Two X's Question

The first design for getting some quilting done on the houses I came up with was to do two X's one for the "window" and one for the door, with the bottom of the door and the top of the two sides of the houses. It isn't quite enough stitching.

It's almost enough given all the free motion quilting around the house, as well as the horizontal line of walking foot quilting between the rows of houses.

But when there's no sky space between the houses, there's a hand's width of non-quilted space.

That's too big of a gap, I think. Also, I don't really look how floppy the sides and roofs of the houses look in comparison. But I don't want to do more free motion quilting and get really dense with it, this is a bed quilt after all and it needs to be soft and flexible. 

I bet if I washed and dried this quilt I wouldn't feel that way, most of this fabric is not pre-washed so it's going to shrink up at least somewhat. What would happen if I tried that and then re-evaluated the need for more quilting beyond the two X's? I don't think I've ever tried quilting then washed and dried and then went back to do more quilting. It seems kind of risky and I've spent a whole lot of time on this one already. Seems like I'm talking myself out of it, doesn't it?
 

A Drawing Board Of Sorts

 

Today in unnecessary products. Dry-erase index cards. I honestly have no idea why these were in my Amazon cart, I heard something somewhere or read it, and I ordered some out of curiosity. I think I need to start keeping better track of this as a lot of times I leave things in my cart for a month. Anyways, they showed up and I am stumped and intrigued just by the idea--much less the reality of this odd product. I truly do not understand the purpose of these things. They smudge, just like a dry erase board does. They never dry so these are not portable or for long-term or important use. Temporary use only.

I kind of like the colors,  the pens included with built in erasers are quite handy. But again, what are these for? Thinking of all the things I've used index cards (or dry erase boards) for over the years, mostly as homemade flashcards to study, for ICAD (index card a day), for making lists and keeping track, for labels in clear plastic boxes. None of those things would be accomplished by using this product. You can't write on them and then stack them up and carry the stack around in your backpack (and surely kids are using apps now for flashcard kind of memorization). Just a weird thing. 

I came up with two quilt related ideas, block designs, and to practice quilting designs.Of course you can do this on actual paper index cards, or scrap paper or whatever else just as well.

I sat down to try and figure out how to quilt inside the houses on my Village/Japanese Houses quilt. and I ended up drawing and erasing several times an idea for anchoring down the houses that have only been quilted around. It was fairly easy to prop it up next to my sewing machine as I tried out the final idea to refer to. And it helped to practice the directions of the lines a few times. Could I have just as easily done this on paper? Yes.

 Back to the drawing board though, as it's still not quite enough stitching for the houses that are right next to each other with no sky in-between. Guess I can erase and try again on the card.

Village Bound

Back into the pre-made binding bag, time to get the Village/Japanese Houses quilt bound.

There she is, my Binding Baby is out and about again after spending all that time in the Bag O' Binding.

It went on very easily, mostly because I decided not to worry about exactly matching up the transition from blue to grey with the background.

I stopped to take pictures, reminding myself about why I made this quilt in the first place--All These Great Japanese Fabrics.

So many of these fabrics really make me smile.

Of course I had some "help" from my studio assistant

Look! She's empty once again, hurrah.

I got so excited about this quilt being bound and so close to completion that I pinned it up on the design wall. From here it looks done.

But closer up, I think the houses need some quilting.

Especially the ones that are lined up right next to each other. So, I can't count this as a finish quite yet and I have to work out what to do. I could stitch around the door and window. Or along the bottom of each roof, or both I guess. Maybe I'll do something with an embroidery stitch, like one of those circles to make a "door-knob" on the door.

Village Sky Quilted

 

I've now finished all the free motion background quilting on the Village quilt (aka Japanese Houses). Woohoo! The whole sky is now filled with cloudy foggy swirls.

There's no quilting in the houses at all, so I'm going to have to look at it overall to see if those spaces are too big to be unanchored. But now I can attach the binding while I decide.

December To-Do

 

Here's how my design wall was looking on December 1st. There's my half-way assembled Temperature Quilt, and then the three pieces of dyed yardage waiting for their second dye baths.

Here's my To-Do list for December:

Sew-a-Long Thingies

Trinket - layer and quilt.

Color Collective - Quilt and bind the Slopes Quilt, 

and make another side for the Clover Pillow with Swerves, start cutting for Colorwash

Temperature Quilt- cut remainder of needed pieces from newly dyed fabric, keep piecing monthly columns.

Pantone Project - keep making blocks and pass them on to friend Jaye.

Secret Lives of Color- it's still oh so very secret, keep reading the book and making the blocks, post some too.

Indigo Way - Begin work on this year's Bonnie Hunter Mystery quilt. Assemble fabrics, make the first blocks.

New Work

Wedge Quilt - finish assembling quilt top, make a backing, quilt, bind, label.

A Hot One - planned quilt celebrating the color of the year, Viva Magenta.

Garment Sewing Academy - finish Cielo top.

Make It Work - assemble a quilt top out of the materials for BAMQG, make backing, layer, quilt, bind.

Make binding and finish the other BAMQG quilt for donation.

Dye Mastery Class - finish final unit on over-dyeing and patterning.

Finish It Already

Make a back for Metro Twist, layer, quilt, bind, label.

Finish quilting Japanese Houses, bind, label.

Y.E.S. Coat - lay out what I've made, make more elements, start assembling.

And finally and most importantly: finish making the gifts before Christmas.

That should keep me busy enough for December!

Through With Gray

 

I was finishing up the grey quilting on the Village quilt when I ran out of bobbin for the last of the corner. 

Apparently this is now called "losing at Bobbin Chicken." I'm using this Aurifil as both the top and the bottom thread.

I folded the non-quilted part of the quilt over and pinned it up to get a look at how the quilting looks.

It's not too prominent or noticeable.

Here's how the corner turned out after I wound up a new bobbin.

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My new studio assistant spent some time napping on it, and said it was still soft enough for a bed.

I forgot just how big this quilt is! Now onto getting the blue sky done.

Fog Texture

 

I briefly pinned the Village quilt up on the design wall to see if the fog/clouds I was quilting worked or not. 

From a distance, it's just kind of texture-y, which is fine.

I went ahead and did a bunch more quilting.

I need to do better in between the houses, maybe something more swirly/ooser.

I tested to see if the light grey thread works on the light blue fabric too. And it does.