I have finally accomplished a major roadblock in my quilting life.
I have pin basted my unfinished quilt, my Garden Charms quilt, which has been lying around for more than a year. It was initially a Craftsy project, a class taught by Lynette Jensen.
I followed the pattern completely, except for picking my own colors. Finishing this quilt has been nagging at me for such a long time that I have been in such a quandary over it.
My quilting life had to take a backseat to my personal life—I have just had too many other responsibilities that have kept me from doing the activity I love. I’ve had a hard time getting back to it.
- The piecing gave me fits. I re-did several steps in this multi-step process. The pattern was complicated, but that is also what made it lots of fun to complete. I even made a table runner out of a couple of the pinwheel blocks to practice. It turned out great, so I was more comfortable with all those points. It came out imperfect, but not bad. I wrote about this in a previous post.
- Over a year ago I ordered eight yards of fabric for the quilt back. Until very recently, it remained in the bag in which it arrived. Finally, just a month ago, I measured it and cut it, sewed it, and turned it into my quilt back.
- The most challenging part of quilting for me is the small space for which I have to work. I watched several videos about laying out and basting the quilt in a small space for inspiration. Finally, the other day I bit the bullet, I cleared off my small dining room table, (a feat in itself) purchased a few small clamps to keep things taut, and some curved safety pins, and set out to pin baste this quilt.
Alas, it wasn’t as difficult as I thought. This is the largest quilt I have ever attempted, so it was a bit unwieldy to put it onto my small dining table without wrinkles and without the constant help from my four cats.
I know it is going to be a challenge to machine quilt this quilt, but I am determined. I know I’m not the first to be intimidated by this. Most of the free-motion projects I have done have either been ‘quilt as you go’ projects or small pieces. The biggest quilt I’ve ever machine quilted was a baby quilt. That was a breeze, so I figure this is just like four of those, albeit attached.
I’m not sure when I will start this, but I’m getting rather excite. My next step is to take a picture of the various aspects of the quilt, print it out as a line drawing, and design quilting designs. I think I’m going to use all white thread, since the quilt is so colorful. Or, perhaps I’ll use hot pink, which might be fun. I’ll have to figure that out too.
I look forward to a subsequent post which will answer those questions and report on my progress. Wish me luck.
I have never joined a quilting bee. I love people; I love quilting; I love good conversation, but for some reason having all of them together isn't my cup of tea. I prefer to be a solo quilter. I have always enjoyed my peaceful moments of solitude. To me, that is when quilting is the most enjoyable.
Not only does this apply to hand-quilting, but it is also true with free-motion quilting. There is no way I could do this in a group setting. For me, free-motion quilting takes deep concentration. I don't consider it to be as relaxing as hand-quilting, but that may be because I have yet to master it. I am still intimidated by a little machine that is so much better at quilting than I am.
I am far better suited to projects, like blocks-of-the-month projects. It offers the ability to share, to engage with others, and yet the actual process is solo. I have participated in several and will likely continue. I like the discipline too. I know that on a certain day of the month or week, it is time for quilting, yet there is flexibility there too. Often times I get antsy, knowing there is a project to do, but I haven't gotten to it yet. That reflects how I've lived my life I guess. I am rather spontaneous--don't like making plans. I've often said, why make plans since they never work out anyway.
One of the projects I'm currently involved with is Leah Day's Building Blocks Quilting Project. This is a quilt along on Leah's blog and on her Facebook page. It is international and welcomes quilters from many continents.
Leah Day is an excellent teacher. I briefly mentioned her briefly when I wrote in a previous post about my signature quilting block, the double star. I described her there as, "arguably the best free-motion quilter and instructor ever." (Don't you just hate people who quote themselves?)
The quilt along is a
weekly project where Leah teaches her methods for piecing and quilting. It
is a practice exercise that will result in a pretty fine looking quilt,
in my opinion. While the exercise was shown in just two contrasting colors, I couldn't help but jump in with both feet to my love of color. I had seen other quilts done in black and white long ago, so I started collecting bits of fabric. Pink being one of my favorite colors was just a natural, so that is what I did.
The project involved purchasing the patterns for the pieced
blocks and the quilting diagrams. For me, that one of the biggest
problems. Once a block or quilt is pieced, the first question is
always, how should it be quilted? Leah offers plenty of tips throughout the course, to answer that very question. Although some of the piecing and quilting
is very basic, it never hurts to review and practice. I'm thoroughly enjoying
it. Here is a sampling of a few of the blocks I've put together so
far.
I feel like a kid on Christmas morning.
As I awoke this morning, my mind raced with anticipation. It is hard to concentrate on mundane tasks. Today I am supposed to receive my new sewing machine; I ordered a Janome DC2014 from Amazon.com.
It was so hard to settle on what to buy, but I knew it had to be a Jenome.
I have had one for about 25 years that has been a work horse. It was the bottom of the line when I bought it from Sears, but I bought what I could afford. Unfortunately, cost had to be a high priority, then as now. I am pretty sure there is no new $6,000 Janome Horizon in my future, at least not unless I win the lottery. That would be difficult because I don't buy tickets.
When I bought my sewing machine initially, it was to replace the old Kenmore my mother gave me. I wasn't a quilter in those days. Quilting wasn't even on my radar. I wanted to sew for my little girl. I did make an outfit or two, but mostly my sewing machine was utilitarian--patching jeans, fixing seams and replacing zippers, etc. For these things, my Janome Harmony 4200 was perfect.
Then I began writing for a local newspaper. I covered several quilt shows, each time learning more and more about the historical, artistic, and many other aspects of quiltmaking. I met some of the quilters and simply fell in love with their work. It was there that my interest in quilting began. I was encouraged and inspired by the shows' organizer and former high school home economics teacher from Peotone, IL, Doris Kruger, a wonderfully spirited and insightful woman who was eager to help budding young quilters.
My sewing machine finally had a new purpose--one for which it was intended.
I made my first quilt, an appliqued rose pattern on alternating blocks. It was a very enjoyable first endeavor. I machine pieced the blocks, but the rest was done by hand. I decided I really loved hand-quilting.
That was my favorite method until I learned about free-motion quilting many years later. I didn't think such a thing was possible. That was a couple of quilts ago. Now, I can't stop. I want to perfect this skill because I love drawing with thread.
Free-motion quilting caused me to think about a new machine. The day after I decided to buy a new one, the tension spring on my machine broke. So now I need a new machine. And, today is the day!
