Sea Turtles - Part 2

First here is my design for the Sea Turtle quilt. It took me some time before I finally got to this stage.  I had another design but I wasn't happy with it so it was back to the drawing board. This one I like and I'm looking forward to working on this quilt.

So next was testing the curve piecing for the top layer.  There is the traditional method where you take two fabrics, lay both of them right side up, have a section overlapping and in that area take your rotary cutter and cut your curve.  Then you place the right sides together along the cut curve and carefully stitch along the curve.  Here is a blog with a tutorial showing this method:  http://www.cherylmalkowski.com/blog/?p=6

Then there is another method that I discovered in a book by Karen Eckmeier called "Layered Waves" where she basically cuts a curve, presses the edge under 1/4" and then top stitches it to her layer of fabric. http://www.kareneckmeier.com/patterns.htm

I figured it was worth testing out both methods to see which would be more suitable for my Sea Turtle quilt.  I started with the traditional method and came up with some issues fairly quickly.  I had some pieces of fabric develop waves and didn't want to lay flat as you can see at the top of the piece in the picture below. When I tried to add pieces that didn't go from edge to edge there were puckering issues as is evident on the left hand side of this piece.

Then I tried Karen's method.  The challenge here is getting the curved edges ironed under so that they lay flat and you don't burn your fingers.  A long tweezer tool does come in handy.  The end result is quite nice, the piece lays flat and I can get more curvy shapes and do all kinds of inset pieces.

Next I went and did a sample design for the reverse applique and here is what that looks like. You will have to click on the image to see the stitching since it is done in a beige thread. One other thing that I did this time was add a layer of Misty Fuse to the back of the top layer to see if it would help with the fraying that I experienced while cutting out the design when I was doing the Wild Mustang quilt.

Here is the cut out for the first curved piecing method. The Misty Fuse did make a big difference in stabilizing the fabric and kept things from fraying excessively.

This is the cut out for the second curved piecing method.  When I actually go to do this on my Sea Turtle quilt I would have to make sure that I pick a different colour thread for stitching out the design from what I use to do the top stitching of the curves.  Here I used the same thread and at times it was a bit of a challenge to figure out where to cut the fabric.

Finally I wanted to test out a new stitch for finishing the applique and on the Janome it is called a shading stitch.  I found that this stitch was easier to sew around the applique shapes than the standard applique stitch and not as intensive as a satin stitch.

My pick for the curved piecing is to use the method that Karen describes in her book.  I find it gives me more flexibility in terms of the types of curves I can create and I don't get things like puckering and waving happening with her method. I will also use this new stitch that I found called the shading stitch for finishing my applique design.

My next step is actually going to be designing the wave top layer for this project. Initially I thought it would be easy just to wing it and cut curves as I go and sew them and I would have my top.  But as I was doing my sample it became apparent that I can get myself into a rut fairly quickly and start cutting shapes that look too much alike.  Thus I figure it's best for me to design the wave top on paper first so I have a guide for my curve cutting.

Sea Turtles - Part 1

My next project is going to be another reverse applique wall hanging, this time with sea turtles as the theme.  I'm still working on the actual reverse applique design and hope to have that finalized shortly.  I have also been working on putting together the sea turtles layer.  This is the one that lays underneath the top layer and gets exposed when the reverse applique design is cut out.  Here is what this layer is going to look like, I still have to finish sewing together all the columns.

The top layer is going to be lighter in colour and these are the fabrics that will make up that layer. The plan for this layer is to do more free form curved piecing to try and give the look of waves on the ocean. The blue in the upper right hand corner appears to be rather dark in the photo but in relation to the fabrics in the turtle layer it is a fair bit lighter.  The lighting in my sewing room is great for sewing since I have lots of windows and natural light, but I guess my camera things other wise.



Wild Mustang - Part 12 Final Touches

I ended up doing one more thing to the Wild Mustang quilt.  Several weeks ago I came across a web site called Sedona Flame where they sell both jewellery and beads in the southwest style. 
http://www.sedonaflame.com/fetish.htm The beads looked great and I thought they would add another dimension to the Wild Mustang quilt.  The perfect place for them was in the small brown inner border and I wanted to stick with stones in the brown tones. I initially looked at the horses but there wasn't enough quantity in the various brown toned stones.  I checked the Zuni bears and there I was able to get the quantity that I needed and the price was actually better than what it would have cost me for the horses.  I ended up getting 10 each of the tiger eye, oyster opal agate, picture jasper and leopardskin jasper beads. I was hoping to get the silverleaf but it wasn't available. 

The stones arrived last week and they were perfect in terms of colour, size and shape. I just finished sewing the last of the beads onto the quilt today and it is ready to be delivered tomorrow to the guild to get ready for the show which starts on Friday.  Here's the overall picture of the quilt with the beads on it.  Basically the beads just circle around the quilt going from left to right, following the same direction as the quilted horses heads in the border.

Here is a close up of the beads.

So for those of you who live in the Toronto area or are visiting this weekend don't forget to come out and see the show.  For details you can check the show's web site at:
http://www.yhqg.org/Celebration/quiltshow2011/celebrationXI.html

Wild Mustang - Part 11

The Wild Mustang is finished.  I got the binding on a few days ago and the label is on but the last couple of days we had a lot of dark and stormy weather which made it difficult to take any decent pictures.  Today the sun finally came out and I got my picture of the finished wall hanging.  Here it is.

Here is a picture of the back. The light Stongehenge fabric at the top is the hanging sleeve, I unfortunately didn't have enough of the darker fabrics left for a sleeve.

For anyone in the Toronto area or will be in the city on November 11 - 13 and would like to see the Wild Mustang along with lots of other great quilts, it is going to be at the York Heritage Quilters Guild Show.  You can get details at the show's web site at: http://www.yhqg.org/Celebration/quiltshow2011/celebrationXI.html

So what's next you may wonder.  I figure it's time to go back and work on the poppy wall hanging that I started in the spring time.

Wild Mustang - Part 10

I finished the border quilting on the Wild Mustang quilt yesterday.  I was quilting a horse head motif with a flowing mane.  Here is what it looks like.  If you click on the picture you should be able to see it a bit better.

The horse heads just circled around the whole quilt. 

Today I got the binding attached and now I just need to get the hand sewing done and get the label attached.  So it's almost done.

Wild Mustang - Part 9

I finally finished the quilting on the background portion of the Wild Mustang quilt.  Yes it has taken some time for a wall hanging but then it took some time to finally make a decision as to what I was going to quilt in this area.  Initially I was planning on an all over pattern but as I was testing out various options on paper I started to think that they were all going to be too busy for what I was envisioning for this wall hanging and would likely compete with the main focus the horse.

So I left it for a few days when my friend and quilt buddy Sue from Long Island suggested why don't I just keep it simple and do stitch in the ditch.  Well that would be easy and it wouldn't complete with the horse so I started my stitch in the ditch work. While I was working on the quilt I realized that these fabrics really reminded me of Arizona, the desert and red rock country.

With that it came to me what I needed to quilt on the background.  In the top and bottom row of the background I did a desert scene with cacti and rock formations. If you click on the picture you will be able to see the details better.

Then scattered throughout the rest of the background I did an assortment of petroglyphs and native symbols such as the sun, bear, kokopelli, turtle, medicine man, pots, horse, thunderbird, feathers, etc.  Here are a few samples that I was able to photograph where the images came out.  I quilted these with a variegated thread called natural stone so it really does blend into the background fabric and doesn't complete with the horse.

So now I'm started to work on the border quilting which will be a series of horses heads with flowing manes going around the quilt.

The fall leaves are just starting to turn here and they are looking really beautiful.  This is a really beautiful time of year and this past week we have had amazing weather. I wish it  could stay like this for several more months.  Here is a picture of the trees from my balcony.

Wild Mustang - Part 8

I've been working on the quilting of the horse section and that is now complete.  First I just quilted around the various sections of the reverse applique so on the front those quilting lines actually blend in with the applique stitches but when you actually look at the quilt those areas start to take on that puffy look of quilting.  Then I did 3 rows of echo quilting around the image of the horse and that is now completed.  Here is what it looks like at this stage.

One thing I have to say is that I have really enjoyed working with the hand basted quilt sandwich.  Using Sharon Schamber's technique of the herringbone basting stitch has kept all the layers together and nothing has been shifting which is really a nice treat.

So now that this portion of the quilting is done I now know how much background space I have left and will be planning out the background quilting this weekend. Also I want to share this picture of Fergie who decided to take a nap on the quilt while I stepped away for a break.

Wild Mustang - Part 7

I finished putting together the quilt sandwich. What do you normally do to hold your quilt sandwich in place?  Since I quilt on my domestic sewing machine I typically use both the spray basting spray and then pin my top with medium size safety pins.  The reason for this is with all the folding and unfolding that my quilts go through, I find that just pinning doesn't give them enough stability and the layers tend to shift.  If I use just the spray baste spray often towards the end of the quilting process there are areas where the glue is starting to unstick because I don't like to use a heavy application of the stuff.  So using both has typically worked for me in the past.

Well with the Wild Mustang quilt it has so many additional layers in it that pinning with medium safety pins was completely out of the question and the spray glue would only hold the layers that were against the batting.  So I figured that this quilt needed to be hand basted which I have never done before.

I started to get my various tools together and then my friend Elizabeth ( http://sandandsunshine.blogspot.com/ ) informed me that she had seen on someone else's blog these long sewing needles that might be of interest.  So I did some research and sure enough there are special needles for hand basting quilts.  I went to my LQS and was fortunate to get their last package.  This is the exact type that I got and they really did make a difference from just using the longest regular needles that I had ( http://www.amazon.com/Dritz-Quilting-Quilters-Basting-Needles/dp/B001UAH1GK ).  These ones are almost 4" long and more sturdy than your regular needle yet still fine enough that it doesn't leave big holes in the fabric.

So I started to baste my quilt, got a few rows done and then thought perhaps there is a better stitch to use than the simple running stitch that I was using.  I then did a search on the net and found these 2 videos ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhwNylePFAA and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_EjBGz5vGQ ) by Sharon Schamber and they were very informative and I decided to use her technique with the herringbone basting stitch (details in the second video). She also had some other interesting suggestions about how to prepare a quilt for hand basting which I will likely try the next time I need to do hand basting of the sandwich.  I found that the basting went fairly quickly considering all the layers that I was working with.  Here are a couple of pictures of what this stitch looks like. 

This week I will be working on the actual quilting.

Wild Mustang - Part 6

I finally got the back finished for the Wild Mustang wall hanging. I had to redo the whole thing because the first time I made it, it was major wonky due to some issues with using the left over brown squares from the horse portion of the reverse applique part.  This is what it looked like initially and the problem was caused by several factors. 

The edge of the brown square triangle pieces that are sewn to the borders are on the bias. The right angle triangles were not a perfect 45 degree angle, they were out by a degree or two but that was enough to add to the problem.  Then when I added my borders I just cut my strips from the width of the fabric and started to sew them, this was the way I was taught in my beginner quilting class many years ago.  Well it turns out that isn't really the way you should do them and my friend Sue from Long Island found out that the proper way is to measure the side of your quilt and then cut the border to size, find the midpoint of both the quilt and the border and pin it and pin the ends.  Then you pin the mid section between the end and the middle on both sides and continue to do so until you have enough pins to keep everything together and stable.  Sue found out able this technique when she took some long arm classes on how to fix problems with quilts which included things like wavy borders.

I took everything apart, I added iron on stabilizer to the brown square triangle sections and then made sure that they were proper right angle triangles and each one was the same dimension. All the sashing and border pieces were then measured to spec, pinned and sewn which took a lot longer to complete than just cutting strips of fabric and sewing it down. Sue also made a suggestion of adding a different colour of Stonehenge fabric into the center of the X sashing and as well as in the corners of all the borders.

  So this is the end result and the wonky factor is gone and it looks great.  So all the extra effort was worth it.  Now it's time to make the quilt sandwich and then I can start the actual quilting.

Wild Mustang - Part 5

The Wild Mustang top is now complete.  I finished adding the borders and here is what it looks like.

I have a small inner border of orange, followed by a 1" brown border and then a pieced orange border will be 4" when everything is trimmed and the binding gets sewn on.  When I attached the border I left the basting threads that I had on the background fabric and the horse fabric so that things wouldn't shift while I attached everything.  I think that was a smart move since everything came together really nicely and there were no issues. 

So next I need to figure out what I'm going to do for the back.  I have 4 decent pieces from the trimmings off the horse fabric so I would like to try and incorporate that into the back since that would be a waste to just throw all that work out.

Also if anyone is interested in how I do the small inner border I posted a tutorial about a year ago and you can find that here:  http://felinesandfibrearts.blogspot.com/2010/03/tips-and-tricks-narrow-inner-border.html

Wild Mustang - Part 4

I finally have finished all the buttonhole stitching on the reverse applique portion of the Wild Mustang. Now some people may also call this stitch the blanket stitch, it all depends on where you are from or who was your teacher.  The one that I was actually doing is a double one and on the Janome machine it is actually called a Parisian stitch.

Even with doing the initial stitching of the pattern twice I was still plagued by fabric fraying so it took longer to complete.  The next time I do this type of quilt and I do have another one planned with a sea turtle as my image, I will first use Misty Fuse on the back of my background fabric to stabilize it and that should prevent most of the fraying.  I'm glad that this is only a wall hanging so it won't get a lot of wear or tear otherwise I really would have had to start all over again to make it more durable.  So here is what it looks like at this point.

Next will come the borders.  I'm looking at adding a small dark brown Stonehenge border about 1" in width.  Then there will be about a 4" pieced border in about 3 or 4 different shades of medium to darker orange Stonehenge fabrics, and they will be pieced in a similar fashion to the background part.

Wild Mustang - Part 3

First I want to say that I'm really glad that I made up the sample piece to practice since I discovered a few things along the way.  First I was smart to tape all the lose threads out of the way since it prevented a lot of tangling once you start ripping out the paper.  As I finished a section, I would then tie off those threads and trim them down to about 1" - 2" and move to the next section.  Also having the sample gave me some practice in cutting the top layer of fabric without cutting into the bottom layer, you really have to be careful when you are doing this.  I did fine on my sample piece but I did have one minor oops on the Wild Mustang but Misty Fuse came to the rescue and I even have a hard time finding the spot that got cut.  Here is what the sample looks like with the top layer cut out.

I had mentioned earlier that I was doing 2 rows of stitching since I was concerned about the fabric fraying.  The Stonehenge fabrics aren't as densely woven as say your batik fabrics. I discovered that even with the 2 rows of stitching there were places where the fabric still wanted to fray so I had to leave more fabric from the stitch line until I'm ready to actually do the buttonhole stitch.  Here is the Wild Mustang all cut out but when I go to do the buttonhole stitch there will be some additional trimming at that time so that I keep fraying to a minimum.  If you look at the top of the horse's mane this is how much will be cut out, while other areas do show more fabric at the moment and the image of the horse isn't as distinct that will change. The areas that did frey I went back and stitched over them a couple of times to keep them in tack.

I have also tested the buttonhole stitch on the sample piece and have determined the appropriate width and length.  While running the tests I also realized that even with 2 layers of fabric I still needed to back it with a stabilizer since it was doing some pulling and tugging.  So now I'm ready to start finishing the reverse applique with the buttonhole stitch, this will take a few days indeed since that stitch takes time to run and you can't rush it.

Wild Mustang - Part 2

Here is the latest on the Wild Mustang Wall Hanging. My next step was to put the two tops together and baste them. The top that is for the Wild Mustang was laid down first on point right side up.  Then the background top went on top of it right side up and I first pinned the two together then hand basted them together.  Here is what it looks like after I was finished hand basting and I still had some pins to remove. 

Once that was done, I trimmed off the exposed corners of the Wild Mustang top since those portions are not needed.  Then the piece is flipped to the wrong side and the pattern is placed on top, centered and strategically pinned.

I started sewing the larger shapes first.  This is done free motion with the feed dogs down and your quilting or darning foot (which ever one your sewing machine comes with).  Since there is no batting here, just two layers of fabric and 1 layer of paper you will likely have to adjust your tension from your normal free motion quilting tension.  Take 2 scrap pieces of fabric and a piece of paper and run a few test stitchings to see what will give you the best results before you start on your actual quilt.  When you start to stitch a shape make sure that you have pulled out enough lead top and bobbin thread and hold onto it while you start stitching.  After you have stitched part way through your shape make sure that you bring the bottom thread up to the top so that you don't sew over top of the bottom thread.  Once you have finished your shape raise the needle and presser foot and cut your thread leaving about 4 " attached to the quilt.  Bring the one thread from the right side (currently underneath) to the top and I just took a small piece of tape and taped the ends out of the way.  Later once you remove the paper, these ends need to be tied and trimmed.

I stitched the shape twice around since my machine does not have a stitch regulator and even though my free motion stitching has improved there are times when I have longer stitches than I would like.  Since the insides of the shapes will be cut out to reveal the bottom layer of fabric, I don't want the fabric fraying because of the longer stitches.  This is what it looks like with two lines of stitching.  After I'm done cutting out all the shapes I will be finishing all the edges with a buttonhole stitch so where my two lines don't quite meet, the buttonhole stitch should take care of that very nicely.

To remove the paper, I use this tool to first score all the lines so that the paper will rip easier from the stitching.  I think it's called an embosser tool.  I find it works best if the quilt is on a softer surface or if it is just folded into quarters. You don't have to worry about getting out any of the little bits that may be stuck in a seam since this side will be inside the finished quilt beween the batting and the back.

Finally I also have made a little test piece from the 1 1/2" square test I did earlier.  I will use this first to test out cutting the first layer of fabric so I get the hang of that before I tackle the Wild Mustang.  Also the test piece will be used to try out the buttonhole stitch to figure out the right size in terms of width and length before I start stitching on the Wild Mustang.

Well time to start ripping out paper.

Wild Mustang - Part 1

About a month or so back SewCalGal http://sewcalgal.blogspot.com/) had posted a link on her Face Book page http://www.facebook.com/#!/disabledwallforsewcalgal to a quilt artist by the name of Daniel Rouse http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Daniel-Rouse-Quilts/149647345088130 and I was quite intrgued by his stencil quilts.  Here is a link to his blog http://pieceandpress.blogspot.com/ for those who aren't on Face Book.  Looking at these quilts got my mind thinking and all of a sudden I had ideas for about 4 different quilts. These ideas kept coming back to me and I realised that I had to explore this further.

One of the ideas was using an image of a sea turtle but the fabrics that I wanted to use I currently don't have everything I need so that idea is on hold. The next idea was the horse.  I had a bunch of Stonehenge fabrics from Northcott and I knew I was off to the races :-). So the stencil quilts are basically a reverse applique technique using 2 layers of fabric (can be a quilted top or a whole cloth), one for the focal image and one for the background.  I'm doing a wall hanging size for this project.

For my wild mustang I wanted to use a mixture of browns to blacks form the Stonehenge series and create a top that was just small blocks (either 1 1/2" or 2" square) and then I would have the top go on point.  Since I wasn't completely sure which size would look best I did a sample of each from some left over fabric.  It turned out that the 1 1/2" was what I wanted but in the process I also learned something interesting.  Here the picture of the two samples.

If you look at the rows going across they have a lot of diversity but when you look at the rows going up and down there are only 2 fabrics worth of diversity.  The reason for this is that my test was only done on 1 set of fabrics sewn together then cut into their strips.  Then I just alternated those strips and sewed them into the larger block. This was not the look I wanted.  What I was after was a more random mix of blocks so I had to re-think this. 

I had 10 different brown to black fabrics and I ended up devising a grid in Excel that would give me the diversity I needed.  I also decided that I would create several smaller sections and then put them together to create the final top since I didn't want to sew full width of fabric strips that were only 2" wide due to the potential of stretch and distortion. So I cut 5 2" strips of each of my fabrics and then cut those strips in half so I had 10 strips of each of my 10 colours.  Here is my 10 by 10 grid that I used. 

The fabrics were all numbered from 1 - 10, and I worked on 1 column at a time to keep things organized. Once all the columns were sewn, I had to iron the seams in alternating directions.  So if I started ironing column 1 seams towards the top, then column 2 (red box #9) seams were ironed towards the bottom. Now the fun part was to sew the pieced columns together.  I first tried to sew one set without pinning but there are just too many junctions that can move around and not meet where they need to, so I ended up having to pin everything but it was worth it. Here is a picture of one of the finished blocks.

I actually only sewed 9 of the blocks because once those were put together in a 3 by 3 configuration I would have approx. 42" top which was more than enough for what I was planning. Here is what the completed top looks like.

The background for the horse is made up of 3" horizontal strips of light neutrals through lighter orange Stonehenge fabrics. Then  plan on putting a small inner border in a darker brown and a final border in the darker oranges.  Here is the initial background top.

This is the image that I'm using for my horse.

This is as far as I have gotten.  Next I have to baste the two tops together, then attach the pattern (not sure if pinning will be the best or if I will also have to baste it).  Then I will be ready to sew the outline of the horse. I will continue to document the process as I go through with this project in case anyone is interested in trying it.