Batik Gems - Part 8

The orange quilt is now finished and I even had a proper name for it - Garden in the Sun.  Here it is all finished.

Here is what I quilted in the border. It is a picture from the back, the picture from the front didn't show the quilting very well.

Below I've attached pictures of what the butterfly quilting looks like which was done down the middle column.  If you remember these were outlines that I created from images of butterfly tatoos.

So now onto the next 75th birthday quilt, Cherish Nature.

Batik Gems - Part 7

I've been working on the flower quilting on the Orange Batik Gems quilt.  I have half of the flowers quilted.  Each flower takes up the width of two batik columns.  In the length of two of these columns there are 7 flowers alternating between cone flowers and day lilies.  Since there are 9 columns in total, I will have 4 columns of flowers, 2 on either side of the quilt. 

Here is a close up of what the two flowers look like.

And a shot from the back.

For the middle column I'm going to quilt some butterflies.  When I first went looking for butterfly patterns I didn't find anything very interesting on any of the quilting sites, pretty basic designs.  I then decided to do a Google search on butterflies and I discovered that the Tattoo world has some very interesting designs.  I was just looking for some unique outlines so I took some of the interesting tattoo designs and modified them into butterfly outlines.  Below are some examples of the original tattoo designs and then the modified outlines. I think they will make for some interesting quilting.

Batik Gems - Part 6

Yesterday I did get the back sewn up but I didn't get the quilt sandwich made up.  Instead I have been testing out some quilting ideas that I have for this quilt.  On my drives into work I have been seeing some lovely gardens with orange day lilies, orange and yellow coneflowers as well as some gorgeous gladiolus. So I thought it would be nice to quilt a garden theme on this quilt.  So here are my experiments with quilting flowers.  First here is the cone flower.  I also tried one with a more filled in centre but it was too much so I'm thinking I need to create one with maybe half as many zigzag lines in the centre and see how that looks.

Here is what one of the coneflowers looks like from the back on a beige fabric.

Next is the day lily and I really like how it turned out.  There is also a picture from the back showing it on the beige fabric.

My last idea was to either have the gladiolus along the sides of the centre portion of the quilt or perhaps just have these flowers run along the border section.  This picture is just from the back since the one I took from the front didn't turn out all that great.

Well it looks like my machine has to go in for a service. It started to act up and every so often it decides it wants to sew all on its own.  I have cleaned it, checked various things and it is still acting up so best to take it in before it really has a meltdown. 

Batik Gems - Part 5

The quilt top is now finished and I'm very pleased with how it looks.  I'm hoping that once the quilt is all finished I can find a place outside somewhere to take a photo to get a better take on the colours but this will have to do for now.  So now I have to measure out the backing fabric, iron it all, get that sewn and make up the quilt sandwich.  My hopes is that I may ge all of that done today but time will tell.

Batik Gems - Part 4

I started piecing the columns together this evening and I was still having some troubles with the batik fabrics wanting to go down into the bobbin area.  I'm using a brand new Schmetz Microtex needle which are the extra sharp ones they recommend for batik fabrics because of their denser weave. 

Wanda of Exuberant Color http://exuberantcolor.blogspot.com/ made a comment on part 2 of this series that she thought I could make a single hole opening with tape and a piece of cardstock. Punch a hole with a 1/8" punch and tape it in place between the feed dogs.

Well I found some heavy plastic that is used to make templates and I cut a small square from that.  I didn't have a hole punch, but I used the pointy end of my seam ripper and placed a hole in the middle of the square.  I then trimmed it down to size to fit over the area of the opening and yet allow the feed dogs free movement.  I used some UHU Tac - removable adhesive putty to keep the plastic square in place and then tried out the new invention.

Here is the results.  Even the little squares sewed up very nicely and no pull what so ever.  So for the time being I will go with the make shift solution but I think a single hole opening throat plate will be on the wish list for future upgrades.  Thanks Wanda for your great suggestion.

Batik Gems - Part 3

Here are my finished 16 patch blocks.  I'm very pleased with how they turned out.

So I started to place all the blocks and strips on my design wall and here is my final layout ready to sew.

I have to say one thing, I'm not very impressed with the design layout and math in the Batik Gems book by Laurie Shifrin.  After I finished placing all the columns of fabric up on the design wall I noticed that the lengths were different from column to column (see bottom of above picture).  At first I thought I either placed a strip of fabric in the wrong column or cut a fabric the wrong length.  When that wasn't the case I went back to the book and I started to run the math based on what the various lengths were suppose to be in each column.  Even after taking into account the different number of seams that can occur from column to column because some columns have 5 pieces, some 7 and some 9 pieces to join together, the end results were 49.5". 50.0" and 50.5" in length.  Fortunately there was only one column that was 49.5" long and 4 each for the other 2 lengths so I decided to lengthen one fabric in the short one and then when I finish sewing them all I will trim everything to the 50.0" length.  I'm not sure but there may be some other math issues in the pattern so I will wait until I'm finished and then send a note of to C & T Publishing to let them know of the issues. 

This kind of stuff is really annoying because I don't know about you, but I first think that I did something wrong.  Then after checking all of that and you go back to find out it's the pattern that is screwed up, then it is even more annoying because you have paid good money for the book and these things should have been checked and tested.  So there went more than an hour of my time that I could have used for sewing.  I guess tomorrow I will start sewing the pieces together since I'm exhausted at this point in time and I don't want to make and sewing mistakes.

Batik Gems - Part 2

I got the majority of the fabric cut for the orange quilt with the exception of the borders.  Yesterday I started sewing the 16 patch blocks and came into some problems.  The 16 patch blocks are made up of small 1 1/2" squares of fabric which proved to be a sewing challenge.  My machine kept wanting to swallow up the fabric into the bobbin area.  I even tried a starter piece of fabric then did the chain piecing with the little squares of fabric and still ended up with numerous messes to clean up (see picture below). 

My problem is that the throat plate has a wide opening because of the zigzag stitch and I would need to buy a special plate that has a small diameter hole that would only allow the needle in. Well that's another expense of about $45.00 and after spending plenty on fabric for the 2 quilts I'm going to be making I figured there has to be another way.

Sure enough, paper piecing. Thanks to Hetty of Crafts and Stuff
http://hettyscreations.blogspot.com/ she showed me earlier this month how to convert regular piecing blocks into paper pieced patterns. So I drafted up my pattern and I ended up doing 2 test runs before getting things right. So now I have a perfect 16 patch block that is ready to sew into my quilt. I just have 8 more to make.  So Hetty I have a bunch of 1 1/2" squares of fabric with no use.  Would you care to add them to your "tiny scrap block" project?  Let me know.

Also I want to say thank you to Marina and Daryl at Quilt Inspiration http://quiltinspiration.blogspot.com/. I entered a giveaway at the begining of the month and won 2 issues of McCall's Quilting and it's great since I don't have these issues.  So when I take a break from quilting this weekend I'm going to be browsing through my magazines.   

Batik Gems - Part 1

Well I now have a second project to start that is also kind of scheduled for completion in September.  This one is also for a 75th birthday.  My mom is in a nursing home with dementia and initially was having a hard time because she would misplace her things and then would assume that people were stealing her things.  Fortunately she made friends with one of the residents, Jean who doesn't have dementia and has been able to help mom find her misplaced belongings.  They have become really good friends and it has helped mom adjust to life in the nursing home as well as get her involved with various activities so she isn't just sitting in her room staring at the TV all day. 

I found out that Jean will be turning 75 in September and her favourite colour is orange.  So I decided that I would also make her a quilt based on one of the patterns from the book Batik Gems by Laurie Shifrin.  The pattern is called Vertical Vision and in her book she did it up in various tones of purple.

So here are my choices for this quilt.  The orange fabric with the flowers will be the border fabric.  The selection of blues to greens will be the small accent blocks along the border as well as the small accent strips throughout the main body of the quilt.

Then here are the various orange fabrics that I found to go with the border fabric.  Many are batiks, but a few are not.

So I guess I'm going to be busy for the next couple of months making 2 quilts for 2 - 75th birthdays in September.