Night Watch

I am on a roll! Two challenge pieces done well ahead of time! This month the challenge came from Aurifil, "to use any fabric art/non-traditional quilting/sewing/thread-painting technique using three Aurifil thread weights." We were to include three photos of how weights were used. Photos is never a problem for me! 

All of the fabrics, threads, and batting were provided to me by Island Batik, Aurifil and Hobbs, respectively. Allow me to walk you through the process that ended with this not-square, not round, not oval quilt.

Jack and Friends for Brady

Brianne and Brady left us three days ago, and both MacGyver and I are still feeling pretty down.  It was a wonderful 10 days.  I did get his Halloween "commissioned" quilt done in time with one day to spare!

Perfect size for snuggling on the couch or taking to bed as an extra blankie

Remember it was one he'd seen last November when I was out west visiting him and my daughter.  He is such an incredible child in so many ways, but especially in the genuine interest he takes in his surroundings and in people around him.  He had been studying my American Patchwork & Quilting magazine and spotted this photo in an ad for their website:

Avril and I Aren't Speaking

So, please, any help or advice to help mend our rift is much appreciated.  Here's how it ended:

The cause: Sulky; the possible solution: Isacord and Coats and Clark

I have quilted on my Bernina, and before her, on my Elna, for 20 years.  For most of those years I have used a variety of cool threads, and as you know, I love love Sulky threads, Holoshimmer and Blendables in particular.

Apparently Avril does not.

Savannah

I was hoping to get this quilt done in a day or two...and I almost did.  I started quilting yesterday morning.  If I hadn't been fighting with thread breakage, I would have had this done in full daylight!

I took it off the frame at 5 pm and raced upstairs and outside for a couple of daylight twilight pics.  Yep, I haven't even trimmed it up, or trimmed off hanging threads!

Bella gave the back her stamp of approval:

I was short about 9" of the backing I'd bought but no problem:  I had some extra border fabric, a nice large label (exactly 9.5" high) and a few, no make that a TON of smaller pieces left from the front.

When I made this quilt last winter in Florida, (the post is here), I had no name for the quilt.  As I pieced the backing I let my mind free-associate, realizing that I have yet another floral quilt... I came up with Savannah because we stayed there for a night on our way back up north this past spring, and I fell in love with that city.  The floral fabrics are from the Shangri-Là line by 3 Sisters and they have an old-fashioned feel, so I thought the name "Savannah" à propos, seeing as I'd made it not long before the trip.

I purchased the fabrics at Cotton Patch Quilt Shop on their New Year's Day Fat Quarter Sale a few years ago.  I wanted a large quilt for our bed.  I'm not a fan of how much brown there is in this quilt; I would have preferred a focus fabric leaning to either more green or more blue.  (Hmm, I see after finding the link for the Turning Twenty post that I wrote (January) that I wasn't a fan of the quilt at that point, with a flimsy finish.) Uh, which might be a reason as to why the fabric has sat on my stash shelves for oh, about five years...  I'm liking it a little more now that I've quilted it, but I still don't have a "wow-I-love-this-quilt" feeling.  I bought the backing from Cotton Patch's sale section (love that) at the time I bought the fat quarters for the front.  It is Jacobean Joyeux/Provence by Benartex.

You may recall I had issues with tension on the Watercolour Steps quilt I recently quilted on Avril, my Avanté.  I am worried that I might have messed up the timing or something on my machine when I hit my blue ruler while quilting Summer Breeze.  I thought I would test the tension by using a basic cotton thread for this quilt.  I had nearly a full spool of Aurifil variegated cotton left over from Brady's quilt, and I thought it would blend in nicely with the multi-coloured fabrics in this quilt.  I just wanted a flowing, fairly large-scale overall design for this quilt as the fabrics all blend.  The Aurifil sewed quite nicely once I played with the top and bobbin tension for a while.  I really am liking Aurifil more and more...and man, there's a LOT of thread on those 1300 metre spools!!  This quilt took 2.5 bobbins so about 500 yards of thread.

For the rectangles set on their long side, I quilted a figure 8 design

And for the rectangles set on their short side, I did a woven design

I did have trouble with the Sulky Blendables thread I used, which is not normal for me.  I ended up stitching with the stitch regulator on, and sewing very slowly.  Even so, it broke fairly frequently, seeming to get pulled down beneath the quilt.  I still blame hitting the ruler...did I mention I hit it again during the quilting of this quilt?  It was while I was quilting the border 1/4" from the edge.  The hopping foot hopped over the ruler, probably because of me holding the ruler against the wrong side of the foot, or just the trickiness of quilting the very edges of a quilt...anyhow, chunk #2 flew out, a small one, which I have yet to find to Krazy Glue back in...might have a new ruler in my future here.  Sigh.  And Avril has a trip in her future to the doctor to get checked out.

Anyhow, it is just the perfect thread for the feathers I did in the borders, so I persevered.  Sorry for the hasty pictures, and rumpled quilt...

Swirls and hooks, a teardrop shape echoed, and a leaf design, echoed again, are what I used for the centre of the quilt

This is a shot of how I need to leave quilts overnight when they are in the middle of being quilted.  A certain feline has left trademark fur blobs on in-progress quilts, and created a little more sag on the quilt than how it was left...  And yes that is an open jar of Bath & Bodyworks body butter; she detests lotion smells, so I figured that would be a sure-fire way to keep her off!

Note, Angela Walters' new book!

I plan to sew the binding on tonight or tomorrow, and then hand-stitch it to the back as we travel down to Florida...oh YEAH!  It's official:  we have bought a house--EEEEEK!-- and we are leaving this weekend to move our stuff out of storage and into our new abode.  I've kept that under wraps for some time...anyhow, it's been a tad hectic this last month and especially this past week as we switch gears to head south with the birds!

 Next pic of Savannah will be with her binding on and in Florida!  Linking up with Freshly Pieced.

I Spy Quilt

I didn't have time to post this yesterday, which was my intent for Thankful Thursday, but I am one proud Nana!!  And so very thankful for the most wonderful little boy in my life, my grandson, Brady.

He graduated from kindergarten yesterday.  I cannot believe where the nearly 6 years has gone since his birth.  He will be six this summer.

Of course I made him a quilt for his birth.  Hmm, think I've loved scrap quilts for SOME time. . . every single piece of the fabric was from my stash or scraps.

Being a Leo, he had to have lion fabric on the back.  This is some of the leftover fabric, used for a magic bag cover.

I quilted his name into the quilt.  I sewed and quilted it on my Bernina.

Although he slept under that quilt every night from birth, last year I decided he need a bigger quilt for his bed.  This one isn't a twin-size, but it's a decent sized throw.  I used the Cloud 9 pattern but made it as an I Spy quilt. Here it is on the design wall:

I bought all the fabric at Rainbow's End Quilt Shop in Dunedin Florida, except for a couple of pieces I added that I found in JoAnn's Fabrics.  The red is Kona from one of the local quilt shops I frequent, Alma Sue's Quilts.  The backing is Dr. Seuss that I got at another of my LQS, Cotton Patch Quilts. Gotta spread my love!

I am pretty proud of the FMQ on this quilt.  It was only the third quilt on my new-to-me Avanté.  Leah Day was my go-to gal for all of the designs.  Sorry that the lighting isn't so great on some of these pictures.

I used a primary colours variegated King Tut 40-weight thread on the red and I'm so glad I did, as it gave it so much interest.  It did produce more lint than a finer cotton, but it sewed like a dream.

If you've read a some of my posts, you'll know that I always work my name as well as the person's name to whom the quilt is going, into the quilting.

I did a meander over all of the busy prints.  I used a red Isacord here.  Again, it sewed like a dream.  There is nothing I've thrown at my Avril she won't handle.

I just could not resist doing some special designs in that gorgeous red Kona cotton, his favourite colour.

His name, the "special secret" in his quilt that only he and I know. . .surrounded by pebbling

The good old Gothic D for all things Detroit; my husband grew up in Windsor, aka "south Detroit"

Leah's Tree of Life design just quilted

The design after washing

Her instructions for quilting that design without a mark are just excellent, and I couldn't (and still can't) believe I just drew that with the machine!

Pretty pleased, in his fave shirt, sitting on his new-fave quilt, which is folded in half here

All his favourite and meaningful things are in the I Spy parts: lions, swimming, Elmo, diggers, football, hockey, ABC, superheroes, Star Wars, dinosaurs, and so on!  We had fun playing I Spy with it, as he was right into I Spy at that time.  We took it to him last May when we drove out to Alberta, a 3-day trip from here.  It is so hard being so far away from this child of unbelievable character, poise and gentleness, as well as talent at all things sports, particularly swimming!  He is always so happy and at ease in the water, and always has been, right from his first bath.  He was fussing ahead of time, but as soon as his body was immersed, he relaxed and kicked his fat little legs quite contentedly!  We cannot WAIT to have a week of him all to ourselves at the end of this summer when he and Brianne are flying down here!


Quilt Details:

Size:  54X70
Fabric:  100% cotton with a 100% flannel backing; Warm 'n Natural batting
Pattern:  Cloud 9 by Villa Rosa Designs
Quilted with  Isacord and Superior King Tut

Update:  Duh!  Forgot to link up as I'd intended, with Sarah of Confessions of a Fabric Addict as I am definitely doing a happy dance because of Brady, who makes me happy every single day, but even more so with his kindergarten graduation! And I've now also linked up with Lizzie Lenard Vintage Sewing!

Christmas Scrap Quilt Top Still In Progress

And I love, love LOVE it!

This is my third in Cynthia's Scrap-a-Palooza series, and they are all such fun.  This one was rather serendipitous.

I knew I wanted to do it in Christmas scraps, and I'd kind of thought at first of not having any colour pattern, just throwing them in rounds willy-nilly.

But upon sorting through my scraps, and seeing definite predominantly green,  or red, or blue, and a few multi-coloured, I thought, hmm, maybe I could do a round of each colour. . .  However, I didn't have very many predominantly blue scraps, so thought never mind, maybe alternate rounds of red and green, and end with one multi-coloured, like Cynthia's:

Over the hours of cutting, letting my mind wander, (it's very therapeutic, isn't it? a kind of meditation) and remember I was also cutting for the scrap quilt using 3" squares that I have in my head, as well as Cynthia's 5th scrap-a-palooza quilt, that I realized I did have enough blue to at least do the centre.  Then Cynthia posted a few pics of various quilts others have done in her series, and I saw one that had double rows of 4.5" squares... well, the quilt just made itself in my head right then and there.

Musing:  hmm, maybe that is the kind of thing that happens to authors who say the characters just "do" and "say" things in their heads, that they really have no control of their characters.

Regardless,  here is the quilt in construction, with a few tips thrown in as to keeping it all organized.  Apologies for the lighting at times.

Organized Chaos again:

In the above picture you see the blue centre.  I used my "Book It!" method, chain-piecing the first two blocks of each column, and then adding the third, still chain piecing so the entire column stays perfectly in order as it was on the design wall.  Yep, there's my snowmen!!  And yep, there's a 4-patch in there too!  And I even worked in (found them after I'd cut enough other blues) scraps from my Snowman Placemats!!  Yippee!

Piecing each row of 3

Look, ma, no pins!  With pressing each row in opposing directions, the seams butt up against each other wonderfully.  I'm still not cutting apart the rows either.  If the entire column is long enough, I will join the two bottom rows, then the top two, and alternate, so I can continuously feed them.  I LOVE chain-piecing.  Saves time and thread.

Terrific thread for piecing

I try to pick up the 3000 metre cones of Gutermann thread on sale or at JoAnn's (online only) with a 50% off coupon.  I also love and use Aurifil, but I've never had issues with Gutermann, and this is a good buy.  I picked up the dark green which I'm using for this quilt at Fat Quarter Shop half price!  They have notions and thread as well as fabulous fabric.

For the double rows at the top and bottom of each round, I took the squares off the design wall, laying them on my sewing table in order.  With many similar fabrics, as you can see above, and doing the chain-piecing method, AND with my menopausal brain, it is SO easy to confuse the row I was piecing... uh, does the next square go on the top or the bottom?

HOWEVER, with this little trick, I never screw up:  leave the tail of threads on the first two squares you piece.  Do you see it there just below the two squares at the top, waiting to be joined?  That is my first row.  Because I laid out my rows of squares as they were on the design wall, I know the top ones go with the top row (the one that has the tail of thread) and the bottom ones with the bottom row.  Ya, note the huge distance between the top and the bottom rows of squares, all to keep it obvious for me in this annoying neverending interesting stage of my life!

Dogwood Picnic

Finished Scrap-a-Palooza quilt #4.  This is the second scrap-a-palooza quilt for me.  I am loving the series!

I finished it last night, but wanted to wait until this morning to post, as I was struck with a great idea as to where to take an outside picture.

So this morning, just after 8:00, I walked across the street to Southgate Residence, a senior citizens' assisted living residence.  This is one of the many pink magnolias in our town.

I loved Cynthia's picture of her Two-Color Woven Quilt, and with the pinks and greens in this second dogwood inspired quilt, I knew I wanted to lay it on a lawn too.  Her picture also inspired the final name for my quilt.

I copied her, too, with the straight line quilting in the coloured squares to emphasize the woven effect.  I did 4 passes, two 1/4" from the seams and two roughly centred.  I had a hard time figuring out how to continuously quilt this to avoid too many stops and starts.  I didn't want to travel stitch across a bar.  In the end, I mostly travelled across the 1/4" line of stitching, not always being successful with hitting it.  I just tried to not stress about it too much, hoping the overall effect would take over from the imperfections.  "Close enough is good enough" is what Angela Walters repeatedly said through the Dot to Dot Quilting class on Craftsy, and I tried very hard, fighting my perfectionist nature, to do just that.  After all, it's not a show quilt, and it's only my 8th quilt on the Avanté.

In the white squares, I knew I wanted a filler.  In the first row, I did a different one in each square, thinking it would be a perfect place to practise FMQ, much like I did on my Perky Purse quilt.

I opted out of this decision after I did that first row for two reasons: 1) I felt the thread, an ivory Madiera Polyneon, looked almost dirty on the white fabric, and 2) your eye would perhaps go more to all the busy quilting in the white squares and not see the weave.  So I quilted all the straight line quilting with the polyneon, and then went back in and quilted an open meander, Leah's "Wandering Clover" with a white Sulky rayon.  After washing, both threads sunk into the quilt top quite nicely, but I do think having the one unifying meander in the white squares was the right design decision.

Close-up of Wired Feather and Growing Sprouts

However, I DO love the looks of all those designs in that top row!  I tried out one of Leah's latest FMQ designs, "Growing Sprouts", as well as an older one, "Wired Feather".  I also like the looked of "Modern Art".  These last two I got from her two books; they are so handy to just flip through and see what grabs my fancy.  I read the written instructions, and then if I want to see her do the design in action, I go to her website. 

The back.  Ancient fabric from a sale at (choke) WalMart.  My husband and I have boycotted them for more than 10 years now, however, (so that tells you how old this fabric is!!!!) due to their business practices.  I had a stack 'n whack quilt in mind for this and I have enough left still that I might still do one...that or use it to start another scrap quilt, like Paula's Triangle Quilt Along at The Sassy Quilter.

The label, pieced again as an integral part of the backing.  Sorry the lighting seems too bright here to read properly.  You get the idea.

Rolled up!  Mmmm.

It was a perfect morning.  And I cannot get enough of magnolias.

Ever.