QUILT CLOSE-UPS

What a beautiful spring Saturday it is today here in Maryland! Thank you so much for all the nice comments yesterday on my "Friday Finish." I do sew a lot and lately I've even been finishing a lot. But ... I no longer have young children at home (or even old children at home). I no longer have a full time job (or even a parttime job). I'm no longer packing (or unpacking) for military moves across the country or out of the country. AND ... I have a very supportive husband who happens to love take-out pizza!



Yesterday I promised some close-ups of my Farmer's Market quilt. I did continuous line butterflies in the border using my Handiquilter ProStitcher (computer generated).

As I've said before ... I'm better at sewing than computers or cameras ... not sure why or how these jam jars are upside down but ... I outline quilted all the applique.

and added buttons and a little embroidery and pigma pen after the quilt was finished.

I did free-motion circles in all the sashing.

And for Michelle, who left such nice comments about my applique and her dream of making an applique quilt someday even though she hand pieces and hand quilts ... Please make sure you've all been introduced to Heat 'n Bond Lite. It's the ONLY way I applique. It will become your new BFF.

Spring has started to spring in my garden. Hostas just seemed to pop out over night.

BORDERS

What size do you make your borders? How do you decide what size to make borders? Different designers have different theories about borders. Almost NO ONE is without an opinion about how wide to make a border. Sometimes there's math involved (oh dear) ... the ratio of the block size to the border width ... or something like that.


I have a couple of theories about borders ... very scientific. I know the blog world is waiting to be inspired. Here goes ...



OPTION #1



I had exactly one yard of the brown polka dot fabric left over from making the blocks and I wanted to use it in the border. I needed 7 cuts across the width so my border strips had to be cut 5" wide.








OPTION #2


This quilt was made by Dawn and we discussed how wide the border should be (opinions - remember). I was going to quilt it and I have lots of 60" batting. Easy decision ... the border was cut so the quilt measured 58".













That's the most complicated I ever get with math.

Here's a little teaser of what Dawn's quilt looks like. Maybe she'll post a picture of the whole quilt over at Spring Water Designs.

Machine quilting, part 2

A little bit more about machine quilting ...
Although my HQ16 is my "go to" machine for quilting, sometimes I do use my sewing machine. Using the walking foot, going slower and having BOTH hands on the quilt makes it easier to be really precise.

And the fact that this was a small wallhanging made it easy to quilt. No - alligator wrestling! I made this little quilt for my guild's silent auction. Southern Comforter's of Bowie - our quilt show will be March 20 and 21.

The sunflower panel and most of the fabric is Pumpkins and Spice by Whimsical Threads for Red Rooster. I "heart" all her fabric and books.

Here's another little "quiltlet" that I made for a Valentine Swap that Pat Sloan is hosting. I think she's planning to do a "swap of the month." If you've never done a swap with Pat, you should join in ... it's fun, there's usually some chat going on about what everyone's doing and you get goodies in the mail!

Hand quilting vs machine

Hand quilting? Machine quilting? My standard answer is: I used to be a handquilter, now I'm a quilt finisher. I make LOTS of quilts - some big, some small and I do all my quilting by machine now.

This is the last hand quilting I did in 2001. WOW ... I'm can't believe it's been that long.

I got the blocks through an internet block swap in 1999. As a hand-quilter, it took a LONG time to finish a project.

I then started quilting on my sewing machine. Not an easy task with bigger quilts. But, like the saying goes, "I wrestled the alligator." And disliked every minute of it! So, I tried out a couple of long-arm services and paid lots of money to someone else to do what I really wanted to do. Now I do all my own work.

I mostly do free-motion quilting. Anything you can doodle on paper, can be quilted. But unlike most "quilters," I don't think the quilting should be the star of the show. I think the piecing and the fabric should be what shines.

The quilting should complement/support the design of the quilt. The texture of the quilting really shows well on the back. This is the back of my "Quilt of Many 2" Squares."

And my quilting machine of choice ...

I absolutely LOVE my HQ16! It was built for the home sewer and it does everything I need it to do. It's not finicky about thread; whatever I put on it, this baby just hums along.

Here's another close up of some free motion quilting.

Here's the whole quilt. It's called Prim Garden by MeMe's Quilts.
I love these crows!

Working on my HQ16 has made it possible to finish LOTS of quilts. I do sometimes quilt up something really small on my sewing machine but if it's anything over 25" or so, I move to the Handiquilter and get it done!