Amazing Quilt (not by me)

The fabric is a panel titled Dream Big Horizon by Hoffman Fabrics.  The panel itself is very beautiful but the FMQ (Free Motion Quilting) is absolutely gorgeous. Notice how smooth the feathers are — no bobbles or jagged edges. Also the quilter used a darker thread color around the outer edges of the quilt.  I would guess this was done on a free-arm machine. This is a seriously gifted quilter.  Click here to read comments from other quilters..

"Practice Makes Progress"

I wanted to get some practice in piecing (it needed improvement on the crib/baby quilt) and I thought the quilting I did was pretty boring to the eye. So I constructed a 12” block of a cat using scraps from earlier projects.

I also wanted to practice more interesting forms of the actual quilting process. I used some stitches that are pre-installed on my Singer Quantum Stylist 9960. That’s what you see in the second picture below. I have 600 different installed stitches on my machine so I’m sure I can find some nifty quilting stitching to embellish my quilts.

Next I’ll be practicing free-motion quilting (definition here). Angela Walters seems to be a leading instructor/practitioner of free-motion quilting and she has excellent books and video tutorials on the subject. She might have coined the phrase “practice makes progress” and I like that very much.

My First Quilt

My first quilt is now complete !! It is small and suitable for infants and small toddlers. You can see that our dog, Calliope, is awestruck (or perhaps it hurts her eyes 😉 ). The quilt looks better than I expected since I see every single mistake that I made—all of which are common for beginner quilters.

I learned several important lessons:

• precise, exact measuring and cutting accurately is crucial to the process—even being off an eighth of an inch can multiply to an inch in the right (or wrong) circumstances

• some fabrics have directionality — I discovered that when I saw that some blocks of cats were sideways. I had to purchase some more fabric and re-cut the blocks.

My next “project” will be using scraps (amazing how many scraps are created) to create two blocks. I’ll do my best to measure and cut accurately and join the two blocks to see how well I’ve done. I’ll be practicing free-motion quilting too.

Crib/Baby Quilt

I’ve been away for a while dealing with other projects but I’ve created my first quilt top (above), created the quilt “sandwich” (quilt top, batting and backing in solid yellow) and quilted the quilt (which probably sounds redundant but isn’t.

Not surprisingly I’ve made every single error that a new quilter makes. When I’m cutting the fabric if I’m off even an eighth of a inch on each block that translates to a full inch on each row or column. Additionally, the rows and columns don’t match up.

On the whole, I’m pretty pleased with the outcome. Next up is binding the edges of the quilt and then the quilt will be complete.

For my next project I’ll be creating some sample blocks to get more precision in my cutting and trying free-motion quilting. Stay tuned !!

My Third Quilting Project

I finished another set of placements - this one with mitered corners. I’m getting a bit better, but you can see that the corners aren’t quite correct. I really like this pattern, so I’ll be making another set and I expect to see some improvements in the corners. . .

My second quilting project

My second project was another placemat. I’ve chosen placemats to begin with because they are small and because we need new placemats !

I ordered a “charm pack” (a pre-cut 5”x5” set of fabric) that coordinates well with our dining room. I wanted to try my hand with piecing and am pretty pleased with the finished product. You can probably see that I’m still having problems with the corners and I haven’t mastered cutting very precisely yet. I learned a heck of a lot on the project and look forward to my next placemat project.

Quilting Aspirations

Someday . . .

My first quilting project

I completed my first quilting project !! Hooray !! It’s definitely a beginner project. I learned so much (thank you YouTube and all those who post videos there !). This project doesn’t bear close scrutiny — you’ll notice that it isn’t square (or even rectangular) and the stitching is not even around the binding. But, hey, I’ll get better !

New Hobby Begins

Sooo — counted cross stitch no longer rules my heart (and I guess I should change the name of this blog. . . )

Quilting has been calling to me for more than two years and I’ve decided to heed the call. After much research I purchased a Singer Quantum Stylist 9960. It doesn’t do embroidery stitches but it does do fancy stitches (600 or so (!) ). The first picture is the machine and the second is a randomly chosen group of stitches.

I’m sure that it will take me a while to get used to the machine, so my first project will be one very simple placemat. I’ll be quilting the placemat and that will give me a chance to get used to the machine and practice some simple quilting.

Time for a New Hobby?

I’ve completely lost the “cross stitching bug”. I’ve laid out my current project on my work table, sat there for a few minutes and walked off to wash dishes or sweep the floor or . . . (those who know me know I HATE housework 😬 )

Over the last two years or so, I’ve felt a call to quilting and that seems to be calling me again. But I’m not all that nuts about traditional quilts . . . I was at a quilt show at our library and saw the pictured quilt and thought “I could do that and something like it would be great on my chair !”

The pictured quilt is an antique from about 1910. The woman who created it was a seamstress and had wool samples for men’s suits. The man would choose the fabric, she would order the appropriate quantity and then used some of the fabric to create the quilt. She embroidered a simple flower on each swatch.

So. . . my next post might be a picture of my sewing machine (I don’t own one) and the beginning of a placemat which seems like a good beginner project.