What is your Quilt’s Destiny?

Dec 2, 2020

What’s Going On

The last few days have been pouring with rain and I am so happy to be working inside and not having to leave the house. Cocoa doesn’t get a walk of course; however, he really doesn’t mind as he HATES the rain and will do anything to avoid getting wet. Chihuahuas are not water dogs, that’s for sure.

Today has dawned sunny though so hopefully we will get that walk in today if the weather holds.

Design Wall Update

I have been busy with client quilts these days so my own projects have been languishing. The Remembrance Day Poppy Quilt is still on the design wall, you think I would have been finished this by now!

The centre is finished and has been for several weeks now (I showed a picture of it on the last blog. I started off so excited with this project however I will admit now to feeling a little bored with it and really want to move onto other things.

I won’t until this project is at least to a flimsy stage and ready to quilt. I really need to get some of these projects just finished! Do you ever feel like that?

The other project on the design wall is a small commission quilt that I am working on. It’s a McKenna Ryan art quilt piece that will be a Christmas Gift. I love this quilt so much I may have to make one for myself. You can see a picture of it at the top of this page.

What is your Quilt’s Destiny?

 

In the last blog post, I talked about what options there were when you finally finished piecing that quilt top. Today I am going to go over some design options to use for quilting your tops whether you are quilting them yourself on your domestic home sewing machine or whether you are taking them to a longarm quilter.

Your Quilt’s Destiny

I read a book awhile ago, not sure if you can even get it now, called Machine Quilting Solutions by Christine Maraccini. In this book, she went into detail about how to analyze your quilt top before quilting it. I found this to be a really useful concept and have used a lot of her principles in my decisions about how a quilt top should be quilted and what designs may look best on the top.

She calls it “decoding” the quilt.

The first question that is asked is “What is your Quilt’s Destiny”?

It is important to consider how the quilt is going to be used as well as who the recipient of the quilt is going to be. For example, if the quilt is to be gifted to a child you aren’t going to want to spend a whole lot of time and/or money on the quilting of it.

In her book, she broke out the quilt destiny into three different categories

  1. The Dragger
  2. The Keepsake
  3. The Showstopper

The Dragger: A quilt that is going to be “dragged” around, loved, used and washed often.

The Keepsake: This type of quilt is special and may be a gift to someone for a special occasion, special birthday, anniversary or someone special. This quilt may be displayed on a wall or even on a bed. It may get some washing but not a lot.

The Showstopper: This would be the quilt you would be entering into a quilt show or maybe a prized heirloom that you want really fancy custom quilting on. This type of quilt will be hung on a wall, it certainly won’t be (or shouldn’t be) something the cat would use to nap on.

Destiny Quilting Decisions

Once you have determined what your quilt tops destiny is, now you can start to plan out what designs you want to do for your quilt top.

 

The Dragger

 

The best quilting for this type of quilt is an all-over edge to edge pattern. This can be achieved by either quilting an all-over design on either a domestic home sewing machine or a long arm machine. If you are using a long arm machine you can also take advantage of using what are called pantographs.

The eye-spy quilt here is a really good example of a “dragger” quilt. Its purpose is for a child to use it and love it. The many busy prints in the quilt would make any quilting design hard to see so spending extra time doing custom quilting on this type of quilt wouldn’t really make sense.

 

The Keepsake

 

This type of quilt is special, however, you may not want to spend hours and hours quilting it. For this type of quilt, you may want to quilt something special in the quilt blocks themselves with a different design, such as feathers or arcs in the borders. This type of quilting is also referred to as moderate custom quilting.

Other Factors to Consider in Your Quilt Design Choice

 

Some other factors that might come into play with what type of quilting you want to do on the quilt is time or if you are taking the quilt to be professional long arm quilter it may even be money.

Most all-over quilting designs (but not all it depends on how dense the design is) are a lot faster to quilt than doing even moderate custom quilting especially if there is stitch in the ditch work to be done on the quilt.

It may be that the quilt falls under the Keepsake category however you need the quilt done quickly or as mentioned above price may be a consideration, in that case choosing an all-over or pantograph design may be the way to go as all-over quilting is generally (although not always) more cost effective. Of course, If you are quilting the quilt yourself cost may not be an issue and it would just be down to the time factor.

 An example of the above is a quilt that I just finished for my church raffle. The quilt pattern is Summer Stars and it is a free pattern on the Robert Kaufman web site. Just a side note here if you do want to make this matter please read the pattern carefully as there are at least 3 errors in the pattern.

The quilt could fall into either the “dragger” or the “keepsake” category. The quilt top design is one that would have let itself to having some moderate custom quilting on it, however, due to time constraints and the fact that I didn’t know the ultimate destination for this quilt I decided to quilt this with a really nice all-over pantograph.

The quilting compliments the top beautifully and it won’t matter if the quilt ends up being a “dragger”.

 

Another example of choosing an all-over design rather than moderate custom quilting is the Hawaiian Bark Cloth quilt that I made for myself (far left). This quilt brings back great memories, but the design of the quilt didn’t really lend itself for a lot of custom quilting so instead, I chose a nice all-over pantograph called Tropical which complemented the quilt beautifully.

The middle Kaffe Fasset Diamond quilt would have been too busy for any custom quilting to show. I could have used a pantograph here but instead, choose just a simple all-over meander.

For the last quilt, the Bali Wedding Ring Quilt, this is a much more intricate quilt and lends itself beautifully to be custom quilted. Here I chose some moderate custom quilting of feathers in the open spaces as they show up beautifully there.

Final Thoughts

In the end, the final decision of whether you want an all-over quilt design, some moderate custom quilting or the quilt “quilted to death” may simply come down to your preference and what you think looks nice. It’s your quilt after all.

Hopefully the above gives you some insight into the different types of quilting designs and ways to determine how you want the quilt to be quilted.

Keep on Quilting!

Quilt Top Finished Now What!

Nov 4, 2020

How is everyone feeling? For a long time, I was doing well, however, I have noticed my anxiety levels are up these days and I am so thankful I have audiobooks and sewing/quilting to keep me company.

As I stated quilting is one of my stress releasers so I have been trying to get as much quilting in as possible these days.

I have finished quilting this year’s church raffle quilt! It is a beauty if I do say so myself. This year we will be offering tickets all over the world so this should be interesting. It is twin sized and named Summer Stars. Here is a sneak peek with more info to come soon.

Another Quilt Kit Bites the Dust

I have finished another quilt kit! This was one I had purchased about 6 years ago on a trip to Maui with my Mom, Aunt and Uncle. It is a simple quilt using a variety of different bark cloth prints. The white cotton fabric used for the sashing has hibiscus flowers on it so is unique to the area.

While I was in the shop, I also purchased some barkcloth yardage thinking I would use it as a border. While making the quilt I decided that the quilt was big enough without the border, and the design could withstand not having a border so decided to use that fabric for the binding and the remainder on the back.

I had purchased a length of bark cloth some years back while visiting Tahiti that had swordfish on it and had always wondered what I was going to do with it, so remembering I had that piece pulled it out and was delighted to find out I could use the whole piece on the back with the remainder of the Hawaii purchased bark cloth making up the rest of the back. I had just enough!

Don’t you love it when things work out like that?

What’s on the Design Wall?

The next project is on the design wall! It’s another quilt kit I purchased many years ago now. It’s Pam Bono’s Remembrance Day Poppy Quilt. I pulled the kit out a year ago to work on it however, there it sat again until just now. I was a little worried that it would be really complicated, and the instructions wouldn’t be good but so far it’s been great. I had to read the pattern through a few times but once I wrapped my head around the cutting and piecing instructions, I realized that it really is like a fabric puzzle and done in a very logical manner.

Quilt Top Finished Now What!

One of the questions I get asked a lot from new quilters is what are there options on finishing their quilt? Sometimes the instructions quilt as desired doesn’t always cover it especially if you are uncertain as to what that actually means.

So your quilt top is now finished, all your hours of piecing the top have ended and now what?

Well, you have several different choices you can

  • Hand tie the quilt
  • Hand quilt the quilt
  • Machine quilt the quilt in the ditch using a domestic sewing machine
  • Free motion quilt the quilt using a domestic sewing machine
  • Free motion quilt the quilt using a longarm machine either hand-guided or computerized
  • Send your quilt out to be quilted by a professional Longarm Quilter

All of the above are great choices and you would end up with a wonderful, finished quilt.

Some of the above methods are better suited for certain quilts than others though, so let’s go through them.

Hand Tying:

This is a great choice if the quilt is scrappy and meant as a straight utility quilt however if the quilt is a Lonestar pattern or anything remotely complicated hand-tying would not be the best option.

As you can see from the picture, the best quilt designs for hand tying are ones that are very scrappy and basic patchwork designs like four-patches or plain squares or some other type of one patch quilt. This type of quilt would be classified as a utility quilt, one to be used a loved a lot.

Hand quilting:

Hand quilting is a great option for someone who happens to love handwork. For me, I have only ever hand quilted one quilt in my life and that was my very first quilt. I did it once and will never do it again (hence why I have a longarm). That said I have friends who love hand quilting because it’s portable and they find it a very relaxing pastime.

Machine Quilting in the Ditch:

If the quilt happens to be a smaller utility quilt, table runner or quilt that may not be washed too often then stitching in the ditch (basically top stitching bedside the seam) works well and is a fast and easy finish.

One thing to watch out for though, if the pieces are large and are only quilted in the ditch the batting may shift during washing and handling making a very lumpy quilt latter on.

Free Motion Quilt on your Domestic Machine

These days there are so many how-to videos and books all on learning how to free motion quilt on your domestic machine. Quilting on your domestic machine can be fun and frustrating all at the same time. The wonderful thing is that you have control over the design and how you want the quilt to look as well as thread choices. It doesn’t cost any extra money however it does take time to do. You can even quilt with rulers on your domestic machine which opens up a whole new set of quilting designs!

That said quilting a very large quilt on a domestic machine although doable can be really hard on the back, neck and shoulders. I know, I ended up with tennis elbow quilting a very large quilt and said never again. I used to then send larger quilts out to get quilted by a professional long arm quilter until I purchased my own machine.

Longarm Machine Quilting

If you have the space and money and love to quilt, you may want to invest in owning your own longarm machine, these days there are some nice entry-level machines that are a little smaller at a smaller price point than some of the larger machines. Depending on the type of quilting you do these may just fit the bill for you.

Professional Longarm Quilter

There are those people who simply love to do the piecing but have no interest at all in learning to machine quilt. They are happy to quilt table runners in the ditch or do an all-over meander on a baby quilt however anything else just doesn’t interest them.

That’s where I come in (or any other professional longarm quilter). I can’t speak for all longarmers out there however for me, I love to quilt, and I really love helping quilters finish their quilts and as my tagline says turn them into quilty hugs.

Final Thoughts

I hope this brief tutorial has helped answer some questions about what to do with that quilt top once it has been pieced.

In my next blog post, I am going to explain the differences in all-over designs and custom quilting and why you might want to choose one over the other.

What types of things do you do to relieve stress?

What Batting is Right for your Quilt!

Sep 18, 2020

One of the questions I get a lot of from new quilters is what type of batting they should use so I thought I would address that question here.

What Kind of Batting Should I Choose? (Batting Basics)

There are a lot of different types out there and I could probably write a whole book on the subject. Not sure it would be the most interesting book mind you but still…

Each step of bringing a quilt to completion has its own choices, challenges, and delights. Some people love piecing the quilt top but could easily forgo the sandwiching and quilting part of the process. I guess that’s why I know lots of people with a cupboard full of unquilted tops.

Batting selection can be boggling these days as there are so many choices on the market. So how do you choose the right batting for your project?

Questions to Ask Yourself

First off you need to start by asking yourself some basic questions.

What is the quilt’s purpose?  

 Is this quilt a

  •  baby quilt that will be washed often
  • lap quilt that will be used and needs to be cuddly
  • bed quilt that will be used however may not be washed as often
  • keepsake quilt that will be admired but not used as much
  • show quilt that will be hanging on display

How will I be finishing it?

  • Will it be tied
  • Hand-quilted
  • Machine quilted on a domestic sewing machine
  • Machine quilted on a longarm machine

If Machine Quilted What Kind of Quilting?

This question does go back to the first question a bit, what is the quilt’s purpose as depending on the purpose of the quilt, will also depend on the type of quilting that will be used on the quilt.

Will the quilt have

  •  A loose all-over quilting design
  • An all-over quilting pattern such as a pantograph which is a little more densely quilted than the above
  • Moderate custom quilting along with some SID (stitch in the ditch quilting)
  • Heavily custom quilted like you would find in pieces that would be on display

Basic Batting Terms

Once you have answered the questions above it is time to move onto what types of batting are available. Here are some simple terms to help you get started.

Loft: High

Loft is the thickness of the fluffed batting. A high loft is anything above 1/2 inch, and the highest lofts come in the polyester battings. These types of battings are typically used for hand tying quilts, and the end result is a very fluffy quilt.

Loft: Medium

The fluffed batting is somewhere between 1/4 to 1/2 inches deep

Loft: Low

The fluffed batting is somewhere between 1/4 – 1/2 inches. This is the most common loft for machine or hand quilting.

Quilting Distance

Quilting Distance is the distance between rows of quilting stitches which will keep this batting from shifting or bunching. The package will have this information on it or if you are buying from a roll at the quilt store ask the person helping you what the quilting distance for that particular batting would be.

If you want really simple loose quilting and you buy the wrong batting, when you go to wash the quilt you could end up with lumps and bumps where you don’t want them to be.

Most battings can handle moderate quilting without any issues.

Bonded

Fibers are held together through a bonding agent, similar to a glue. Some bonded battings may not be able to be preshrunk as the glue used may dissolve. Another drawback to this type of batting is that the quilting stitches may need to be really close together so the bonding doesn’t come apart when the quilt is washed.

Scrim

A light, loosely woven fabric, sometimes used to stabilize batting fibers when needle-punching. Often a polyester fiber, it may even be used in batts labeled as all cotton.

Needle-punched

Fibers are loosely felted together by a felting process using tiny needles. This creates a more stable batt, but some hand quilters find it difficult to use as it is quite firm. Most needle-punched batts include a scrim for securing the fibers. They may provide more stability for wall hangings.

 

Different Batting Fibers 

So now you have decided what the quilt is to be used for, whether you are going to tie, hand quilt or machine quilt the finished top and you have some idea of batting terminology, now it’s time to pick what type of fiber you want your batting to have.

Cotton

Fiber from harvested cotton bolls. Cotton is stable, soft, and washable however it will shrink. Cotton tends to yield a flatter look than a polyester or cotton/poly blend when quilted.

The cons of straight cotton batts are that the batting can ‘beard’ or have fibers migrate through the stitching holes of the quilting. This may not be too big of a problem if the fabrics used in the quilt top or mostly lighter in colour so the bearding won’t be that noticeable, however, if the fabrics used a darker and you have a white or cream-colored batting, that bearding will really show.

You may want closer quilting when using cotton batting as the fibers can shift and create lumps if not quilted densely enough.

If you really like the look of antique quilts when they are washed, then you will like the look of the washed quilt using cotton batting.

Polyester

Polyester batts have a higher loft than cotton and offer great stability between fibers. Polyester batts are the best choice when you want to ‘tie’ a quilt as it will have the least bunching. These types of battings are also sometimes used in baby quilts that you want to be puffer.

Just a word of warning though these battings can be harder to machine or hand quilt through given the loft can be higher.

The one disadvantage of polyester batting is breathability therefore if the quilt is to be used as a bed quilt this may not be your best option.

Cotton/Poly Blend

Considered by many to be the best of both worlds, these blends offer the softness of cotton and the stability of polyester. Bonded ones may be easier to hand quilt than needle-punched. Blend percentages vary by product however the most common blend is 80% cotton and 20% polyester.

 This is a very good choice for both hand and machine quilting. You can also have a looser quilting design using this type of batting without it bunching during washing.

 The one disadvantage for this type of batting is it can beard and it does tend to tear easily so should be handled carefully.

Bamboo 

The fibers from bamboo are long and strong, but surprisingly soft. Bamboo can be as drapeable as silk, and as soft as fine wool.

This is a wonderful batting to work with. It is good for both hand and machine quilting, it nice and warm to sleep under.

The one con with bamboo is that it can be more expensive than some of the other choices.

Wool

Wool is extremely soft, and the warmest batting option. It is easy to hand quilt and is a good choice for machine quilting as well.

Wool seems to be the preferred choice of batting for show quilters. When quilters are quilting for shows they quite often use two battings, one 80/20 and one wool batting.

Recycled Plastic

Yes, there is know even an option for batting made from recycled plastic bottles! If you are a person who is very eco friendly this may be a good option for you.

Fusible

Contains a fusible web so you can baste layers together. When using fusible batting layer quilt backing, batting, and quilt top together. Use the wool setting on your iron, press from the center out pressing each area 3-4 seconds. Once finished, allow the quilt to cool, and repeat on the other side.

Note: Not good to use if you are taking your quilt to be quilted by someone with a longarm.

Batting Colour

Once you have finally decided on what type of batting you are going to use there is one final consideration to make and that is the batting colour.

Not all types of battings have choices so depending on the batting you really want to use, you may not have a choice of colour.

Cream or Off White

This is the most popular colour of batting. Both Hobbs 80/20 and Warm and Natural two very popular types of batting are cream or off-white in colour.

 

Black

Hobbs 80/20 batting also comes in black. You may wonder why anyone would use a black batting, however, consider this, if your quilt project is mostly black and bright colours you don’t want a white or cream batting showing through the needle holes. In that case, you may prefer to use a black batting.

Black batting is a little stiffer than the cream because of the black dye however it does soften up with use.

 

White

Most 100%cotton batting is white and there is a batting called Warm and White that is also very white. You would want to use a white batting if your quilt is more modern with a solid white background colour. The cream batting would dull the bright white look of the quilt.

What Kind of Batting is Right for You?

Well depending on the project sometimes it may be whatever you happen to have lying around as long as it’s not the really puffy polyester type (unless you are hand tying the quilt that is).

If the quilt is for a very special purpose then you will defiantly want to put a little more thought into your batting choice.

The Types of Batting I like to Use

As a longarm quilter that doesn’t supply batting, I have quilted on many different types of batting. Some are nicer to work on than others.

My favourites to quilt on so

  • Hobbs 80/20
  • Warm and Natural
  • Warm and White
  • Hobbs 80/20 Black
  • Bamboo (my all-time fav) although it is more expensive

I have only ever used Wool batting once however I discovered I am allergic to it so it is not something I would ever use again.

What is your favourite batting?

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More Wow Factor (How Value Works)

Aug 19, 2020

Well, we’re into the dog days of summer. Hope everyone is doing well. A couple of weeks back Kevin and I decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather and it’s a good thing we did that day as it rained and was cloudy, windy and cool for the next few days.

One of the benefits of living on an Island is there are lots of little neighbourhood beaches and parks around to visit if you know where to look. So after work one day we decided to go exploring and visited a quiet cove where we spent time sitting and just contemplating how lucky we are to live in such a beautiful area.

Adding Value to your Quilts

Last blog post I wrote about adding that WOW factor to your quilts by adding that bit of deep dark. You can read more about that here.

I thought I would continue that theme on this post as well.

Value

Value is defined as the relative lightness or darkness of a color.

I was searching through the Robert Kaufman website and found a pattern I really liked called Sea Stars that was designed by Elise Lea and will be available as a free download in September 2020 from https://www.robertkaufman.com/quilting/quilts_patterns/sea_stars_4004/

Even though the quilt was designed using Kona solids the stars still seemed to twinkle and it was because of the designer’s great use of value in the pattern.

 

I thought that this would be a great illustration of what I was trying to convey so I recreated the pattern in EQ8 (a software program used to design quilts) so that I could show the original quilt and then some different variations. The quilt was designed using several different blue fabrics with even a very soft blue as the background fabric. Yet even though it was made with all solid fabrics and all in blue because of the rich use of different values in the design the stars seem to sparkle.

 

 

 

 Here is an example of the same pattern with a variety of different blues however the deep dark is missing. It is still a really pretty quilt however the stars don’t sparkle in quite the same way as the quilt above.

Here are two examples of two-colour monochromatic quilts the one on the left is made with a deep dark with a light blue background, the one on the right is a medium blue with the same light blue background. They both work however, the one on the left that uses the stronger contrast stands out much better than the one on the right.

More Value!

I have two more examples of how adding a deep dark colour to a quilt does bring the quilt to life. This is my own design which I did in EQ8 so there isn’t a pattern for this. At least not yet.

Both of the above quilts work nicely. They both have enough contrast in the value to make the design stand out and not all mush together.

The quilt on the left has the deep dark to make it really stand out and could work nicely for a quilt made for a man.

The quilt on the right doesn’t have that deep dark, however, it does have the contrast of light, med light, med and med dark fabrics in it to still make it work. Without the deep dark the quilt is much softer and would work nice in a girls room.

I hope this gives you a little more confidence to playing around with value in your own quilts and remembering to add just a little deep dark to really make your quilts stand out.

Happy Quilting

Vintage Valentine Finish!

Jun 21, 2020

I am finally finished the Vintage Valentine Quilt!

Only 17 years in the making! I spent many hours quilting it.

I am always so surprised when I take a quilt off the frame. I have a handiQuilter Avante which has an 18 inch throat space. Truthfully when I am doing custom work I couldn’t really work on anything larger than that, my arms simply aren’t that long.

However, what I find is that you are concentrating so hard on that small space and in that space you see every error and imperfection.

Then, when you finally take that quilt off the frame and stand back. Wow!

Suddenly all those imperfections blend in with the whole and they are not noticeable anymore.

Accomplishment

I am so proud of myself over this quilt. Normally, I let fear and judgement stop me. I have left quilt tops sitting for years as I was too scared to quilt them the way I wanted them to be quilted. I mean, what if I made a mistake!

Not this time, I knew that this quilt deserved something more than simple all over quilting or even light custom quilting.

I’m glad I decided to just go for it even though I used so many new to me techniques.

 When I finally pulled this quilt off the frame it took my breath away! I was so happy with the result, mistakes and all.

I LOVED quilting this quilt. I had client quilts backing up in my queue so I ended up quilting until midnight for 2 nights just to get this off my frame.

I so enjoyed the process of both the quilting and the design phase that I am now thinking up different designs for the Flower Basket quilt top that is next on my list. I was originally thinking of just doing something simple but am rethinking that now. This one might prove to be more challenging as it has a black background however, we’ll see.

Lesson Learned

For anyone just starting out with your quilting and you get anxious over your mistakes, really, unless they are HUGE, once that quilt is finished, and you are looking at the quilt as a whole, you will never, ever see the imperfections.

It’s kinda like life, when you stand back and look at your life as a whole, the imperfect parts drift away.

Remember to keep challenging yourself it’s the only way to grow and improve in both quilting and life!