Wandering Spiral Block

Last weekend was the Boise Basin Quilters annual quilt show.  I went on Saturday with a fellow Innova owner and long arm quilter, Linda V. and we had a great time.  I entered Odd Girl Out in the Exhibition Only category and had lots of compliments.  It was a super busy day and the quilts were great.  I even purchased a couple of tools I’d seen earlier this summer.  You’ll be hearing about those over the next few months as I get those projects started.

On Sunday I took the Wandering Spirals class from ReNae Merrill.  Of course, I had to get a photo in front of the class sample!  If you look closely you’ll see “shadow” blocks in the quilting.  That would be the outline of the quilt blocks on the other side.  Yep, it’s a reversible quilt!  Unfortunately I neglected to get a photo of the other side.

ReNae developed this block specifically for our guild and debuted the pattern at our show.  She specializes in a unique paper piecing technique.  I’ve done very little paper piecing but found it easy to follow and really enjoyed the class, learned a lot and made a new friend, Vicki.

Notice that in the photo my shoes don’t match.  That’s because I can’t sew with my shoe on so I was wearing the felted slipper that I made earlier this year.

Vicki and I didn’t finish our blocks during the class so we got together last night and worked on the block for about an hour.  After dinner I completed mine.

Nxt up: print the additional foundations and get them assembled (this block requires 4 foundation pieces), cut the fabric, and find time to piece the rest of the blocks!

It’s Been a Busy Two Weeks!

Customer quilt complete!

I finally finished my customer’s 112” x 112” Double Irish Chain quilt!

She provided a Hobb’s washable wool batting and I quilted an overall meander in the chains, a freehand boxy leaf pattern in the inner white border and a piano key on the outer border.  I used a continuous line stencil pattern for the design in each of the setting blocks, tracing it from a printout of the stencil using the laser light on the back of the machine.  It turned out great, and my customer really likes it!

Longarm machine update

Two weekends ago I spent a full day with tech support again and we adjusted the electronics on my machine.  It seems to be sewing a lot better, but I’m taking it slow because I don’t want to create yet another problem with the customer quilt I have on the frame.  Once I get the off of there, I can put on a test piece and quilt the way I usually do.  If it works, I’ll be back in business.  If it doesn’t, then ABM is going to see if they can route a technician through Boise to get this resolved once and for all.

What’s New

This past week my mom came to visit because we got tickets to go to the Gordon Lightfoot concert!  We had a great time and even though I couldn’t take any time off work I was able to work from home.  That was awesome!

The Boise Basin Quilters quilt show was this weekend, too.  Mom isn’t a quilter and wouldn’t have had as much fun as I do when I go, so instead we went to the Farmer’s Market before her flight back home.  After I dropped her off I went to the trunk show lecture that our featured artist, Marsha McCloskey, gave.

It was raining on Sunday and with all of the activity of the busy week, I didn't want to go out, even to the quilt show!   I went, though, because I'd ordered some batting from the Winline Textiles vendor.  I knew I'd enjoy myself after I got there, and I did.  It was a really good show and I got lots of photos so I could refer to the quilting later for some ideas.  I even got to talk to my friend, Julie, afterwards.  All in all, I enjoyed the day but I got absolutely nothing done this weekend.

I've come down with a sore throat, which started yesterday, so I'm working from home today with a colleague and trying to rest a bit, too.

Family Vacation

My brother and his family lives on the East coast, my mom and I both live on the West coast.  Subsequently, we don't get together very often, but this year we made a special effort t get together for a family vacation, during the kids' Spring Break.

It was fun to get together and see the changes in the kids.  After all, it's been at least 3 years since I've seen them and they now range in age from 10 to almost 13.  Family dynamics can always prove interesting, especially when everyone has strong personalities and stronger opinions, but we managed to compromise and everyone got to do something they enjoyed. :-)

First on the list was a visit to the Liberty Bell.  I've wanted to see it since I was in 6th grade, during the bicentennial, and it brought me to tears.

We were able to visit the Hershey

and Synder-of-Hanover factories, where industry of the nation was demonstrated, and where my engineer brother was able to better explain some of the technologies that impacts his daily life.

My mom has always wanted to visit Gettysburg, and we spent one afternoon at the museum, cylorama, and battlefield.

Since I'm the only quilter in the family, I thought for sure I wouldn't be able to visit any quilt shops; unthinkable for most quilters visiting Amish country!  So, when my sister-in-law suggested that I put together a list of places to visit so we could fit something in, I was delighted!

Fortunately, I'd met a quilter in the Denver airport, Carole, from Quilts By Carole. Since Carole is familiar with the area, she later texted me some suggestions for places to visit, and once again I wished I could have convinced my family to make this a quilting vacation!  I had a great time talking with her and and found out we had a lot in common. She offered me a bottle of water and shared that she is also an ABM Innova owner with her own quilting business, the same passion for technology and quilts, and even has the same cell phone! We simply didn't have more time to find out what else we had in common!


There were so many places I would have loved to go, but with only one day allotted for such activities, and lots of distance to cover, I was lucky that my mom agreed to one quilt shop stop, in addition to our Amish community stop. We went on an Amish buggy ride, visited an Amish dairy farm, and found Bird-In-Hand Bake Shop where we had the best caramel rolls I've had in the longest time; they reminded me of the ones my mom used to make when I was a kid.

We traveled about the Pennsylvania countryside and Mom got to see the farms and scenery along the back roads, always a favorite activity of hers. Eventually we found Burkholder's Fabrics in Denver, PA, which houses approximately 33,000 bolts of fabric....with only 40 minutes before closing time!

I met the owner who explained how the fabric was organized in each of the three rooms and started browsing.  Keeping in mind my objective to finish some works in progress, I purchased a fat quarter bundle in various shades of blue that was half off so I could increase the size of the blue rail fence quilt I'm making; if not the size, at least there will be greater variety!  I completed my transaction 1 minute before closing; it was probably a good thing I only had 40 minutes!

Getting together with family has definitely helped me get my mind off the stress of work, home chores, and unfinished quilts.  I'm eager to get back home, see my husband, "the quilt guardians" and to start quilting tomorrow, working on customer quilts, with periodic breaks moving loads of laundry from washer to dryer.

Have you ever traveled with a family of seven??

Lone Star is finished!

This is the king sized customer Lone Star quilt that I’ve been working on.

I did mostly custom quilting in the middle. and a large overall meander on the border sections.  It has Hobbs Tuscany wool batting with Sew Fine on part of the top and all of the bottom, and a new-to-me shiny silver polyester thread called Hemmingworth Polyselect.  She wanted something that looks like fire and to accentuate the star and make it sort of “pop out”.

She didn't want to pay very much so we initially decided on an open "flame" design that would sort of outline each of the 8 petals, and a small stipple in the setting squares, but then the petal was so large that I couldn't reach the tip from the middle of the star to make a smooth motion to make the flame.  I also was worried about making the meandering small enough, consistently enough.

So, after beating my head on it for a couple of weeks, I called and asked her if I could just do what I wanted to do, without her knowing the design ahead of time, but still keeping her original idea in mind, if the price didn't change and she said yes.  So, now  it's finished and I’m really pleased with it!

She picked it up tonight and loves it!

Adventures with Zippered Leaders

The reason I haven’t posted for the last two weeks is that I’ve been extremely focused on tax reports and sewing …more so on sewing!

I finally finished my American Hero Quilt that I started quilting last August, but it still needs the binding.  I don’t have a picture of the full quilt right now because I also pulled out a UFO that is made of of LOTS of half square triangles, and they are taking up the majority of space on my design wall where I normally take my pictures.

On Sunday, my fabulous friend, Verna, came over to motivate me and lend a hand with getting the canvas properly cut for my new zippered leaders.  I’ve been avoiding it due to the fact that this has to be pretty precise and dealing with the 4 yard length of fabric presents its own set of challenges.

It took a couple of hours to get the fabric cut out properly, and I realized that I’ll need another 4 yards of fabric to make the 3rd set of leaders that I want, but I’ll have two of them for now, which is great!

It is, however, taking an inordinately long amount of time to get this project finished!!  Sunday night I was up past midnight because I was serging the edges of the canvas.  I remembered someone saying they had color coded theirs, which I think is a great idea (I had red thread in the machine already and loved my test run!)

So, I serged red, then blue and then decided I was going to go for just plain cream/white on the pickup roller.  Changed thread and the tension was a mess!!  So, I dutifully tried to adjust it (I have a wonderful Pfaff 4785 electronic serger that I NEVER have to adjust the tension on!)...and I spent over an hour messing with it (DUMB, DUMB, DUMB!!) with no satisfactory results...and yes, I turned the machine on and off several times to get it to go back to its default settings.

FINALLY, I decided that hey, the tension on the other colors looked great, just change the thread again.  And, voila! the tension went back to being beautiful!  Well, mostly...I used the 3 matching dark colors I had left and 1 light color in one of the needle positions, and the light color kept skipping a few stitches, then would catch again, then skip later so that it left large stretches of thread on top of the fabric.  So, I put in a contrasting dark color and it worked just fine.

So, why would light colored thread suddenly become my evil nemesis??

Less confident that I would actually finish, I again took up the task again last night.  I added another straight line guide down the middle of where I will be attaching the quilt to the leader, then ironed down the edges.  That went very well!  I went to sew it down with a straight stitch and half way through this long 128" trip, the thread broke but I didn't know it.  So I fixed that, not especially happy with the way it's looking, but OK fine, will address that later.

Then I couldn't remember what my zipper foot looked like so I had to look it up in the manual (it's not the usual "half-foot" for the Pfaff) and then had to find in the manual how to move the needle over left and right so I get a tight seam.

Then it was time for bed, and I actually went!  No more staying up until midnight, I’m exhausted!  So, they are STILL not done!   And this is for the FIRST SET!  AARRGGHH!

Now to get the binding completed by Thursday night (guild night), finish the leaders so I can get this other American Hero quilt mounted, and finish my tax reports for the accountant. 

That's what one calls blessings, huh?

Customer quilts

My mom had bunion surgery in February, in Great Falls, Montana.  We got into town early before the doctor’s appointment, and I visited Quilt-A-Way on 13th St. S.  What a great shop!  Open and airy, and the fabrics are grouped in unique displays, so that each category, such as vintage or batiks, are showcased in their own areas.

I introduced myself to the gals at the counter, Lynn and Kathy, and showed them a sample of my work.   When I had more quilted samples posted online I contacted them and they sent me three quilts to work on.

The first one is a green, red and tan Stack ‘n Whack.

 

Lynn asked for an overall meander with a neutral thread.  I think it turned out really great!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The second one is called Stepping Stones. 

 

 

 

 

Lynn wanted free standing circles, as you can see, and I also stitched-in-the-ditch around all of the seams.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The third quilt is a shop sample that Kathy had made.  She didn’t have a name for it, so I call it the Black, White, and Turquoise quilt.  If anyone knows the name of the pattern, please let me know.

She picked a light blue thread and wanted dinner plate sized freehand flowers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I added loops and leaves around all of the flowers, too.

 

 

 

All in all, I am pleased with the results, and I look forward to working with both of them again.  Their piecing is wonderful, I loved their colors, and very nice ladies!

How to Pin a Quilt onto the Leaders

Jennie Kerwood, a new ABM Innova dealer in NY, posted her method of how to pin a quilt onto the leaders.

Her explanation is quite detailed, easy to read, and easy to follow; you can't go wrong if you follow her directions.

I do a couple of steps differently, mainly pinning from the back. I could never seem to get the pins on top where I could see them, once I was ready to attach the backing, and this was causing the pin heads to drag on the arm of the machine or on the ruler plate.

In order to accomplish this, I let the leader out and keep it wrapped around the bottom bar and up over the top bar towards me so I don't have to lean over the table.

Once it’s pinned, I can roll it onto the take up bar to get to the end of the back and start pinning to the belly bar at the front of the machine.

Hope this makes sense!