Stitching the Words

 

The UFO challenge deadline approach-eth, (in 13 days). so I'm working on finishing this quilt. There are a lot of words written in pen on the pieces that still need to be appliquéd. So I'm just stitching over the writing in a zig-zag before I'll be attaching them to the quilt.

I really like the look of this after being zig-zag stitched. This was two passes of stitching. It takes a lot of extra time, but I think it is worth to do it separately from the quilting. Was it a bit weird stitching out the word, "Me"? Honestly, yes, a little strange, but I reminded myself that it's just part of the song lyric that I'm working with. And this quilt is my reaction to both the music and those words in the lyric.

A lot of actual quilting has gotten done now. 

Using some decorative stitches on the not-so-skinny-strips.

Still a long way to go to finish, but I have a plan that will hopefully work out. At the very least, I'm feeling this quilt again, now that I've been working with it. And that's a Good Thing™👸

Thread Spiral

Choosing threads for all the colors of the background of my SAT 26 quilt, Cumulative Spiral.

Looking for not exactly matching, but pretty close.

It's always fun to go through my quilting threads and search for the right colors to use.

 I think it turned out pretty well. Now that the background is all done, it's time to do the rest of the work on the reminder of the quilt design.

Trinket Quilting Finished

 

The Trinket quilt was back under the needle today in hopes of getting it finished up. This picture shows the solid dark berry/wine fabric color.

This one does not show the correct color at all. But you a see the start of the quilting I'm doing, just a simple X marks the spot. It's just diagonal point to point quilting, very simple, but I think it suits the quilt just fine.

I was so excited to see how it looked I didn't bother taking down the City Sampler backing efforts I'd pinned up earlier. 

And there it is all quilted and trimmed with less background. The lower lefthand corner features a bit of my smoothing ruler, so not an actual yellow piece of fabric in a weird place.

And here's how the back looks. I think it turned out pretty well. Now to get that binding on and finish it up the whole way.

Trinket Anchored

Back to getting Trinket anchor quilted. That's what I call doing the horizontals and verticals in my mind.

I still love these juxtapositions of odd colors in the Alison Glass fabrics vs. the odd dark berry purple solid that I chose to use.

And there it is, all anchor quilted and un-trimmed.

This is probably just enough quilting, but I know I want to do more.

Why are the yellows so odd in this picture? I think it's because they're next door to the intense reds and cellphone cameras are notorious for struggling with accurately translating the reds correctly.

Here's how the back looks with the untrimmed edge pinned underneath. ie not the final bound and finished edge.

Hmmm, don't like that grid offset look on the back.

I still can't believe I paper pieced that block!

Slopes Quilted

 

I finally got to sit down at the sewing machine late yesterday, and I finished the diagonal quilting on Slopes. But first I sat in the rainbow-ness of the sun setting in the window.

It was really quite bright but it made for good light on the quilting left to be done.

Well-illuminated indeed.

I turned on some music (X-Wild Gift and The Blasters-Live 1986) and finished off the diagonals going in one direction. And then flipped it around and did the other direction too.

I think I like it. 

And now I'm done quilting it. Now for the finishing! But what color of binding? I do have small-ish pieces of all the colors left over, but that might be too much variety for a binding. I think one of the darker blues might be nice. I'll have to see if I have enough of one of them to make the binding or not.

Diagonal Slopes

 

Trimming all the extra backing off of the Slopes quilt. I love this step.

I did some diagonal quilting in the upper right-hand section. 

It's not too noticeable in the overall view.

And closer up, I think I like it. Time to stay diagonal.

Slopes Rows Quilted

 

Here's how Slopes is looking now that I've done the columns and the rows, in-the-ditch style. This is plenty of quilting for this one, at least I think it is for now.

But maybe, I should do the diagonals as well. I think I'll quilt a few and see how it looks to me.

Rows of Slopes

 

The walking foot machine quilting is going well so far.

Slow and steady and kind of racket-y. I'm blocking the sound out by listening to a very good library audio book on my headphones (Weyward by Emilia Hart)

I pinned it up on the wall to see how the light grey quilting lines look now that I've done all the rows.

It looked well enough to me, so now I'm doing the other directions of each column.

Slopes Quilting

 

I'm finally going in---getting the machine set up for walking foot quilting Slopes. 

Got the quilt sandwich all re-ironed and re-sandwiched. It had been folded up for a while (May 2023!), so it took a little fussing around.

Looking forward to getting this beastie quilted.

Green FMQ

 

After all that piecing and regular sewing, it was time to switch over for FMQ (free motion quilting). I even swapped out the foot from the closed- ring to the clear plastic. Trying that out for the first time on this machine. It's a lot like the Big Foot that I like to use on my older Janome machine. I also realized that my newer machine has yet to have had a servicing and I got it in December 2020. Sooo....after these two quilts get done, I'm taking her in.

I took this picture so that I would remember that I swapped the foot on the convertible FMQ shank and which one it is in my machine feet case. There's one that's very similar and I remembered I'd need a photo assist to get the right one.

It took a bit to get going but I got the green part all finished off. Now onto the rest of the quilt which will be all blue.

Raincloud Quilting

After all that block making it was time to switch over my sewing set-up to the walking foot for some quilting. Specifically the Ruby+Bee challenge quilt, Running Out Of Raincloud, that's due by the end of October. I haven't worked on this quilt for an entire month. I think I'd given up finishing it because I'd thought it was due at the end of September.  Anyways, back to it and hopefully getting it completed by the end of the month.

I started out using this hot pink rayon thread in horizontal lines all over the whole quilt. The lines are not really matchstick close...yet. 

I think I may either go back in-between these lines with some other colors from the quilt--mustard, red, blue. 

Or those other colors might be done in vertical lines or 45° parallel lines. Depends on how it looks when I finish the first step.

Super Sew

 

BAMQ's Super Sew Day (that's two days in a row) began last Friday in Palo Alto, and I was so glad that I was actually feeling up to attending. I really made myself taket it easy walking in from the parking lot with all my stuff. Even making two trips instead of over burdening myself to only struggle/walk the distance just one time. I'm trying hard to not overdo it and make dumb mistakes just because I'm excited to get out and do something. 

The first project I worked on was pin-basting the Community Giving quilt top. Thankfully there was a cute cotton print for me to use for the backing so that I didn't have to use the kind-of-plastic-y fabric that was included in the bundle. I had several other people confirm my feelings on that one before I swapped it out. I got most of the quilting done on this cute quilt on Friday. Once I got started, I ended up getting a good amount done along with the most socializing I've done in a month. Such great people to hang out with and to be inspired by their projects. Then coming back in the next day on Saturday, I got right down to finishing off the very last of the quilting to get it off of my to-do list. 

My next project was working on a new section for my YES coat. This is called Afghani piecing in Rachel D. K. Clark's booklet, "Picture This" Techniques for Wearable Art and Quilts. (She's teaching next month at PIQF). The written instructions are a bit spare, but the illustrations were clear enough that I got the hang of it. It took me a while, but I think it turned out pretty well and was worth the effort.

Cool Grid Control

 

At the last BAMQ meeting, I picked up a quilt roll from the Community Giving table. The great fabric in this interesting quilt top drew me in with the cool grid design. It looks like a tic-tac-toe board doesn't it? I like how the super busy fabric is controlled by placing the white grid of boxes and x's on top of it.

The backing fabric that was included is a very stiff white on white print which I hope doesn't impact the quilting too much. I have a feeling it's going to be quite noisy. You know, that pockit-tah-pockit-tah sound as the needle goes through and out again. If it's too challenging, I guess I'll just swap in something else.