In which an Old Dog Learns a New Trick

 

So, have you seen how people are using rulers for machine quilting on domestic sewing machines? I guess it's been common in the long-arm world for quite a while, but I think using rulers on domestic machines is a more recent development. I judged a quilt show this past May where the quilting on one quilt just wowed me (as it did others, and the quilt ended up winning several big awards.) After the judging was all done, we learned that the quilt maker was there, and she said that yes, she'd done all of that gorgeous and precise quilting on her domestic machine -- with rulers.

I was intrigued. And since I have a rather large stack of tops that need quilting, I started watching videos about it. Just google " machine quilting with rulers" on Youtube -- there are many. (Angela Walters has a whole "machine quilting with rulers" playlist on Youtube, here, and Patsy Thompson has some demos there, too.)

So, I bought some starting equipment. Ruler quilting on a domestic machine requires a free-motion foot with a high edge, like this:

 The edge of the foot is thick, so it will ride along the edge of a 1/4 inch thick ruler. I think most machine brands make a ruler foot, and there are companies that make adaptable feet depending on your machine -- I invested in a Bernina #72 foot.

As for rulers -- once I started looking I found oodles, in all different shapes and sizes! I decided I just wanted to play with straight lines and simple arcs, so I bought Patsy Thompson's starter set which includes one good sized straight edge and three different arcs.

By the way, have you seen Patsy Thompson's quilting? I will trust anything that woman tells me about machine quilting.

 I watched a bunch of videos, and then decided to dive in on a practice block from a star quilt I was getting ready to machine quilt. I really thought it would be difficult, or at least awkward, to hold the ruler with one hand and move the quilt under the needle at the same time. But it wasn't awkward at all! I'd ordered some "Handi Grip Strips" to make the rulers less slippery, and attaching small squares of that stuff to the back of each ruler worked perfectly.  I was so encouraged by the process on my little practice block that I decided to just jump in and start working on the big quilt. I mean, why not?

This quilt (La Conner Stars, a free quilt pattern here) has stars and squares with background space between them. I decided I wanted arcs in the star points and basic free motion stippling in the background spaces. You can probably see the quilted arcs in the pink star block above.

I used the straight edge for the ditch-quilting around the star. It was fun and really made ditch quilting easier -- and straighter, of course.

I used a smaller arc for the three sides of each star point triangle.
 

Then, for the square inside of the star I used the biggest arc to make overlapping cat-eye shapes.

You can see on the pink star up there that I was having so much fun I decided to add arcs to the inner border, too.

The biggest learning thing, I found, was figuring out the spacing on where to hold the ruler. The foot slides along the ruler, and the needle is about 1/4 inch away from the ruler's edge -- so you have to estimate that 1/4 inch distance to make sure the quilting goes where you want it. But I found that I could adjust the ruler was I went along, and after a few blocks I was good at having the end of the arc land just where I wanted to. 

I finished the machine quilting this yesterday (yee haw!) and will be happy to get this finished and delivered to a special friend. But gosh, I'm proud of myself for trying something new. I am now looking at my quilt tops with a new "what can I quilt on it" eye -- I'll be thinking about what rulers might work.

Have you tried quilting with rulers?

Can you hear the machine humming?

Just a sneak peek at what I've been doing...

Fall Fling, Spring Fling

I apologize for the recent silence -- I have been off having fun at my twice-yearly quilting retreat at the Bishop's Ranch. Clearing the decks so I could take those days away meant a flurry of work, but I promptly but all things practical out of my head as I drove out to the ranch. As usual, it was 4 days of fun and laughter and friends and great food and, of course, quilting.

This time, I packed up my trusty Juki and took only two big quilts that were sandwiched and ready to be quilted. The first one I finished was the "one block wonder" quilt above, which I've named Spring Fling (because of those springy colors, of course). Several retreats ago, a couple of ladies were making one block wonder quilts, and as the book was new to most of us, we were enthralled with the concept. That led to a shopping trip where a bunch of us wandered around the shop using mirrors to see the kaleidoscopic effects of various fabrics, and then a bunch of us started making these quilts. This October retreat was the designated time for completion, so our show-and-tell included a whole "one block wonder" segment where we shared our finished quilts.

I enjoyed making mine, basically -- sewing the blocks was especially fun, as every block is a new, surprising kaleidoscope. Designing the overall look on a wall was fun too. But sewing them together became tedious, and I wasn't thrilled with the process of finishing the quilt. I ended up floating the quilt top on top of the borders... a rather slapdash process that isn't the tidiest up close but did the job to my satisfaction.

This shot is from show and tell and doesn't show the quilting, but I had a fun time following the kaleidoscope patterns in the blocks and quilting big, lose flowery shapes in the border.

So now, I have a mess of stuff to put away, tons of laundry to do, and a pile of legal work to address before I can get away to the Pacific International Quilt Festival next weekend! Another quilting excursion -- October is a fun month!

Book Review: Foolproof Machine Quilting

Free motion quilting is one of those things that quilters seem to either love or avoid. I know a number of quilters who've been pretty intimidated about free motion quilting, and I know scads of them who simply aren't interested in learning it. They'll hand quilt and send a quilt out for professional long-arm quilting before they'll drop their feed dogs and hook up the free motion foot.

But one of the best things about quilting is that there is room for every taste and technique here. Those people who don't want to quilt using free-motion quilting -- or those who do but want a different alternative from time to time, will want to check out "Foolproof Machine Quilting" by Mary Mashuta (C&T Publishing, 2008).

Mary Mashuta is an internationally known quilt maker and teacher, and pretty much a legend here in Northern California. She excels at using contemporary and unusual fabric choices with traditional quilt patterns to create innovative and striking quilts. And if you've ever examined them or had a class with Mary, then you know that Mary just doesn't do free motion quilting. Instead, she's developed a way of designing elegant and relatively simple shapes to complement the blocks she quilts, all sewn with a walking foot and a straight stitch.

This book lays out Mary's thoughts, processes, and tips about walking-foot quilting. She tells you how to use thick threads (even #8 perle cotton), and how to select the right needles and batting for your project. Most importantly, she shows how she creates her own quilting templates, using freezer paper or contac paper, to make repositionable quilting guides in any shape you choose. There are lots of illustrations in this book showing variations of quilting shapes and even creative uses for decorative stitches in the quilting process.

My one disappointment about this book? Far too many of the quilts shown in this new book are ones already shown in other books by Mary and C&T. In fact, the cover of this book is a detail shot from a quilt featured in Cotton Candy Quilts (C&T Publishing, 2001), where you can find almost the same picture. You all know how much I love quilt books, and you won't be surprised that I really do look at them over and over for inspiration. Sometimes I'm studying color, sometimes quilting designs, sometimes just general ideas. So as I looked through this brand new book, I was dismayed to find that many of the quilts weren't new to me. To be honest, it felt too much like I was looking at the Mashuta books I already have. Maybe if the book were subtitled or marketed as "an up-close look at Mary Mashuta's quilting using her body of work" -- with some clue that you're going to see a lot of older quilts here, not new ones-- I wouldn't have been so disappointed. I couldn't help feeling a bit cheated as I turned page after page to see quilts I've seen in her other books.

Still, the information here is clear and very useful, and the images do provide good illustration of attractive quilting designs. The images are all about the quilting designs, so I recognize that the use of those same quilts is for a different purposes than in the previous books (where they were generally shown for the pieced block designs).

All in all, I guess I'd grade this book a "B" (can you tell we're in back-to-school mode?). The content is good and the instruction is very clear, even if you may have seen a lot of the quilts before. This book, and the walking-foot quilting ideas taught here, are good ones to have in your quilting bag of tricks.

Stopping and Starting

Here's a shot of the quilt I've just finished machine quilting, which I call "Bali Dreams." Some time back, my MIL gave me some pieces of batik fabric she'd bought in Bali years ago (that rust and black one in the lower right corner and the gold one with a black linear design in the upper left corner). I mixed them with some other batiks and can now give her a lapwarmer quilt for when she sits to read or watch tv. She's always cold, so I hope she'll enjoy this.

But now we are entering into a few transitional weeks around here. Funny, how some periods of time are all about transitions, isn't it?

I am vowing to wean myself off of CNN so I stop getting riled up about politics ... I will try to just enjoy the knowledge that there will be an excellent, smart, compassionate liberal in the presidential race. So I'm mentally shifting gears in that arena and will just enjoy the ride. YES WE CAN. (See? I can!)

[OH! Guess what? I got an actual PERSONAL EMAIL from Jeffrey Toobin after I emailed him to comment about some stuff he said on CNN. So now, when ever he appears on screen, I refer to him as "my good friend Jeff." He's in my email inbox!! Because, you know, we're just TIGHT like that. But I digress.]

I'll be taking down the quilting frame, so we can replace the carpeting in our master bedroom, due to a little (ahem) problem one of the cats had with incontinence (or purposeful, vengeful urinating) when we got the dog. (Yes, that's the same cat who chewed thru the cord on my Juki foot pedal and recently did the SAME DANG THING to my Bernina foot pedal cord. If she weren't my daughter's "familiar," I'd throttle her.) I've also taken the opportunity to buy a new bedspread and so that room will get a makeover. I'm looking forward to refreshing the room -- literally and figuratively.

Caroline will finish 6th grade in a week, so we are officially transitioning ... she into the world of middle school, Roger and I as parents of an adolescent. And we are entering the world of private school, which already (judging from the emails and meetings and uniform-buying sales) feels rather different from the public school world to which we're accustomed.

With Caroline and Roger both home from school, we have our annual summer transition -- beautiful family time, some strain of all of us home all the time ... but we have learned to retreat to our own corners when we need private time, a concept we all respect.

As the weather gets warmer, we will be heading to the pool more, and maybe I'll get myself going in other areas of the health club, too. Let's figure that this will continue my post-gall-bladder-removal-healthier-living transition.

I'm transitioning away from my point-and-shoot Panasonic camera (which I love, if it weren't for the fact that Panasonic repair has now had custody of it for longer than I've owned the thing) to a big-girl, grown-up Nikon DSLR camera. It's fun but it's a lot more complicated. So I will be making my way through the learning curve.

So, some changes, but lots of the usual, ongoing, comfortable, life pleasures. Wonderful family and friends, solid and thought-provoking work, good books to read, fun things to sew, pretty fabrics to fondle...

Loaded Up

Well, who'd have thought? Quilting content!

I've been wanting to quilt this simple top I pieced to give to my mother in law, who gave me some beautiful batik fabric she bought in Bali years and years ago. So, today I finally got it onto the Hinterberg frame. But it was one of those processes where one thing led to another....

I've not done enough on the frame to be really confident about the process of putting the quilt on. So, I remembered I'd bought a video to help me through the process, called "I've got a Longarm and I'm Not Afraid to Use it!" And watching that showed me that I had to make an adjustment in the frame itself, so I did that....

Then, all ready to go, I started in sewing...and shredded thread and broke 3 needles. AARRGH. After various adjustments, I got it all going smoothly. Phew.

So is this frame thing faster? So far, not for me. But maybe it will be one of these days.

Still Going in Circles

I've written here before about the nested circle templates I bought some time ago from Quilter's Rule.

Well, I recently pulled them out again and they helped me solve a quilterly problem.

I was struggling with a challenge quilt for the 12x12 group, and I'd gotten to a point where I'd painted fabric with a design I liked, but it didn't say anything except busy pattern.

I was struggling with how to create some sort of focal point, and some sort of connection among the pieces, and I remembered the circles.

I ended up using them to trace some circles, which I filled in with color ... and then I continued the circles with quilting

Maybe you can see it better on a detail shot:

I sure am glad I bought those templates. They're very handy.

Book Review: Mindful Meandering

I was very excited to see this new book, "Mindful Meandering" by machine quilter extraordinaire Laura Lee Fritz. Laura's machine quilting is memorable to anyone who has seen her amazing work in person -- she can effortlessly quilt in elaborate animals and motifs that take a quilt to a whole different level.

While I admire that sort of work, in my own machine quilting I like having a big arsenal of meandering designs. So when I saw that Laura has done an entire book on meandering machine quilting designs, I figured it'd be pretty great.

And I was right. Laura not only provides some basic tips on machine quiltiing and using meandering designs effectively, but she includes 132 different meandering designs....most of which are something a bit different than the ones I've seen elsewhere. Many of the designs incorporate very simple images -- say, continuous line saiboats scattered among a wavy water design. They have visual complexity but they don't look difficult to sew. She also includes a section on how to use meandering designs in block formats, as well as showing how certain designs look when used in a square format.

I know I'll be referring to this book often as I plan my machine quilting. The book is available for pre-order only now from Amazon.com, but you can get it now directly from C&T Publishing.

First Quilt!

So, yesterday I got my first actual quilt loaded onto the Hinterberg frame. Somehow, it seems only fitting that its one of the fruilt quilts, one I plan to donate to an area shelter. Up until now, I've been practicing on muslin. But I braced myself and got it all loaded and I was ready to quilt.



And then the power went off... for the rest of the morning. Rats.

By the time the power came on, I was out the door for an appointment, and then it was the homework and dinner prep routine. So no quilting for me yesterday.

But today! I fired up the CD player (good and loud to drown out the pesky barking dogs across the street, who yap away whenever a car drives up the street, pretty much), put on the Dixie Chicks, and away I went.



No fancy stitching pattern, but heck, it's my first real quilt on this thing, for pete's sake.

And halfway through the Gipsey Kings' cd, I finished!



I'm still at the point where loading the quilt on the frame takes longer than quilting the quilt (and I'm still not sure I'm doing it right, but I've ordered an instructional DVD so I can make sure) but this was darn fun.

And yes, there's another fruit quilt to load for my next quilting spree!

Having leapt...

Libby and Karen, thanks for your suggestions on the "Leap" thing.

While you were posting them, I was stitching away, making net....and I'd already gone too far to even think about your suggestion, Karen, I'm afraid. But I really like the scraggly edges. Even more net-like, and far less stitching. If I'd thought about that beforehand, I could have made the "and the net" box rough, with torn-net-like edges.

Oh well.

This satisfied THAT urge to experiment with this idea.

Leap

I had this idea.

Don't most problems start out that way?!

In my Practical Design workshop, our challenge for the month is to work with texture. One of the things I decided to try was to use quilting texture to define the main design with negative space.

And that got me thinking about using letters or a word... which led me to play with one of my favorite sayings, "Leap and the net will appear."



I was mainly going to just define the word "LEAP" with close quilting around it. Dense stippling, I thought. But then I thought that stippling is a bit too predictable, and I thought about trying to quilt something net-like.

I practiced a bit, and started in...



And it occurs to me that this is going to take a lot of stitching.

Luckily, this is small. And I'm just playing. So I'll go as far as I can go without hating it and then see where I am.

Freeform fun

We now resume our regular programming ... I mean, work. Today is all about pleading fraud, negligent misrepresentation, breach of contract. And doing laundry.

Meanwhile, here are a few detail shots of my experiment with machine quilting and my first feathers. (You can click on each picture for a closer view.)

Home Alone

I am home alone for the weekend. It's a virtually unheard of event, and I am going to take full opportunity to have fun. Husband and child left this morning for some father-daughter special time, so I scurried around this morning doing chores so I was free to play.

And here's my first play project. I dyed this in my Carol Soderlund workshop in late May.



And I decided that it's the perfect opportunity to play with machine quilting. I mean, if it turns out badly, I won't be devastated. And all that splashy color will hide less than perfect stitching.

I decided to play with freeform feathers.



They're not perfect, but they sure add a fun texture.



Here's where I am now, with the pinky-red parts stitched.



I'm going to fill the yellow parts in with something different...don't know what yet.

Hiding those Knots

I've mentioned before that I'm trying various things to improve my starts and stops during machine quilting. It's not that I *can't* do it ... it's that I'm impatient and always looking for and easier way!

But I recently discovered a few visual aids that demonstrate the methods award-winning quilt artist Sharon Schamber uses:

Tying and Hiding the Knots

Tying and Hiding the Knots 2

Tying and Hiding the Knots 3 -- When the bobbin thread runs out

Tying and Hiding the Knots 4

Great Mail

Coming home from vacation can seem like a bit of a let-down, even while it's also enjoyable to return to one's own home and bed and happy pets. But the post-vacation depression can be greatly diminished by finding some fun goodies in the mail when you return.

Look what was waiting for me!



Doesn't this look luscious? This book has great tips for getting really beautiful results from scrunching fabric on flat surfaces. You can order it from Jane Dunnewold's Artcloth store, here. I can't wait to experiment with these techniques.

And because I've been experimenting on the quilting frame, I ordered these from fellow Artful Quilter Patsy Thompson:



I've watched Volume 1 so far, and it has great machine quilting tips. This has great tips for new machine quilters, as well as some great hints for developing your own quilting designs for experienced quilters.

And then there's the etch-a-sketch present for Roger:



As soon as he opened it and skimmed through it, he made Pomegranate margaritas for us. Delish.

I guess the lesson here is that it's a good idea to do a bit of online shopping before vacation, eh?!

Up and Running

Well, finally, I got all the components of the Hinterberg frame set up and working right, and got my Juki set up on it, ready to go.



I loaded up a length of muslin, threaded on some dark thread to see what I'm doing, and I started stitching. Loading the front, back and batting on the frame was pretty easy, really, better than I thought it would be.



And it's dang fun! I'm still adjusting tension and getting used to how the frame adjusts when you roll fabric forward, etc., but it's going pretty smoothly. (Um, did I just jinx myself?!)

I figure I'll fiddle with this length of muslin, then put on some lengths of cotton prints I bought for a dollar a yard so my practice quilts can be bound and donated to the animal shelter for dog and cat beds or something. So I'm zipping along, having fun!

And I guess I'd better get some of those donation quilt tops ready to quilt

Good news, bad news

You remember I told you about the great deal I got on a used Hinterberg stretch frame? It turns out that this is a huge, cosmic exercise to test my patience. I am gritting my teeth, taking a deep breath and being patient.

First, it became clear that the poles the seller had were simply too big for my space. So I'd need to buy new poles. Okay, fine. Then, I learned, you can't take the pole end hardware off of the original poles without probably damaging the hardware and certainly then making the 10' poles unusable in the future (and lord knows, I may need to quilt a humongous quilt one of these days).

So, I sent off an order to Hinterberg for the pole end hardware. No big deal, right?

Then I set about reading online to learn about preparing the fabric leaders (or hunks of fabric the quilt pieces will attach to on the frame). I ordered the appropriate striped fabric (the better to line things up straight, which is key) and a zipper system which SOMEDAY IN THE DISTANT FUTURE will allow me to save time. Ahem.

So, the leader supplies arrived on Thursday, and I spent an enjoyable afternoon making them (after just one call to the zipper set company because their instructions were so dreadful).

Anticipating the arrival of the pole end hardware, I also got my local hardware guy to cut me 5 pieces of the right sized metal conduit. I love buying weird stuff at the hardware store.

I was in a patient mood. I was zen-like in my calmness.

Then, this morning, the pole-end hardware arrived. Yee haw! I had everything I needed to get it all set up! I was on my knees, whacking the hardware into the poles in a heartbeat. And, some time later I had the frame assembled. I was impressed. My husband was impressed. Look, here's an end of the frame.



Then I set the sewing machine on the carriage, and realized there was a problem. I wasn't sure what the problem was, but something wasn't right.



See how the sewing machine is way out over the edge of that back pole? It's not supposed to do that. I simply couldn't figure out how to set the machine in the frame so that it'd work the way it was supposed to. Did I have it assembled wrong? I studied the pictures. No, the pieces were where they were supposed to be.

I pored over the pictures in the book. I called my buddy Angie, who had this frame, and got suggestions from her.

Finally, I took pictures and posted them on a Hinterberg discussion list, and asked for help. And patiently waited for some experienced Hinty frame user to figure out my problem.

Thanks to a lovely and helpful soul, I learned a fact that is not disclosed anywhere on Hinterberg's website: Hinterberg makes one frame for typical machines and another variation for people who want to use a computer-assisted quilting system called PC Quilter. Between those two frames, there are two parts that are significantly different. And if you have the PCQ one, it won't work with a normal machine without switching those pieces.

Guess which one I have?

SIGHING PATIENTLY.

I suspect that the seller, who bought the whole shebang from her friend, didn't even know that there were two different frames, so she didn't know to warn me that this was the PC Quilter one with a somewhat limited use. And given that the Hinterberg site doesn't really talk about this different one, I didn't know there were different ones to even ask the question. I guess this is one of the risks of snatching such a deal, eh?

Still, this will be easily remedied. Hinterberg will sell me the pieces I need, and the bargain I got on this frame was sufficiently fantastic that I'll still come out way ahead of the buy-it-new purchase price. So, really, it's gonna work out. I just have to WAIT.

Now, I will wait patiently until those new pieces come. In the meantime, I can clean the poles and apply the leaders so they're properly centered and ready to go.

I am patient. I am calm.

I think I need a big glass of wine while I wait. And some chocolate.

I've been framed

Well, I've taken possession of the Hinterberg Stretch Frame, and I woke up ready to try to get it all together.

But, probably like most other home frame system users, I realized that there's a fair amount of preparation to do before I can get it all going. So, despite my excitement and eagerness to see the thing actually standing assembled, I decided to be patient and do it right.

The frame came with 10' poles all prepared with "leaders," or the fabric pieces to which you pin your quilt top and back so you can roll them around the poles as your quilting progresses. And that's great, in case I ever want to quilt a really huge quilt.

But it's amazing how big 10 foot poles look when they're lying on the floor in the dining room. They're -- well, you know, TEN FEET LONG. That's like two people tall, depending on the people! So, I decided that it'd make way more sense for me to buy a set of shorter poles (and I've settled on 7 feet) which will still be big enough to quilt most things, but three feet smaller will mean I can set it up in the bedroom without it taking up the whole width of the room. (Roger's incredibly tolerant, but I don't think he'll want to crawl under the frame to get to the bed every night.)

But you know, now when I hear that expression "I wouldn't touch that with a ten foot pole" I'll actually know what that is. And I'll have the poles not to touch things with.

I've found two incredibly instructive yahoo groups (one for Hinterberg products and one for home quilting machine systems in general) and I'm sorta overwhelmed by the vast information. Probably just as well it'll take a bit of time to get everything I need to get the frame up.

And gee, maybe I can finish a few of the kid quilt tops I have going for donation to my favorite shelter, and work on those when the frame is up...

Ta-dah!

It's done! A deadline does work wonders for my production level. Although I've come down with a cold (and considered toddling off for an afternoon nap) I really wanted to have this done for tomorrow's workshop. Now all I have to do is think of a name for this. Any ideas?

I ended up satin stitching all around the flowery shapes, to emphasize the clean, curvy lines. I used the grid as a quilting motif and carried into the blank spaces, sort of irregularly. I do like the effect. (And it gave me a chance to practice starting and stopping more cleanly, at which I'm improving.) Here are a few detail shots:






I thought I'd show you how I played with different quilting options. Because I wasn't sure what I was going to do for quilting, I used my computer to try out different designs. I took a picture of the top and printed small multiples in a "contact sheet" type layout my photo software has. Then, I was able to draw on them and see how different quilting lines would look.



I find it very helpful to be able to SEE how the options look. It's a great way to try out all sorts of options.

Zoomin'

Quilting in progress today. I'm putting on my headphones, cranking up the ipod, and flooring the pedal.