St. Jacob's Quilt and Fibre Art Festival 2013

The Grand National 2013

I finally had a chance to go back to the Grand National here in Kitchener, at Homer Watson House, to see all the quilts with the room not packed full of people! It is such a delightful show. I spoke to one of the jurors, and felt so warmly welcomed.

The Grand National 2013

Photos were allowed, so I will show you a couple of general shots of the room. This is a departure from my usual close-up detail shots, and I wanted you to get the general feeling of the room. It is such a great venue, with good natural lighting, and each quilt is shown so well. This is a really enjoyable show.

My quilt is in the left photo, on the bottom left corner, the monarch butterfly, which I wrote about here.  I will be working hard to enter a quilt for the next show in two years.

Eilean Donan Castle
by
Patricia Ryckman-Fleming

Also today, I went to see the Wee Quilt Challenge at MacDougall Cottage in Cambridge. I'll show you my favourite wee quilt. It was Eilean Donan Castle, by Patricia Ryckman-Fleming, from Burlington. I just love the colours she used, and the way she managed to capture the essence of the castle. Very moving. All of the quilts were outstanding, moving to the Auld Sod theme, and all had a real feeling of Scotland. One of these years, I will be doing a quilt for this show, too!

I was in a couple of quilt stores today, too, and planting annuals in the garden, so it's been a busy day. Tomorrow, I'll be in St. Jacobs to take in the quilt shows there, and maybe get to another quilt shop or two.

6 Blocks to Go!

I've been plugging away all afternoon, and I have just 6 blocks left to quilt on this baby. With the end in sight, it feels like I can actually finish this job. And I'll be glad, too, so I can do some other stuff, like laundry, and eating.

I have learned some key lessons with this quilt:

The first lesson is that I'm seeing some pattern to my free motion hearts, and they aren't so random after all! I'm thinking I could set up a pantograph to make all the blocks consistent, if I were so inclined. I could also use these hearts in a circle pattern or a sashing pattern. I'd like to try both of those ideas.

Second lesson is that I used some of the leftover denim blocks on the back, and those thick seams make quilting difficult. Also, with the denim fabric, it is a soft and open weave, and it really moves as I am quilting over it, so I'm thinking now that the denim blocks would have been better quilted with a structured pattern instead of random. Lesson learned for next time.

Third lesson is that I'm loving my flatbed sewing machine, but the bobbin is a little tricky to get to. So I'm thinking of a way to make that work better, which might involve more sawing and sawdust. I'll keep you posted.

And finally, the fourth lesson is that I've learned how to get myself out of trouble when I've painted (sewn) myself into a corner with travel stitching, which I learned from Leah Day. I'm also learning about regulating my stitch length and keeping my lines straight, and although some of my hearts are wonky, they have gotten much better over the course of the quilt.

I've also been cutting out a pink, green, and purple quilt for a friend's daughter. It's not much to show yet. I need her to approve the colours, and can hopefully start sewing next week.

I'm linking this up with Leah Day's FMQ blog, she always likes to know what people are working on, link here.

Meandering Hearts

I've been working on fmq on this quilt, which has turned out to be a bigger project than I thought it would be. That's what I get for making small hearts instead of great big ones!

I had previously used my walking foot to do the dreaded stitch-in-the-ditch along all the block lines to stabilize the quilt sandwich, and found two things. First, people really dread this job, but I'm reasonably skilled at it. And second, I'm not sure I need to do this. I could probably leave the pins in and just proceed to fmq, but I'd need to try this out before I could say for sure. So it might not matter if I can do SID.

It has been a bit of a learning curve to work on this flat surface, but it is much more comfortable and manageable. See previous post to find out what I did to my table. I had to clear off the stuff from the left side table to make it work, but work it does. I still need a few small adjustments, but those will come. There are other things I could/should be doing, but I can't stop sewing, I like this setup so much! And I need to get Mr. Sweet to put up those shelves he's been promising.

I'm linking this up with WIP Wednesday on The Needle and Thread Network, link here.

Thread-Painting a Finish

I've been working on a piece I started a while ago, printed onto cotton from my own photograph, 11x17". There was quite a bit of thread painting in it, on the butterfly and flowers.  Then I didn't know what to do with the background. With some new practice in FMQ, I decided to just jump in and get it done! Nothing fancy, just some long leaf-shaped filler moves. I'm just now finishing the hand stitching on the skinny 1/8" binding.

I had originally thought to add some beads to the flower centres, but now I think I like them in the thread painting the way they are, so I might just leave it the way it is. Any ideas?

I'm linking this up to Leah Day's Free Motion Quilting Project, one of my favourite blogs. See the link here, and read about what other quilters are up to.

Free-Motion Quilting

I borrowed these two books from the Library at my quilt guild, the Waterloo County Quilters Guild, last month.  I quite often  choose books that are about art quilts or landscape quilts, but I was in the midst of quilting my Christmas quilt, and needed more inspiration!  Imagine that.

The one book,  Colouring with Thread, by  Ann Fahl, has been very interesting and informative about things like thread draw-up, free-motion embroidery and blocking. Ann has given me much to work on in my own quilts.

And the other  book, Beginner's Guide to Free-Motion Quilting, by Natalia Bonner, is also an excellent resource.  With good info on the basics, Natalia also covers some easy-to-master quilting stitches such as feathers, flames, and swirls. I've already applied some of these designs in my Christmas quilt, and was glad for the guidance.

And now, I've gone back to another resource I've known about for some time. This resource is Leah Day's Free-Motion Quilting Project. Check out her website here. When I first heard about her, I went to the website, and wasn't ready to take any of it in.  And now, just recently, I am gobbling it up. Now that I've made a few messes with my own quilting, I'm ready to do better!  Leah does any size quilt on her domestic machine, and will convince you that you can do that, too.

I've been determined to master this skill myself, and have previously been afraid to try quilting my own quilts, for fear of doing it badly. This Christmas quilt has been a good practice ground, and I've been concerned less about it being judged, and more about actually doing it. And you know what?  In actually doing it, I've gained some confidence.  I think with a little more practice, I could get good enough at it.

If there is one thing everyone seems to agree on, it is this:  The quilting makes the quilt. I think I've finally grown beyond the straight-line quilting and stippling that I've been doing.  Who knows where this will go?  Time will tell.