Bonnet Girl Quilt Update

I've been machine quilting on the Bonnet Girl Quilt-after I quilted the straight lines on the embroidered bars, I marked and quilted the cable in the green floral bars. Then I had to decide what I wanted in the blue floral border. I decided I wanted a cable there too but I didn't have anything that fit-so I designed a cable. Using this cable that I had designed years ago ( you can see it used on this quilt here)...

I designed this...

 and marked it with my 100% graphite marker (which is easy to see while machine quilting and which washes out completely.)

Oops, sorry the flash is a little bright there. 
I started quilting and here's what it looks like from the back (the front had the same flash problem.)

I really like what's happening where the cables meet...this design is a keeper!


BTW, quilting cables is really fast and easy-I use my walking foot!


I think I deserve a Whoop! Whoop! (even though I haven't finished!). Hop on over to Sarah's blog and see more Whoop! Whoopiness. There's a new format there so click on "links to this post" to see all the goodies.)

I've been quilting

I'm still not totally done with jet lag...I can't believe it is taking me this long but I'm hoping that I broke it completely today. Its not just the unusual sleep patterns-I just don't seem to have the same energy level. I have however managed to do some quilting.


I had rolled the Double Wedding Ring quilt in the frame before we left and I'm now here...

and I've already completed half of this roll.

I've also been doing some machine quilting...I had basted the embroidered Bonnet Girl quilt before leaving but hadn't started the quilting at all. I've done the straight lines on the embroidered bars and I'm thinking I'll put a cable in the narrow green floral bars.

 You can see I'm just sewing right over the embroidery...looks fine to me! :) and easy too!

Plaid Quilt Completed...2008-2012

Yes, this plaid quilt is finished: quilting and binding...all done! Hooray!
I started this quilt in 2008 and blogged about it here (includes cutting instructions for different size blocks), here and here. Why did it take me so long to quilt it? Well, when I finished the top in 2008, it looked like this:

The border bothered me-I had sort of run out of plaids (which actually include some stripes and even a tiny polka dot) and I had pieced the inner border...if you look at the bottom right border you can see how the "stripe" in the plaid is not aligned and doesn't look good...so the top sat in the closet. Plaids don't show up in our LQS and I'd forget about this project when I was in the US. I thought about looking on-line but never did. So it sat...waiting for inspiration or a new border.
Finally inspiration came. In many antique quilts, the binding is simply the backing fabric folded over the front-why not use the the inner border as the binding and fold it over to the back. So I took off the outer green border, trimmed the corner squares and quilted. 

I folded the "border" out of the way and trimmed just as with a regular binding.

Then I folded it over to the back...its wide on the back because I liked it-I could have trimmed the border.

 Did you notice the football fabric backing? The quilt is going to DS the younger (he has his first solo-no roommates-apartment).
Here's the front-a nice 1/4" binding.

 I did simple straight line outline quilting-I thought it went best with this quilt design and to be honest, it was quick and I'm still treating my ankle a little tenderly.

                                  
Folded on the arm of our sofa-a great lap quilt rescued from the closet and much better looking than with the original border.


Stephanie at loft creations is hosting an easy does it challenge called PIPS to inspiring us all to finish those projects. My first PIPS finish!


I'm linking up to Finish it Up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts and Sew and Tell at  Amylouwhosews. Stop by and see the first of 2012's fabulous finishes.

Embroidered mystery quilt is quilted!

Here it is: finished! I just put in the last few stitches on the white binding-I'm so glad this is completed! Hand embroidery and machine quilting team up quite well!Here's a close up of one of the baskets and the diagonal curvy lines I quilted through the embroideries.
Here you can see the wandering vine with leaves I quilted in the large white areas and
the small vine with leaves and larger flowers I machine quilted in the smaller isolated white areas
The center embroidered block shows how the curvy lines meet in the middle.
Here's the quilt-folded on a chair and showing the white binding outside the black border.
I'm linking up with Sarah's Can I get a Whoop-Whoop today. Hop on over and see the wonderful things on view.

This and That Sewing

I've basted the embroidery Mystery quilt and its ready for machine quilting...I'm still working out in my mind what I'll do. I had a little fun with the back: a bar quilt! Its hard to see in the photo but the black fabric is really a reproduction black/gray print.I also finished hand piecing the little circles that I started in Boston...still thinking about what to do with them.
I did this little embroidery using chain stitch-I haven't ever done much with chain stitch and it was fun. I think I'll frame it. (I don't know why it came out quite this bright-its a batik but its really not this garish!)
I've been quilting at the frame but now I have a dilemma. I use Mettler 40 wt. thread for all my hand quilting. While I was in the US I grabbed two spools of Mettler white for this quilt but now I see I grabbed the wrong thread-the 50 wt. silk finish regular sewing thread. So either I switch threads in the middle or I order on-line the 40 wt. Yes, I will have to put the hand quilting on hold. Oh my! It really annoys me though because I actually was sitting and hand quilting again finally! That quilt will take two years at the rate I'm going.

That's my this and that sewing. I really need to start a new project. The Jane Quilt triangles are preying on my mind so I think I had better make a start on those-I can baste up the applique triangles and then I'll feel like I'm making progress! :)

Hannah's Quilt

LOL! Talk about UFOs! My friend Hannah began this sampler quilt 8 years ago! She basted it 3 years ago-planning to hand quilt it. Finally she asked me if I would machine quilt it. She looks very happy that its finally finished!
I used a different design in each block-sometimes a squiggle and sometimes
I followed her markings like in this block and the grid quilting.
I just used a simple 1/4" outline for the sashing as that had been her plan.

Drunkard's Path Quilt Finished!

This quilt was put on hold for so long but its now finished! Completely quilted and bound! In the end I was so pressed for time I quilted simple parallel lines 1/2" and 1" apart as the final border quilting.
As good as the front looks, I think the back is just gorgeous! Its hard to see in the photo but the triple ring "flowers" just appear out of nowhere in the midst of the hanging diamonds and I just love the look. I'm glad this quilt isn't going anywhere but on our bed.
Here's the quilt folded on a chair. You can see the four different quilting designs I used: the parallel lines, the cable, the hanging diamonds crosshatching and the triple circle free motion design.

You can see my tutorial for using Marti Mitchel's rotary cutting templates for the Drunkard's Path here.

Special thanks to P at The Way I Sew It: seeing all your free motion design experiments inspired me to have a go with the triple ring/circle design and I'm so glad I did. It took a long time and used a ton of thread but oh, it looks so good! I'm definitely starting to love machine quilting.

I'm linking up to Finished for Friday at Lit and Laundry and Sew and Tell at Amylouwho. Hop on over and see all the wonderful finished this week.

Machine quilting between forest fire updates

Have you heard about the terrible forest fire here? It started on Thursday morning. 42 Prison Service officer cadets were killed when their bus got trapped by the fire-they were on their way to help evacuate people. A police car following was also caught by the fire. Several people are in the hospital in critical condition.

Kibbutz Beit Oren was completely destroyed. Yesterday, help arrived from all over. Cyprus, Greece and Turkey were the first to arrive with large fire fighting planes. This morning I heard that a really large plane arrived from Russia. With this help the fire fighters started to get the fire under control yesterday but during the night, when the planes couldn't fly, the wind came up again and by this morning two towns were under threat.

This is not the usual season for forest fires-let alone the worst fire ever-as its supposed to be the rainy season. We had one small rain in October and nothing since. The weather forecast is for scattered rainfall tomorrow...I just hope it rains up north here. We're east of the fire and don't even see a hazy horizon-just a hot sun and clear blue sky.

Between watching news reports, I've been doing a little machine quilting on the drunkard's path quilt. I decided to do a hanging diamond grid on the yellow...that's done by sewing parallel vertical lines (I'd done that already) and then crossing them with 45 degree diagonal lines. I used a Hera Marker to mark the lines-it just creates a crease in the fabric. It works great on a quilt sandwich...when I first got it I tried to mark just the top-that doesn't work.
I sewed each row with my walking foot. When I got to a white area-I finished off but didn't pull and cut the threads. I lifted the presser foot and moved past the white area and started again...you can see the line of thread across the white area-look on the far left of the white. After I finished a line, then I went back and cut the threads, front and back and started on the next line.
I used the little guide that fits on my walking foot too...sometimes I'm a little obsessive. For the first set of plain vertical lines, I just used the guide but I was nervous about doing that on the diagonal...for one thing-the white areas would pop in at different heights so I didn't always have a starting spot from the previous line. I just eye balled it for the vertical lines but it actually was easier with the markings.
Here its sewn...pretty cool! I've always wanted to do a quilt with a hanging diamonds grid-I can't believe how many long-time goals are getting completed with this quilt. Now I have all those threads to bury...

I've been quilting

I've been busy with classes but I have done some machine quilting on the Drunkard's Path...I'm still working on the white areas and then I want to go back and add something in the yellow-I'm thinking of a diamond grid-the parallel lines are just too "straight" but I'm not sure yet. Its a lot of fun doing the free triple circle "flowers" in the white but they do take a lot of time and a lot of thread-I can't believe all the bobbins I've made!I've also been hand quilting on the Double Wedding Ring...I think I'm about half way now. I took this pix at night but I think you can see that I've quilted in my name-using a 30s style printing. (The color is a little yellow but with the flash it was totally washed out.)
Isn't this just a gorgeous feedsack? The friend that gave me this one, the next one and others that I used in the DWR is here visiting and will be joining us for Thanksgiving dinner! We'll be about 14 this year-American friends from all over Israel-its really a lot of fun and a lot of good food.

The embroidered heart baby quilt: quilted and bound: Finished!

The embroidered heart baby quilt is all quilted, the binding is sewn on and it is ready to be given to little Shirli. (Isn't it funny how names come and go-here Shirli (yes, that's Shirley) is a very popular name for babies right now.) The quilt was finished just in time-DD comes on Sunday for a visit and Shirli's Mom is DD's good friend since eighth grade so she'll deliver it.

Its machine quilted with curvey lines 1 1/2" apart plus a meander in and around the hearts and
a small free vine with leaves in the asymmetric border. I do like the look of the hand embroidery with the machine quilting. In this photo you can kind of see all the quilting designs...
but I think it shows up best on the back.
Here's the little vine.
I'm linking to Finished for Friday at Lit and Laundry and Sew and Tell at Amylouwho so be sure to stop over there and see all the wonderful finishes for this week (and remember at Lit and Laundry they're not all sewing projects!)

I have to apologize-I said I would put up the pattern for the Bonnet Girl quilt (done!) and a tutorial for outline embroidery (not done!) That was an Oops on my part-I didn't think ahead and realize I would need someone else to photograph the tutorial! Now that DD will be visiting, I will have her take the photos and the tutorial will be up very soon.

Black and White Log Cabin Quilt Finished

It's done! I finished my black and white log cabin quilt!I really enjoyed quilting this quilt...I found several interesting patterns as I loopty-looped my way across the quilt.

I especially like this pattern that I did in this black area-it reminds me of the 19th century embroidery pattern I used in a corner of my Crazy Quilt.

This quilt was started last year for the Black and White Challenge. You can click on the button on my side bar to go to the B & W Challenge blog and see all the wonderful quilts, bags and more made for this challenge. (I even made an apron.)

I'm linking today to Finished for Friday at Lit and Laundry and Sew and Tell at Amylouwho.

Working on 3 projects at once: Yikes!

Look what DH surprised me with....It vacuumed and I machine quilted on my black, white and red log cabin...I think I'm in love!

I'm almost half done...I knew it would be slow going. I have to remember to machine quilt in the early morning or in the evenings when its a little cooler and the air conditioner works well enough. (In other words, when its in the low 90s rather than hovering around 100!)

I embroidered all the vines on the batik star and rosette quilt top and I like it. The trail isn't as noticeable as with the leaves but its there and gives that something extra.
While I was at the LQS teaching last Sunday, I picked up some silk ribbon in shades perfect for this quilt. I think I better test wash the dark purple and the maroon to make sure they don't run...oh, I hope they don't.
I've also been hand quilting on my double wedding ring...I put it on the frame ages ago and really didn't quilt much but now its the perfect summer project. I'm about half done with this "roll" of the frame, once its quilted all along the width of the quilt, then I'll roll again and finish this design.
I used a mixture of vintage fabrics and reproductions for the arcs of the DWR. Here are some pictures of some of the 1950s vintage fabric "wedges" in the quilt...
and here are some 1930s fabric including a feed sack on the right. You can see I'm outline quilting-very traditional!
Now I'm off to watch a film with DH and DS who came up to "rest" after a big final exam this morning...well, I'll watch a film if they can decide on what to order from pay-per-view! :)