In this beginner's guide, we'll explore everything you need to know about using rulers for longarm quilting.
This great ruler pack by Inspira and the Husqvarna Viking Designer EPIC 2 combine to make ruler work extremely fast and easy to do. Using rulers is so easy if you know what you're doing. Inspira ruler foot templates. Clover Chaco Liner.
This week we are making Block Two of a Ruler Quilting Sampler quilt. It is not nearly as involved as Block 1 was. Here are the particulars: RULER: 2 1/2″ Circle Ruler (finishes as 2″ c…
You might have noticed my Good Measure Quilting Rulers popping up in shops! There are 8 different sets, and all feature a non-skid backing and two colors of markings. Here are some videos to show you more… You can ask your local shop to order these rulers from Brewer Sewing. I always support local shops ...
This week we continue Ruler Guided quilting exercises for the Arc Ruler. This is geared towards anyone who is just starting, or interested in exploring ruler guided quilting. Here are the four exer…
You might have noticed my Good Measure Quilting Rulers popping up in shops! There are 8 different sets, and all feature a non-skid backing and two colors of markings. Here are some videos to show you more… You can ask your local shop to order these rulers from Brewer Sewing. I always support local shops ...
BORDERED DIAMONDS Finished size: 56" x 80" FABRIC PACK Total 12 yards Fabric Please note: The fabrics in this fabric pack are NOT the same as in the finished quilt photo. The Diamond center fabrics will be newer and often better than the "original" fabrics used in the quilt you see here. Photo 2 has a suggestion to newer fabrics, but as fabrics are discontinued, we will add newer complimentary ones. The fabrics for the diamonds' borders will be a mix of various small patterns in various color ways. DO NOT ORDER THIS FABRIC PACK IF YOU ARE NOT SURE YOU TRUST US TO CHOOSE GOOD SUBSTITUTIONS :) Pattern is in Kaffe Fassett's book: Simple Shapes Spectacular Quilts If you don't have the book, your local library should be able to order it in and lend you this book. If you need an acrylic Diamond ruler to cut the diamond, please find it for sale here: https://www.sewcolorful.com/listing/1163066864/60-degree-diamond-ruler-by-fons-porter Thank you for visiting SewColorfulQuilts. Happy sewing!
A Tarted Up Pineapple Quilt A dynamic pattern by Janna Thomas of blocloc using Bloc Loc Ruler’s Pineapple Ruler 1/2″ & 1″. The Pattern is available for free. Full Post: A Tarted Up Pineapple Quilt Pat
This week we continue Ruler Guided quilting exercises for the Arc Ruler. This is geared towards anyone who is just starting, or interested in exploring ruler guided quilting. Here are the four exer…
This is definitely my favorite block so far. Here are the particulars: RULER: 12/13″ arc LEVEL OF DIFFICULTY: 101, Beginner Ruler Quilting, some experience Free Motion Quilting (FMQ) DESIGNS: cros…
Its been awhile since I've shared client quilts, and I have quite a few for you to enjoy. Here are some of my favorites. - Bridget - It was so fun to take this basic pinwheel baby quilt and add lots of detail and textures. The fabrics are so soft and sweet. Love this! Inside the pinwheels I wanted to quilt some petal like designs, which are topped of by adding the line with the three dots. Inspired by another machine quilter. On the back those lines and dots form a chain on point. One of the great parts of quilting is seeing how the design comes together, especially on the back. Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of the back anymore. I used a cream thread and an 8020 batting on this quilt. I love how the light catches the textures. I finished it off with a free hand back and forth rope design in the inner border and a loose swirl on the outer border. - Jane - After I pinned on Jane's quilt on the machine canvas...before even starting to quilt, I posted a picture on instagram...it was instaloved instantly. Her fabric choices and colors were spot on. Jane's request was lots of detail. As I look at each quilt, I try to figure out something that will enhance the fabrics and blocks...the background was begging to have these oval uneven stone like pebbling everywhere. Yes, on a quilt this size it takes awhile, but it was so work it. The "Spin Cycle" blocks just pop! I also wanted to detail the points and add something to keep it cohesive throughout the quilt. And, it was sure fun to do. The finished result is...perfect...or at least I think so, this is why its one of my favorites. Love how the light enhances the fabrics and quilting. I used a tan perma core thread and an 8020 batting. - Jean - Isn't this quilt amazing?!?!?! I has specific instructions to add a ton of detail to this quilt. The wool batting that Jean provided allows the quilting to pop and prevents the quilt from being stiff. Love the wool!! The hours that this took to even decide what to do were long, and I'd show you my drawing but its not too great...so I'll stick with these pictures. Enjoy! Its quilted with a cream perma core 30 tex thread. Here is a close up of one of the blocks. Do you see the block inside the block?? Yeah, amazing! When figuring out a detailed pattern, I try to use some of the same quilting designs in different parts of the blocks to tie whole design together. You can see that here, with the two blocks together. Love this! The borders. Here are a couple pictures of the back...love to see all that detail together. - Jeanette - This was a fun little wall hanging to quilt. This was Jeanette's first quilt, and she did an awesome job! I wanted to crackle the background to give it some texture, because there is so much wide open space. Then, I added a swirl and feather design to the tree to give it a fancy look. One of my most favorite parts though is this wood grain trunk. I used coordinating thread colors and 8020 batting. -Jeanne- This was another instahit on instagram. By pebbling the background it made the circles and how they are quilted pop. A side view. I used 8020 batting and a white perma core thread throughout. - Jen - Jen made this quilt for her lucky son! To keep it masculine I wanted to add all the lines. The lines in the grey add extra dimension to the chevron. And, who doesn't love this color combo! I used an 8020 batting, grey and cream perma core thread. - Karen - This quilt is made up of a simple quilt block, and was begging for some detail. Thankfully the block allowed this orange peel design to dress it up. I used a 8020 batting, and a cream perma core thread. - LaReen - LaReen made this gorgeous table topper out of one of my favorites fabric lines. She gave it to her mom for Christmas lucky, huh! I wanted to do something simple in the background that would enhance the star. Also, something fancy in the red border to dress up all that space. It turned out lovely. When a client gets their quilt or topper back and says now they need to make one for themselves, its quite a compliment. Thanks, LaReen! I used a 8020 batting and coordinating threads. - Lisa - This was another instahit! Can you believe all of these 1" squares...its king size and there is no border, which means there are 10,368 squares. This is an amazing one! Lisa asked for simple cross hatching, and I love it! 8020 batting and a cream perma core thread was used. This gorgeous spool quilt is one that I think Lisa made with a guild. I saw a few other of my clients names signed next to their spool. I wanted to add some detail to the spool to make them stand out, so I just did a simple echo line outside of each spool in the background. Look at all of that amazing hand embroidered wool work. Lisa, you are amazing! I wanted to add something that would make the wool pop and would dress up the background and open space, this all over swirl feather design does that. 8020 batting was used, with a cream perma core thread. Lisa made this for one of her lucky friends, for her birthday. The colors and fabric choices, make this one of my favorites. Because this quilt has minky on the back I needed to do a loose all over design in the center. This one is super fun to do, and I can add just about anything to it. I thought crackle quilting would enhance the appliques that Lisa did. Love those stems and flowers. 8020 batting was used and coordinating threads. - Maho - Maho always makes amazing quilts and does a fabulous job each time. This is a perfect example, normally I cringe inside when someone brings a quilt with really large borders (because they grow and ripple out of control) , especially when the inside is pieced on the bias...but not Maho! She is excellent at cutting and sewing exactly! Thanks, Maho! This is a quilt that she made for her daughter. She wanted some detail...So, I did an all over pattern in the background...which was the easiest way to get around the ric rac. I thought the lines and feathers would add great texture to the chickens. This quilt is amazing!!! The light catching all the details. Maho's husband came with her to pick this quilt up and was in awe...I've heard he raves about it to some people that we both know. 8020 batting used and a cream perma core thread. - Sandy - These are called the "Shinning Star", and my mom made these three in a long weekend sewing getaway we had last year. Even though the fabrics are the same for two of them, I'm showing them to you because the quilting is a little different in the backgrounds. This is quilting example number 1. This is one she made for my grandma. A close up of the feathers. This has feathers all over it! This is quilting example number 2. She made this one for my aunt Kris. I quilted a very tiny cross hatch in the inside of the feathered circles. Feathered swirls in the star and feathers in the border. Close up view. This is quilting example number 3. This one my mom made for my sister in-law, Brooke. She is the classiest person that I know, so I wanted to keep it as simple and classy as possible. The background has lines, the star is a feather swirl and the border is also feathered, with a back and forth rope design in the inner border. These soft golds went well with Brooke's Christmas décor. Love the light catching the details. Another view. All three stars I used 8020 batting and coordinating threads. - Wendy - I'm sad I didn't keep more pictures of this quilt! This is the first quilt that Wendy has made, and she gave it to her mom. It turned out gorgeous! Love love love, this fabric line. I do want to show you the quilting though. We talked about adding some details to this border to show off all the piecing that she did while sewing...I love how this one turned out! It even awesome on the back, look below. The quilting on the center of the quilt. This quilting on the backside of the border. Fun to see how the pattern comes together. I used an 8020 batting a cream perma core thread from A&E. Lots of beautiful quilts, huh?!?! Which one is your favorite??? Hopefully I can do this more often, its inspiring for everyone to see all these different unique patterns. Hope you enjoyed this, and happy sewing! ~ leisha
This week we continue Ruler Guided quilting exercises for the Arc Ruler. This is geared towards anyone who is just starting, or interested in exploring ruler guided quilting. Here are the four exer…
This week we continue Ruler Guided quilting exercises for the Arc Ruler. This is geared towards anyone who is just starting, or interested in exploring ruler guided quilting. Here are the four exer…
I'm finally "back in the saddle" again and able to start quilting. Boy does it feel good!!! My first priority was to get back on our boutis challenge and I'm excited to share some great progress this week! Since this fragile linen is so wiggly I wanted to make sure my straight lines stayed straight so I stitched thes
Longarm rulers are a quilter's BFF, but as you may have guessed from the name, they're traditionally used by those who sew on longarm machines. These acrylic rulers are usually thicker than rotary cutting rulers, and they're designed for ruler work — a technique where you guide the foot along the…
When I started long arm quilting nearly 11 years ago I never thought quilting would evolve to what it is today, and I'm so excited to see what the future holds. In the beginning there weren't very many quilting tools or tutorials on how to use them. Now, wow! I'm blown away at the talent I come across on a daily basis. The quilting and machine quilting community is booming and it is so exciting!! I would like to do a series of posts and share my favorite go to tools that I use to either long arm quilt or to sew. First up, my great friend Linda Hrcka (who has a heart of gold) is an outstanding long arm quilter, and she has created some long arm rulers that I recommend to any and every long arm quilter. I won't need a different set of curve or straight rulers ever! Let me tell you why... I love rulers that are created for quilters by quilters. They understand the need for the right curve, length, line markings...on the rulers themselves, the durability, the functionality and so forth. Linda has taken the time to develop and perfect them, which makes my job as a quilter easier. I can rely on the curve or measurement to be consistent, which creates something rather beautiful in the end. My favorite curve rulers of Linda's are the #10, #12, #15, and #20. They each have different lengths and curves; which makes them perfect for quilting designs in sashing, borders, blocks and so on! The possibilities are endless. Head over to instagram and check out the hashtag #theqpcurvetemplates to see all the amazing designs quilters from all over the world are creating. Here are a few designs that I've come up with on client quilts and one of my own... This is a quilt of my own. I used Gooseberry fabric by Vanessa from Lella Boutique, from Moda. The quilt pattern is called Moda Love, and is a free pattern from Moda. I used the #15 curve ruler from Linda for the corner of the blocks, and the #10 curve ruler for the sashing. I love love love the look that these curves create! This very center part of the quilt, which is actually where the sashing meets is my favorite part of the whole thing. I was hoping for something awesome when I was finished, and I couldn't love it more. Those curves created from Linda's rulers...I'm speechless at the result. This stunning quilt was made by Barbara, one of my clients who has become a dear dear friend! Love her, and felt so privileged to quilt this for her. The pattern is by Pam Buda and is called, Prairie Gathering. Wow, huh?!?!?!!!! I knew I wanted to use Linda's curve rulers throughout, starting with the borders. Its difficult at times to figure out what to quilt in those on point triangle blocks that are often in quilt borders. I saw Linda and Kathleen (from Kathleenquilts.com) create this design and knew I wanted to replicate it. Linda's #20 ruler was my first choice! I think that one is my favorite curve and ruler length! I'm exciting to use it on one of my own quilts soon. Right next to the freehand outside border (on the right) is that long straight border...this design happens to be one of my favorite ways to dress up a border or sashing! I used a #15 curve ruler from Linda...love it! A couple more pictures of Barbara's quilt! Julie made this simple half square triangle quilt, and I had the opportunity to quilt it a couple of weeks ago. I wanted to make the white background around the block pop! So, I used #10 ruler with a half inch spacing, I couldn't love it more. I used the #12 ruler for the inside curve on the echoed petals on the green block. It's fun for me to see the difference quilting can make on a simple quilt block. Love love love quilty curves! Have I convinced you yet these rulers are worth every penny!!! Head over to Linda's shop: http://thequiltedpineapple.bigcartel.com/ and check them out, and the price is pretty great!!! Her curves and straight rulers are sold individually or as a set, or you can get all of her rulers in one big set. I didn't mention the two smallest curve rulers. The smallest called the BFF is created to help you quilt around applique or the like. It fits right in your hand, and it the perfect little ruler for guiding your machine into those tight spots. The #8 ruler is the second smallest and is great for those slight small curves, perfect for inside blocks. Here is a short youtube video of me using the #12 ruler, enjoy: Linda recently created a set of 3 straight rulers!!! Of course several quilters, myself included were excited! Look at all those awesome lines...I'm super excited to use them more and more! I was more than thrilled when Linda sent me a set the other day, perfect timing too... I have only used the longest ruler, a 16" length once, and I already know this is going to be my go to straight ruler set. The most important thing when using rulers is to avoid having them slide on you while your quilting. In the past I've attached some grip dots to the bottom of my rulers. With this ruler I didn't have to, why you might ask...Linda added an extra 1/2" to the width of the ruler. Which may not seem like it would make much of a difference, but it does! My hand was able to grip it better, yay! I used this straight ruler to do the 1" border, in the white, and the on point diamonds on the first inner border. (pictured above) I'm excited to use the grid lines on the rulers in the future. Linda just made measuring for cross hatching so easy with the on point measurements!!! And, in case you were wondering...I used the #20 ruler in the red inner border. Thanks, Linda! I love what I do, and its a treat to use your rulers. Creating new designs with your rulers has taken my quilting up a notch! I appreciate all you do, Linda, to make such an amazing impact on the quilting world. So proud of you, friend! (the corner of the border...love what straight lines can do) Linda's straight ruler set is also available at: http://thequiltedpineapple.bigcartel.com/ Which quilting tools would you like to hear about next??? Head over to my instagram @leishakaye and let me know what interests you! Thanks for stopping by, ~ happy quilting, Leisha
This great ruler pack by Inspira and the Husqvarna Viking Designer EPIC 2 combine to make ruler work extremely fast and easy to do. Using rulers is so easy if you know what you're doing. Inspira ruler foot templates. Clover Chaco Liner.
Hello everyone! A special welcome to all the new followers! It was quite a suprise to see about 50 quilters signing up this last weekend to receive my blogpost by email. I was wondering how you new…
There were several different quilt projects waiting to be worked on last week, but one of them took over and wouldn't let me stop until it was complete. This is my Blooming Onion quilt top. Blooming Onion, 60.5" x 80.5" The name of the pattern I used is actually Blue Onion by Karla Alexander of Saginaw Street Quilts. Since my version isn't blue, Blooming Onion seemed like a better choice to me. Unfortunately, the colors in the above photo are a little bit off, making the purples look much more blue than they really are. The next photo was taken about 10 minutes later, and the sun was starting to hit the quilt top. The colors in this photo are closer than the previous one. My quilt top was made entirely from batik fabrics, all pulled from my stash, except for one non-batik that I snuck into the mix. Can you tell which one it is? Here are a few closer shots for you. I've been trying to think of a better name for this quilt, but haven't come up with anything clever. Let me know if you have any suggestions. I was able to get a great stained-glass looking shot of the top half from behind as it was hanging over the deck railing. I love the way the colors glow! Still wondering about the non-batik fabric? It's the purple in the block below. Linking up with: Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts Monday Making at Love Laugh Quilt Midweek Makers at Quilt Fabrication Needle & Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation Finished or Not Friday at Alycia Quilts Whoop Whoop Friday at Confessions of a Fabric Addict Favorite Finish at Meadow Mist Designs Happy quilting everyone! Julie in GA
I promised you some Ruler Quilting, and it starts today. Previously, I had posts about why you might want to quilt with rulers, what to look for in rulers, preparation & set-up, and even design…
I hate to pick favs but this one is my Favorite of the Trio. Thread - Iris Mint Batting - Hobbs 80/20 Tools - A ton of templates w...
I have a few exciting teaching announcements and a ton of planning, prepping, stitching, retreating, drawing, and scheming ahead of me. I will make this post picture heavy and hopefully brief. I have been invited to teach at some very exciting shows in 2016 and I couldn't be more excited! QUILTCON FEB 2016 To start the year I will be at Quiltcon in Pasadena teaching, all hands on classes. I had an amazing time in Austin and am really looking forward to February. MQX APRIL 2016 In April I will be teaching at MQX in New Hampshire. New England will be gorgeous in April and I am looking forward to returning as a teacher instead of a student. I am teaching two hands on classes as well as some lecture/demo classes. To sign up for my classes click here. MQS MAY 2016 In May I will be off to Cedar Rapids, Iowa to teach at MQS, registration is not open yet, but should be in the upcoming weeks! SMQG 2015 But hey! 2015 isn't over yet and I am thrilled to be hosted by the Seattle Modern Quilt Guild for a drawing/ modern whole cloth design workshop. Join me Sunday, November 15th, 2015 from 10:30-4:45 at Tukwila Sew and Vac Click here to register, there are 5 spots left and registration is open to the general public now. WORKSHOPS!! YAY! Shown below are a few examples of what my Compositional Drawing/Whole cloth design class will look like. I am teaching this class at Quiltcon, MQX and at Tukwila sew and vac with SMQG. The photos below are samples that I have been making for my Broken Wreath and Ghost Shapes lecture/demo classes at MQX and MQS. Here, I used contrasting blue thread, definitely out of my comfort zone but it's a great exercise and the designs can really pop out. Shown below is quilting on one of the samples that I marked out in my whole cloth design class, this technique quilts out pretty fast and has been a very liberating way for me to look at quilting. And Voila! I've said it before but making class samples always opens up new doors for me. This style of quilting has inspired me to start working on a whole cloth (type) design, that's really not a whole cloth at all. Here are a few photos of my latest project which I will go into more detail as I figure out what I'm actually doing. The design is inspired by the stitch and flip triangle which is sprinkled through a lot of Katie Pedersen's work. I took her magic numbers class and was amazed at the possibilities that exist within this format. I am approaching this project with the intentions of doing it entirely on the longarm so there will actually be no stitch and flip anything, all of the piecing will be raw edge appliqué but the design is certainly inspired by Katie's work, which you can find in her and Jacquie's fabulous book, Quilting Modern. Off to get my week going, thanks for taking the time to read and I look forward to meeting some of you in my classes in the months to follow!! xo
Since I have begun hand quilting my first WIP finish for 2015, I thought it would be appropriate to post some vintage quilting designs. These were published in late 1930s newspapers by Florence LaGanke, using the Nancy Page pseudonym. Unlike the Nancy Page series quilts which were free patterns appe
Check out how I custom quilted Kim Diehl's Hope and Harmony quilt, which is in her new Simple Double-Dipped Quilts book. I share which rulers I used, the batting, thread color, and my quilting process for the background design.
Am Anfang ist immer eine Idee oder eine Person der man was aus Dankbarkeit schenken möchte oder eine Kombination aus beidem... Bei diesem Quilt war es die Dankbarkeit für die Hilfbereitschaft meines Schwiegerpapa's. Ohne ihn würden unser Auto und auch meine Maschinen in meiner Buchbinderei nicht mehr funktionieren. Daher war es eigentlich schon lange an der Zeit für ihn einen Quilt zu nähen. Die Farben waren schnell klar. Blau und Grün... Das passt auch zu dem Quilt, den die Schwiegermama schon einige Jahre zuvor bekommen hat. Die frischen Farben aus der Blueberry Park Serie von Karen Lewis fand ich sehr passend, auch wenn auf einzelnen Stoffe weisse Blumen drauf sind. Die Schwiegermama liebt Blumen und hat auch überall in der Wohnung immer frische Blumen stehen. Daher finde ich geht dies auch für einen Männer-Quilt... In diesem Fall jedenfalls... *zwinker* Mit Hilfe des Super Side Kick Rulers von Jaybird Quilts habe ich Dreiecke zugeschnitten und nach dem Muster des Boomerang-Quilts zusammengenäht. Ich habe das Muster etwas abgeändert und noch weisse Streifen zwischen die einzelnen Rauten plaziert, damit der Quilt es luftiger wird als die Vorlage... An meiner Design-Wand habe ich alle Dreiecke aufgehängt und mal ein Foto gemacht. Das Foto hilft mir zu sehen, ob irgendwo ein Block oder in diesem Fall eine Raute umplaziert werden muss oder ob es stimmig ist... Bei zusammen nähen habe ich dann bemerkt, dass der Quilt, so wie ich ihn auf dem oberen Bild zusammengestellt hatte, zu breit wurde. So habe ich dann noch ein paar Rauten weggelassen... Mit Hilfe einer Plexiglasplatte hatte ich mir verschiedene Quiltmuster aufgezeichnet und wieder verworfen. Dies war dann das Muster, von dem ich dachte, das wäre es jetzt... Doch nachdem ich zwei Rauten gequiltet hatte, fand ich es gar nicht toll. Es war iritierend, da das Muster auf dem Stoff der Raute folgte und ich dies mit diesen Linie durchbrach. Das war mir zu unruhig und daher trennte ich alles wieder auf... Die Blasenkette rund um die Rauten durfte bleiben, doch innerhalb der Raute musste es ruhiger werden und daher quiltete ich bloss noch gerade Linien im Abstand von 1 inch... Hier hat sich wieder mal gezeigt, weniger ist mehr... Und damit ihr auch mal ein bewegtes Bild von mir seht, habe ich mich bei der letzten Reihe mit dem Zeitraffer gefilmt *lach* Viel Spass bei schauen...! Die letzte Reihe komplett gequiltet... Ich hoffe, ich konnte euch einen kleinen Einblick geben, wie bei mir ein Quilt entsteht... Bilder des fixfertigen Quilts werden in einem weiteren Post folgen... Bis dahin, machts gut iva verlinkt: creadienstag , modern patch monday & handmade on tuesday
I LOVE Austin TX. I just returned from teaching at Quiltcon 2015 and I really don't think I can do a blog post without at least mentioning how much I LOVE the food in Austin. I'm not here to wax poetic about my diet or health but I will say I follow a pretty restrictive AIP Paleo diet and I found more delicious farm to table food than any celiac could shake a stick at. Just sayin'. Apart from eating at Max's Wine Dive a total of 5 times (in 4 short days), I also enjoyed seeing some of my favorite people in the world and meeting some of my new favorite people in the world. I am a very visual person and I am guessing if you're reading this blog, you are too. So, thanks for reading and come enjoy some photos with me. This quilt; Diving Geese, pieced by Katie Pedersen, won best machine quilting at the show!! Here are some pictures I took while quilting it. The last picture is a beautiful full shot of the quilt taken by Katie. The Back: The subliminal Star Trek emblem: Leonard Nimoy passed away four days ago and I started researching his life and his quotes. This one hit me hard and has resonated with me since. "The miracle is this, the more we share the more we have." -Leonard Nimoy photo courtesy Katie Pedersen I was able to share some of the things I have learned over the past ten years with my students at Quiltcon and I am so grateful to have had this opportunity. My students filled me with their energy and spirit. I made this as a sample for my zig zag sampler class, one of my students took it home as a door prize! I always love a rainbow. Speaking of teaching and sharing, have you gotten yourself a piece of plexiglass yet? This is THE TOOL I could not live without. If you were in one of my classes you might want to shoot yourself in the foot rather than hear me say it again but if you don't have one yet, DO IT, BUY IT, TAPE IT, USE IT! DO IT! I use a 20"x30" piece of plexiglass that you can source from your local home improvement store. TAPE the edges with painters tape......trust me, even though you think you won't, you WILL draw off the edge. Mark on the tape "drawing side" so you only use one side. Lay that bad boy down on your quilt and you can try out every design your heart desires to-scale. Deal with the density of quilting, play with different designs in different places. This is not a marking tool. This is a drawing tool to help you visually understand the space you are getting ready to quilt. You are also building muscle memory when you draw your designs. I'm not kidding, DO IT. Now that I got all my design work sorted out I can start quilting without stressing about what I am going to quilt. If you're wondering about this awesome quilt it is a pattern called Modern Mountains designed by my namesake bestie Krista. You can find the free pattern here. This version was made by one of my awesome customers, Amanda. Do I draw in a sketchbook? Yes, all the time. But the sketchbook does not give me the perspective to deal with density of quilting and other to-scale design issues. I'm gonna say it again. PLEXIGLASS. DO IT. Use your sketchbook too. Use it every day, bring it with you on the bus, train, airplane. Don't be afraid to use anything/everything you see. Designs belong to all of us. I love moons. I love drawing them. I love quilting them. Here is a sneak peak of a quilt my sweet friend Jen Carlton Bailly made for Cheryl Arkison's book, You Inspire Me to Quilt, coming out soon. Of course I consulted my plexiglass first: Collaborations are so awesome when you are on the same page with your friend/customer/collaborator. Plexiglass is a great way to visually communicate with your piecer, or yourself, if you're lucky enough to have the time to quilt your own work! Plexiglass again? Are you sensing a theme here? I finally finished my value quilt and have been sleeping happily beneath it, even though it still remains unbound. Sorry for the blinding flourescent reflection. And Voila: The last photos I am going to share are more WIP shots from a quilt that I quilted for Elizabeth Hartman for her book Patchwork City. I was so happy to see her sweet face in Austin and teach two doors down from her. I am always in awe of Elizabeth's work. This quilt is badass and completely blew my mind. There are some of the coolest blocks in this quilt that I have ever seen. I love the way the brilliant piecing in this quilt informed my design decisions to explore so many unexpected possibilities. I wish I had taken photographs of the plexiglass for this project. You can trust me though, I used it. As always, thanks for stopping by. I expect you to have a sheet of Plexiglass before my next blog post which technically means you are off the hook for at least another 6-7 months, right? DO IT.
I thought it might be useful for me to do a post on clamshell quilting. I do use this overall design quite often on my baby quilts as it is a fun way to quilt and always looks great on those little quilts. Babies and clamshell just go together for some reason. I recently finished a charity quilt with clamshells and while I was quilting along I thought that some may look at this and think that it is too hard to do over an entire quilt. I use the Handiquilter Multi Clamshell ruler to do the quilting however there are other rulers you can use, i.e. the Handiquilter Versa tool or a circle. A circle, of course, is a little bit harder as you do not have those nodges that stop your foot from going over the line when you place one clamshell over the other. For most baby quilts I use the 4in size of the Multi Clamshell ruler. I do not mark lines onto the quilts to keep me straight basically because that would involve a lot of precise work to get that right and I don't think it's necessary. Starting from the bottom up, I first inspect my edge. It is very important that the edge is straight. If it is not you will need to establish a straight line on the bottom as all your other clamshells (and their straightness) will be based on that. Maybe for the first row of clamshells, also make yourself a mark every 4in so you get the first row down perfectly. And this is basically where perfection ends (coming from a perfectionist). As you quilt, there will be a slight amount of compaction. The above charity quilt had a puffy wool batting, so the compaction started to happen literally straight away meaning that the center line of your clamshell ruler will not necessarily align with the valley of the clamshell underneath. That is incredibly distracting and can throw you a bit. I have found that I can largely ignore this. Instead I focus in on keeping my clams straight and in line by marking the center of each clamshell as I go along. So I will quilt a row, then stop, mark the center of each clamshell just quilted and continue with the next row placing the clamshells exactly where they should be. Next issue will be that your clamshells will not necessarily end up exactly on those points because as you are quilting you have put too much pressure on your ruler and things have moved over ever so slightly. Also very normal and happens every time. The good thing with my center marks is that I can see how I am doing, i.e. where I am definitely not on point. This is where the fudging begins. Usually this happens in the middle of a row. So as I am quilting I now have one or two clamshells that are slightly out of alignment. In this instance I might shorten my clamshell a bit by starting to quilt the clam, stopping in the middle and shifting the ruler over a bit to hit the next clamshell at the marked point. Other times I might carry that shift over to the next clamshell a bit to see how the shifting carried on over the row and adjust it then a bit. As I am now on high alert I will check my row, making sure that I end up on the side in the same position. Also when marking the next row in the center I will usually check the alignment underneath to ensure that the clamshell is in the center and straight. Over the next few rows, particularly as you are nearing the center slight mis-alignments will occur...sometimes in the middle and other times towards the edge and I will keep fudging to get them back into their right position. If it is a pieced quilt I will also check the height of my clamshells as I pass over a horizontal seam which will give me a pretty good idea on whether I am dead straight or not. Again, there are adjustments you can make. If one clamshell is taller than the other you can adjust this in the next row by just shifting your clamshell ruler up a bit when you come to the offending spot. Once you reach the middle of your quilt, you will likely have to turn the quilt and start quilting your clamshells towards you. Often my clamshells shift a fair bit in that row just because of the change in positioning the ruler. In the little quilt above I was mis-aligned towards the edge quite obviously. In this scenario I will look the other way and have a mis-aligned clamshell but ensure that I mark the next row perfectly using a longer ruler to align to the valleys of the clamshells underneath to get back to the alignment as it should be. The point I am trying to make is that you cannot see this once it is all done as your eyes only see the very consistent and repeating clamshells. The real test comes in the last row when you hit the edge as this will show how straight and consistent you have kept your clamshells. In my example, I was pretty consistent, maybe out by about 1/16in in terms of the height going towards one side, so it was not dead straight. However, the way the clamshells miraculously lined up with the top edge meant that I just made the clams on one side ever so slightly higher to hit the edge and the issue was solved. As you apply the binding on the edge, no one is going to measure that and definitely no one will see that. Let me know if you have any questions. Happy to talk more on this Karin
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As it turns out I am not very motivated to clean my studio. I headed out there this weekend with all good intentions of getting my space clean and I honestly cleaned (or more accurately, contemplated cleaning) for a total of five minutes before I found myself distracted by a drawing I had started at Quiltcon in my Compositional Quilting/DRAWING class. I have to admit that after returning home from Quiltcon I have felt a little panicked. Panicked that I taught everything I had and that I was going to be out of ideas. I began looking through some of the pictures I had taken while teaching (admittedly way too few) and that beautiful quote by Leonard Nimoy came back to me again. "The Miracle is this, the more we share, the more we have." Some Brilliant student work Wow. Wow. Wow. and WOW. It was either the threat of cleaning or all of the energy and openness that I absorbed from my students that inspired me again....or maybe a little bit of both. I wasn't really out of ideas after all. Phew. I put away any thoughts about cleaning (which wasn't hard) and started drawing and then quilting something I am pretty sure will be a sample for another class. As a rule I don't generally mark on quilts. A whole cloth type quilt is obviously an exception to this rule. In my Compositional Quilting/DRAWING class we spend the class marking on mylar and then marking on a whole cloth. Many years ago I took a whole cloth design class from Karen McTavish. It was a full day spent designing a whole cloth quilt that we took home to quilt. If you ever find yourself with an opportunity to take a class with her or see her lecture, DO IT, I'm not kidding. Whole cloth quilts are traditional by nature and are generally designed using beautiful floral or feathered motifs, stencils and if you have the patience the quilting usually involves some trapunto. This was my finished Wholecloth quilt from Karens class. From class to quilt. In my Compositional Drawing-(expanded version) class it is my hope to merge the traditional with a more modern aesthetic. I don't know that a whole cloth will ever be considered "modern" but I do believe in my heart of hearts that there is a place for this type of quilting and design somewhere. This is the fundamental basis for Compositional Quilting Filling in the blanks I had to get rid of my free motion drawn swirls, I found I could not follow my own drawings. I managed to quilt in the areas of feathers I should have left unquilted Some new moon ideas This is as far as I got, not bad for a weekend. As you can see, cleaning is overrated and I am not out of ideas yet. I am hoping to be teaching this class and many others in the near future. I will keep you posted on the details here. For those of you who feel inspired by this post, awesome. For those of you who enjoyed this post but feel less inspired and more discouraged by this post this last picture is for you. While I openly admit I have skills, I know that those skills didn't come without a lot of failures, practice and flat out shitty quilting. Give yourself the benefit of the doubt, be ok with shit quilting, move on, take classes, learn as much as you can from yourself and others. You will never quilt exactly like me, just as I will never quilt exactly like Karen McTavish. And thank goodness for that, lord knows theres only room for one of her, and me and you. Be ok with that. You be You.
In this new showcase I present you Marla Varner, Paola Machetta, Irina Malyukova and Iva Steiner enjoy their stories and amazing quilts.
For all of us machine quilters who are looking for some new ideas for quilting designs, this is a wonderful new book by Cindy Seitz-Kru...
This pattern is Layer Cake friendly in lap, queen and twin sizes. The King size quilt uses all yardage. The Flying Geese are made 4 at a time and squared up to be accurate. You might be interested in this ruler. Ultimate Flying Geese Ruler
Explore gfquilts' 1883 photos on Flickr!
Today I'm going to show and tell you a bit about the quilt show I went to yesterday. These were my fav quilts there. Monochromatic by Barbara Lange. I also liked section where the quilts were called Shapes but I didn't pay much attention to the labels. Some were by Uta Lenk but not sure if all of them. *Update: all the shapes quilt were by Uta Lenk. My eye also caught quilts in Challenge Mother Nature. Especially quilts by Czech author Jaroslava Grycová. These tiny pieces were absolutely amazing in detail. There was also quilt by Joanna from Shape Month maybe you read her post about this quilt. I was happy to see some Vasarely art as well. I actually found this as free pattern some time ago and if I had a bucket list this would be on it. No, yellow will not make it into my quilt :-) Challenge Application had some fun pieces in it as well. This one was called Anatomy of the Old Age. There were few section that didn't really speak to me so no pics of those. Carnival of Fabrics was good in improv piecing but all those colors randomly put together scared me away. I also got the true sense of minis due to Traditional and Miniature section. Leslie Harwood is probably the queen of tiniest pieces ever. She had quite a few there. It was my second time going to this quilt show. As I said yesterday to me it is more social thing. I get much more inspiration on the web and from bloggers I follow. I don't have an intention to send a quilt there. One of the reasons is that the section for Czech quilts has the worst lighting. See for yourself. Would you like to have a shadow to half of your quilt or be in the shadow on the side? Not to mention one quilt hanging on blue plastic cover sheet which was all over the other side. I have much more pics. I'll share some next time if you interested or maybe just a few more. Linking up with
Four beautiful Orange Peel variations today! For each of these samples I have pre-marked the Orange Peel pattern using a craft ruler I found in a hobby & art supply store in Aachen, Germany. It…
