Spirit of the Land - part 4

The Spirit of the Land quilt got finished yesterday and here is how it looks.

Today we had the party for Costa's 50th birthday.  He loved his quilt and decided that he wants to hang it up in his bedroom so I actually still have it and will now attach a hanging sleeve.  He didn't want to use it as a lap quilt and have his kitties sitting or laying on it and leaving fur all over it.  Also he said this way he can look at it and appreciate the beauty and the work that went into it. What a nice sentiment.

Speaking of kitties sitting on quilts, here is Jordie giving the quilt his final test and yes I did take the lint roller to it before I packaged it up :-).

Spirit of the Land - part 3

I have finished the quilting on the Spirit of the Land quilt. Here is what I quilted in the columns of the coin sections. In the two larger columns the patterns are sort of abstract organic leaf shapes and in the narrow one I did acorns.

Then in the border I did trees going around the quilt.  These two pictures were actually taken from the back of the quilt since it was hard to see the brown quilting on the brown border fabric.

I also have an update for you on the Connecting Threads thread that I used for the quilting. As I mentioned in my previous post it did sew nicely, no tension issues, no skipped stitches and the quilting does look great.  The spool of thread looked a little bit linty but nothing significant so I didn't think it was going to be an issue.

Yesterday I was making the binding so I was changing thread, bobbins and going back to my walking foot.  When I went to change the bobbin I noticed a lot of fuzzy stuff so I thought I better take the plate off and have a loot.  I was not happy with what I saw, it looked like a bird had made a nest in there.  So if you are planning on using the Connecting Threads cotton thread make sure that you clean your machine much more often than you normally would with the more expensive threads.  This is a picture of what came out of my bobbin.

So all that is left to get done is attach the binding to the quilt and sew on the label.  I'm right on schedule to get this quilt done for the birthday party on Sunday.

Spirit of the Land - part 2

I finished the stitch in the ditch on the Spirit of the Land quilt today.  Once I finally got started it didn't take all that long and I have to say that I'm so glad that I invested in a stitch in the ditch foot for my sewing machine.  This is what it looks like and I have to tell you it makes it so much easier to follow the lines between two seams on a quilt.  I now hardly veer over onto the other side and I can go at a decent pace. Prior to using this foot, I used the walking foot but it was harder to stay on course.

Here is a sample of what my stitch in the ditch sewing looks like. You will have to click on the picture to be able to see the details.

Now the other thing I promised everyone was a review of what I think of Connecting Threads cotton thread for quilting.  I finished my first row of quilting on this quilt and I have to say I'm please with the results. There was no skipping of stitches while I was quilting, the tension was spot on, and the end result looks great. Two thumbs up!

So I have 2 weeks to get this quilt finished. Getting that cold / flu bug last week didn't help since it put me out of commission right up until this week Thursday, but I'm feeling much better now.  Nothing like a deadline to keep one focused.  Have a great weekend everyone.

UPDATE Mon March 19th:  I have finished the quilting on the coin quilt and will post pictures shortly but I need to give you some more information on the Connecting Threads cotton thread. As I mentioned above it did sew nicely, no tension issues, no skipped sitches and the quilting does look great.  The spool of thread looked a little bit linty but nothing significant so I didn't think it was going to be an issue.

Today I had to make my binding so I was switching thread, bobbins, and going back to my walking foot.  When I went to change the bobbin I noticed a lot of fuzzy stuff so I thought I better take the plate off and have a look.  I was not happy with what I saw, it looked like a bird had made a nest in there. So if you are planning on using the Connecting Threads cotton thread make sure that you clean your machine more often than you normally would with the more expensive threads.

Lone Star - Part 1

It's the first Saturday of the month, so that means it's Lone Star Quilt Along time! Quilt Sue of Quilt Times is our hostess this month. You can check out what is happening on her blog to see what she is doing as well as check out the linky for what others have been up to with their Lone Star projects.

I've got my strips cut (sort of) for the Lone Start quilt.  What do I mean by sort of, well that will become evident later in my post.  First of all I have to say I had to make one change in my fabrics.  When I started to iron all the fabric and I came to the purple botanical marble fabric as I unfolded it I discovered  that I had used some of the fabric for a previous applique project and there wasn't enough of it.  So I replaced it with a purple hand dyed batik that I had in similar tones. Here are the two fabrics, the first being the botanical marble and the second the hand dyed batik.

Once I had my strips cut I decided it might be a good idea to put a set of the strips up on my design wall to make sure that the colours all flowed well  based on my original plan.  Here is what it looks like and I don't know if you see it, but the two darker purples in the middle appear to be in the wrong order.  The hand dyed batik is actually reading darker that the purple with the metallic gold dots.  I have something called a "ruby beholder" which allows you to view fabric as values by masking their colours and when I used this tool sure enough the purple hand dyed batik is darker than the purple with the metallic gold dots. For more information on this tool you can check it out here: http://www.martingale-pub.com/store/product_info.php?cPath=5_0&products_id=884

So this is the new arrangement.

Fortunately I have more of the purple with the metallic gold dots and I will need to cut 6 more strips, thus my cutting isn't quite finished.  This will have to wait since I have been fighting a bad head cold for the last couple of days and today will be another rest day to try and get over this bug.