Art Quilt Free-Motion Quilting

This is another UFO I began a few years ago.  It is a beautiful pattern by Toni Whitney, Poppies.  I am generally not one to use fabric kits but her fabric choices are perfect for the quilt is a gift for my sister's birthday.  Shhh...it's a surprise (unless she reads this post :)  You can find this pattern, and many other beautiful Toni Whitney pattern designs, here.












I had done the hard part of the pattern of cutting out the fusible web pattern pieces.  I fused the pieces to the background and here it is ready to quilt.  I LOVE to quilt more than I like to piece.  Having been an embroiderer, I know it has to do with working with colored threads and the flowing lines. I am sharing my art quilting technique here.












Free-motion quilting can be a bit intimidating to the new quilter.  I find that the most intimidating factor is concern that a piece will be flat and square when completed.  I have a few preparation steps that help to ensure a beautifully quilted piece.  When the preparation is well done, I am only left with concentrating on the fun of stitching.  Yay!!!

I begin by cutting my backing fabric and batting approximately 4 inches larger than the quilt top.  When centered and basted, that allows for 2 inches larger on all sides of the quilt top.  I spray baste.  I cannot say enough with how much easier this is than working with safety pins.  I have been using Sullivan's Quilt Basting Spray for years and find it to be the best.  I have tried several others but none that I have tried compare.  Spray basting is easy to do with small wall-sized quilts.  I do recommend having cardboard or a plastic tablecloth (what I use) under the quilt to catch the overspray as it is very sticky.  I also spray lightly as not much is needed (and I get less overspray).

Now the fun part of selecting threads.  When I began quilting (and for many years) I was a thread snob and only used cotton thread.  I got over that to vary the colors and sheen that I desired.  I tend to match thread to fabric fairly closely.  For this quilt, I selected the two green cotton threads for the stems, the purple  60 wt. polyester thread for the stitch-in-the-ditch quilting, and the shiny copper polyester for the poppies.  The copper thread is darker than I would normally select but I wanted some drama added to the flowers.

With thread in hand I could now begin quilting.  On smaller quilts, I baste the edges of my quilt as shown here.  This keeps the quilt from shifting and keeps it square.

I begin the quilting by doing stitch-in-the-ditch in the borders.  This anchors the quilt to again keep it from shifting.  The purple thread was used for both sides of the purple border as seen here.

The quilt is now well secured and the real fun can now begin.

Quilting order is determined by quilting pieces that are behind others first or back to front.  The stems in the back were quilted first and I progressed to the front stems.  All of my stitching is fairly close together.  Close stitches look more uniform to the eye, whether they actually are or not.

I also do my best to quilt all pieces that require the same thread color so that thread changing is limited.  With the stems done, I then quilted the poppies as they are in the forefront.

With the applique quilted, it was now time to decide on what design to quilt in the border.  The trick to having a quilt lie flat when quilted is to have the quilting balanced throughout the entire quilt.  This small border might have gotten away without some quilting, but I had concern that it would flair.  With chalk I drew some stems.  I didn't need much quilting and this is just enough.

The quilt is now quilted, trimmed, and ready for binding.  Have you heard of single-fold binding?  That is the binding style I will use for this quilt.  I will demonstrate that next.

As I close, I share this saying on this metal placard in my quilting room.  It makes me feel warm and fuzzy.

Love and blessings,
Karri

Virtual Show &Tell for Quilts

We quilters tend to be a group that shares - shares ideas, creativity, friendship, and open hearts. As we are in this time of social distancing, our ability to share physically is now nonexistent. We can, however, continue to share virtually.  Therefore, I am opening this site to Show and Tell.  Here is the first Show and Tell.

SHOW AND TELL

This is an English paper piecing quilt by Go Stars!  She comments:  I'm making a modern flower garden quilt.  Here is a picture of the rows I've finished.  I just need to add more grey and join them together.  My kitties had to check out my progress.

This is inspirational just in the knowledge that it is hand pieced.  I'm impressed.  I love the kitties, too!  If you would like to share your photos, please send them to my email.  I will post them using your first name, your state of residence and any comment.  If you would like feedback, please give me permission to insert your email address.  I will post as photos come in.  Like a quilt guild meeting, if I have something to post (the program) that will be at the top of the posting and Show and Tell will come next.  My experience is that we are a community of open hearts.  Let's share as the HUGE family we've always been to inspire all to smile and feel good during this time of isolation.

Love and blessings,
Karri

How old is our our stash?

I have to admit that I have been quilting for 20 years now and have a HUGE fabric stash with much of it older than five years old.  I don't know about you, but I have had a difficult time letting it go.  I tend to buy new fabric to make a new quilt rather than using what I have.  In my case, I generally remember where every piece of fabric was bought and that holds many memories.  So how long should we hold on to our fabric?  I am coming to the conclusion that seeing selvages with dates of 2002 and 2006 is a bit ridiculous.  It's time to begin using it up.  I put that idea into play when needing a backing for Stars All Around. 

Generally, laziness, or need for speed, keep me from piecing a back.  I would much rather purchase a wide backing fabric.  With this quilt back, I decided to get creative.  As I prefer for my backings to match in fabric style and colors, my first selection was the remaining fabric used on the quilt top.  Whew, one fabric no longer in my stash :)  Stripes I love to use for bindings but this stripe is from 2006 and the colors work.  Another fabric depleted from my stash.  With those two fabrics in hand, I determined the pattern, selected a few more fabrics from my stash, and a backing was created.


Now the quilt is nice to look at whether from the front or back sides.

Previously, I discussed that I now incorporate embroidery into my quilts.  That is has become my style.  Here are photos of the embroidery done on this quilt.  While it doesn't stand out, the needlework adds another dimension that flows with the piecing and allover quilting.

Do you have any interesting ways to use up stash?  If so, please share with comments below.

Love and blessings,
Karri

Meadow Breeze Mystery no longer a mystery...

While we’re on the subject of UFOs, this mystery, Meadow Breeze, designed by Pat Sloan in 2010, was completed last year. I chose to make the quilt with a cotton background and wool appliqué. Here is the end result.

While working on this project, I began to appreciate the love I had early in life for the magic of thread.  That love of thread and color began in grade school as I discovered and began to embroider.  As a young adult, I turned to cross-stitching.  Once my quilting began around the age of 40, the laid the needlework aside for the sewing machine.  Picking the needle back up and putting it in my hand let me know how much this was a part of my creativity.

Another revelation I had was about slowing down to enjoy that which I loved.  As this quilt was a mystery divided into sections, I took each block separately, sat down with it, and allowed it to speak to me.  By keeping focused on only the one block and seeing that as the end all for the moment, I relaxed and had fun.

I challenged myself to use as many stitches as possible.  Various threads were used including wool, silk, and cotton.  I added buttons and beads.  Perhaps my most favorite stitch is this beaded coral stitch, seen here using white beads, as taught by Sue Spargo and described in her book "Creative Stitching, Volume 2."  The book can be found here.

One other lesson I learned was to get out of my box of right and wrong when it comes to quilting.  Because the stitching was done by hand, I felt it necessary to hand quilt it as well.  That was not happening and it was sitting staring me in the face going nowhere.  I finally decided that if I didn't machine quilt the piece it would never get done.  So I went for it.  And I love it!  I was so surprised.  And the quilting took me all of five hours instead to weeks or months.

I am now beginning to incorporate hand stitching into my quilts.  This is now "my style."  What is your "style"?  Please share in the comments below and feel free to share photos to my email for posting if desired.

Love and blessings,
Karri

Spring Cleaning the Quilter’s Way

Happy Spring!  In the tradition of spring cleaning, I have pulled out a few unfinished projects from the dark depths of my stash.  I am sharing in the hopes of being an inspiration to the many other quilters out there with unfinished projects from long ago.

The quilt “Box of Chocolates” was pieced in 2005.  This old fashioned heart fabric was the inspiration for the bar quilt design.  I was reminded of receiving chocolate for Valentine’s Day.  The diamonds are the boxes, pieced with various fabrics to represent the many types of chocolate candy available in a box.  The brown fabric represents the chocolate.

Box of Chocolates 2005

The quilt is now quilted, bound and sent off to a very good friend who helped me in a time of great need.  It is never too late to complete a project or show gratitude.











The stars in this quilt were pieced in 2008 as a desire to use only non-floral fabrics.  I sewed them together and prepared the top for quilting.  As I did so, I felt inspired to embroider words on it so it became the “Stars All Around” quilt.

The quilt asked for more embroidery than I expected (and took longer, too).  It is now finally quilted and I am working on the binding. Whew!  Another quilt completed.

 

I challenge you during these challenging times to pull something out from the deep, dark depths of your uncompleted stash of quilts to bring to them fresh life (and light).  As you complete them, please share your accomplishments in the comments below or send me a photo via my email and I will share it so we may all continue to be inspired.  Alternatively, if you would like a tip or inspiration for completing your piece, send me a photo with permission to share with your email address and it will be posted. Two heads ( or 3 or 4...) can be better than one. Spring is three months long so I look forward to many “spring cleaning” projects,

Love and blessings to all,
Karri

Retreat Inspires Dark Garden Quilt. . .

This past week I went on my annual quilting retreat with my very good friends (great quilters too:).  We had four glorious days of quilting, eating, chatting, and sleeping.  I admit that I am not generally the most productive quilter in the group.  I prefer to do more chatting than sewing.  This year, however, was different.  And this quilt is the result.

My excitement lies in the fact that I designed, created, and completed this quilt, something I haven't done in over a year.  As this quilt began as a kit I admit I did have a head start .  The background, flowers, and butterflies were from a published pattern Shimmering Garden in the magazine Quilt Trends, Spring 2014.

Previous to the retreat, the decision to add the the black print side border had been made.  Once the background and border were sewn together, I added the applique.  With the flowers and butterflies fused in place, the blue and green of the kit were thrown out.  The kit had a piece of charcoal batik for the binding.  It now became the grass.  With the applique fused to the background, I felt the background and border were missing some coherence.  I took them apart, added the pink flange between the border and background, and was happy with the results.  

The applique pieces were free-motion zigzagged with metallic thread.  

To make this a retreat memory quilt, the quilters signed their names to the butterfly trails with a Micron pen.  It was now time to put the quilt together.  I chose to do the "Escape Hatch" no binding technique I learned from Melody Johnson.   To quilt, I outlined some of the applique and then quilted the background using thread to match.  I was looking for the quilting to give texture, not color.  And I was done in less than two days.  It will look perfect in my home and be a reminder of the wonderful time I had and the best of friends I have.

Bringing Meadow Breeze Mystery back to life. . .

Waaay back in May, 2010 I began a Pat Sloan mystery, Meadow Breeze.  Although Pat Sloan machine stitched her mystery, I decided to make mine a hand project and to use felted wool and wool felt that I had on hand.  Hence its non-completion.  I am currently in a residence transition and don't have much time on my sewing machine.  Therefore, I thought this would be a great opportunity to bring out this UFO (one of many mind you).  Upon pulling it out, I realized that I had stopped progress on it because it needed some background sewn on which to put the applique so I've worked hard to complete the sewing in the limited time on my machine.

I added the border to the center panel of applique.  There will be more applique added to the entire border.

There are eight of these sections that each have applique and will be added to the center panel once the applique is complete.

This square is ready to be hand stitched and is one of the four outer cornerstones.  I'm not sure how quick I'll be on all of this but any progress is better than no progress :).

Spiderweb Blocks as Background. . .

A few months ago in one of my quilt groups, I pieced a few spiderweb blocks.  I have always been enamored with these blocks and found a tutorial from Jaybird Quilts (I love her stuff!).  Once I made two of the blocks I thought to myself, "What are you going to do with these?"  The tutorial is for potholders but I wanted to do something more but I certainly wasn't making a WHOLE quilt.  So, being an art quilter, I thought, "Make a few more blocks and make a small wallhanging." 

And here is where it is to date.  But being the quilter that I am, I can't stop here.  Oh, noooo.  I am going to applique red to it.  They are going to be red words and it will become my statement quilt titled "Shades of Red."  Keep watching.  I'm really enjoying the word part.

Until next time,

Quilting as Therapy. . .

2013 was a year of major life changes due to loves lost.  Quilting, it turns out, is a great therapeutic tool!  I have found that going to my fabric stash and creating a quilt, letting my emotions run with my imagination, has allowed my emotions to transform from debilitating to joy.

Here is a case in point:  During Christmas, I lost my dear companion, Meowi.  As he was only five years old and I have had other major losses this year, his loss has been almost unbearable.  I was, however, in the process of creating this quilt. 

Once he passed, something came to mind.  Seven years ago when my husband passed away, I created this quilt to lift my spirits. 

Notice anything similar - Laurel Burch fabric, predominant color orange.  Mind you, I didn't make the new quilt after Meowi passed, but had begun it prior to him being ill. 

The new quilt's title is "In Meowi's Memory."  I am going to quilt four different facial portraits from his photos in the blank light orange squares.  I received his inked paw print in a sympathy card from the animal hospital where he was put down and I will incorporate that into the quilted worded border and on the label.  As my mind creates all of these ideas, I realize that I am working through the loss by thinking of Meowi: how he participated in my life, what his personality characteristics were like, how his loss will affect our family.  And I cry at the loss, but I smile at the memories.  And this is therapy.

As the quilting happens, I will keep you updated.

Happy 2014.  I pray it will be a joyous one for all.

Until next time,