Into The White

Whew! Finally done with all of the quilting on the Lone RR. 

The small bits of white fabrics are all done. 

I could have used a grey or even black on these, but I thought it would look better with white thread.

I trimmed off the edges a little roughly (ie this isn't "squared-up") and pinned the quilt up on the design wall.

Hey hey, I like it! So close to all done...

 Finishing off this series of quilting process pictures with music videos with "Into The White" which is a fabulous b-side by the Pixies.

Back In Black

Nearing the finish line with quilting the Lone Round Robin. I've finished all the black thread sections and only have left to do a tiny bit of white. Then I'm done.

I'm very pleased with this corner.

I like how the black lines of quilting slightly distort the precise fabric pattern.

And obviously I have to use this video to close out this post. 

This is a (41 year old!) song that still holds up in my opinion, 

 

Gone Grey

 

I'm done with the grey stitching on the Lone Round Robin. And as you can see by the sort of floppy black/white fabric, I've still got the black stitching yet to do.

And a little bit of white. And then it'll be all quilted and done. I'm really really wishing I hadn't gone all walking foot on this one. It's rather tedious in some spots and honestly a bit boring. Not a big surprise that I like the free-ness of free-motion quilting.

And yes, I've Gone Grey--alllll the way. Talk about freeing.

Seasick Quilting

 

Well, I learned something new yesterday. It's possible to get seasick right in your own home! I was concentrating on machine quilting the Lone Round Robin and it was an unusually windy day, a very steady wind was blowing. I'm quilting along and all of a sudden I got that awful sudden swooping feeling in my stomach that usually means either an earthquake or the onset of vertigo. Neither of those was happening. It was the constant movement of the palm and redwood trees in the window that was visible in my peripheral vision. I think it was made worse because it was blurry as my glasses don't wrap around and correct my vision. So the quilt was moving, and the needle, and my hands and also the world outside my window. It was too much for my brain I guess. 

Seriously, I stopped quilting and started looking up the earthquake tracker and considering going and laying down until the vertigo passed. Thankfully the seasick feeling went away quickly and I got back to quilting. Guess I'll have to try to remember to close at least that curtain in my studio on windy days. Luckily windy days aren't super regular around here.

I've gotten a lot done on the grey quilting.

The big polka dot fabric corners were fun to do and I like how the swoopy lines worked out.

You can really tell which bits are quilted and which are not.

I had to pin it up on the design wall to check that the quilting isn't adding "too much" to this already busy quilt.

A detail of one of the squares. I came up with this design on the fly and I really like it.

Green Gone

Cataloguing my progress through the various thread colors I'm using on the Lone Round Robin. All done with the green parts. Onto the greys and then finally, the black.

As I used several different grey colored fabrics in the quilt top, I'm using three thread choices to quilt in those areas.

The darkest, most brown grey went well with this floral. I used more curvy lines to echo the branches and vine shapes in the fabric.

I like how it's visible but not too prominent.

Seeing the last two grey cones of thread side by side, it's really apparent how one is quite silver and one is almost over into gold. Both are rayon.  In some of the grey parts the sections are big so I'll be doing more planning ahead on what sort of design to stitch. Especially in the grey rectangles that have the quotes about the pandemic.

Into the Green

All of the orange quilting on the Lone Round Robin is done now.

So it's time to move into (or onto?) the green.
 

Walk Don't Run

I'm trying out using my walking foot on the Lone Round Robin. 

I think it's going pretty well so far.

I haven't gotten any puckers so far, which is an improvement on the usual for me.

 

Excited to receive my copy of WALK - Master Machine Quilting with Your Walking Foot by Jacquie Gering in the mail over the weekend. It's informing some of my quilting decisions so far.

Walk Don't Run holds up, not bad for a 61 year old song!

 

Orange 🍊 You Glad

I started in on quilting my Lone Round Robin, beginning with the orange 🍊 thread that is pretty darn matchy. I used that dumb phrase because I am curious to see if the orange emoji will work or not on this platform. The above was my attempt at a machine embroidered sewn-in quilt label. Unfortunately I used regular sewing thread and not embroidery thread, soooo the letters are a little thick.

 It says: 

Lone Round Robin

2021

*handmade**handmade*

stichstichstichstich

 I’m testing out the open toe walking foot on my new machine with a lot of  Jacquie Gering’s advice in my mind.

 

Pin Baste Improvement

Even though I used fusible batting for my Lone Round Robin, the batting was kind of old and didn't seem to have the same amount of stickiness, so just in case, I decided to pin baste the area I was going to start quilting on. Memo to me, order some more fusible batting for the next wall quilt.

 Clover Wonder Pins worked really really well for me. They were so much easier on my fingers than the old stand-by of regular safety pins. The colors are bright, especially with the white, so they'll show up well on most fabrics.

Now that I'm getting older, that kind of ouch adds up a whole lot quicker. I really want to save my finger and hand strength for the actual quilting! 

I found that they were very easy to pin and un-pin, the plastic handles on the top of each pin are a perfect size to grasp. It's a clever design, and I think the actual pin itself was very high quality. They're smooth and very sharp, and just the right size too, so it won't leave giant holes behind. I was able to grasp them and take them out even with my quilting gloves on. 

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Lone Round Robin Quilt Top Complete

 

Time for the final round of the Lone Round Robin. The prompt for this tenth round was to use a batik. This slightly wonky polka dot which I used earlier seemed like a good way to finish up and frame this piece. But I needed to get that orange central fabric in there somehow. Small slices of it of different widths interspersed with the black white batik seemed like a good way to go.

I assembled it very randomly, making four segments to use on either ends of the vertical borders.

I went with squares of the orange fabric as the corners. I was considering making them rectangles instead, to match the central rectangle, but thought that would look a bit strange. I'm happy with most of my choices on this. I really like how this ended up and am thinking up ways to quilt it. This is small enough for me to do myself on my new machine. I think for binding I'll use that black print from the first, fifth, and ninth rounds, interspersed with bits of the orange, maybe at every fabric join, or even more often.

Lone Round Robin #9

 Got this ninth round finished and photographed right before the power went out **Again**.  Sigh. It went back on at 3AM, and today it is very very windy. So who knows, and we have up to 12" of rain predicted for this week. I may or may not be sewing or blogging, we shall see. I like how this round finished up. Now on to the 10th and final round.

I took pictures of each of the four corners.

I didn't strictly stick to my rule of the center starting orange fabric touching somehow into the next round, but it's close enough visually for me.

I like how each corner holds up on its own pretty well as a design.

The last round is "use a batik" and the black/white fabric I already used in round 6 is a batik, huzzah! And I have just barely enough of it, huzzah again! The on

Lone Round Robin - Ninth in Progress

 The ninth round of the Lone Round Robin is still in progress. I've made a start on the corners that flank the four quotations. This was mostly done during the power outage, so the lighting is a little off. 

I used my new Oliso mini iron while we were on generator power which worked perfectly. It didn't overload or overtax our generator, and I could still have the sewing machine plugged in too. This was my first time using the new iron and I was surprised at how effective it was. Some of the other minis don't get as hot, and without the weight of a larger iron they just don't work as well. But this one does, and for such a small iron, it makes a whole lot of steam, I like it! 

I didn't want to try ironing on my glass topped worktable, so I put my Steady Betty pressing surface on a chair next to my machine and plugged in the mini iron and I was ready to go. So far I'm very happy with the performance of the Steady Betty (plus I love the product name), but if and when it wears out, I think I'll try one of those new wool pressing mats that are all over these days.

I used the scentless Flatter spray by Soak on the mini blocks that I pieced with all the leftovers from previous rounds of this quilt top. I wish I could use the other scents that they have which smell very wonderful, but sometimes I have weird reactions to scented things. I think that Flatter really works well, I'd say just as well as Best Press. Both of them are non-starch options for flattening your quilt blocks.

I think I have one more corner left to go on this ninth round, and then on to the final round for this piece.

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Lone Round Robin - More Quotes

 

I added two more quotes, ones to either side border for the ninth round for the Lone Round Robin.

Having an almost solid line on the top and the bottom but not on the sides looked a bit odd to my eye. 

Pictured here is the tail end of one of them: Let's Not Screw This Up!!

For posterity's sake, the other two quotes are as follows:

"We long to return to normal, but ++normal led to this++. Ed Yong, 8/3/20

 

and an instagram meme, 

"First time in history, we can save the human race by lying in front of the TV and doing nothing. Let's not screw this up!!"

Now to figure out how and where to add in the orange fabric. I think I'll add some of the white print as well, or maybe the orange/white print. We shall see...

Lone RR - Round 9

 Round 9 for the Lone Round Robin is to write or embroider a quote about 2020. I decided to use my new sewing machine and use the lettering functions to embroider two quotes. I used grey rayon thread on the grey fabric because I didn't want the line of words to be too in-your-face and contrasty.

I'm still deciding if the two side borders need their own quotes or not, and how to get some of that orange into this round as well. Maybe some stars in the corners?

Oh, and of course the two quotes COVID related. Since you can't read them well in this picture, here's what I chose.

First is from Dr. Nancy Messonnier on 2/25/20. She is the director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She was talking about community spread of COVID on a White House press briefing call and said this: "It's not so much of a question of if this will happen anymore but rather more of a question of exactly when this will happen." And then the stock market fell off a cliff the next day, and the White House took over all communications about the pandemic and we are where we are. Telling the truth, warning the public, urging us to prepare for our lives to irrevocably change was not allowed.

 

The second quote is from Dr. Anthony Fauci on 5/2.20: "Now is the time, if there ever was one, for us to care selflessly about one another." Indeed and still.

Lone Round Robin - Round 8

After a lot of gazing at what was up on the design wall, the round 8 blockade has finally been broken.

 I realized I didn't have quite enough hourglass blocks to make it all the way around. 

So I made a few more, and came up with this layout. With my design wall being white, I got to consider how it would be to use that white print used in some of the hourglass blocks, especially the stretched ones on the top and the bottom. I thought it would be too differently weighted compared to the other rounds being mostly grey backgrounded. Especially with the busyness and action from the hourglass blocks and all the prints.

The addition of one of the other grays used way back in round 2 as a filler. I like how the print looks in addition to the hourglass blocks.  That white print which isn't just white, it really comes through reading as a solid.

Two more rounds to go!