Jul 30, 2016
Lately I have been feeling a little overwhelmed and maybe slightly, how should we say, well inadequate I guess. Why, you might ask. Well, I am in the process of quilting a special project. The project called for custom quilting. Now I am not a novice quilter however, like anyone else, I tend to stick to the designs I know and know I can do well. That is all very well and good but sometimes you have to push yourself out of your comfort zone to grow and improve. Of course leaving the comfort zone is scary but it is the only way to move forward in learning new quilting designs and in life.
So, in trying to decide what quilting designs to quilt on the quilt I have been doing a lot of research both online and looking through my vast library of books. Of course, when you do this you will find two things, the first is that my quilting is as good or better than some, the second is that I have a long way to go to get as good as some of the award winning quilters.
Now, do I want to be an award winning quilter, I don’t know but I do want to be as good as I can be which of course means moving out of my comfort zone and learning and growing my designs and style.
Back to the quilt I am in the process of quilting. My designs had to cover a few areas
- I have a time frame so they had to be doable without taking hours and hours
- The quilt still had to be cuddly so couldn’t be quilted to death
- It needed feathers so what type would I quilt
- Some of the designs had to push me out of my comfort zone but with taking number 1 into account.
So here is what I came up with.
I used Lisa Calle’s tracing paper method I learned in her iquilt class Divide and Conquer. I didn’t really divide and conquer this quilt as I liked the lines of it as it is.
So I am not quite 50% done the quilting on this, I will be going back to it as soon as I am finished writing this post. I am never 100% happy with my quilting, I always feel I can do so much better, which of course is true, however I am learning (most of the time) to not beat myself up too badly. When I am working on a quilt and make a mistake I cringe but I have learned two things.
- Unless the mistake is really really glaring once you take the quilt off of the frame you really don’t see it.
- My mind always makes the bobble or wobble out to be much worse than it actually is.
I have taken almost all of Angela Walters Craftsy classes and her motto of close enough is good enough is something I am trying to remember. If I don’t do this I am going to drive myself crazy especially when I am learning how to quilt a new design.
So, on this quilt I have two new designs. One is the wishbone design and the other is the hump and bump feathers. Both of these are looking ok and for the purposes of this quilt my quilting is fine. I still have a ways to go with the more formal feathers though, they are a lot harder to do than the more informal “long arm” feathers.
I am not totally happy with the wishbone design, however I am not ripping it out. As Angela Walters says no one became a better quilter by ripping the quilting out. I have several more of these to do so by the last one I should have it mastered, well ok better.
In the end, when the quilt is off the frame it will be beautiful and I will have grown out of my comfort zone and continue to improve my quilting of these designs. So I need to remember not to compare myself to those award winning quilters. They have spent hours practicing their quilting and many have been doing this a lot longer than I have.
Just quilt it
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Jul 26, 2016
I’ve been working on a customer quilt this past weekend. My customer did her version of the pattern Coneflower Garden by Barbara Persing and Mary Hoover. She decided she didn’t want the whole thing so she cropped it down and just made a portion of the pattern.
This is the second pattern she has completed from these this pattern company. The first was Summer Blooms and you can find the post here. Aren’t these beautiful patterns?
I finished the secret project quilt top and now I am working on the quilting design. I have worked out about half of it still undecided about some of it. I may have to just load it on the frame and start and hope inspiration strikes as I am working through the quilting as this needs to be completed by next week.
We are finally getting a little warmer weather here in Victoria BC this week. Our backyard is small and our townhouse unit faces North so we don’t get a lot of sun at the back of the house however we do get sun in the morning until late afternoon in the back yard. Cocoa loves the sun and will find whatever patch he can get his paws on.
Here he is in the late afternoon lying in the last sliver of sunshine in the backyard.
Quilters make great comforters
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Jul 21, 2016
So I have been busy with a secret project. It is coming together nicely and I am almost ready to start quilting it. Unfortunately I can’t show it. I have also been working on another small project. One of my issues with taking the dog for a walk is having my pockets stuffed full of my phone, keys, identification, and of course doggy poop bags. My girlfriend and I took a road trip up the island one weekend to go and see the quilt show that was happening in Nanaimo BC, while shopping in one of the stores I came across a pattern for a little cell phone wallet. I thought, great that will solve some of my problems so I picked up the pattern. Tuesday I decided to try the pattern out.
Upon completing the project I discovered two major design flaws. One, the bag is too small for today’s larger Smart phones. The pattern was new, the format came out at this year’s quilt market, however it turns out the design was a regurgitated one so I am not sure when exactly the pattern was designed. It obviously was not updated before being released in the newer format.
The second major design flaw is if you were to wear this purse across your body, as you would, and you were to open it up to get your phone out (if your phone would fit) your credit cards would fall out onto the ground. When I realized this I went back to the pattern thinking I made the mistake but nope all of the little inside pockets for your ID and credit cards are all facing down to the ground when the purse is opened. Hmm not good. So this is either a design flaw or there is a mistake with the pattern itself. Either way it is not good. Looks cute though huh. This could be used as a straight wallet and it would work well for that.
So back to the drawing board. I redesigned the purse so that it would fit my phone and switched things around so that the credit cards wouldn’t fall out when the purse opened. Here is my version of the cell phone wallet.
It looks the same but the body has been lengthened and I extended the length of the taps that hold the purse closed. The one on the left is my first attempt, it turned out fine but I was using the patterns recommendation of a 2.25 inch binding and although I switched up the instructions and sewed the binding on the front and brought it to the inside and machine sewed it down I still thought it looked messy on the inside so I made a third. The one on the right I shortened the taps a little bit and made the binding 2 inches. I am much happier with this design. Here is the pattern after I finished making my changes AND making all the corrections I found were needed.
Now this pattern didn’t have any measurement mistakes (other than the fact it won’t fit today’s phones). However, it had a lot of omissions. The illustrations were good and were the patterns saving grace. If the illustrations were not there this pattern would have been extremely hard to make given the lack of complete instructions. These were all little things but still, sometimes it’s the little things that can halt a sewing process in it’s tracks.
One example is on the first page (not shown in picture). The pattern called for drawing a line 3/4 inch up from the bottom on the 2 6.5 x 4 and the 1 5.5 x 4 inch pieces. Then in the next paragraph it went on to the next step but ONLY showing one 6.5 inch piece. The pattern did not mention that you were to do the same with all three pieces you drew the line on. Now did I figure this out. Yes! Would it have been nice to actually say that in the directions. You bet! I could go on with more examples but suffice it so say the lack of detailed instructions was the same throughout this pattern. Can you tell this is a pet peeve of mine!
So all is well that ends well and I now have a cute cell phone purse I can take with me while walking the dog or anywhere I don’t want to lug my suitcase (purse) with me.
Life is short. If you don’t look around once in a while you might miss it.
Happy Quilting
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Jul 18, 2016
I have been thinking a lot about different styles of quilts these days and even what “style” I may fit into. What got me started on thinking about this is the quilt that I am currently working on which I can’t show as of yet. The quilt I am working on is so very different than the Light Within quilt I just finished and yet I love both quilt designs equally.
The truth is that I don’t have any one style that I like better than any other. I will say that if the quilt design is more traditional I would rather have it scrappy than just made of two or three fabrics and not all one designers fabric either. If a quilt calls for 2 metres of a light background fabric, say white or cream, and I only have 4 half metre cuts in my stash then I will use what I have and make the background scrappy. As long as the value is the same, and the whites or creams are similar then it will look great. I also don’t like ‘mushy’ quilts. What do I mean by that? I mean quilts that are made with fabrics all of the same medium value! I know some people like that but personally I just find them boring and completely lifeless. See an example of what I mean below
In my opinion (and this is just my opinion) the pictured quilt is lifeless, the colours are similar, the value (the light or dark of the colour) are the same and even the print is all small. Yes some fabrics are slightly darker than others but still this is basically boring.
Look how much more exciting this simple quilt is on the left. You have navy as your deep dark, you have contrast in colour, value and size of print. It turns this simple quilt into something that is fun and exciting.
My mother is an artist and the one thing she taught me is that you always have to have a deep dark in your design somewhere. Well I think that holds true for very traditional quilts but maybe not so much for more modern designs which are more about design and colour contrast. Deep dark colours don’t have to be black take a look at these wonderful rich colours below.
All of these colours could be used as a deep dark in a traditional quilt design. Aren’t they wonderful. Look how rich they are. I love the movement these fabrics have as well, notice the lines running through the fabrics and the slightly lighter value change in the Teal Blue.
Now you pair these fabrics up with other fabrics in either the same colour but different value (lighter) or maybe the Crimson with some lighter green fabrics and throw in some different scale prints and you will have a great start to an exiting quilt design.
Which brings me back to what type or style of quilt design I like. I really like scrap quilts, I love the variety and the way the fabric colour and value makes the design really work. I love the quilting being done in the negative space on more modern quilts, I love spiky star designs for that matter I love star quilts period. I love landscape quilts and well I guess there is not much in quilting I don’t like except the mushy lifeless quilts.
What kinds of quilt designs do you like?
Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift.
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Jul 14, 2016
I’ve been thinking a lot about inspiration these days. What types of things inspires that creative spark in all of us. Is it a pattern or book, nature or a photograph that speaks to you. I love thumbing through my collection of quilting books (I have over 200). I do have some pattern books however mostly they are technique books and some I simply have just got for the inspiration, I will never actually make anything in the book. The majority of these books were purchased when I was just starting on my quilting journey and wasn’t too sure which path to take.I don’t buy very many books these days unless it is to do with machine quilting. My most recent purchase was Angela Walters new book Shape by Shape Collection 2 but this is the first book I have purchased in almost a year. The book is filled with wonderful ideas and inspiration for someone who enjoys actually doing the machine quilting.
Some people think that it’s just making quilts and gasp calling it a “blanket”. However I feel it is more than that. Even when you have a fast baby quilt that you need to make, you still put the time into thinking about colour and pattern and making the quilt with love. I mean really, you could just go and buy a baby gift and it would be a whole lot easier and way less expensive in some (most) cases. When you are a quilter though, it’s just not the same. When you are a quilter, you make that quilt because you want the gift to come from your hands and therefore you add your love and part of your spirit into the gift as well. Some people recognize this and realize that the gift is extra special. Of course you are also going to get the people who simply don’t understand and don’t appreciate what they are holding in their hands.
A little off topic but have you ever had that happen to you? Thankfully I have only had this happen once, suffice it to say I’m a little more discerning in where my ‘art’ and ‘soul’ goes to now.
So where does the inspiration come from? I find it can come from many different sources. Old doors, leaves, trees or even grates. I took the following photo of a grate in a park in downtown Nanaimo BC. I loved the circle design on it.
In one case I was asked to make a baby quilt for a friend, she gave me the two thoughts circles and indigo. What do you do with that? Well the indigo was pretty easy, blues but what of circles. I sat down with all of my quilting books that had circle patterns and designs and finally chose a drunkards path variation pulling all of my blues from my stash making sure I included some indigo. Here is the result.
Since the top reminded me of a night sky and moon, that gave me the inspiration to quilt the moon and stars across the quilt. I found a quilt design that I turned into a pantograph.
I love the man in the moon theme, I felt it was perfect for this baby quilt.
A quilt is a blanket of love
What inspires you?
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