Sunday, March 30, 2014

Woodworker's Showcase

We took a trip to Saratoga Springs for the annual event. The biggest reason we went was to see the luthiers!


The hubs was chatting about Flying V guitars.

There were all kinds of wood flutes. 

Aren't these the coolest banjos?

These mountain dulcimer so were gorgeous!

If we were to get a mandolin, it would be one of these!

A modern approach to the violin. 

This is how banjos the poor man's homemade looked. 

A ruler on the side of a dulcimer? I could use that when I'm sewing! 

Of all inlaid necks, this was the most beautiful I saw there. So delicate and attractive. 

Yes, we were there!

Friday, March 28, 2014

Anita's Arrowhead Quilt Completed

This will be going to a special lady very soon. 

The quilting is loopy lines in the brown border and gentle flames in the center. 


The back is a tan and brown calico print. 

I love how it turned out!

All ready for a label, and then off to its new home. 



Saturday, March 22, 2014

FMQ Journey Over the Last Few Years

Here's my very first quilt and hand quilting project that I made ever. It was back in 1997 after my mom said, "you should try quilting", so I did. I don't recall where I got this pattern. I must have thought it looked like something I could make. The sashing and borders gave me trouble; they never lined up very well.

My stitches in the center six-point stars were around 2 per inch. I didn't even know there was such a thing as free motion quilting. I am happy to still have this piece in my possession. I continue to use these color choices to this day. I think I still have one of the fabric's scraps in my stash.

Quite a few years went by where I did no quilting at all. I would sew, make clothes and home decor, but not quilts. Then, I was in the local library and took out some quilting books. One had really cute blocks in it and I started making my first real pieced bed quilt. I had to change the patterns so I could fit them all into the quilt. I called it my calendar quilt, since it had a block that represented something about each month of the year. I stitched in the ditch around each month but still have to do quilting on it.


I remember stumbling onto Leah Day's website as I was searching for a place to learn how to do FMQ. I was making a bunch of blocks and had quite a few of them so I figured they should be joined into a quilt! And I wanted to quilt it! I just didn't know how!


I wanted to learn how to do something other than feed dog sewing. I didn't know anyone who did FMQ; the websites I found were all I had to go on, and there weren't many that helped me very much. So I watched Leah's videos on my phone app over the course of about 6 months before I mustered up the courage to try to learn this new skill for myself.

The day came in December of 2011. I was never so nervous in front of my Project Runway sewing machine! I made my quilt practice sandwich, put on that special FMQ foot that I bought, dropped the feed dogs, loaded up a bunch of bobbins, put on a pair of rubber tipped gardening gloves, and sat in front of this machine I was so familiar with, scared to touch it. Then, I remembered that I had to do a load of laundry...right at that moment. Off came the gloves and down the stairs I went with the wash. Yes, I was stalling. You know how it is.

Taking on FMQ is rough on the psyche. About a half hour later, I was back with my rubber tipped gardening gloves on, and this time I started to sew. I didn't expect to be perfect but I did expect to not have as many problems as I had. Watching the videos wasn't enough. My brain said, yes, but my body didn't know what it was doing!

Fortunately, I saved some of my earliest practice pieces. They were so bad. And I was so frustrated! I knew I could do this. Like the little train, I told myself I think I can! The front looked pretty good...


But the back was all wrong. I examined what was going on in the hot mess on the back of my stitches. "Change the tension dial" came to mind. That's a thought we don't ever want to have! Are you with me?!!!

So I started turning the dial that none of us ever want to have to turn. Press the pedal... make loops...make something that barely resembles stipple shapes. The front isn't too bad. Not better but not too bad...

And my heart would sink when I'd look at the back. "Well, I must have turned the dial the wrong way"...

More front work...

But it's not getting better, it's getting worse... gak! Now there's loose stitches on the front!

And the back looked like a toddler scribbled all over it! I didn't even know my bobbin thread could ever look like that!

I was totally convinced that I broke my machine! My mom, who was a wonderful seamstress, told tell me that most likely wasn't the case. She said it was pretty difficult to break a sewing machine. Then, she suggested to set the machine back up in normal sewing mode and try to sew and see if the stitches looked ok. 

Off to another little sandwich I started sewing... in normal mode... with messed up tensions... turning the dreaded dial... holding my breath...

And finally I saw the lines (on the right side) were back to normal again, so she was right. My machine was fine. It was me who needed the fine tuning and practice! ok, I can deal with that.

Back to my quilt. The reason I decided to learn FMQ in the first place. I had narrowed it down to 5 patterns and this was the one that I chose to do on each of the solid blocks. I figured if they were overlapping, they might stay together longer than if they weren't! Each of the other blocks had some roughly FMQ'd design that I thought matched the feel of the block. The final result was just great. And I was hooked onto free motion quilting!

My tool inventory shaped up too. I got rid of the gardening gloves for real quilting gloves, got bobbin genie washers, a supreme slider, some good isachord thread. I even upgraded to a Viking sewing machine. Yes, I'm hooked!

One smaller project I made, with Leah's online instructions, was this pretty number. We did a modern quilt and FMQ'd zen-tangles filled with various fills.

Basic stippling

Circuit board

Flame stipple (this was a hard one for me)

Loopy lines (this one is an absolute fave and I use it a lot)

And sharp stipple

One day, I got the idea to do practice FMQ-ing on prequilted fabric pieces. No pinning required! If I found any plain remnants in clearance bins, I'd pick it up on the cheap for when I wanted to noodle out stuff like this.

Nothing serious. Just whatever popped into my head would get stitched out. Including the overly large flower on the little tiny stem. What does that remind you of? The man-eating plant from the movie, Little Shop of Horrors? Regardless, the backs began looking much better than they used to!

Another day, I pulled out some fabric that I always pass over when I'm making projects and turned it into a practice sandwich that's ready for stuff like this. Leah Day fans will recognize them!

One of my favorite practice pieces turned into an actual mini-quilt. There are a lot of Leah's designs in this piece. I was getting the binding down on it here but it is done and on a table in my sewing room now.

If you've looked through Leah's site, you would have found, and possibly made, this project. I decided to make it a little smaller than her pattern so it would make a pretty wall hanging. I gave it to my mom as a gift and a testament to what she handed down to me that first time she encouraged me to "try quilting."

Who hasn't heard of Patsy Thompson? Well, I hadn't until late 2012. She was part of SewCalGal's 2012 FMQ challenge. This gorgeous wholecloth design was Patsy's project. I trimmed it out into a square and bound it in burgandy. I was so proud to make this! I have thought it would be beautiful to make a pair of them and turn them into pillows.

Now, I'm part of the FMQ 2014 Building Blocks Quilt Along and am enjoying it so much. Thank you, Leah, for teaching me from afar and giving me the push I needed to learn free motion quilting and for making a place for our community of quilters to connect.

Keep practicing and love what you do, each step of the way. This is an amazing craft and it can bring such life to your projects! I hope this overview of my journey has inspired you. I'd love to hear from you. Thanks for looking!

Sunday, March 16, 2014

Building Blocks FMQ - Rail Fence #1

Some days you have it and some days you just don't. It was a pretty good start but went crooked and sideways after a while. C'est la vie!

Half done! Happy up to this point. Minimal marking for the FMQ. 

I marked some lines in order to know where to stop in the triangles. See them in the lower quad?

The second half was a bit sloppier. I tried a different path to do the triangles but that caused lots of travel stitching. 

It's not terrible, but could have been much better. 

I do like this design. I can see myself using it in other projects. Thanks, Leah, for your FMQ project!

Sunday, March 9, 2014

Stash Control - the Quiltville Way

The ever mounting stash of scraps in ThistleFire, my sewing room, has been something I've wanted to get under control. Almost a year ago, Bonnie Hunter was in my area and I went to her presentation. She shared her way to tame the scrap pile. Her plan has been mulling in my mind and today I decided to start getting it organized.

Here's what w I was dealing with. The pile on the table wasn't too bad. It was the big bin that I can't keep adding to. It was time to end the mess!

If you haven't seen Bonnie's scrap control procedures, you can find them in the tips tab on her Quiltville blog. In a nutshell, you cut strips, squares, bricks, and the larger pieces so they are ready to get pulled for your next project. All precut and ready for the pattern!

Here's my pile from the table and a small part from the big bin cut and organized. 

A means of storing them is still needed but I am happy to have begun the process! This is a big undertaking but once I'm caught up, it will be easy to continue the prep cuts on future scraps. 

I think a small chunk of time, like 15 minutes, each day will really make a dent that will encourage me to finish. This is a time consuming process. You can't cut stacks of fabric when trimming out scraps. But the end result is reward of its own. 

Do you organize your scraps? What do you do with them?

Building Blocks FMQ - 9-Patch #3

The final 9-Patch was definitely a fun one! Wiggly Pasta: what a fun name!

As you can see, this shot doesn't show us very much.


Here's a closer look at the corner and the improvisation I made for my block's size.


And the back where everything is crystal clear. 

The 9-Patch blocks were fantastic fun! I'm totally looking forward to FMQ-ing the next round of blocks, Rail Fence. I have mine pieced and sandwiched. Do you?