Nebraska State Fair–Many Colored Ribbons

Reaching back into September 2014....This year I had 5 quilts to enter in the Nebraska State Fair.  Yes, I said FIVE!  It has been a long time since I entered that many, although none of them were large I still am excited to have that many ready for the fair.  This year I also got ribbons of many different colors and was thrilled to get a ribbon on all 5 entries.The whole cloth silk miniature, Springtime Melody 8” square, was finished just in time for the fair won a first place ribbon for machine quilted miniatures.  It also got a special award certificate for $20 from a quilt shop – that is always fun.  I used the quilt shop award money to put towards a new foot for my Bernina machine.  I will be posting soon on the making of this quilt.This next quilt (One + One Challenge 27 1/2” square) also won a first place ribbon for group quilts.  This was the guild challenge from a year ago and I have searched and searched my blog and don’t think I ever posted about it.  I made the basket block with no flowers and then it was passed to 4 other guild members and they added borders.  When I got it back it had the large rick rack  seamed into the white border so added more rick rack to the other borders plus the flowers with rick rack on them.  Will take a few more photos later and post close ups for you to see more details.  (If you find where I posted about this quilt please let me know as I am going crazy thinking I did a blog post about it already and just can’t find it.)
I was really surprised at this award as I didn’t think it would place but found out later that there were not too many entries in this category.  I love it but didn’t think the judge would like some of the workmanship on the machine quilting, not my best.  Still thrilled and love the $25 award from another sewing/quilt shop. This next quilt, Friendship Wishes, Hopes and Prayers 24 1/2” square, was a two person quilt and won a second place award.  These small 3” stars were sent to me by my friend after each treatment I had for bladder cancer.  (Treatment worked and have had no new bladder tumors in 2 years) I love this quilt and it’s bright colors, a departure from my usual dull and drab colors.  To read about the making of this quilt you can click this link and for several blog posts after this one.This quilt I named You Are My Sunshine (14 1/2”x 21 1/2”) and it received a 3rd place ribbon.  It also got a $20 award from a sewing machine store.  This time I used the money to buy more bobbins, something I am always needing.  I had a lot of fun using the different decorative stitches on my machine and my circle making foot on my machine to make this quilt.  Read about it here and for several more posts.I entered this faux leather quilt Putting Down Roots (18” x 19”) in the original design category and it received a 5th place.  Do think I might have entered it in the wrong category but am happy it got a ribbon.  I so enjoyed the challenge of quilting on this faux leather and plan to do more.  You can read about the making of this quilt starting here.


I had better get busy if I want to have entries for next year.  Am working on finishing one miniature and have some ideas starting to form but it may be a while before I get started.  Most of the time I am a very slow designer, piecer and quilter.  I guess I like to savor the process and don’t like to rush.  Sometimes it takes a while before I have an idea I want to pursue.  I figure that any way you attack your quilting muse is how you should do it – everyone has their own style and speed.

Lynn

Background Quilting Design

Here is a close up photo of the background quilting on my faux leather quilt “Putting Down Roots.”  I wanted something swirly and this fit the bill although it made me nervous as I knew I could not pick out any boo boos as the faux leather would show the holes.  There are places I might have stitched over again if this was regular woven fabric but now that it is all done I really don’t notice them as much.

I, like millions of other people use Pinterest to keep track of things that interest me and that I might want to refer to later.  When thinking about what quilting designs I want to use I scan my Pinterest board for ideas.  I had pinned this quilting design by Wendy Sheppard that she calls “Jester’s Hat” and thought that it might work in the sky area of this quilt.  The design moves you around the area without back stitching which is what I needed for this project.  You can find a tutorial on stitching this design on SewCalGal’s blog here.  Or on Wendy’s blog “Ivory Spring” here.  As you will see I approach the design a little differently but it has the same sort of look.  No matter what design we choose to machine quilt every quilter will have their own look and way of approaching it but it is a good to see how someone else tackles the design too.I am a left handed person so may stitch this differently than you right handers but this is how I start.  Follow the pictures below to see how I progress.

As you can see from my drawings I come from under the initial bumps most of the time to move onto the next motif but not always.  If I get into a corner or need to change direction I come out on top of the motif hump like the illustration above.You can use your finger to follow the direction I would stitch this motif.  Start at the x and keep going.  Of course this is a rather sloppy version done with marker but you get the idea I am sure.  Just because I stitched the motif this way on this quilt I might change how I stitch it the next time I use it.

Until later,
Lynn

Putting Down Roots–Finished

My grand experiment is finished – bound and labeled and hung on the wall and I love it!I repeated the same quilting design in the final border that I used in the sky area and straight lines on the pieced border.  Nothing too fancy  but didn’t want to detract from the central tree design.  

It is rather hard to photograph as the faux leather reflects the light but in person it is not quite so shiny looking.

I named this quilt “Putting Down Roots” for several reasons.  Back in history, Nebraska was fairly bare of trees so this quilt can symbolize the growth of trees across the state.  Early settlers planted and cared for the trees they planted on their homesteads.  Farmland still dominates the landscape but trees are more plentiful and are still cherished. 

I like the idea of the name to symbolize the fact that my family ancestors came to Nebraska and put down their roots and stayed, worked and raised their families.  Nebraska is where I grew up and my roots grow deep in this land where I live.

My next blog post will show how I stitched the background sky motif so stop back again.

Until later,
Lynn

Borders and Quilting Fun

Here I am auditioning the last border with corner triangle squares and I do like the plaid fabric for binding.  I like to audition different fabrics this way and can hopefully see the best choice this way before stitching and “unstitching.”I knew what I wanted to do with the tree and hills but had to come up with an idea for the sky background quilting so I used scrap pieces of paper that had been in the trash to explore ideas and practice the designs.  I always keep papers that are only printed on one side to draw quilting designs on the backsides or on the white borders of printed sheets too.  Basically I am a doodler when I am on the phone, watching TV or just sitting around.  Do you do that too?  I think it really helps when I actually do the stitching if I have drawn the design over and over on paper first.As you can see I quilted the tree in the beige colored thread – Glide by Fil Tec.  I quilted near the original design lines that I stitched earlier then other texture lines to hopefully make the tree have some shape.The hills and grass were also quilted in the beige colored thread but the sky was quilted with black Glide thread by Fil-Tec.  One thing about quilting on the faux leather is that there is no ripping so first time is the only time it gets stitched.  I used a chalk wheel to mark the lines on the hills and a few more lines on the tree and that helped keep me on track.

This was a very fun section to quilt and I enjoyed it very much.  Maybe there will be more of it in my future.

Until Later,
Lynn

Problem Solving

Piecing the triangle squares was no problem but as you can see piecing those strips to the center rectangle of the faux leather was a problem.   The vinyl tends to stretch and I could not even pat it flat so ripped the border strips off and cut a new piece and managed to save those border strips to use again.

I decided part of the problem was that I need to put a spacer between the border and the center rectangle so all the vinyl pieces could lay flat along those seams.  I decided to cut the center panel smaller so I could add a spacer strip of plaid fabric between the center panel and the triangle square border.This time I decided to transfer the tree design to the vinyl before I stitched on the borders.  I tried numerous ways to mark it and nothing seamed to work.  The only thing that did work was a chalk wheel and that would brush off quickly.  The only way I could come up with was to use Golden Threads quilting paper so I traced the outline of the tree and hills and used a glue stick to adhere it to the vinyl so it would stay put.  I followed the outline using my sewing machine and the thread I planned to quilt it with.  After stitching I torn off the paper as I will eventually quilt near these lines and add many more lines to give the trees and hills the texture it needs and sure didn't want to be picking out tiny pieces of paper out of all those lines. Did have a panic moment when I realized I cut the center rectangle smaller than it was supposed to be.  Whoops!  Actually it worked out that after adding the spacer strip I just had to add one more triangle square to make it fit.  Of course that made the number of triangle squares an uneven number so decided to make the pattern offset and actually I like that look better now anyway.  I did use those small clips to hold my seams as I stitched since I couldn’t pin the vinyl and that worked well.  As you can see the center section fits the borders so much better than my first attempt.  Also notice the offset triangle border setting.

 One thing I didn’t tell you in the first post was I used a regular foot for the seaming of the fabrics but when I topstitched I used a Teflon coated foot.  The backing of the vinyl is fabric so it stitches just fine with a regular foot but needed the Teflon foot to help stitch the topstitching of the seams.  It just slides along on the sticky vinyl.

More later,
Lynn

Another Quilt–Another Challenge

I am always looking for a challenge, trying something new or out of the box; something that  can add a spark to my quilting and make me think.  Now was the time for that out of the box experience as I had the last project finished and needed/wanted to start something new.First the design.... Using pencil and paper I drew a tree with lots of texture.  I wanted to thread paint and quilt it on a solid square and quilt an appropriate background.  Thread painting or quilting a picture has fascinated me for a while.  As you can see the tree is tipping so that is why I drew the line through it so the next draft I could straighten it.  The next draft will also have the root area shortened and have fewer fine branches but at least it is a start.Next to choose my fabrics – lots of plaids and the red arrow pointing to the real challenge part of this quilt.  Yes that is vinyl or faux leather.  Have never worked with it in quilting so this is a new experience for me.  I wanted the center tree to be of the vinyl and have a pieced border of the plaids and vinyl.For the pieced border I settled on making triangle squares using 2 squares stitched diagonally and cut apart.  Since I am using the vinyl I can not press them with an iron so instead I finger pressed them open and top stitched the faux leather side down about 1/8” from the seam line.  That controlled the bulk and kept the seams open.  The squares were all trimmed down to 1 1/2” and ready to stitch together in a border.
I used a variety of brown/grey plaids in combination with the black vinyl.  I topstitched the seams open again to keep it all nice an flat.  So far so good or so you might think......

Stop in again to find out the rest of the story.

Until Later,
Lynn