Summer is here!

Radiance Challenge quilt
Seven weeks after my surgery and my surgeon has given the all clear and okay to start quilting again. First on the list was my Radiance quilt, which I have been itching to do. I marked it out, using my lightbox and despite having a cotton interfacing applied to the fabric, which is quite dark, I had no problem seeing my design on paper through the lightbox. I used a Clover Chaco liner on the outlines of the centre design and a Clover white marking pencil (fine)  on the border design, which when you first draw a line looks as if it is not showing and then magically slowly show up crisp and clear.  The quilting design is all my own, but I have  used a design by Sue Heinz, from Kismet Quilting, for my border and I think it looks perfect with the rest of the design.

Quilt loaded with practise piece next to it

 I had so much fun stitching this design, it was hard to decide which colours and which make of threads to use. In the end I just put all the matching threads on the table and decided as I went along. I used Rainbows for the little "horns" but found the thread quite thick and also dull looking against the silk in the fabric. I normally like Rainbows as it add a bit of subtle sparkle but this is not one I would use again on the Radiance fabric. I then used Glide thread for the outline of the clamshells and the star.

More Glide for the lacey-looking little swirls and minarets around the top of the "horns"

Infill stitched with Bottomline thread. In the ideal world, I would have liked to use So Fine, but as I had not ordered it in the correct colour and wanted to finish before I went on holiday, I used Bottomline, which I did have in exactly the right colour and I am really pleased with the effect. 

I had a hard time deciding what design to use in the background around the centre motif. In the end I decided to do a fine meander stitch, that would gently remain in the background, rather than do a fancy design that could compete with the central design. I am very happy with how it has turned out. 

I used "Suede" fabric by PB Textiles for my backing, doesn't it look as if it was made for a wholecloth?
I might have to get some more of this to do a "Big" wholecloth quilt.

Radiance all done

Lovely presents for quilting friends
A friend recently started selling some beautiful seam rippers. I bought one for myself and fell in love it as soon as it arrived.  Apart from looking lovely, it sits incredibly comfortable in my hand. I have now had it for a couple of months, have used it more or less daily and can't imagine that I will ever want to use another one ever again. Today I bought four more, to give to some wonderful quilting friends and I can't wait to give it to them.

The sharp end pulls out and can be put back inside so that it is hidden and safe to put inside a sewing bag - no more poking yourself on sharp ends when taking something out of your sewing bag! Also, because the colours are so unique to every one, they are instantly identifiable so you won't misplace them when taking them to a class.
If you like the look of them, look on the website, if you don't see a colour that you like, ask, as not all the colours are on the website and Lynda is very accommodating.

http://www.capricornquilting.co.uk/category/uncategorized/rippers/


New projects:

While I was recovering from my operation, I was unable to use the HQ, but as soon as I was able to, I started working on 2 new quilts. Here are some teasers:

As yet, no name

"Whistler"

This week we are off to France for our family holiday, we have had some very hot weather in the last 2 weeks, positively tropical! and the forecast for France is even hotter than what is forecast for here for the next week. I did not think I would ever say this, but there has been days when it was too hot to even sew. 

When I get back, it will be Festival of Quilts and I will meet up with lots of quilting friends, I will be quiet for a while but promise to post some lovely quilt photos on here when I get back

Hope everyone is having a lovely summer 

Radiance challenge

I have recently read a post on Lisa Calle's blog about a challenge she set herself to learn how to quilt on her domestic sewing machine. This can be a problem for a long arm quilter. You see, once upon a time, we all did know how to quilt on our domestic sewing machines and some of us got quite good at it. Maybe we bought our long arm machines to set up in business or because the quilts we were quilting were getting larger and larger or maybe, because of a medical reason, it was just not feasible anymore to quilt on the domestic. Others just never did get on with the quilting on the domestic machine and it was either send it to get quilted by someone else or buy a long arm to get it done.
So, once we have a long arm, do we ever go back to do quilting on the domestic? I have, once, on a small wall hanging and could not believe how quickly I had "unlearned" how to do it. I hated every minute and decided to stick to the long arm in future.
Reading about Lisa's challenge got me thinking … I don't know that there are any "challenges" out there for long arm quilters, certainly not in the UK. I belong to an online group of long arm quilters, we are all fairly new to long arm quilting, some just absolute beginners. What we have in common, is that we all own Handiquilters, some have the Sweet Sixteen sit down version, but most have the Avante and one or two have the Fusion. Although we get some support from the trader, there is very little other support out there for us, so this group was set up so that we can offer each other advice and help when needed. Some of us have been getting to know each other very well and have become firm friends.
Anyhow, I just thought it might be a wonderful way to get everyone in our group involved in a group project, we can have some fun and join in Lisa's challenge, although for us, the challenge will be to quilt on our long arms, rather than on the domestic machines. I did check with Lisa first that she would be okay with this and she was quite pleased to have us on board.  Off course, the other motivation for this, is to get us all out of our comfort zones and for everyone to learn something new, so expanding the learning curve, which is after all what we are all about.
Our challenge is to produce a wholecloth  quilt, that is 18" square, in any style that we are happy with, using Robert Kaufman's Radiance fabric. This in itself will be a challenge for some, as it is a cotton/silk blend and most of us have only ever worked on cotton before. Every quilt will be made in a different colour, so some organising was involved with allocating the colours. These are some of the colours we are using:

"Radiance" fabrics by Robert Kaufman

There are now 26 of us in this challenge, I am hoping to get them shown at one of the shows in the UK, maybe raising the profile for long arm quilters locally.  We have no theme as such for the design, but as the fabric is so radiant and this is our first challenge (hoping many more will follow) we decided to make the theme "Radiance". We are still working on getting the perfect name for this group.

The design briefing is for a quilt design in any style that the quilter is comfortable with. This can be in a traditional style, modern "art" style to pictorial. My preferred style is traditional just edging on being modern and I will keep updating my blog with how my design is developing and how I will stitch it out. I have made a few sketches, shown them to family and friends and finally settled on this one:

Design in progress

I am still working on what to do for the background fill, hence a lot of doodling in those areas. Although it looks like a complicated design, it will be fairly straight forward stitching it out.

Step 1: Marking "ruler" lines onto quilt top

 The first step will be to mark all these lines out onto my quilt top. These lines will all be stitched by ruler. Rather than tracing onto my quilt top, to keep the lines accurate, I will redraw these lines with my rulers adding in the small red and blue registration marks. The blue registration marks will help me place my freehand designs in the correct position, as they will not be marked onto the quilt top. The red registration marks, are my guidance for the outside edge of the design, which is equidistant from the centre of the design.  Once my quilt top is loaded, the "ruler" lines will be the first lines that I will stitch.

Step 2: Marking freehand guidelines onto quilt top

Once I have marked out all the "ruler" lines, I will freehand mark all the scalloped edges as well as the little minaret shapes on the outside of the design onto the quilt top. I might make a stencil that I can draw around to get all the minarets the same size and dimension. These lines are important, as they will be my guide for where to stitch the design inside this border.  The design inside the border does not get marked onto the quilt top. Once all the "ruler" lines are stitched these scallops will be stitched next. I won't be stitching the design inside the border until my outline for the main design is complete.

Freehand guidelines for guiding inner border design

The next step will be to mark the outline of all the little "horns". I can stitch these freehand, but to get them to be consistent and with equal number of segments, I will trace around  the one I like the most and then make a stencil for it. These will then be marked on the top next.  Final bit of marking will be my border design. The border design is from a book by Sue Heinz, I will place this on my lightbox, with the fabric placed over the design and then just trace it onto my quilt top. I will need to take care with my placement as it is a directional design and I would like it to look good in the corners.  There is 2 ways that I can do this, either start at the corners and fudge the design to fit in the middle, or start in the middle of the border, turn the design to go in opposite directions and then work to the corners.  As I have tried both ways on paper, I know that the second way would work best on this size of border, so I will start marking in the centres.
No other marking will be done on the quilt top. This is what my quilt top will look like when the marking is done:

All the marking required on the quillt top 

Once all these are stitched out, I will make a decision as to which order I will stitch the rest of the design, but will almost certainly start with the shell shapes.

Doesn't it just look so easy when it is all broken down into small units?

There is a lot of advise out there about where to start quilting and how to keep the stitching consistent. I don't follow any rules, I will start with one section and then do the repeat of that one section until they are all stitched out, look at the quilt to see where I think I next need to go to and do that. I do try to keep the quilting balanced, I won't for example start in one corner and work my way to the opposite corner. It is just a bit of common sense I think, if one area is a lot more puffy than another, then do that first. The one rule I absolutely always follow though, is to not start with any of the background fill until ALL of the main design is stitched out.

I am itching to start sewing this design, but as I have just had surgery and are not allowed to operate any machinery, this will have to wait until I get the okay from my surgeon. In the meantime, I am really looking forward to seeing how all the other little quilts are come along.

Last Loch Lomond show and winning at Malvern

Last Loch Lomond Show
I have known about the Loch Lomond show since it started, but it is a long way to travel and with young children at school, it has not been possible for me to attend, but when I found out that this is to be the last year that it is being held, I wanted to go. And what a spectacular show it is. Held in different churches in and around Dunbarton, Balloch and Alexandria, there were so many quilts to see. One of the displays was of the Chinese Whispers that I have heard so much about and I was intrigued to see how they were interpreted, never expecting there to be so many entries.

There were several participating groups, each with at least 8 members. Only the first person in the group was shown the picture and they made a quilt to represent that picture. Once they have finished their quilt, it was passed on to the next member in the group, with no other clues. They then make a quilt using the first quilt as guidance and so it goes on. All the quilts were displayed with an explanation of how each one interpreted the quilt that they have been given. Lots of excitement and confused faces and even hilarity, it was almost more fun watching the spectators as it was looking at the quilts. I am just showing the entries from one group, to illustrate what can happen

Original picture

Number 1by Lorna Hunter

Number 2 by Joanna Simpson

Number 3 by Catherine Edgar

Number 4 by Janette Fairer

Number 5 by Nicola Howell

Number 6 by Wendy Bland

Number 7 by Janet Chisholm

Number 8 by Hilary Hale

 It is not possible to post pictures of all the quilts I liked, but some of my favourites were:

Seapinks at Sandwick, by Sheena Norquay

Chinese Whispers entry by Delia Jarvis

The magic of Skye II by Hanne Asbey

Detail of The magic of Skye II

"Callanish stones" by Mary Wilson

"Big tree country" by Nancy Smith

"Flying high" by Megan Barley, winner of Stretching the limits competition

The Commonwealth remembers by Senga Bain

and just look at these super cute little Red Hot Pokers, don't you just love them?

On this occasion my husband was with me and had his own favourites too:

Shipyards of the river Clyde by Gillian Johnston

 and Floral emblems of Commonwealth, Teamwork winner

Winning at Malvern 
I had problems with my mobile phone while staying in Scotland for the Loch Lomond show, so when my husband got a text from my son, asking him to get me to phone home asap, I was worried that I was going to get some bad news. So, I sat down on our room balcony, mentally preparing myself before phoning home. Son reassured me that everyone was okay but that Malvern show had been cancelled but that my quilt will be posted back, so I don't have to worry. For a split second, I believed him, then thought he must be joking, then worried why he asked me to phone him so urgently, then wondered if he was teasing me because I did maybe get a merit. He laughed and told me I actually won an award. When he said it was for "Use of colour", I was really pleased that I was sitting down. He congratulated me and then just as I was about to say goodbye, announced that actually I have won another award, this one for "Striking design". I just shrieked, so husband came outside to see what was going on. I repeated to him what son had told me, then heard my son say that there was another award, for "Longarm quilting".
By now I was speechless, my husband grinning from ear to ear in front of me, my son enjoying this conversation enormously, and I could hear my daughter giggling loudly over the phone. I am not often speechless, but when he then told me that I also won a sewing machine as the "Theme category" winner, I was ready to burst into tears. Lots of congratulations, and about to put phone down, when the cheeky monkey said "And by the way, you are also the Overall winner", now I was convinced he was just teasing me so passed the phone to my husband who had the sense to get the phone number to confirm all this. And then followed several sleepless nights trying to come to terms with all this. Kutch diamonds has also been awarded a judge's choice by Karen Milne.

We travelled to Malvern on Saturday and arrived at the show on Sunday. What an exciting day! I met so many lovely ladies, talked to so many about my quilt and answered so many questions about it.  Met up with one of my quilting buddies and her mum, had a lovely natter over coffee and managed to get some shopping done too and walked around all the lovely quilts on display. I feel enormously privileged that I have a lovely group of quilting buddies that offer so much support and advise and is there for me when things go a bit wrong, they are all very special to me and I am so looking forward to meeting up with all of them at the Festival of Quilts. I also need to say that this quilting life I live is possible because of the support I have from my family, they don't always get fed and has to make do with meals thrown together last minute, (I am very lucky that they can all cook !) but they get that this means a lot to me. How lucky am I ?

My ribbons

My trophies

Kutch diamonds - Champion at Quilts UK, Malvern 2014 

Month of May

May
Originally, I have set aside May to do the long arm quilting on Mr Morris's garden, but I have had a disaster with Mr Morris, so that is now at the bottom of my UFOs, to be forgotten about until I get to the bottom again. More about this in another post.
So, as I now have a whole month with no plans, I decided to make it my month of finishing all (or as many as I can) of my unfinished projects (UFOs), so after tidying up and cleaning the studio (isn't it amazing how much fluff cotton can create?) I dug out the box of unliked, unfinished, need to rip out or redo projects. Rather than deciding which order I was going to do them in, there are MANY to choose from, I decided to tackle them from the bottom.

Linus quilts
I had 4 just waiting to have their labels stitched on, so I started with those and handed them over to our area rep this weekend and boy, did that feel good. Purchased some fleece fabric for 2 more and then loaded them onto HQ. Now, I have never done any sewing before with fleece so didn't know what to expect.  I loaded the first one with the selvedges to the sides and decided to do some wave lines with a ruler.  Tension was fine, although I had to change to a bigger needle, I used King Tut thread in the top with Bottomline in the bobbin.  The stitches just disappeared into the fleece on the back.  In order not to stop and start, I quilted the lines horizontally (the fleece is only 60" wide, so that meant I could not load the quilt width wise). This caused me considerable trouble as the fabric just kept moving with the machine when starting on the sides. The side clamps just got in the way of the ruler base, so I would definitely not do ruler work near the edge of a fleece quilt again. The wave lines looked lovely whilst still loaded onto HQ, but when I took the quilt off, the top seemed loose and puffy in-between the stitch lines. I have obviously pulled the backing too tight, but it looks okay.

So, I was going to learn from previous experience. Next one was loaded, again, with selvedges to the sides, NO rulerwork near the edges, I thought. Pantograph will do, but then the quilt started talking and begging for a linear design.  I have not yet tried my groovy boards, so I thought I will try this, surely the stylus can't get in the way.  I chose to use Baptist fan, but with the 2 clearly defined borders at the top and bottom of the quilt, I wanted to do something different here. First to do the centre panel. All worked fine (could have done with 3 boards though, rather than 2 as I kept having to reposition one before I got to the end of the row) until I got to the last row.  EEK! Not enough space to do a full row! Note: find out how to do this for future quilts!
This caused a bit of hassle. I stood at the front of the machine, rather than at the back so that I could stop at the point where the needle hit the border, run to the back, lifted stylus out of groove to right next to groove, run back to front of machine, continue to stitch till needle next hit border and repeat and repeat and repeat and repeat and ……… exercise done for the day!
I did then use rulers for the border design but did the last 6" freehand, having done the design in the centre section of the border first, it was easy as my eye was already trained in.
Very happy with this one, no pulling or puckering.  My daughter calls the baptist fan design, the "rainbow quilt stitch" so I am calling this my rainbow quilt.

These two are both Linus quilts, I think they are very much suited to teenagers and they will be handed over at the end of May.

Another Linus quilt 

 The heart blocks in this quilt was the result of playing with my new DSM 6 years ago. I did 5 blocks as I figured by the end of 5, I will have had chance to practise enough hills and valleys that I will know how to deal with them. The blocks were then sewn into a quilt top, intended for Linus, but I just never got around to getting the quilting done. Had a lovely time quilting butterflies and dragonflies (with heart shaped wings)  and flowers into the open blocks, then thought I would try out some feathers in the centre.

I drew a stencil onto paper of hearts linked together in a chain, then transferred this onto the strippy batik borders. Decided there and then the next thing I need to buy is a pencil or pen that will show up on any colour batik. I tried white chaco pen, blue water-soluble, purple air erasable, white fabric marker and pink Sewline pencil. In the end I just laid the pattern on top of the quilt, just above the area I was going to stitch and quilted it free hand. It turned out all right, but I know it can look a lot better, if I can follow a line. So, I am now the new owner of several new pounce pads (pink and blue), a yellow chalk pencil, a Fons and Porter marker and some thicker water soluble pens. Hopefully I can mark on any colour with those.



My first quilt
I never finished the first quilt I made. I liked the look of log cabin quilts and thought I could manage it, it was after all just straight stitching, so I borrowed a book from my local library and bought lots of matching cream fabrics, all with pink roses in varying sizes, some with trellises, others with stripes. The straight stitching was fine, having managed to cut the strips with scissors to the exact size they needed to be, and my blocks turned out rather nicely. I thought I was very clever with the way I cut my centre squares "fussy" so that a little pink rose sat exactly in the middle of it. Did all 36 blocks (they were BIG blocks) and then came the laying out to decide which order to stitch them together. Problem….no contrast between the blocks, they were ALL cream, no light our dark. But I plodded on, thought it would look okay once I have stitched a border on around them, I could always go for pink to liven it up a bit. Those were the days when Debbie Mumm fabrics were all the range, and only shop I knew of where I could get cotton fabric, was Hobbycraft. The only pinks they had were baby pink, bright pinks or salmony pink, no pretty rosebud pinks! So, I stuck with the creams. Finished the top and started looking for wadding. My husband wanted a warm quilt, so I bought the thickest polyester (and I mean THICK!) that I could find. I could not find fabric wide enough for the backing and did not want a seam down the middle of it, so in a flash of inspiration, I bought a flat double bed sheet, you guess it, in cream! Dare I admit this? It was polyester/cotton because I thought it would crease too much if it was cotton. Having had several attempts at pinning and then tacking the layers together, then finding out that I was expecting another baby, I gave up. I put the wadding away for later and sewed the top to the sheet and it became a duvet cover, with buttons to fasten at the lower end. We used it for quite a while before I got fed up with how boring it looked and it found it's way into a charity shop. Never took a photo of it, no point really, it just looked like an ordinary duvet cover.

Lady of the lake

Lady of the lake

 So, my first proper quilt (never finished this) came next out of the box of UFOs. Decision time, am I going to finish it now or get rid of it?  It has been in this box for 13 years. The design is called "Lady of the lake" and I found the pattern in a magazine that was lying on the coffee table at a friends house. She had not finished the magazine, but promised to pass it on to me when she was done with it. We then heard that Diana Spencer had been killed in a car crash and the whole nation went into morning. A few days later, the announcement came that she was to be buried on the family estate on an island in the middle of the lake. I happen to be paging through the magazine at the time and the name just jumped out at me. I had to make this quilt.

I made templates out of cardboard from cereal boxes and marked my triangle shapes on the reverse of the fabric, then cut them all out by hand. I could only sew when the baby was napping, so I just stitched one block at a time, had never heard of speed piecing, so it was SLOW. Eventually had the top finished, I already had this lovely thick piece of all polyester wadding (grin), so it was pinned together, this time with an all cotton sheet, which I had bought in a sale just for this purpose. Hand-tied the centres of the large triangle blocks, but it seemed a bit too loose, so decided that I will hand quilt around the large squares formed by the large triangles.

My first attempt at quilting

But it was summer and this quilt was so HOT, so it got put away until winter, by which time baby didn't nap anymore. Quilting in the evenings while hubby watches television in dimmed light didn't work either, so once baby was old enough to go to playgroup, I started getting fed up with bits of wadding coming undone at the edges. Had some matching check fabric, which I cut on the bias (why?) into strips of binding. This I stitched on single layer(!), like in dress making, by hand as the quilt would not co-operate with my sewing machine. Stitched 2 opposite sides (was NOT going to attempt mitred corners), then did a bit of quilting, but stitches would not match previous quilted stitches in size, so got put away. When I fell pregnant again, had to make space for new baby, could not find the fabric that I had cut into strips for remainder of binding, remembered that I used it for a belt to keep my son's Joseph tunic from tripping him up in last nativity play, but still could not find it anywhere. Off to Hobbycraft to get some more to find that they have sold out a long time ago. Okay, not to be deterred, I kept looking and eventually found some very similar looking fabric in John Lewis. Now determined that this quilt will get finished, I completed the last 2 sides of the binding. Started on remaining quilting, but baby decided to come early. I found a very nice box for it and it has been in that box until now.

Back of Lady of the Lake

Asked my quilting buddies what to do with it… consensus, to frog it, throw poly wadding away, get rid of binding and do some magic on it. So, frogging now done, wadding gone to wadding heaven, few stains to deal with, then I am going to make this quilt bigger with extra borders, maybe even some extra piecing and quilt it beautiful ! I can never now throw this quilt away, it has been on a very long journey with me, when it is done, it will be our picnic rug.


No name yet quilt

I have 25 of these blocks, all identical. The idea was to sew them together on point and I have all the setting triangles cut out too. The blocks were made before  HQ  and I quilted them as I went along. They looked all right, I had just bought a walking foot and was pleased with them and if we had not moved house just then, I probably would have finished it. The colours were chosen to fit in with our guest room and this did not match the new guest room, so into my very useful box.
When I took them out of said box, I just thought that I can do so much better now, so I spent 2 very pleasant evenings frogging them too. I will add the sashing strips and setting triangles next and then it will be ready to do some serious playing. Decisions, decisions… will I do ruler work or use stencils, quilt them all the same or do different quilting designs in different blocks. Will I do something easy or try something new?


This is where I am up to. Had to stop as Loch Lomond show is on and then Malvern. Hoping to get a bit more done after the 2 shows though. Think I might declare May the MONTH OF UFOs