Quilting the UFO - Part 3

This 2" square was the hardest quilting design to come up with. I have since thought of something better but have most of those spiraling circles done and do not want to rip them. (The design I thought of later, too late to do of course was to take the center star design from the flower wreath I quilted in the larger spaces.)

OK, back to those spiral circles....I marked them with one of my circle templates and the white Clover marker then stitched around part of the circle then stitched back out in a spiral so I wouldn't have to tie off each design.

I have several circle templates I have collected over the years. This green one I purchased in the drafting area at Hobby Lobby. It has several sizes of circles and registration marks to help with placement. These circle templates can be used for any number of applications. I have used them for applique and quilting. I find it is much easier to find a circle near the size I want on one of my circle templates and draw around it than to cut a perfect circle out and trace around it.

This next one was also purchased in Hobby Lobby and has other shapes besides circles. Once I used it to make hexagons for a Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt in miniature that by the way is still not completely hand quilted yet.

This last one has really small circles and I got it in the tool department of some store - don't remember which one now. It's intended use is to size drill bits but works for the little circles I sometimes need.

Drafting and hardware stores are great for finding items that might be useful in quilting so don't overlook those kinds of stores for those invaluable finds. Besides it makes you feel good to find a new useful tool there.

Until Later,
Lynn

Quilting the UFO - Part 2

The lattice strips are being quilted with an undulating feather design. So far I am getting them all going in the right direction so the same lattice strips have all the feathers pointing in the same direction.

The only thing I am marking on these strips is the center spine. I drew the curve I wanted on paper then cut it out of template plastic so I could just use the white marker along the side and easily mark all the spines.

I find it is so much easier for me to stitch feathers with as few markings as possible. I like that the feathers are different sizes too so doing it free hand works for me. I do however have to have some kind of center marking or I really get them wonky and this center line keeps them looking somewhat alike even tho each individual feather is different from the next one.

Back to my old editor and this is working so much better for me.

Lynn

Quilting The UFO - Part 1

This is the design that was used for the trapunto areas on the UFO I am working on. I traced the design from the quilt top and made a stencel to mark other areas of the quilt with the same design.

I cut the centers out leaving just a little of the plastic to hold it together. Added some registrations marks to help with lining it up on the quilt.

Here is one of the designs marked on a non-trapunto area using the Clover white marking pen that can be erased with water. The pen is a ball point version so you can get a pretty fine line using it. It is a little tricky in that you can't see the marks right away but they do show up after a minute or so. It is easy to keep marking until they show up but that isn't necessary - patience will to the trick.

Whoa....I switched to the newer updated editor and am finding it a big pain so far. There is no spell check which is really bad for me since I am a notoriously bad speller, plus I am having trouble getting a cursor to show up below my photos so I can compose more of my message. After clicking and clicking where there should be a cursor I finally got one to show up. The new editor has some good features such as the ability to insert photos where ever you want in the text instead of all at the top but I have worked out a method to deal with that problem so think I will switch back until Blogger gets some of these things fixed or improved. (My method if you are curious is to load all the photos before I begin typing the text and to load them in a backwards order since they load that way into my blog. The last photo loaded will be at the top of the blog. I type my text between the photos and work my way down the post.)

Lynn

Quilting One UFO

I have had this UFO basted and ready to quilt for some time now. A few days ago I pulled it out of the closet and decided to get to work on it. I think I basted it for quilting at least a year ago using the Sharon Schamber method.

This quilt top was made many years ago....don't even remember when I made it but it was a LONG, LONG time ago. I do remember where I got the pattern though. It is from this Trudy Hughes book "Template-Free Quiltmaking" published in 1986 and the pattern is called Around the Twist.

I used this quilt top several years after I made it to demonstrate to my guild how to do machine trapunto using a water soluble thread and a heavier batting under the design. The excess heavy batting is trimmed away after the design is stitched with this water soluble thread then the quilt is layered like usual and quilted. The trapunto designs stand out more than the other quilting of course as they have more batting under the designs.

Here is the design I stitched with the water soluble thread years ago and amazingly it was still all there holding the extra batting to the backside of the quilt top. I thought it might have dissolved while it was folded up with the rest of my UFOs since we do get high humidity at times. Did test it to make sure it will dissolve when I finish the quilting and indeed it does so won't have to worry about that possible problem.

I really don't know what I will do with the quilt once I get it finished as it is not quite the colors I decorate with anymore. Maybe it will have to be a donation lap quilt.

Until Later,
Lynn