Tag: free-motion

Trying out graffiti quilting

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I can’t remember if it was early in the last year or before that, but I first saw Karlee Porter’s graffiti quilting on Pinterest and was, quite simply, blown away.

So when she finally came out with a book, Graffiti Quilting: A Simple Guide to Complex Designs of course I put it on my wishlist and eventually bought it.  Shipping stuff to Canada is expensive, ugh.

Anyway, by the time I got my hands on the book itself, I’d practised on paper.

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And I practised on fabric too. But after reading the book I sat down with my large box of coloured threads and went to town, copying one of her pieces (which she highly encourages, for practise).

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In a way it’s hard, like any FMQ, because you’re not sure what to do next, or where to go. You have to really stop and think. So in one sense, you can’t really mark it on the fabric first, if you like doing that. You’d have to do some rough sketches first. Also, if you use thicker thread, you have to manage the thread build up, maybe incorporate it to look like thicker lines in the design itself.

But in the other sense? Oh boy, what creative freedom. It’s almost scary.

I have a quilt all basted and ready to go and has been sitting waiting for a least a month. I plan to do something similar to graffiti quilting but not as visible, just all white thread on a quilt with a white background.

And yet I still hesitate.

Looking over last year’s posts, I did see how I had issues working on one quilt and the gap of creative constipation in there is noticeable when I scroll through my photos.

I mean – what’s the worst that can happen? I hate it? If it doesn’t turn out as good as I see in my head, why does that matter? It’s not like anyone else can see what I see in my head, even if I sketch it out before hand. Right? And it’s going to be white on white for the most part… sheesh.

I need to take my own advice and just stitch it already.

Free Motion Floral Sampler Quilt

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A finish! Yay! This might be my first finished quilt of 2014, ugh.

For this quilt, I used the leftover blocks from my Summer Quilt. You can do this with any collection of 10″ squares. I had 25 blocks and some were duplicates.

This would look really awesome in solids or low volume prints or even alternate value prints.
I should just call this my @angelafmq sampler quilt ... ;) every block is a design from her first book.

Take your 25 blocks and lay them out on the floor or design wall until you get a pleasing arrangement. Sew two together for each row until you’ve sewn a whole row. Sew all the rows together.

(or grab two at random until you get most of the way through the stack and start sewing those pairs together. Make sure you leave enough single blocks behind to finish each row.)

Back view for texture. #quilt

For the backing, I had fabric that was 54″ wide and used that. Baste well with batting of your choice. Mine needed work.

For the quilting – this is the fun part.

I used my walking foot first and stitched in the ditch for each seam, leaving a nice square sewn for each block.

Scroll quilting. I need practise there too. Hard to do in a square. :)

In each square, I quilted a different free motion design using the Bernina Stitch regulator on some and my free motion foot. I worked my way through Free-Motion Quilting with Angela Walters
and some of Leah Day’s free motion quilting designs as well. Have fun here! I used a white thread in the top and bottom on all fabrics.

For the binding, I trimmed the back so it was 2″ all around and folded it over to the front, then sewed it down. I screwed up trying to trim the corners so I won’t show that bit – just know there’s a gap. Sigh. I really need to work on mitring my binding, especially the “bringing the backing to the front” kind, which I don’t do often.

Nice and crinkly from the dryer.

This quilt I am leaving in my own stash for an example of the kind of quilting I can do. I hope eventually to maybe quilt for customers, so this should give them something to look at to pick quilting styles if wanted. At the very least, it showcases my skills now and I can compare it to another quilt a few years from now.

Panels are good practise for free motion quilting

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My mom hits up yard sales and thrift stores for.. all kinds of things actually, but she goes often enough to get some great finds. One of them is quilt panels. Then she sends them to me to quilt.

This works out great, as I love the quilting part and I get to practise. She’s not picky and loves to hang up different panels for different seasons. And we use up the stash on backing and those weird small bits of batting.

Recently I worked on this one for her.
More panel quilted

More panel quilted

I also did this runner.

Christmas runner

Still need to bind them, but that’s another post. 😉

So don’t discount panels or “cheater” quilts! They are great practise, usually don’t cost much – especially when you pick them up at thrift stores or in clearance bins – and you can always give them away.

Pinwheels all done!

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Finally! And the pictures uploaded!

As I said in previous entires, I wanted to give the illusion of movement for the pinwheels and I think I got it here.

Note how I used a swooping curve in the plain triangles and left the print areas alone. I knew I wanted them puffy and raised, so I left them.

I went with a heavy back and forth quilting in all the sashing to flatten it and emphasize the pinwheels. I think I nailed it.

I’m also really happy with the 3 kinds of gingham used in the quilt.

The other thing I did slightly differently, was early on in my quilting process I swapped out my usual stitch regular automated foot and just went with the free motion or darning foot instead.

I think I want to write more about that, so someone looking at the Bernina stitch regulator will have some details.

More quilting progress and how to get out of a boo boo

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So I’ve worked on Kaytlyn’s quilt a few more times, after I unpicked the last screw up and worked on something else instead. Here’s what that same block looks like now, all done properly.

I went swimmingly, until I flipped the quilt over and realized I made yet another boo boo. But this one was more recoverable and did not involved taking out stitches. It turns out if you are near the edge and don’t pay attention to the backing fabric, you get this:

It flips over and you wind up quilting it. Uh-oh. But then you just find your tiny scissors, turns on some bright lights, get comfy and snip the fabric off from around the stitching. Like this:

Any of those stray threads will wash right out. I always try and wash my quilts before I send them off. This way I know they will hold up for the user and if anything comes undone (it happens) then I have a chance to fix it.

I also figured out how to quilts the skinny blocks and thanks to some advice from Angela Walters, decided *not* to quilt the hot pink sashing. It looks SO much better leaving it unquilted. It really does help frame the blocks, don’t you think?

Here’s the back, where you can see the effect really well.

In the skinnier blocks I decided to do a loop-de-loo, or a bunch of Laverne L’s. Sometimes when doing these bits I hummed the Laverne and Shirley theme song because I am a dork like that.

Two more big rows to go! I have to draw out the feathers on these ones, since I’m doing them all in the same direction and they are basically upside down because of the way I have to feed it through my machine.