.  To my credit I began and completed it in one day.  Something I'm generally not great at, especially when it's more garment sewing-like rather than quilting.

 My goal was to showcase this floral fabric made into pockets that has been in my stash for some time.

Here is the interior with a few pockets.  Lots of stripes and plaids for one tote.  I love structured fabrics and don't get the chance to use them as often as I might like.  It's nice to feel accomplished in my finishing of this tote and to look forward to a new item to take on my travels.

Happy Friday,

Friday Finishes - Satin Stitched Edge Applique. . .

The satin stitching on my Winged Whimsies samples is complete.  The fabrics and colors came together well and the result is colorful and bright.

I'm not sure which panel is my favorite.  The butterfly,

or the ladybug,

or maybe the dragonfly.  I like how they each stand well on their own.  Each bug was stitched with a zigzag stitch set between 3.5 or 4.0 for width and 0.75 for length.  There are a few places where I used a 2.5 for smaller areas where the larger width would overtake the applique fabric.

I wanted to discuss a bit about my technique for making a satin stitched applique.  Each applique piece is backed with fusible interfacing.  Fusible interfacing is generally used in garment making.  The fusible interfacing is a stabilizer for the tight zigzag stitching to keep the pieces lying flat.  I also put a tear-away stabilizer on the backside of the applique panel to stabilize it as seen here.

I DO NOT use fusible web for this technique.  Notice when looking at the completed dragonfly how the lower stitched layers DO NOT show to the top.  Looking on the backside above, you can see the various stitching layers.  If I had used fusible web, each layer of stitching would, in fact, show through.

One additional note about the tear-away stabilizer.  I used Swedish tracing paper for this project.  When done, notice that I made sure to tear most of the paper away (I didn't worry about the tiny pieces).  If you block your projects as I do, either with steam or fully wetting, this tear-away can shrink and wrinkle your project.

Happy Friday,

Friday Finishes - Borders: A Polished Finish. . .

Long time no post :)  Lots of things going on plus a slow internet system have kept me away.  However, my internet challenges (something you can have when you live rural) appear to be over and my posting should become more regular again.  By the way, I've missed posting.

I've been in the throws of developing my Shapes II abstract quilt to teach.  

While creating a second version of the pattern, I realized, once again, how important each step to the quilting process is to the completed product.  As the quilt stands with the center complete it appears flat and unexciting (exciting is important to me :).

However, as I add the first border and close in the pale background the color picks up, although now overly orange.

Adding the final touch by fusing the dark green to the outer portion of two borders brings all the colors and values into balance.  I am happy with the result, a polished finish.  I generally select my quilt borders once the quilt center is complete.  It takes completing the center for the quilt to talk to me and let me know in what direction to head when selecting the border fabric, both its color and pattern, what statement I want to make.  Next time you begin a quilt, even if you have selected your border fabrics prior to beginning, be open to the idea that your completed quilt will want something other than what you originally selected to complete it.

Happy Friday,

Friday Finishes - Relaxed Finished Edges. . .

I have covered a few applique finished edges that I like to use here in the past.  All finished edge techniques have a very controlled way about them.  This quilt that I am going to teach caused me to look a little differently at these controlled finishes and try something new.

It all began with this Toni Whitney pattern "Backdoor Bear."  Toni developed this pattern for beginners to introduce them to fusible applique and machine quilting.  

Once appliqued, I selected the threads to use for stitching the raw edges which also quilts the piece at the same time.

Unlike my usual raw edge quilting of following the fabric shapes, Toni choose to stitch a more meandering style to cover the edges.  So I decided to do the same.  As I am going to teach this technique, I also tried free-motion quilting a little differently.  I put on my free-motion presser foot as usual, but didn't drop my feed dogs.  Instead, as I read in an article by Leah Day, I kept my feed dogs up and changed the straight stitch length to 0.  I wanted to see if this may be easier for new machine quilters to have control while stitching.

Here I have quilted all of the greenery in the meandering style.  It's easy and there are no such things as "mistakes."  It's all good :)

Although difficult so see, the bear and tree trunk are straight stitched.  I didn't, however, worry about following the line exactly.  In fact, I attempted to keep my lines from being too straight to keep with the relaxed look.  I did enjoy this enough to do it again and am sure it will be simple for a beginner to grasp.  The feed dogs up did allow for more control while stitching.  Definitely worth a try.

Happy Friday,

Friday Finishes - Rooster Abstract Background Finished. . .

Well, I finally got back to my Rooster.  Here is the fabric palette for my abstract background, which is basically a slash and sew style.

I began by cutting two strips from my accent strip fabric.

With the center background fabric, I cut an asymmetrical six-sided shape.  Because there aren't exact measurements, I used my Rooster to determine the dimensions that were pleasing to me.

An accent strip was cut to fit one edge and sewn on.  Then repeated for the opposite edge.

 I cut an oversized triangle to sew to the accent strip on one side.

The triangle is trimmed to be squared with the center background edge.  The edge squared with is the right side of the quilt.

The other side is trimmed up to be even.

An accent strip is now sewn across both background segments.

Rather than cut a chunk of fabric, I simply matched the whole fabric piece to the accent strip and sewed it.

Once sewn, the new segment is squared.  Now I move to the other end to add segments from another fabric.

The accent strip is added and then the first segment.  Trimming occurs, another accent strip is added and then the final background segment. 

And here it is complete with the Rooster placed but not yet sewn.

This is the original traditional background I did with the Rooster also placed on it for review.  I'm happy with both backgrounds and now ready to sew them down.

Happy Friday,

Friday Finishes - Quilt to Share. . .

Friday is here and I am unable to think of any finish to share this week (my creative brain is tired).  So I decided instead to share a quilt.  

Many of you may remember several weeks back that I began making a Rooster quilt.  That design is being made into a quilt pattern that I will begin teaching this year.  I'm getting ready to begin posting on it again and brought out the photo of the original quilt so I could duplicate the background style.  I really like this background style as it is a bit unexpected and am excited to create a new one for my current rooster.

May you all have an enjoyable summer weekend with family and friends, and maybe get a little time in for quilting too. :)

Happy Friday,

Friday Finishes - Braided Cording for Binding. . .

I needed to finish this small raw-edged strip quilt that I began in my Itsy Bitsy Quilt Club last week.  I discussed this on my Bigfork Quilts, Etc. site, but will describe in more detail here.

Having finished a previous quilt with a cording for binding, I decided to use the same finish for this quilt.  Once I determined which cording I wanted to use, I realized that it was too thin.  I tried to double it up but it was unmanageable to try to keep along the edge of the quilt as I zigzag stitched it.  So, being a quilter that can sometimes think outside the lines :), braiding the cording came to mind.

I doubled the cording length needed to go around the quilt and cut it.  Another piece was cut to the single length size.  The cording was pinned into my cutting mat to hold the cording while braiding.  I didn't become overly concerned with the tightness of the braid.  I just braided as was comfortable.

 Once braided the cording was thick enough to use for binding.  It was stiffer than a fabric cording which made it easy to hold against the quilt while stitching.  

 For the zigzag stitch, I used a 2.5 width and a 1.0 length.

When rounding the corner, because of its stiffness, I held it gently to the quilt and let the stitching catch it as I went around.

Once complete, I was satisfied with the result.  The braiding closed off the raw edges and added a dark border without changing the look of the original quilt.  When you try this for yourself, I recommend a small quilt as this one is (about 8" x 11") to enable you to have good control until you get a full understanding of how this works.


Happy Friday,

Friday Finishes - Nature's Blessings. . .

Friday is here and thanks to a gift from nature I have been sick with a summer cold thing. Since my brain is in a bit of a fog, I decided to silently share these pictures of the blessings of nature near my home.  Enjoy and be inspired.

As I have been gifted by nature, I gift to you any of these photos that may inspire you to be creative.

Happy Friday,