Monday, November 13, 2017

Finished quilts




finished Nov. 9, 2017

Finished Sept 2017


Finished Oct 18, 2016



Machine quilted at Luane's in WA. I finished the binding and gifted this quilt to my Aunt Maria.



This is my most recent work. Gifted to my nephew Desmond and his fiance Annette.



...and it started with this quilt I had completed in April 2016 for my brother Chris and his wife to celebrate their 30th year wedding anniversay. ...



I loved the simple quilting on it. I used a walking foot on my sewing machine and set out to sew wavy lines with fairly even spacing. Somehow it reminded me of wild horses running, maybe  I was imagining it was the Bronco's mane in the wind. 



But almost from the moment Chris and Andrea opened their gift, Annette scooped it up and snuggled in it and I was almost certain she was never going to let it go. After making sure everyone understood this quilt was made esp. for Chris and Andrea, I knew I was gonna need to make another Bronco quilt.

but I didn't get to it immediately. Other life events came and went. I didn't get started on it until Sept., when my niece Cristy and Andrea reminded me how much Annette loved the quilt. At first I was going to use the same design I had made for Chris and Andrea. But when I went to cut the fabric, I couldn't do it. I guess it was on my heart that they are at a new beginning, having just gotten engaged a few months ago and purchasing their first home... it meant this quilt had to be theirs from the very beginning. And so i started from scratch... with graph paper and pencil.... 
 i got the 30" center planned but then I was stuck and it stayed on the design wall for a bit.   

I needed to add more length than width. I thought about more half-square triangles or some kind of pieced blocks, but it started feeling too busy. And so borders seemed the right thing to do.


Then it started coming together. 


I love that satisfied feeling when a quilt practically makes itself. When all the pieces seem to fall together. :)


And then came the quilting... phew... it's a whole different problem... figuring out what kind of quilting design is going to enhance the piecing or fabric...
But the fun part of getting to this step is that I knew I would be doing at least some of the quilting on the longarm machine at the Bernina quilt shop in Jackson, MS. ohhhh boy, have i fallen head over heals for the new Bernina Q20 sit down longarm. I love the table that comes with the machine, it has extention leaves! and the stitch regulator is what I long for most. 
But from this next photo, you can see i need more practice with free motion quilting to smooth out my lines. From pinterest i found a design for free-motion footballs. (Except later my Heart informed me that professional footballs don't have the stripes... oh well, i'll know for next time.)

I ran into a bit of a snag. After 3 hrs of renting the long-arm, i had only half of the quilting done! I had to continue the quilting at home on my domestic sewing machine... that's ok, I can do this. My stitches won't be consistant but I can live with that...

Not bad! I'm impressed, it looks beautiful on the front side!...


... but there's not supposed to be orange thread showing on the navy blue backside :(. I had to pick it all out.


practice swatch... with adjusted tension... but the navy blue thread is poking to the front side... 
nope, I didn't care for this either...

only solution I was satisfied with was changing the bobbin thread on the backside to orange. I was very pleased.


the navy blue is quilting with the long-arm. Orange and white is on my home sewing machine. 
The part i couldn't document with pictures is the quilting in the navy border on the front side. I "wrote" football terms like "touchdown", "football", "punt", "interception"... and on the bottom I wrote "Desmond and Annette". (I owe a huge "Thank you!!" to a quilt guildmate, Terry, for encouraging me to "write" with the machine. it turned out very cool.)

 I attached a wider 1" binding rather than the usual tidy 1/2" one. I love how it crinkled with the quilt. 
Last but not least, the label was added.
I had so much fun making this quilt.I learned a lot in the process. I am loving that after almost 30 years of quilting I am still learning new things <3

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