Treasured Times, preview only

Back in October of 2011, I was asked to make an art quilt for a couple of friends of mine. They wanted it to be 6 feet wide by 3 feet tall; have greens, blues, browns, and a touch of red; and to reflect this time in their lives. I was thrilled and terrified! But I accepted...noting that I wouldn't even start on it until after the first of the year.

Well, in 2012, I DID start on it! And it consumed my entire Spring! I worked on this for about 6 months and on July 4th, it went to its 'forever home'. This piece is called 'TREASURED TIMES'.

I had planned to show the finished quilt and the entire creation process here on the blog, taking lots of pictures along the way to make that possible. But once it was finished and shown to my quilting friends, I was strongly urged to enter it in a quilt show.

I have never entered a quilt show before (although I have had two quilts in the AQS's ULTIMATE GUILD CHALLENGEs in the past!), and the idea is (again) both thrilling and terrifying!
But I decided to do it.
And that means that I can't show pictures of the finished quilt here on the blog! Not just yet.

But I will share a few images of the process, just to give an idea of what has been going on at my house! :)

This piece was done as a 'fiber collage'...I cut up small bits of fabric and used them like paint to create the image. Handling the bits was sometimes tricky; I found using a putty knife and/or tweezers made it easier to slip one bit under the edge of another bit. These were not stitched or fused...merely positioned on the batting until the whole background was sandwiched under black tulle for the stitching.

The background was created intuitively...I was not referring to an image as I created this fantasy place. I used chunks of colored construction paper to give me a sense of what shapes I might want the landscape to take.

I decided to include the faces of this couple, as well as their dog, on the quilt. I took photos of them on New Years Eve so that I would have something to work with...they were unaware!

The dog was fun to do, yet challenging at the same time. I had learned to do "portrait" applique from my friend, Vanessa, so I used that same method to create the dog, as well as a few other elements on the quilt. Here you can see the various fabrics I have chosen and labelled to use for the dog.

The dog and other various elements were created separately, to be applied to the quilt after the initial stitching. Various fibers and treasures were also included in this collage.

I created a pair of ducks to represent the oldest son...he is the Duckmaster at the Peabody Hotel here in Memphis. Each color was a separate bit of fabric! The foot is layered under a piece of blue tulle to give the illusion of it being under the water. I spent a whole DAY making these two ducks!

Now you can get a little perspective...those ducks are tiny! Each one is about 1-1.5"...tiny! But they were a necessary element!

I used beads to create the body for a butterfly for this piece. A good friend of mine gave me the black beads from her stash.

Here, the butterfly is sewn on the quilt. I tacked the wing tips so that the wings maintained a curve...creating some dimension.

The robin was a bit of fun! The nest was created from many tiny slivers of fabrics, cut and arranged then stitched.

Ok, that is all I can show you of this quilt for now.
I hope it isn't TOO MUCH! I plan to enter this in shows in 2013...after that, I can give the whole story!

Busy in the sewing room

I have been busy in my sewing room, as you can see below...the room is a mess!

My cutting table is loaded with stuff....fabric and rotary cutters, fabric paints and even a glue gun! I've had a strange variety of projects lately.

You may have noticed that my sewing room has been rearranged again.
yep.

I was going nuts.
Remember?  I bought a longarm quilting machine that was delivered in late July.  While I love this machine, I was NOT in love with the way it looked in my sewing room.

The end of the machine was my view each time I entered the room....all the knobs and pipes and straps, oh my!  I was trying really hard to get used to this (and LIKE it!) but it was not fitting well with my sense of order and aesthetics.  But I was trying to get past these feelings, telling myself that it was just something new...I'd get used to it.

However, the lighting was very poor in this area of my room, so DH and I bought and installed some narrow black fluorescent lights over the quilting machine.

Well, I think that was the straw that broke the camel's back!

I HATED the look of the room once the lighting went in!  See for yourself...my view:

I was filled with dread and anxiety every time I looked in there!  And it wasn't about the money.  Yes, this was an expensive machine, but I did want it.  But I also wanted (and needed) my sewing room to be conducive to creativity!

This was not doing it for me.

So I measured my stuff and DD created a few alternate arrangements for me to consider and try.  Yes, it was a lot of work,, but the new arrangement is SO much more pleasing to me now!  I don't have quite as much usable floor space in the new arrangement, which meant the striped chair had to go (boo hoo) but other than that, the new arrangement is far superior!

I ditched those black fluorescent lights.  I HATED those!  in the beginning, DH was not willing to rewire a fixture that was intended to be hardwired to the ceiling, which limited my choices to those I could plug in with a cord.  Well, those dangling cords from these lights and the extension cords that went with them are gone.  (yes, I had planned to tack them to the wall, to control the 'dangle factor', but there was still excess cord length bundled on TOP of each light...ugly!)

In this new arrangement, you can barely see a fluorescent fixture that hugs the ceiling over the quilting machine, because the ceiling fan is in front of it....PLUS, it is white, so it blends in with the ceiling.  Yes, you can see the one that hangs over my sewing machine, but that one doesn't bother me...it wasn't right in front of my face each time I looked in the door!

There are cords from both these lights that travel down the wall but I put them in channels that I painted the wall color, so they don't bother me at all.

Finally, with the room arrangement determined and the lighting improved, I was once again able to work on the quilt that I had long-ago loaded on the quilting machine!

This is the first quilt I have tried to do since purchasing this machine.  I did a couple of throw-away practice pieces then went straight to a real quilt.

Almost immediately, I realized I had jumped the gun.  I had NOT worked out the tension issues as I thought I had.  When I advanced the quilt to a new area, I could see that the part I had already done was NOT good...there were loops on the back where the top thread was coming through.

I had had trouble with the tension balance right from the start.  To make a long story short, the problem ended up being the height of the needle bar: it was set too low.  Here, you can see a picture of the needle at its lowest position...notice the relationship of the eye of the needle to the hook arm above it.  You can see part of the needle above its eye.

Now, after resetting the needle bar height to raise it, you can see that there is almost no needle showing above the eye...this is how it should be.  Sorry the exposure is so different...hopefully you can still see.

Once I got the machine to sew as desired, I was ready to go.  I ripped out the bad quilting...that took about a day and a half.  By this time, the new quilting threads I had ordered had arrived, so I was all ready to go!

The actual quilting went pretty fast and was fun!  I was making it up as I went along.

Here are a couple of sneak peaks:

Although I am finished with the quilting, this piece isn't 'done' yet. I might paint on it...and I might add beads! We'll see...

Quilting

The new handles I made for the HandiQuilter worked very well! It did take some getting used to working on the front side, though.

For example, when I set the needle and pull up the bobbin thread, I find it easier to do when standing BEHIND the machine, because I can hold the carriage in place, as opposed to having it roll uncontrolled on the tracks while I grope for threads!

So I start out behind the machine, pull up the bobbin thread and set the needle into the quilt, then walk around to the needle-side of the machine and begin quilting.

When I stop, I walk around to the back side to cut threads and reset.

So I am getting more exercise than I would if all the steps could be done from the front of the machine! This is not a bad thing, though...standing in one place too long is not good either!

When I first started the quilting on this particular quilt, I was having THREAD TROUBLE. It kept fraying and breaking...that stupid top thread! Because I needed so many different colors, I was using threads from my stash...like Dual Duty...as I had been told that they work fine. I didn't find that to be the case.

So I called my friend, Marilyn, who is a fabulous seamstress and quilt artist, and she advised me to a) use an even bigger needle, and b) get some Gutterman cotton thread (which is available locally). I did BOTH of these things and $75 worth of new thread later, my quilting improved!



I have been quilting on this quilt off and on this past week, making great headway. Feeling especially satisfied with the progress I was making with no more thread breaks, I was finally doing more sewing than ripping! As I rolled the quilt to expose new area to quilt, my hand felt something on the underside that just didn't feel 'right'. When I looked under there, sure enough, I had a problem.



Who knows what caused it...it started and stopped for no apparent reason, but I had an obvious tension issue. There were loops on the backside on what was about 3 full blocks of quilting!

I was pissed.

But the good news is...it ripped out pretty easily!

I have now completed the quilting and am busy burying the start/stop threads. I may get this finished before the deadline after all! :) This is a 'challenge' quilt for my local quilt guild, and must be presented at the meeting on February 23.

Blue River Quilt part 4

Today I have been working on my Blue River Quilt (I really should give it a more creative name, eh?). This sat on the frame for about 2 weeks with no progress while I worked on a blouse, but this weekend, I began quilting again, and am making great progress! Well, that is, until a song like "I CAN'T DANCE" by Genesis, or "I DIDN'T MEAN TO TURN YOU ON" by Robert Palmer comes on! Then I have to stop and dance a bit! :) I create a playlist on I-tunes to keep me company while I sew, and this time, I had it sort by song NAME rather than artist...see? I am in the 'I's...









My skills aren't 'all that', but the only way I'll get better is to just do it...so I am!








I am now to the point where I have to sew around all those triangular, pieced trees. Following a pieced seam is NOT easy for me...the seam allowances throw me off, as will a loose thread, a speck of dust, a fairy flying too close to my head... Ok, no fairies, but really, I have no excuse...EVERYTHING seems to encourage me to sew crooked! I have decided that gives this piece it's 'charm'....lets everyone know it is handmade...not manufactured or computerized!

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.