This is my own quilt! Finished in my studio! I did a freehand all-over feathery flower design on it because I rarely get to do that dense of a design on my customer quilts. I began last night and finished this afternoon. It was quite therapeutic to be doing my own quilt, and refreshingly stress-free to not care if it didn't come out perfectly. In fact, I didn't even tie and bury any of my threads. I just snipped 'em! Woohoo!

In the past few years I've begun so many of my own projects. Before I became a longarm quilter, I always finished one project before I moved on to the next. And then I became that fragmented person I thought I'd never be. In my project box are about 6 or 7 unfinished quilts in various stages of incompletion. According to my spellchecker, that is actually a word.

Anyway, most days I look over at my Unfinished Projects Bin with a quivering lip.

And then yesterday something wonderfully unexpected happened: I ran out of customer batting! So I just had to do the responsible thing and begin to finish something. Anything.

This Log Cabin quilt was the result of teaching my first quilting class last year. Since I only had one student, I didn't want to stand around and give orders. So the logical thing in my mind was to sew along with her. The downside is that I inadvertently increased the contents of my Unfinished Projects Bin.

But, the upside is that I finally got to play in my studio today! And this is what came out:

I can tell I am in dire need of more practice. But the fun of it was so distracting that I didn't even care if the motifs weren't as smooth or perfectly-spaced as I would've liked. 

By the end of the day, I had already gotten the backing pieced for the next unfinished project. Which I hope to finish over the weekend.

This very pretty customer quilt was finished yesterday, and I love how the Camellias look on it:

The thread color is so perfect, that I keep looking at it and smiling. I ordered 2 spools of that specific color from Fil-Tec this week so I can be sure to always have it on hand. 

Have a wonderful weekend!

This pretty quilt was finished this morning, and I'm happy that I took the time to center the pantograph design so that it runs down the center like this:

Here is the perfect Glide 40 wt. polyester thread that was used on this quilt, Tabriz Orchid:

After finishing that quilt, I racked up this very beautiful, somewhat-shimmery quilt in creams, tans, browns and blacks. What I love about these colors is that they are used as florals. It's such an interesting contrast. The fabrics are absolutely elegant. 

So I wanted to choose a pantograph design that picked up on the feminine quality of the fabrics, but had a bit of elegance. I chose "Camellias - Large" by Irene Steele of Timeless Quilting Designs:

The texture is amazing. I centered this design also, so that the camellias would run down the very center of the quilt:

This one even centered itself within the block:

Which doesn't always happen, but it can't be helped. I do love how the thread looks on the black fabric:

And speaking of the thread, I chose Glide 40 wt., again, and found the perfect match for the darker goldish-tans in the fabric - "Khaki" #24525:

I just can't say enough about this thread. Not only is the color exactly what this quilt needed - I wanted it to show up in those wide open light areas of the quilt. But the tension is a perfect fit every time. As with the Tabriz Orchid thread from the previous quilt, I paired this Khaki thread with The Bobbin Line 60 wt. polyester thread from Fil-Tec. This time in Light Tan, which I wound myself. They do offer prewounds in this color now, but I had already purchased an entire cone so I couldn't justify it. If you are a longarm quilter, you know I tried to!

If you order from Fil-Tec as a member, their prices are amazing. However, there is a $35 minimum order and the shipping is UPS only and runs me over $13 per order. I ordered as much as I could get away with today. It's all worth it, in my opinion. I'm really excited to bring more of this thread into my studio!

This eye-catching black & white batik quilt is finished! There were no further tension issues and I was even fortunate to have the pantograph design end up with swirls in the bottom black border:

Now it's ready for solid black binding attached to the front before it gets shipped back to my customer.

The next quilt up was this cute one using fabric called "Skelanimals", which looks like cute little animals that have been x-rayed! 

This quilt is for an 11-year-old girl, so I chose a pantograph that didn't seem too juvenile - "Daisy Chain" by Patricia Ritter:

This pantograph has become one of my favorites because of how easy it is and because of how it looks when it's finished:

I wanted to use a thread that pulled out the greens and blues of the quilt, so I used Rainbows #836 "Citrus Cooler":

This thread was very happy paired with Aurifil 50 wt. variegated light green cotton in the bobbin. I used a 4.0 needle and set my SPI to 9. The tension was very nice, even though I had to resort to stitching the last few rows in manual mode. Something is very wrong with my stitch regulator, but that's another story.

And now, this pretty quilt is on the rack. It's relatively small, and so nicely-pieced that it's a pleasure to work on:

I chose the pantograph "Floreale" because it mimicked the florals in the Japanese fabrics:

On this quilt I had thought of using a variegated thread, but I could not find one that had gold and purple without blue. I know that sounds picky, but there is no blue at all in this quilt. The predominant colors are a lovely olive green, beige, gold, salmon, and purple. I gravitated instead to a perfect thread that I've used so many times before - Glide #40522 "Tabriz Orchid". It's shimmery, pale purple color is perfect as it crosses all of the colors on the quilt. In the bobbin I'm using The Bobbin Line thread by Fil-Tec, in a pale purple. Again, with a 4.0 needle and 9 SPI. 

The 4 pantographs I had for sale have been sold! I'm so glad they'll be getting a good home. : )

Have a great weekend!

This week begins with a black & white batik quilt, which has a solid black inner border that sets off the geometric design of the fabric. When I first saw it I knew I wanted to use Rainbows 40 wt. thread, #810 "Zebra":

But the fabric did not like working with this thread. After ripping out stitches and re-stitching, lubricating the thread and bobbin, changing needles and bobbins, I reluctantly gave up the fight. I knew how it would end if I didn't. So because I prefer victory over defeat, I switched to YLI Soft Touch cotton thread in pure white - top and bobbin.

The first row of the YLI gave me a few thread breaks, but I didn't give up. I lubed the cone of thread liberally, as well as the bobbin, and slowly stitched another row. Victory! But, the very next row gave me thread breaks. So I removed the YLI and put in a few other thread combinations. All of them were rebelling. Badly.

Years of battling with tension has taught me to suspect the fabric. There is no reliable difference between how much money you pay for fabric, and the quality of the fabric. Say what you will. I've seen it with my own eyes that very very expensive fabrics can be just as flimsy or too-tightly woven as cheapo stuff from WalMart. 

Remembering that the YLI gave me one good row, I set out to reproduce that victory. My only other option, if that didn't work, would be to unstitch every bit of crummy stitch-work I'd done and return this quilt to my customer, unquilted. With giant apologies. 

Getting hives at the thought of that, I loaded the YLI thread back into the top and bobbin, lubed up the cone liberally again, and stitched a row. Victory! Again! Each row began this way. And each row was a victory. I will probably use up the entire bottle of Lube-It-All for this one quilt, but what's $4.95 compared to a screaming fit of frustration??

The pantograph I chose is "A Little Bit This" by Barbara Becker. It's fun and somewhat dense and I love the design:

With pure white thread, it looks great stitched out on the black borders:

This morning when I prayed before I began to work on this quilt, I didn't expect to fight with thread in the first hour. My nature is to shake my head and say to myself "Well, that prayer didn't work". But a little voice kept reminding me "The day's not over yet...."

After a week of signing Christmas songs in my head, I finally finished this adorable quilt and returned it to its rightful owner. 

One of the design options we had discussed involved stitching in the ditch around all of the individual blocks, while adding some peripheral tack-down stitches inside of the blocks to distribute the fabric evenly. In my mind I saw little golden snowflake-y stars being the peripheral tack-down design. 

Each star left a long tail for me to tie and bury into the batting. Have you ever seen those art quilts that have all kinds of threads hanging from them, on purpose?

Well, that's not my style. In my world, tying and burying knots is just another way of upping the quality of the finished product. It takes extra time, for sure. But in the end the centers of these little stars look cleaner than if they were clipped off. Especially since the thread is polyester and would've frayed no matter how close I could've clipped it. So, I tied and buried:

And here is how the finished quilt looked at the end of the day:

I was a little sad to see this quilt leave yesterday morning. It was so nice to work on something that didn't fight me. And if you're a longarm quilter you know what I mean. Fabric is not just material. It has life in it somehow. Just like our children, every fabric behaves differently and requires different techniques of behavior modification! 

Quilts, like our kids, have to go out the door eventually. And all we can do is hope they'll behave right when they leave our hands.

And, maybe even make someone happy.

: )

This day started with a sideways quilt:

Which I turned around so I could quilt the borders right-side up:

These cute snowmen were quilted with a beige-gold Glide thread, using my Wavy Ruler:

Aren't they cute?

After all of the borders were successfully quilted:

I framed in some of the larger applique blocks to tame them:

Tomorrow I will be framing in more of the blocks to make the overall appearance of the many-sized blocks more uniformly quilted.

And if it wasn't so late, I'd take a nap.

: )

When discussing quilting options with my customer recently for this Christmas quilt, it was refreshing to hear that she trusted whichever route I would end up taking. Some parameters were established, but the decision for the background behind all of the applique blocks was left to my discretion. Knowing I would be outlining the applique first, I shared with her the 2 main ideas I had for the blocks: 1) a medium meander through all of the blocks to unify the background and set off the applique; and, 2) SID around all of the blocks to highlight each block, adding special quilting designs to fill in the areas that were too open.

This morning as I came into my studio I knew right away that I wanted to SID around all of the blocks. When a piecer spends so much time putting together a quilt top, and individually appliques so many cute blocks, my gut instinct just tells me that she'd love to have them stand out. So, I began the day stitching in the ditch around each block:

In order to determine how densely I want to decorate the blocks later, I set out to quilt the borders. The outer border was stenciled with a 4" Christmas tree design called "Tall Pines" #BS187 , which has a wonderful stitching path requiring just one start and stop in the same hole. 

First the spiky tops are quilted all the way across the border, in my case left to right:

And then the bottom of the tree with the trunk is stitched across the bottom of the spiky part, all the way back across the quilt. In my case, right to left:

When discussing the plan of a meander in the center of the quilt, I had offered the option of a star border in the smaller dark green border. I wanted to see a gold star repeated somewhere on the quilt since there are star appliques. But when I decided to go with SID in the blocks, I knew I'd be quilting gold stars in some of those individual blocks, and so a star border would've been too much. Too many stars and too much "spiky" going on. My instincts were driving me toward something more curvy instead. The border is only 2" wide so I knew snowmen would not fit, even though snowmen are adorable and little boys love them. I auditioned several border ideas, and scrapped them all. Until I realized that this golden rope was the design puzzle-piece that would make everything right in my world:

Maybe I'm being too dramatic. But initially I rejected it right off the bat because I was focusing too much on what a little boy recognizes about Christmas. As I stood and stared and wondered what to do,  I realized that the entire quilt represents every fun thing about Christmas already, and that a classic touch - a golden rope - would elevate this gift to lifelong reminder of his Grandma. 

Like I said, maybe I'm being too dramatic...

As is the case with me, I was not able to craft corners for either of these cute borders. It's obvious how much time and attention my customer has put into matching her green border fabric at the corners. That fabric changes color from light to dark as it works its way around the quilt. She matched up the color changes perfectly. The rope border stencil (#SCO-011-1.5) does include a corner, but it's a heart. And, it requires that the rope design gets flipped halfway through the border. This quilt is so small that I didn't want any interruption in the rope at all.

I used 2 wonderful Glide threads for the borders. The top color, "Prickly Pear" #60618, was used for the Christmas tree border because it has a goldish green color that blended beautifully through the color changes of the fabric. The bottom color, "Honey Gold" #80125, was used for the rope. Both threads behaved perfectly with a Magna-Glide Classic prewound bobbin. I used a 3.5 needle and set my SR to 11 SPI so that the backtracking in the rope would look nicer. 

My favorite trick for stitching backtracking, and stitching around applique, is to lower my pick-up bar so that it rests on the machine head. This gives me some drag so that I can move slower and more accurately. Over the years I've gotten accustomed to just how much drag I like, depending on the design I'm quilting. 

Tomorrow the quilt will be removed from the rack and turned sideways (which is actually right-side-up, but never mind that). That is how I will finish stitching the remaining dark green borders. There is not enough backing on either side of it right now, which means my machine would be slamming into the clamps if I tried to quilt those cute trees on the sides. Even though it's extra time spent unpinning and re-pinning it is totally worth it. The quilt will stay on that way while the remaining designs are quilted throughout the quilt.