Spectrum–A Miniature Lone Star Quilt

Last July one of the classes I took at the annual QuiltNebraska convention was called Spectrum, a pattern by Jill Vanderboegh of Auburn, Nebraska.  Here are the class examples of the miniature octagon version, the one I chose to make.  She offered a larger size, about 24” square as well. The bottom photo of the three is of the larger version that Jill entered in the 2014 Nebraska State Fair and it received a 1st place ribbon.

I have been working on my quilt off and on and now it is finished.  Come back for my next post to see what my version looks like.

Until Later,
Lynn

Springtime Melody #1

I love making whole cloth miniature quilts from silk fabric.  The sheen on the silk when the design is quilted accentuates the designs and besides that the fabric is just so pretty.  Recently I found out that our local Joann fabric store had a few pieces of 100% silk so I purchased several 1/2 yard cuts and chose a spring green color for my next project but first needed to draft the design.  Since I knew that I wanted a central design surrounded by borders all stitched in a contrasting thread I started on the middle area.   I worked on designing 1/4 of the center and after drawing, erasing, and re-drawing I got something I liked.  I then scanned the design and used Photoshop Elements 11  on my computer to set the four quarters of the design to make it whole. I printed off the design and worked on drawing up border design ideas.  I know if I would have drawn this design on the computer in one of the computer aided drawing programs I could have had a more perfectly drawn design but I do love to work with pencil/pens and paper so opted to hand draw my design.  It doesn’t look like a design that can be embroidered with one of the fancy embroidery machines since it does have it’s irregularities and I certainly don't want viewers to think I just used an embroidery machine to stitch out my design after all the work I put into drawing and stitching it.

 

At this point I thought I was done with my design that measured about 8” square.The more I looked at it the more I thought it needed a bit more in the blank spaces so took half of the central design and snugged those designs up against the outside border.  Now I like it and there are still areas for background quilting to make the designs stand out.Next up – transferring the design and the most fun part, the machine quilting.

Until Later,
Lynn
Please remember these are my photos and my design so do not “borrow” them for your own use.

Self Portrait…Take 84….

Have you ever tried to get a photo of yourself….taken by yourself and have it look natural?  I was asked by the local newspaper to send them a photo of myself holding my miniature quilt as they are going to publish something about the quilt getting to go to the AQS quilt show in Paducah.  That was yesterday and the reporter wanted the photo today…YKES!

The reporter called late afternoon and the light was fading and I wanted a photo using natural light taken in my house rather than using flash which casts shadows so getting it done yet yesterday was out of the question.  I had planned to have John take the photos for me but he had commitments all morning and after lunch too so that didn’t work out either.  My only choice then was to take them myself. 

Got the tripod and the wireless shutter release all set up and the camera positioned in front of my design wall that I cleaned off for this photo shoot….well, partially cleaned off anyway.  Next decision was what to wear and took shots of 3 different tops and scarves before deciding the brown with the scarf was the best choice.  Decided a scarf hid my turkey skin neck a bit so wore one for the final photo.   Here are a few of the many goof up photos that wouldn’t work for various reasons and you can see how hard it is.  After all how do you smile naturally when there is no one there and then there is holding the quilt straight, position of the hands, backgrounds, hair, etc. to think about.

Head cocked a little too cutsie and don’t like the red scarf.  Wooden smile too.  

Problem with a finger in each of these…whoops!

Forgot to lower my hand that was holding the shutter release plus holding onto the back of the quilt makes it look like it is floating in air.  “Look ma, no hands” and it is tipped again.  I had a big problem holding the quilt level in a lot of the photos.

My scarf was overlapping the quilt in these two photos.

Too far to one side and the stuff I left on the design wall is showing.  (I know, a real mess right now!)  Plan to crop the photo but even cropped this would present a problem.  Had a hair appointment this afternoon to get a hair cut so decided to snap a few more when I got home and they do look better, I didn’t realize how frumpy my hair was before.  Actually, the one I cropped and sent to the newspaper reporter was the very last photo I took.  Finally I smiled naturally, held the quilt level and removed more stuff from the design wall so it wouldn’t interfere before I snapped the photo.  

Here is what my photo shoot set up looked like...now don’t laugh too much.  Hard to believe there is so much stuff on my sewing table but I didn’t want to move it as I am in the middle of another project and it wasn’t showing in the photo anyway.  I had to sit on a pile of magazines to make me higher too.  I did have the blind up when I shot the photos but for this one I needed it down so you could see the room and all it’s amenities.

So, if you ever need a portrait of yourself and have hours to spend with someone who has minimum equipment and knowledge just give me a call!

Until Later,
Lynn

Paducah Bound!

I received an email a couple of  weeks ago informing me that my quilt, “Silk Refrain” was juried into the 2014 AQS Quilt Show in Paducah, Kentucky.  This is the first time I have ever entered a national contest so am really thrilled to have it chosen as a semi-finalist.This is a miniature quilt measuring 11.25” x 10.5” and is made of all silk fabric and thread with wool batting.  I blogged about making it on the following dates August 24, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 2012 and Oct. 29, 2012 and lastly Oct. 4 2013.  Just click on the individual dates to take you to the blog posts where I share my design process to the completion of the quilt and problems that incurred along the way.I have all the required paperwork submitted and now have to figure out what day to mail the quilt off so it arrives between March 30 and April 4 for judging.  I really hope the judges give comments as for me that is the most valuable part of entering a quilt in competition.  Of course we all know the areas our quilts have problems and hope the judges don’t see those but I have learned a lot from the judges comments from entering my quilts in the Nebraska State Fair and that has helped me to improve my quilting over the years.I have been attending the AQS show in Paducah for several years with my 2 sisters, niece and good friend.  They have been encouraging me to submit a quilt and finally I did and to my surprise it was accepted.  It will be even more fun to go this year and we are even going a day earlier for the awards night.  Will be fun to see the quilts and makers as they get their awards.  I don’t expect any award as I have seen the quilts that win – am just happy to have a quilt on display.The photo at the top of the page is closer to the true color of the quilt.  The other photos are just too green.  You know how hard it is to sometimes get the color correct in photography.

Over the moon excited!
Lynn

Heart Quilt–Happy Valentines Day

Today is Valentines day so you get to see a couple of doll beds from my collection that have hearts on them.  As you can tell from the photo they are very tiny as that is a regular sized thimble sitting on the table with them.  To read the blog post where I wrote about how I made them just click on the link here.

Have a great day!
Lynn

A Friend Indeed

• A year or so ago a very good friend mailed me a couple 3” friendship blocks each week.  They were such a nice thing to look forward to when I was dealing with treatments for a health issue.  It was so nice to get the special envelopes with the blocks as they really gave me a boost.  They are cute little things aren’t they?It took me a year to come up with an idea on how to put them into a quilt.  I know, that is maybe a way of saying I am just slow, but I really did want the right design to show off the blocks.  I will reveal the design later on another blog post but first I will show you what I did to the blocks.  I decided to reduce the yellow a bit on each of the brightly colored Friendship Star blocks.  I added the triangles of the light blue fabric with the tiny bright stars to each of the corners and did it the easy way by starting with squares.

Adding corners to blocks VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

The squares needed to be cut 1 1/2” to fit the corner.  I pressed each square in half diagonally then stitched along the fold line after they had been laid on each corner like in the photo.  The next step was to press the square back over the corner then trimmed the underneath block and excess light blue fabric away to get rid of the extra bulk those layers of fabric added. All 16 blocks had the corners added and were ready to set into the design.  Come back again to see what is next.

Until Later,
Lynn

Miniature Size

I have had a few questions about size of this miniature whole cloth quilt I am making so just snapped a photo with a ruler laying on top of it to give you all a better idea of size.  As you can see the feathers are about 1/8" across.  I use my stitch regulator (BSR) on my Bernina machine and sew slowly but can't sew too slow or the machine stops.  The finished quilt will be approximately 12" x 12".

Lynn

Hello Again

I am not finding time to write on my blog and I am not finding time to sew this summer.  Every summer is like this it seems so I shouldn’t be surprised.   Rather than give you a long list why I have no time, suffice it to say garden, guests and grandkids are a few...Oh and reunions.

I have been taking photos and will try to tell my summer story though pictures instead of long narratives.  First off a family reunion – family members were asked to bring something to auction off to raise some seed money for the next reunion.  We could bring something we made or something from the area we where we live.  I brought a miniature quilt which my aunt purchased.  We all had fun bidding against each other and some real bidding wars took place.  One of my brothers wanted the miniature I made and bid my aunt up but he told me he looked in her eyes and knew she was not going to quit so he let her have it.  I am pleased my aunt got my quilt as she is a quilter herself and always likes to see what I have made so I know it went to a good home.  Told my brother I could make him another one sometime so not to feel to deprived.I had the quilt pieced and sitting in my UFO box for a while so pulled it out to finish for this auction.Backing fabric and chalked quilting lines….ready to quilt.  Detail photos after quilting.  Yellow strip is a 1/8” flange.

 

Finished quilt.

The whole group lined up for the photo which was a major feat in itself.  There were quite a few cousins that couldn’t make it and our children and grandchildren didn’t make it but my mother’s living siblings all were there and they had a wonderful time visiting since they don’t see each much anymore since they are getting older now and most live too far apart.  Relatives came from across the country – Nebraska, Iowa, Colorado, Arizona, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Maryland, Wyoming, and Missouri.  Great fun and great memories.

Lynn

Museum Display

What an honor to have my doll beds and the quilts I have made for them on display at the local county museum last weekend.   I took 30 of the doll beds that I have made quilts for and all but the three largest fit inside the glass case.  The town was having a celebration over the weekend so it was a short time for them to be on display but lots of people came through the museum.  For small museums they need to record and have everyone sign their guest registry as numbers of visitors determine funding so they are always looking for special displays to get more people in the door.

Here is a close up photo of some of the beds on display in the glass case.  They were not spaced out as much as I wanted them to be but did get them all in the case.  Most are too small to be just sitting out as they would be too tempting to either handle or walk off with.  I would not have had them on display without having them protected somehow.  I had made up cards with information about each bed plus the tiny Teddy Bears I had made to go with some of the beds.  I did go to the museum on Sunday to sit and visit with the people coming through and that was interesting.  Lots had questions about my tiny miniature quilts, where I got the beds, if they are hand pieced or machine pieced, how I come up with the patterns, etc.

This is the third museum where my collection has been on display besides several quilt shows over the years.  I still have about 20 doll beds without quilts stored away in my basement that someday I will get a quilt made for them.  It is fun to share them with the public as they are always surprised at the size.  Miniature quilters out there know there are a lot of tricks and tips to get that tiny piecing done but they do amaze non quilters.

If you are interested, I have shown and talked about a few of my doll beds on this blog on other posts.  You can scroll to the bottom of my blog and click on the label “doll bed” and that will bring up the ones I have written about…at least the posts I got labeled correctly.  You can also click on this LINK to take you to the doll bed pages.  There might be others under miniatures or some such label.

I am running a little heater here in the sewing room/office as it is just too chilly to be comfortable without it.  I was going to start our furnace to take the chill off and it wouldn’t work so John called the repair guy.  He was here by 10:00 am and found out the part he put in last summer to fix the air conditioner was the wrong part to run the furnace too.  The new part will be shipped to him and hopefully it will come in a day or two as the night time temps are down to the middle to low 40s now and that cools our house off just a tad bit.  We may still have hot days once this drippy, rainy weather moves on but for now it is just cold!

Until Later,
Lynn

Name...What Name?

I have this miniature basket quilt bound and ready for a label but just can't come up with a name for it so I need your help.  I don't want to use the words "Miniature or Basket" in the name.  Will show the completed quilt after I get a name decided.

Send me any ideas as sometimes that triggers another idea or combination so I can get this baby named.

Lynn

Before Binding

Miniature washed and blocked and ready for binding.  The quilt is approximately 14 1/2” by 15” right now.  The feather quilting really pops now that there are no blue lines on the quilt.

Happy Quilting,
Lynn

Ripping Done–Quilting Done!

Ta-Da…The boo-boo quilting is removed and I have the outside border re-quilted and will be binding this mini quilt soon.  You can be sure that I checked the thread color more than once before I started quilting!

It took me almost 4 days to get the feathers that I quilted all around the border with the wrong thread ripped out.  Of course that was not morning to night working but several hours each day.  I almost had to pick each stitch out individually but I was determined to get it done.  I used my magnifying glasses, seam ripper, and hemostats to grab the threads to get the job done.  I tried to make it less of a tiresome job by watching a good movie or two on TV or listening to an audio book.  Actually I listened to the movies more than watched them.  I can say I did a better job with the machine quilted feathers the second time than I did the first so maybe I should just think of it as practice. 

I soaked the quilt in cold water to get the blue marker out then gently washed and rinsed it.  It is now laid on a towel after blocking it to square.  When it is dry…and I have time I will get the binding on.  I have never done it in this order before so this is new to me.  I usually bind the quilt then give it a gentle wash/rinse then bind it but since there was so much blue marker on it I felt it needed to get removed before I added the binding.  I sure didn’t want to take a chance of getting it set in.  I sometimes press the first seam of the binding with the tip of the iron to help it roll to the back – that is the heat that could set the blue.  I also read somewhere that a quilter blocked her quilts before she bound them – another reason to try it this way. 

PT tomorrow then some shopping if the weather cooperates – we have had freezing drizzle and a few snow flakes off and on today.  It seems like every time I have a PT appointment it is nasty weather or I have to rush home for some reason.  Tomorrow is free and clear so have my list made and my credit card ready!

Until later,
Lynn

One stitch forward….One stitch backward, and backward, and backward!

News on the quilting front here is not good, sorry to say.  I was so proud of myself as I had quilted the outside border feathers plus one round of echo quilting.  I worked for several days off and on to get it done so as not to stress my shoulder too much at each sewing session.  It all looked so nice, even with the few slight wiggles every once in a while.  I did find a big problem this afternoon that requires me to rip it all out though.

You all might be wondering what was so wrong that I have to take it all out.  You may have to enlarge the photos to see but I quilted the feathers with the wrong color of thread, plus to add more ripping I did that first row of echo quilting with the wrong color of thread too.  I sure don’t know why I didn’t pay more attention when I grabbed the thread to do the feathers.  The other feathers are the color of the silk thread I used for the echo but instead and on this border I quilted them with the gold colored silk thread.  The echo quilting should be the really neutral ecru silk thread instead of the light tan.  The thread color doesn’t look so different in the photo but in real life it is quite noticeable.

This ripping is going to take a while as the stitches are small (1.8 on my Bernina) and the top thread is silk so breaks if I tug on it too hard.  I am using a bright light and my magnifying clip on lenses to make the job a little easier.  Think this is going to be a TV watching project and may take a while.  I am so bummed as I thought I was nearing the end of the quilting.

Oh well, at least I didn’t get all the echo quilting done plus the fill quilting around it finished before I saw the boo-boo.  The thread didn’t look bad but want the piece to look coordinated with the same threads so it has to come out and be re-done.  Guess I need to think of what I am removing as practice and maybe when I stitch it again it will look even better.

One major good thing about this whole disaster is that I didn't remove my feather quilting design marks.  I thought about spritzing the border with water last evening to remove the blue marks but decided to wait until today and boy am I glad I made that decision!  Remarking would have not been easy so guess things could be much worse. 

Wish me luck and a fast ripping job!

Lynn

Three Baskets

Well, I finally got the last of the stitching done on this third basket. Like the way it turned out with the dark purple I chose for the basket. Again I did use YLI silk thread for the stitching.

Here is a close up of the flowers and the buttonhole stitching that is pretty true to color at least on my monitor. Felt like I was going blind by the time I got done with all the buttonhole. Was watching the needle through the magnifying lens on the machine and used the #20 foot and running my Bernina, very, very very slowly to manage the small shapes..

I took a photo of all three basket blocks with my paper copy of the ruler under them to give you an idea of their actual size. Taking photos with flash with the actual ruler just doesn't work as the flash bounces off the plastic of the ruler so you can't see any of the markings. The blocks all look so different from each other. I can't put off figuring out how I want to set them any longer now can I?

You may want to click on the photo to see the blocks better as they are pretty tiny right now. I started out with the same pattern but each block is a little different from the rest. Since they are going to each be in a separate quilt I didn't have to keep them exactly alike.

Weather wise - the wind was strong and blew in a quick rain storm this afternoon but we are supposed to get snow tonight. The strong winds were from the east this morning now they are from the south with a little time between direction changes with little or no wind. That was heavenly - the sound of the wind can drive me crazy after so many hours of it like today. Some years we have a spring with out much wind then others it seems like it wants to blow everything to the next state, one direction one day and another the next.

Need to do some cleaning, organizing and cooking this week as I am having a big family dinner next Saturday noon. Since some have a several hour drive we decided Saturday would work better for everyone. Right now I have 18 extra coming for dinner that day. There might be a couple more so we will have quite a few people around the tables.

Needless to say, I may not get too much sewing done this week - maybe I can use that time to get my plans for these quilts figured out. I really don't know for sure how I want to set the baskets and how big I want them to be when finished yet.

Lynn