Lone Star - Part 2

I have to be honest that not much has happened here with my Lone Star quilt.  First of all I was busy most of March getting the "Spirt of the Land" quilt finished for a 50th birthday present which had to be done before the end of the month. I did get all my strips cut and this week I started to sew the first few sections together.

This weekend though we are having UV film installed on the windows in the sewing room and the one bedroom since both of these rooms face west and in the summer time it gets very hot in there and even with A/C units in there they tent to struggle to keep the rooms cool, well more like keep them warm instead of hot :-). So needless to say this week there was limited time for sewing with things like packing up books shelves in the bedroom, packing up some stuff in the sewing room and then on Thursday it was time to move things away from the windows to get at the curtains down so that they could get washed on Friday. That was the end of sewing time since the sewing machines are set up next to the windows for the best light.

So here are the 2 sections that I have managed to get sewn together for the Lone Star, they may look a bit crooked but that is because I have not pressed then yet.  I'm going to wait on that until I'm ready to cut them.

If you read my previous post you may notice that something has changed. Previously when I had looked at the strips lined up through a "ruby beholder" to check for value I ended up switching my last 2 fabrics around. So fabric 7 now became fabric 8.  This was the fabric that was suppose to originally be the purple botanical fabric but I didn't have enough so I had to switch if for one similar in a hand dyed batik. Well now that this fabric was in position 8 I only needed 5/8 of a yard and I had plenty so I swapped it back in as per the original plan.

So this will be my only post today since there is still more work to be done before the guy comes in to install the UV film and once that is done, then it's time to get everything put back.

I hope everyone has fun today with their Lone Star projects and have a Happy Easter.

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.

If Money Were No Object

If money were no object what brand of thread would you buy? 

I would buy Superior Thread and Aurifil Thread.  I've used each brand, love the quality, love the colours, but when you are on a budget I don't love the price, especially if you are going to need a fair bit of thread for up and coming projects.  For people who are on tight budgets buying nice thread for your quilting projects can become just as big of an investment as the fabric itself. That is what I found out recently when I went to look for thread and started picking what I was going to need for me Sea Turtle project. Buy the time I went to my shopping cart my total was well over $100 and that didn't even include shipping. So I tried to cut back thinking on what I could do without and still my order was over $70. Unfortunately at this time I couldn't justify the amount since I'm currently unemployed and that was a significant expenditure.

Then the next day I got an e-mail from Connecting Threads (http://www.connectingthreads.com/Quilting.cfm) announcing that they have 33 new colours of thread and the picture showed some very nice colours.  I checked with some blogger friends and a few people have used their threads and have liked them and the prices are very reasonable.  The other nice thing about Connecting Threads is if you are not satisfied with your purchase you can return it for a refund so I figured I had nothing to lose. I ordered their Beach House set which is 10 spools of thread, each spool has 1200 yards for $21.90. I also picked up some individual colours of thread at $2.49 a spool and some fabric so my order came to just over $50.00.  Shipping to Canada is $7.00 if your order is over $50.00 and free in the US which is a great deal. 

This is the Beach House set of colours.

My order arrived today and I just had to test out my new threads to see if they were worth buying.  I have to say yes they are.  I did several things with them today.  I did some piecing and that worked out nicely.  Then I sewed one of my applique designs and it did a great job of that as you can see in the picture below. (click on the picture for a closer look).

Then I wanted to test the thread on the applique finishing stitch and I really like the results of that.

I did buy some brown thread and when I go to do the quilting on the coin quilt I will use their thread and will let you know how I like it for actual quilting.  So far I have to give it a two thumbs up.

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.