Well Basted; Finally Finished

This quilt was basted two years ago. At that time the sashing was SID but I never could decide how to quilt it. Finally I hung it neatly alongside some tops where it remained until this week. Enough! Propellers turn so they make spiraling air currents and that's a good enough design.

The more I fret about quilting, the more I try to "match" it to the fabric prints. So I considered tracing those large circles, small daisies, and wavy lines. Too constrained. Too many thread changes. The spiral looks cleaner and more effective.

Propeller baby quilt

The only problem was the center of the spiral. It's very hard to turn the quilt smoothly in such a tiny radius. I have used FMQ in the center and switched to the walking foot when the circle was larger but it's hard to enough keep the spacing the same with one foot. It's almost impossible with two different feet. Marking a spiral wasn't a good option this time because my marking pens blended into the print.

Original spiral quilting
in the center is not well aligned

I resewed it by simply following the printed design of the center. The spiraling starts at the edge of the center circle. The lines still have some irregularities but those are much less obvious.

Center is quilted by following
the print with a walking foot

Then I pulled fabric for the binding. Lots and lots of fabrics. Red, blue, light blue, grey, white, striped. You name it; I tried it. Most were too harsh. The pale grey striped border called for a light- colored binding. Here are three of my final ideas. The black at the bottom made a very severe line as did all those strong blues and reds. I liked the grey and yellow but preferred the soft blue with orange-red flowers... even though it looks like a 30's reproduction print. It ties to the center better.

Binding choices for Propeller baby quilt

The back is a soft twill-like weave in baby pink that was a bit wider than normal so it didn't need piecing. I wish I knew the name of the weave. It drapes beautifully; not a bit stiff like my idea of twill.

Binding detail of Propeller baby quilt

One more detail photo. Without realizing it,  Propeller baby quilt is a small exercise in scale change, too. Woo-hoo; invitation met - even if it is a bit late.

Propeller baby quilt detail

Previous posts:

1. Leftover blocks
2. Designing the top
3. Basted and ready to quilt

Quilt Details
Size: 44" x 44"
Designs: Airplane Propellers and Flying Geese
Batting: Mountain Mist 100% cotton
Thread: Gutterman 50 wt cotton, grey on front, pink on back
Quilting: SID and Spiral with walking foot

Enjoy the day, Ann

Chinese Coins with Spirals Quilt

Wasting no time, I spiral quilted this Chinese Coins baby quilt. It one went more smoothly due to for repeated {recent} practice.

Spiral Chinese Coins baby quilt (CCXIV)

The quilting enhances the appliqué spirals although it required a few extra pins to keep the fabric flat. Even though I tried, those appliqués stretched the background fabric a bit although those improved with practice, too.

Detail of Spiral Chinese Coins baby quilt (CCXIV)

The back shows off the quilting better. Why is that? It also shows the SID on the inner border.

Back of Spiral Chinese Coins baby quilt (CCXIV)

Any wiggling of narrow borders is extremely noticeable so I always SID those first in a color that matches the border. You can't see it on the front...

Detail of Spiral Chinese Coins baby quilt (CCXIV)

but it's visible on the back.

Detail of back of Spiral Chinese Coins baby quilt (CCXIII)

Can you believe this is the fourteenth Coins quilt I've made in this series? I can't.

Quilt Details

Size: 41" x 42"

Design: Chinese Coins

Batting: Mountain Mist 100% cotton

Thread: Black and variegated yellow Gutterman 50 wt cotton 

Quilting: Stitch in the Ditch and spiral, both with walking foot

Previous posts:

1. The Chinese Coin columns that didn't work and the sashing strips {because this one was made from the narrow columns of the same foundation as the Square Deal baby quilt.}
2. Chinese Coins with Tulips
3. Adding the spirals

Enjoy the day, Ann

A Gifted Deal

Quilted, bound, washed, and dried. These darling blocks made a {fairly} quick quilt for a new baby. It went in the mail and arrived before the new dad's paternity leave ended. Whew!

The Square Deal baby quilt

As frequently happens, I nearly drove myself crazy with the quilting. It needed to keep the quilt together and hold up to rigorous use. Additionally, it needed to be simple with a minimum of starts and stops. Burying threads is such a time consumer.

The inner border is SID with matching thread. This is my usual way to keep the line straight through all the subsequent quilting.

After asking my small group, I determined to try a squared-off spiral. It was a disaster. Not only were my "straight" lines wobbly, they were also too far apart. In desperation I switched to a regular spiral. It didn't seem like it would work well but I was wrong about that, too. It looks great. Yes, those curved lines are wobbly but I bet you can't tell!

Detail of the Square Deal baby quilt

The main back fabric was too short and too narrow. A bit of another blue lengthened the base and the last of the border fabric widened it. The spiral shows up so much better on the back.

Back of the Square Deal baby quilt

I've used this design twice before, but it's been a while. The first time on the Neutral String baby quilt and later on Spiderweb 3.  I like it and plan to use it again. Echo quilting is one of the few designs that shows on patterned fabric. Spirals are a version of echos.

Quilt Details

Size: 40" x 40"

Design: Original

Batting: Mountain Mist 100% cotton

Thread: Blue and peach Gutterman 50 wt cotton

Quilting: Stitch in the Ditch and spiral, both with walking foot

Previous posts: 
1. The Chinese Coin columns that didn't work
2. Making HSTs
3. Playing with HSTs
4. Square Deal block
5. Using the extra blocks

I borrowed The Golden Thread by Kassia St. Clair, a collection of stories about fabric through history rather than a history of fabric. Thirteen chapters cover pre-historic cave dwellers through the Space Age astronauts and include several stories, each beginning with a literary quote involving thread or textiles. That alone is worthwhile. Kassia writes fluently and persuasively; she based this book on some of her magazine articles. 

The Golden Thread
by Kassia St. Clair

All in all, The Golden Thread is much more interesting than the news programs so I will be check her other book on color next.

Enjoy the day, Ann

Finally Quilting Chinese Coins II: AHIQ 29

AHIQ Invitation
Kaja and I discussed last year's AHIQ invitations and think they went pretty well. Our goal was and remains to build an interested community of quilters exploring original ideas for everyday quilts. The open-ended topics let each of us develop our own interests at a variety of skill levels. We all  expanded our understanding of improvisational utility quilting and became more confident in our skills.

I noticed that I needed more than a couple of months to work on each idea, especially since I wanted to incorporate the technique into ongoing work. Meaty projects that challenge me on several levels are much more engaging {although I'm in the throes of a group of fairly quick small quilts right now.} However, by the end of the year everyone's energy dropped off. I know my time was overcommitted. There were several projects that simply had to be finished; something had to give.

This year we plan to present only two invitations/challenges. We hope this will fit into your schedule more easily, encourage more participation and longer discussions. Kaja's leading off with a new idea this month. Check her post for all the details. I can't wait to start.


Queued Up
I finished several quilts recently because they were small but I'm still working on two that are pin basted.

Chinese Coins II quilt (CCII) with SID complete

Southern Hairstyles and Quilting
My mother loved to read columnist Marilyn Schwartz in the Dallas Morning News. The way Marilyn poked fun at Texas pretensions always made her laugh. When A Southern Belle Primer: Or Why Princess Margaret Will Never Be a Kappa Kappa Gamma appeared in 1991 my mother was among the first to purchase it.

One chapter dealt with hair. Given a choice, Texas women want fine rather than coarse hair because it sounds classier. Curly or straight? Curly, of course; waves are so beautiful. And thick or thin? Why thick. As Marilyn noted, we just selected the worst possible combination: curly, fine and thick - a mess to style, ready to frizz with the slightest humidity.

What does this have to do with quilting? Well, that's the same way I quilt. Simple or complex pattern? Complex. Print or solid fabric? Prints, of course. Simple or detailed quilting? Oh, detailed, please. And we all know the result. Tiny pieces rarely show prints to advantage (and vice versa.) In fact, echo or parallel quilting is all that really shows on my quilts because those beloved prints hide all the fancy stitching.

So why do I spend so much time agonizing over quilting designs? IDK. Crazy. The longer I dither, the less capable I am of moving forward. CCII is a case in point. Realistically I should quilt an all-over pattern with grey thread and move on. Not much is going to show on this large quilt with loads of patterned fabrics. But I can't bring myself to do that.

Quilting Smaller Shapes on CCII

New Year's prodded me to get busy. The choice was to quilt it or watch is rot in storage. Requisite SID started the quilting. Then FMQ in dark threads since I had {sort of} decided on how to attack the darkest fabrics. The spiral-and-wiggle isn't that great. What was I thinking?  And everything always looks bad at this stage - especially when dark thread traipses across white backgrounds. I keep reminding myself it will look better when the rest is done. I didn't want to worry about threads peeking through. Now I only need to finalize the rest of the designs.

Free motion quilting on Chinese Coins II quilt back

Next up was the star posts combining a spiral with FMQ outline of the points.

Bottom left: Free-hand-and drawn circle with washable marker.
Bottom right: Hold the tails, stitch the circle then start to spiral out. It's slow moving the tails from hand to hand as I circle around.
Top right: Continue spiralling until I hit the base of one of the star points.
Top left: Outline the star points with FMQ. Finish back at the spiral to tie off.

Quilting a star with spiral center

In case you're still wondering: Princess Margaret would not be pledged because she smoked in public.

Enjoy the day, Ann

InLinkz removed because it was hacked.

Tartan Diamond in a Square and AHIQ 22

Today is the third month of Kaja's #AHIQtwoblocks invitation. I'm on pins and needles to see what everyone has done even if, like me, you're not finished. CCII: Stacked Bricks is going to be my two block quilt; the second block forms a border. The background squares created by the Coins reminded me of a quilt I made years ago.

Tartan Diamond in a Square began with leftover Half Log Cabins/Housetop blocks. The bright, colorful ones quickly went into a simpler scrap quilt. These remaining blocks were so dull I almost donated them until... That plaid fell on those dull blocks and a perfect match was born.

About that plaid. I'd been on a business trip and wandered into WalMart one evening. This was before they standardized their offerings at every store so there was always the chance of finding something unusual. This fabric was on top of a station. From a distance it looked woolen and like the Sirens of old, it called to me across the store. I only bought 1.5 yards. {Why? There was certainly more and it was on sale.} Every scrap went into this quilt. In fact, that's why the inner section is not symmetrical.

Can you see the two block setting? It a bit of an illusion.

Tartan Diamond in a Square

The first block is composed of four Housetops.

Tartan Diamond in a Square detail
with Half Log Cabins/Housetop blocks

They alternate with a simple dark or light centered block sashed with a loud plaid. Because the Housetops had subtle color variations I didn't want a single fabric in the alternate block. Neither did I want an obvious pattern. So I sewed two fabrics together, cross cut, and spun the resulting squares into a simple whirligig.

Tartan Diamond in a Square detail of dark block

While it contains some of the same shapes as the Housetops, the larger rectangles add some needed scale/shape variation.

The colors and layout fool the eye into seeing a different layout. Although more subtle than CCII, the plaids and bright purple posts seem to float in front of a background of duller dark and light. This quilt taught me that blocks don't always have to be the focal point.

Tartan Diamond in a Square detail with light block

Of course I wanted a large quilt so I combined aspects of the Amish Diamond in a Square with Middle Eastern rugs to create the border. The two different bright blues on each section define crisp edges. Creating the checkerboard in tans tied it back to the golden browns in that crazy plaid.

Tartan Diamond in a Square border detail

The stems of the vines were the only guidelines drawn for all this free motion work. I'd been told quilting doesn't show on prints so I used 40-weight thread and fearlessly quilted across the narrow borders. The work only shows on the lights but it was a joy to sew.

Tartan Diamond in a Square border corner detail

Sharp eyes will notice the same Alexander Henry fabric from my Thirty Year Sampler in the border and binding.

Quilt Details

Size: 84" x 102"

Design: Two block quilt with Housetops and original block

Batting: Mountain Mist Blue Ribbon100% cotton

Thread: variegated cotton 40 wt. thread

Quilting: SID and freemotion quilting, various freehand designs

Many two-block quilts are alternate blocks but there are other ways to combine them. Chaos #5 by Erin Wilson and Sunday Best by Michelle Wilkie demonstrate unconventional ways to create quilts of two or more blocks.

Enjoy the day, Ann

InLinkz removed because it was hacked.

Spiral Quilting

What's wrong with this quilting design? Once my quilting foot was on the design, I realized each spiral would put more and more of the quilt to the right of the needle. By the end the entire quilt would be there. Talk about a difficult way to quilt.

Spiral started the wrong way

So I rubbed this out with water and wound the spiral clockwise. Now half the quilt started to the right of the needle and every round moved it further to the left. I dodged a bullet.

But what did I do next? It was late, I was in a hurry, so I didn't hold the quilt square as the walking foot moved along the bias. In fact, I pulled on the quilt. Even though the top squared up nicely, by the time the quilting was done, I had a lovely flounced, Spanish-dancer of a quilt to get under control.

Do you see all the waves along the bottom?

Back of neutral string quilt shows
lovely scraps from Stephie and spiral quilting

After carefully washing the quilt I measured across the middle to determine the length of a side of binding. The quilt had to be eased on each side.

This will never be an award-winner. Well, it wasn't planned to be. But I should have been more careful.

BTW: Lovely quilting design. I will use it again with much more care.

Enjoy the day, Ann