Serenade Background Quilting

As I promised, here is my tutorial for the quilting motif I used for the background quilting of this quilt “Serenade” as well as the background quilting for the other wholecloth miniature I call “Silk Refrain” that I made last year.  (You can do a search for the words Serenade and Silk Refrain on my blog to read more posts about the 2 quilts.)Stitching this design is really not too tough, just spirals, but since I didn’t want to try to keep them equal in size and shape I purposely made the spirals in the backgrounds different.  Here is my method and a few hints on how I stitched it out.

Since I am left handed I might start out the spiral in the opposite direction than you right handed people but it makes no difference at all so stitch them the direction you want.  As you can see you stitch a spiral then find your way out of the spiral. You will be going the opposite direction as you stitch out of the spiral so you see it really doesn't make a difference which direction you start.  Stitch as many circles/shapes as you want to fill but remember you will be echoing out on each one so leave enough space between the spiral lines for this.  When you echo out you stitch between the lines until you get to the outside.  Not too hard, right?

After finishing one spiral just start another, trying to make the spiral a different size or shape.  Since I would have had trouble keeping them all identical I choose to make them different sizes and shapes but you can go for a consistent size shape if you want.  Keep them all different also makes it easier to fill in odd shapes of the background.  Just follow my spiral drawing from the start arrow to follow the design as I drew it.  Speaking of drawing….if you practice drawing these spirals over and over it will be easier to stitch them as your brain will have a memory of the design.  Remember the main thing when stitching/drawing the beginning swirls of a spiral is to make the space between the lines double the size you want the finished spacing to be and to leave yourself an escape route so you can exit one spiral and go on to the next.

Again follow the lines of the above spiral to figure out how I moved from one spiral to the next.  You can echo the lines of the previous spiral to move to a new area like in the above drawing.

There really is no wrong way to quilt this background or the size and shape of the spirals it is up to you.  Notice the green spots on the diagram above.  These are ways to change direction or to fill an awkward area.  As much as possible I try to keep my stitching lines rounded and not pointy but a pointy one once in a while just blends in.  If you want to make more pointy lines like the one with the green spot in the upper left just go for it….remember it is no rules so do it your way.  Will backtrack a bit here as I do have one rule I try to follow.  I try to make all the spaces as close to the same size as I can.  This makes the filler look like an overall design and one area doesn’t pop out as different.

I do love quilting this motif but maybe I should have varied the background quilting motifs on these two small quilts and used some other filler on some parts.  I still love the quilts but I never stop wondering “what if” and I think that is what makes every “next project” fun to implement using those new ideas.

Happy Quilting,
Lynn

Silk Fabric Changing Colors

This is a small swatch of the purple silk fabric I used in the miniature Serenade.  As you can see the fabric is woven from two different colors.  The threads running one way are hot pink and the threads running the other are bright turquoise.

This silk fabric is interesting as when viewed from one direction it is more blue, from another more purple or more pink depending on the angle you view or photograph it.  I really had a hard time photographing the quilt in it’s true color for this reason.  I figured that some of you were wondering why the colors of this quilt in my photos were not consistant; this is the reason.  Probably the closest color photos I got are in the last post.  The quilt reads purple most of the time.  Below are photos taken of the same swatch as above but taken from different angles.  Notice the color change.

Until Later,
Lynn

Serenade–Part 4

See, I did git it done with two days to spare, entered and even won a ribbon.  Here I am kneeling beside it with the first place ribbon for machine quilted miniatures at the Nebraska State Fair.  Kneeling, because it was displayed quite low and I didn’t want the photo taken of my belly button so got on my knees for my photo op. instead. I was and still am thrilled to win the blue ribbon.

Serenade 12" x 13"

 It is so much fun to enter and have my quilt on display and to win a ribbon makes it even better.  Here are some close up photos of the quilt for your inspection.  Each of the cropped photos cover 1.5”of the quilt so it really shows the detail of the stitching.  Actually the stitching magnified this much makes it look a little wobbly.

     

     

     

 Until Later,

Lynn

Serenade–Quilting Part 3

Motifs are gradually getting quilted.  Notice the monogram in the center of the Mariner’s Compass star.  Hmmm, I wonder who’s initials those are?Look at the puff between the motifs – a bit like hills.  Also look the fabric on the outside of the quilted border; it is also out of control but I do have a plan.  It is always good to stop and consider a plan when things are not quite going the way you want it too, right?Well this was my plan – not elegant by any means but it did work to squish that poofy poof down so I could quilt it.  Notice the inside of the small feathered Mariner’s Compass.  Do you see the shadow of the number 2?  Well, I ripped it out as it just was not obvious to everyone what those numbers stood for….2012, one number in each circle for the year.  I had intended to finish it in 2012 but that didn’t happen either so just decided to rip out my stitching and go with plan B.This is what I came up with for the middles of those Compass motifs in the corners.  I did the background quilting all the same throughout the quilt, another thing I would have changed if I were to do it again.  I would have chosen to use more background fillers in different sections to add more interest.  Will draw out the background quilting motif on another post to show how I quilted those worm like motifs.All quilted!  I love the way the camera picked up the texture of the quilting.Took this photo so show the scale of the quilting motifs on this miniature whole cloth quilt.  That is my hand quilting thimble laying on the quilt.I always wash my finished quilt in the mild quilt soap, rinse well, roll in a towel to get some of the water out, then block it to square it up before trimming and binding.   The reason is that as I quilt, especially when I quilt this densely it tends to distort the quilt, and it removes the heavy starch I used on the fabric, plus any body oils or just plain dirt that has accumulated since it was begun.  Here it is all pinned square on a terry towel to dry. I measure from corner to corner and multiple places plus horizontally and vertically to make sure it is square before I pin it to the towel.  The countdown to the State Fair has begun.  Two days to go before delivery to the fair…will I make it?
Until Later,
Lynn

Quilting Serenade Part 2

First I auditioned several threads to see what they would look like actually stitched out on the purple silk fabric.  I decided to quilt all the feathered designs in a bold color and quilt the background with a thread that closely matches the background.  The motif quilting thread I chose was stitched out on the bottom right and is Floriani Machine Embroidery Thread that is a 40 wt. 2 ply thread with a nice sheen.  The background thread is YLI Silk size 100 in a dark purple color.  I made a small quilt sandwich and quilted small feathers to judge which one of the bold threads I wanted to use and tried out several threads and colors.I tried something new to help grip the quilt under the needle and move it smoothly.  I like Machinigers gloves but this worked pretty well too as it was easy to readjust and still have use of my fingers to grab threads.  I cut two pieces about the size of my palm from rubberized shelf liner - you know the stuff you put on the shelves in the cupboards.  This worked very well and easy to reposition for quilting a new area.

The quilting has begun.  I used wool batting and as the feathered star points are quilted it puffs up around them.  My goal is to quilt down the background and then have those tiny feathers puff up instead once it is finished.

This puffiness was a bit of a problem as I had to make sure I squished it down flat as I quilted.  I sure didn’t want to quilt any pleats in the front or back of the quilt.  I had used basting spray to make my quilt sandwich but in hindsight I should have probably basted the three layers together very closely with thread and maybe some of that extra puffiness might have been controlled.
I had to concentrate intensely to quilt the tiny feathers that are less than 1/4” wide and about 1/4” long.  I took lots of breaks so the quilting didn’t progress too quickly so guess that is what I will do right now....take a break, not too long though.

Until later,
Lynn