Sunsets–Beautiful Nebraska Sunsets

I love the sunsets we get here in Nebraska but I imagine the sunsets are beautiful in other parts of the world too.  This is a view of our place including the house, barn, shop, machine storage shed and grain bins with the clouds and pretty color behind them all.
This photo was taken from my sewing room window and about 15 minutes after this was taken it was dark and it was snowing little tiny snow balls.  It didn’t snow much but the snow looked like those little Styrofoam balls used in bean bags. It was a quick moving storm and the snow balls (pebbles?) melted right away.

Lynn

Slippery Quilting Surface

I like to have slick or slippery surface when I am machine quilting.   The quilt moves easier and my shoulders and arms don’t get so tired if the surface is smooth and slick.  I do have one of the Supreme Sliders, a small Teflon sheet, taped to my machine but it only covers an area about the size of a piece of copy paper.  It works well and I do like it but need/want a larger area that is slippery.

I read about using silicone spray so set out to find some and give it a try.  I found this can in the hardware department so bought it and took it home.  At first I didn’t want to just spray the sewing table surface and take a chance on getting drift of spray into my sewing machine so I sprayed it on a cloth and wiped the table.  That worked but did take a little time to do.  Next I covered my machine and tried spraying the table and that also worked and was much faster.  I was really surprised at what a good job it did in making the quilt move so much easier when I was machine quilting.  After a few days of quilting I did re-apply it to keep it slick.  I don’t know if the spray would cause problems with the workings of my sewing machine but just didn’t take the chance so that is why I covered it before I sprayed the silicone.

Have any of you used silicone spray and how did you like it?  Any problems with it?

Happy Quilting,
Lynn

Transferring The Quilting Designs

Yesterday I showed you the design I am going to use on the border quilting and today I am going to share how I got that design onto the black basted quilt border.  I thought about making a stencil but didn’t want the work of cutting all those channels so came up with another idea.I cut a piece of water soluble plastic like material and laid it over the quilting design I had drawn.  I don’t know what the brand name of this plastic film is but have had it a long time and think I remember buying it in the machine embroidery section of the fabric store.  It is heavier than Solvy, another product that looks like clear plastic and dissolves in water.I marked the design with the Chubby Crayon by Miracle Chalk.  It feels like a crayon, marks white marks on fabric or this plastic and the website says has chalk in it too that will disappear with heat from an iron.  I don’t think I need it to disappear since I am marking on the plastic but didn’t want to use a regular crayon in case some marks might transfer over to the black fabric.

Transferring The Quilting Lines VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

I taped the plastic stuff (sure wish I could remember what it is called) to my newsprint design and traced the design with the Chubby Crayon.  I drew the outside registration marks with a pink permanent marker (follow the arrow to see the line) to make it easier to line up straight on the border.  You can see the marks after I put a purple folder under the plastic.

I used safety pins to attach the plastic to the border, centering it as I pinned.  I did remove the hand basting on that black border as I wouldn’t be able to get it out before crossing over it and stitching it down. I did cut the corner design off and positioned it exactly on the corner of the border as it was just a little off and I can extend the quilting lines to get it all connected I hope. 
I have all 4 sides pinned and ready to quilt and am anxious to find out if my “great idea” will turn out like I hope it will.  I do have it pinned down pretty flat so hope I don’t get any tucks or pleats.  I will let you know how the quilting goes on this border right away and won’t make you wait until the big reveal in May.

Until Later,
Lynn

Quilting Designs For The Borders

I know I should have figured out what I wanted to quilt in the borders of my Guild Panel Challenge before I basted and quilted the center but I was just too impatient and figured I would deal with it later.  I got the middle quilted and then came to a complete stop when I didn’t know what to quilt in this approximately 6” wide border.  (I worked really hard to get those wiggly stripes in the black fabric to match on the corners too.)  I wasn’t sure how I would even mark the designs I did come up with but I decided I wanted a curvy border so set about getting my curves figured out and drawn on to long pieces matching the border lengths.  I keep a end roll of newsprint I got from the local newspaper office for free to draw my designs on-check it out to see if your newspaper office has these end rolls for free or little charge. You can cut off large pieces of paper to use to draw long border designs, quilting designs, applique designs or for kids to draw and color on.
I started out drawing the number of sections each border would have and drew a gentle curve to be the center spine of my design.  I had several copies of each of these borders to sketch ideas on in pencil with the spine drawn in a dark black marker.  As you can see I was thinking of curl back parts on the design.  I had several design ideas and tweaked and tweaked the design until I came up with my final design.

Quilting Design Ideas VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Here are the final border designs, drawn out with black and orange marker.  As you can see I abandoned the back curls and I only drew only half the border as the other half is just the same only reversed.
I do like the design and tomorrow I will show and tell you how I got this design transferred to the black border of the basted quilt so stay tuned. 

Until Later,
Lynn