National Quilting Day Follow Up

I was blogging around when I first read the word, National Quilting Day? A day to celebrate every thing about quilting that I hold dear? Besides it's a holiday so anyone wanting to tune me out or say "uh hu, yes..." while I rave about fabrics will just have to listen.

What would you do on such a great day? Rather than annoy those close to me with my deepest fabric fantasies, I headed for my sewing machine and settled down with my turtles from my Hawaiian Ocean Appliqué Quilt. I've been having a problem seeing my appliqué through the clear plastic of my "open toed foot". Open toed, my toilet! So I broke it, completely and totally on purpose. It was wonderful. I have never broken a sewing machine foot before, so this was something new.

I did increase the pressure on the presser foot to compensate for the missing plastic, but other than that I was good to go.  I thought for a moment it might be harder to line up without that little bit of plastic, but it took no more time getting used to than when I'd first switched to that foot in the first place, and I could see again! Did anything wonderful happen to you yesterday? I'd love to hear about it.

Windmill Quilting

So I researched Windmill arms and what I discovered is that I didn't want the traditional tiny squares of a real windmill quilted all over the arms of my quilted Windmill blocks, nor would they have fit very well anyway as real windmill arms are very long and rectangular whereas in a typical Windmill Quilt block you're working with triangles.  So I altered the Bright Star quilting pattern by Day Style Designs to only run over the teal part of the blocks.  This worked out great for 3+ blocks when I ran out of the thread I was using. 

We're all quite sick here so catching Tiny keeping my sewing area company was to sweet to resist.  I'm not even certain how she has found the time as it seems every time I look up she's right there with me.

Spinning Flowers - Raw Edge

I've been struggling with how I'd like to quilt the offsetting blocks on the Buckeye Beauty Quilt ever since the trouble with my attempts to freemotion quilt through the paper resulted in broken threads. Well yesterday I stumbled on the answer. Appliqué. Could I truly happily appliqué on a quilt that is already being quilted? Shock of shock it’s not a problem at all, in fact it has worked beautifully. I used a glue stick to hold the pieces in place and then touched the iron to the appliqué pieces setting them while trying the glue, and then I quilted right over them through the quilt with a dark purple thread. This resulted in the entire flower including the veins of the petals showing on the reverse.  

I really like how this gentle touch of the fabrics from the front really brought the colors of the quilt together, uniting both sides. What do you think? As I still have a bit more quilting left to do, I'm really looking forward to discovering what other whispers this quilt will give me.

The free applique pattern can be found here.  I increased the size when I printed out the pieces by 150% to ensure the flower would fill my 10" offset block and I smoothed out the interior curve to allow the spin to appear more natural.  Last but not least I made my own circle templates, as by the time I'd scaled up the originals they needed reformed.  Wink--> The lid to my glue stick was perfect.

Hawaiian Ocean Appliqué - A Bed Quilt

I can hardly believe this will be my first post about my Hawaiian Ocean Appliqué Quilt as I have collected fabrics and planned this since I believe September. That's nine months!  I even made a practice charity quilt which you can read all about here.

I have nearly completed the first 20" block.  Above is the front and below is the back.  I'm concerned about the green thread on the back, it's showing over the dolphins on the back rather than blending in and allowing the dolphins to play.  I think perhaps the thread I placed in the photo might look better.  Of course if I change the color on the bottom I will have to be 10x more careful about my thread tension.  Who knows maybe it would just change the problem to the lighter end of the spectrum.

The fabrics I collected are South Sea Imports Zinnia's in Green, Michael Miller Dolphins at Play, and Moda's Atlantis in blue. I have done a mock up of the layout below for you to see; the 20" turtle blocks all around and one 42" dolphin and turtle block in the center. You can see the original pattern here, by Pacific Rim Appliqué, which was given to me by my friend Vicki.  I am using a method of quilt as you go machine hawaiian appliqué with a blanket stitch that I altered to suit my own quilting abilities.  I used fusible interfacing which Rob cut carefully enough that I will have the reverse image to use in a future quilt so there will be no leftover scraps, how about that?

The background of the center dolphins will match the water background behind the turtles when completed.

The Process of Quilting

For me quilting is the process of quilting together my top my back and my batting.  Often I plan while I'm piecing how I will quilt the finished piece.  Just like building a house sometimes the knowledge comes quickly and it's something I know right away without hesitation and other times it comes more slowly.  With the Buckeye Beauty Quilt it's been a slow revelation.  I've been quilting from the back which I suppose makes it the front now with the Windmills taking first thread (that wasn't ripped out).

Above is what I have so far, with the echoes over the purple quilted over all of the windmill blocks. I'm thinking I might like to make diagonal quilting now over the teal fabric to give it the appearance of the blades of a windmill; perhaps I should Google Windmills for more insight. No thoughts on those offset blocks yet; I think when I've settled on the Windmills the offsets will come to me.

The more I look at the trapezoid border the more I love it. The texture is just amazing - well worth the effort to strip piece then cut and sew again.