Quilting motifs

I received a top from a customer who told me she had never had a quilt done professionally before.  I was in the middle of an on-line custom quilting course and decided this would be a perfect top to work with.  Fairly simply assembly – floral blocks with borders of green and red.  The only stipulation she had was that she wanted flowers quilted in the 4 corners.

I decided to use the floral blocks as inspiration and made a hummingbird motif from a copy-right free site I found on-line.  I used my printer to shrink it to the size I needed for the blocks.  I ironed it onto freezer paper and then ironed on 2 more layers so the pattern would be quite stiff.

humming bird pattern

I would use these along with air/water soluble marking pens on the quilt top itself.

I spent a lot of time trying to find a floral motif to use in the corners (outlined in red in the picture).  The floral blocks were too ‘dainty’ to use as motifs and I sketched a number of different ideas until I came upon the realization that I could already quilt pansies and I knew my customer liked pansies as well.  I drew my own design for the corner motifs and then used the freezer paper to stiffen the pattern the same way as I did the humming birds.

pansy basket

I drew around the outside of the patterns and then just a few inner lines as a guideline while I was quilting.

This was the first time I had ever used my quilting as the focal point on the quilt.  A little scary but I thoroughly enjoyed doing this top.

humming bird

I just did a simple stippling around the motifs.  Here’s a close-up of one of the humming birds; they were done in all the white  setting triangles around the outside of the quilt.  I did continues curves in the red, green and white borders.  These were long strips of fabric but I divided and marked them as if they were made of smaller squares and quilted accordingly.

pansy basket

Here you can see one of the pansy baskets and the single pansy I put in the smaller corner setting triangles. The top had both white and off-white and  I matched the thread through-out the quilt – So Fine! Snow for the white setting triangles and So Fine! Putty around the floral blocks.

pansy basket close-up

My customer was going to use this as a tablecloth but once she saw it she decided to set aside an area in her home and used it as a wall-hanging complete with display table beneath and flowers.

I do enjoy all types of quilting but I must say that this really made me realize how much I love the creative aspect of custom work.  Good thing I do as another customer saw this quilt and dropped off her quilt of the same pattern!  Hmmm – this time I see butterflys…

Round Robin Quilt with a twist

Over a year ago I talked my quilting buddies into a special type of round robin that I had come across on-line.  I would love to give credit where credit is due but all I know it was from a group of women somewhere in BC and because the pictures are no longer on-line I can’t even source it out anymore.

Basically, it is done as a regular round robin but instead of simply adding borders to the project that you receive, you have to follow ‘instructions’ as to what is to be done for that round – things like ” make the project neither square nor rectangular” and “cut and insert fabric 3 times”.

Sounded like a lot of fun and a great way to maybe get out of the quilting box we had put ourselves into.  I bravely (and rather naively as it turned out) offered to make up the spreadsheet for the 9 of us to follow so we would always know what instructions we were to follow and who to send the project off to when we were done.  Sounds pretty basic right?  Wrong.

This ‘challenge’ was going to take over a year to complete.  We wanted to make sure we all had enough time to do the challenge.  We all agreed our starting blocks would be something simple (mine was just a fat quarter of fabric) and not a block that we had spent hours making!  After handing out my rather spiffy looking spreadsheets to everyone my friend said “I don’t think this will work out right”.  I managed to argue loud enough that I was sure it was OK and it was left at that point.  Well, of course a couple months into it we realized that it wasn’t right.  We needed another set of instructions added to the list.  A few months later the call went out that the spreadsheet still wasn’t right because all of a sudden everyone was getting back a project that they had already worked on.  No problem, we decided, we would just carry on.  Lo and behold awhile later it was discovered that the spreadsheet was really messed up because the owners of the project would be getting their own back before it was even finished.  That really had to get fixed so I spent a long afternoon re-working the entire thing and got it straightened out enough that we could complete it.  What a nightmare!! And, that is what I’ve called my finished project.

WHAT A NIGHTMARE

Here is my finished top.  You can see the different instructions – cut 3 times – add piping – make in neither square nor rectangular and so on.

The vibrating blue in the centre was the fat quarter that I started out with.

Not really my cup of tea!  I was bound and determined I was going to quilt it though, it means a lot to me that we all had a part in it.

I started out by printing out a couple of pictures of the quilt in greyscale and started to doodle.  It finally dawned on me that if it is called What a Nightmare why not turn it into a nightmare!

I must explain that I am terrified of spiders.  Totally.  So – if this top was going to be my nightmare then I guess I had to include a few.  The fat quarter in the centre really does lend itself to a spider web after all.

What a wicked web we weave

I used Superior Metallics in Silver for the web and King Tut Ebony for the spiders and bugs.  It was all done free hand and I went around the bugs and spiders 2 or 3 times each to give them definition and twice on the web.

AGGHHHH!

What else should be in the quilt but my version of Munch’s “Scream”  I used King Tut Limestone for the outline and So Fine! Rose Petal for the background fill around him…her…it.  I really wanted the piece to be kind of wonky and weird so all I did was sketch a rough outline of what I wanted and just played with the machine.

I even put Kilroy ( for those that remember him) in the upper right corner.

Kilroy was here

Fingers are hanging down all around the outside pink border, Red Metallics bats in the Flying Geese blocks and slithery snakes in the Drunkards path.

Slithery

All in all I had a lot of fun.  Except maybe for the spiders.

behind the scenes

It was a great chance to practice my background fills too!

Thank you to all my 4Qx2+1 quilting buddies – the spiders will only be coming out at Halloween!

What a difference the (quilting) thread makes!

When I first started out quilting I never gave much thought to the thread I was using other than the colour of course.  I was introduced to Superior Threads King Tut by a fellow quilter that had a long arm machine and I fell in love with all the colours available, never mind the quality of the thread itself!

I soon fell in love with the product only to discover how difficult it was to find here in Canada.  For that reason I started Bailey’s Quilting Headquarters and learning about what so many of us take for granted – thread.

Here’s a poll for you – stop and think about the thread you have in your sewing room and how old your oldest spool of thread is.  Don’t include any vintage thread you have kept “just because”, just the thread that you use or plan to use.

It will be interesting to see the results

So, what difference can old thread make?  If you’re using up Gramma’s old thread to piece your quilts together with you could end up with seams that are very weak and can break and pull apart long before the quilt has a chance to be loved to death first.  That would be the worst that could happen; the most frustrating thing would be constant breakage and fraying while sewing and that makes for no fun at all.

What thread should you use for piecing?  Does it really matter, no-one can see it?  Actually, it matters a great deal and in this case – size does matter.  Do you find that you have difficulties getting that perfect scant 1/4″ seam?  If you are positive that you’re machine is set correctly and you’re using the right foot then perhaps it is the thread that is causing the issue.  You have to remember that the thread itself will take up room in the seam and the thicker the thread the more room it takes up and can make your supposed scant 1/4″ seam larger than you think.  If you are using regular sewing thread than try MasterPiece thread.

MasterPiece thread by Superior Threads

It is 100% ELS cotton, very fine and has very little lint to gather in your machine.  I carry six common colours from white through beige, grey and black.

When it comes to the actual quilting of your project then once again the size of the thread should be taken into account.  If you are doing and all-over quilting pattern and would like the thread to compliment the fabric then King Tut is a good choice.  This is a 40wt 100% ELS cotton perfect for the sit-down machine quilter, hand quilter and is praised by long-arm quilters for its strength, lack of lint and amazing colour pallet.

King Tut by Superior Threads (#981 Cobra)

There is a lot of controversy about using polyester threads when quilting.  I will be the first to tell you that I do not recommend polyester threads for piecing the top together but for the actual quilting process I heartily recommend it!

The problem with using polyester thread for piecing is probably not what you think it is.  I’m sure you’ve heard how the polyester thread can tear the cotton fabric and while that may have been true many, many years ago I would like to think that our manufacturing of cotton into fabrics has advanced somewhat  In fact – I have tested 100% cotton thread that is stronger (took much more force to break) than a quality polyester thread.  The truth is that we use a very high heat when pressing our piecing and that doesn’t work well with polyester threads.  If you were to use a polyester setting when pressing your blocks you would have no problem at all.

So Fine! thread is the perfect choice when you want a finer look to the quilting.  This  50wt polyester thread will sink down into the fabric and is ideal for tone-on-tone quilting where the quilting

So Fine! by Superior Threads, #419 Pineapple

makes the pattern such as with wholecloth quilts.  Again, this thread is for all quilters whether they machine or hand quilt.  Machine quilters will love the fact that there will be next to no link at all in their machines.

I have a printable PDF with more information about these threads that you can access here.

I have changed my shipping charges and now for every order over $55 Canadian shipping is FREE!

Happy quilting in 2010

Catching up with all the quilts

I can’t believe how long it had been since I last posted.  It is hard sometimes to keep up with it when you are busy with work and life in general.

I was busy all summer with customer quilts and here are a few pictures

Cars quilt

This was a fun quilt to do.  A little bit of custom work using gold and silver metallic thread as well as monopoly by Superior.

My customer took the panel and added her own ‘wheel’ border and the outer 2 borders.

Appliqued wheel

I have to be honest and say that my husband was the one that suggested how to outline the spokes of the wheel – I really wanted to see a bit of movement there.  Because of the thickness of the applique I wasn’t able to do anything in the black area.

I pretty much just followed the artwork – outlining the label and headlights in silver metallic.

Cars label

The main body is a simple meander with racing flags, the sky done in a large wavy meander following the cloud shapes.  I did crossed racing flags in the border and outlined the large red squares.  Again, a fun quilt to do.

flag border

More finished quilts coming soon!

A few customer quilts

Well, I’m making headway on all the customer quilts that I received after getting home from vacation.  Most of them are ‘edge to edge’ type designs and they do go fairly quickly.

simple loop meander

This customer just wanted a meander done – I don’t like the traditional meander where the lines never cross.  I prefer a loop meander – I find it more pleasing to look at, it makes your eyes follow around the quilt enjoying the pattern and colours whereas the standard meander makes me try and follow the line of thread much like a maze to see where it comes out!

'edgy' meander

This is the same quilt pattern only much, much larger!  This was a fairly new quilter and she doesn’t ‘do’ small quilts  As you can see this quilt took up most of my 12′ frame.  She also wanted just a meander but I talked her into adding a few pointy lines in the meander to keep with the sharper lines of the quilt.

edgy meander border

Can’t really see it all that well but I simply threw a few points into the mix.  I used King Tut #903 Lapis Lazuli and it popped out beautifully on the dark marble print.

edge meander block

She seemed very pleased with the end result and that is the importing thing!  The pattern did not call for the diamond border.  She put the border together herself and added it.  I think she did a great job all-in-all and she obviously isn’t afraid to try new things

fantasy feather

This quilt is my first ‘out of town’ customer.  OK, it is for a cousin of one of my customers but still!

A simple large block batik that was very pretty – the colours of course don’t show up here very well.  She wanted 2 designs on this on, the Fantasy Feather in the centre and Pansy Meander in the dark border.  This quilt was nice and square so stabalizing the middle border went very quickly.  I really liked this quilt – very bright and pretty.

fantasy feather closeup

I used King Tut #922 Harem and it blended perfectly with just enough showing to let the feathers pop once in awhile.

pansy meander close-up

The last picture is of the pansy meander, it should show up better if you click on the picture.

Well, that is just a few of the ones I’ve been working on.  Right now I have a custom piece I’m working on, it is for my customers grandson and is a lot of fun.  She’s used a Disney/Pixar panel and increased it with borders.  I’m doing car-themed quilting!  I will post pictures of it and my progress as I go.