Weekly Report 2014 - Week 04/11

Tips, Thoughts and Techniques:

Front Side of Tumbling Blocks after
the inner panel has been quilted.
Most browsers will provide you with an
enlarged image if you click on an
image in the blog.

I had forgotten just how heavy, or should I say HEAVY an intricately pieced quilt can be when I am trying to manipulate it under the needle for free motion quilting. At first I thought the heft was due to the fact that I opted to baste the quilt with safety pins instead of hand baste it with thread. However, even after 75% of the pins have been removed it feels just as heavy. True it is larger than I normally work, approximately 70" H x 50" W before it is trimmed. My suspicion is that the weight is due to all those seams, so that instead of two layers of fabric and batting I am really dealing with three layers of fabric.

My tip for working with such a heavy piece - yoga. No other exercise routine I have done over the years has done a better job of aligning my back, keeping metacarpal tunnel syndrome at bay and building my upper body strength. On a previous blog I stated if you only want to learn one yoga posture than chose Mountain Pose. That is great for releasing kinks and bringing down stress levels. If you want to get the benefits I mentioned earlier, then add Downward Facing Dog and a reverse wrist stretch to your repertoire.

This is the back side of Tumbling Blocks. It
is much easier to see the progress I made
with quilting from this perspective.

Despite a week with a few extra commitments I managed to make good progress with my number one quilting project. Of course it didn't hurt that the quilting motif that made the most sense for the majority of the piece was a mid-sized stippling.

1)  Tumbling Blocks I (Due April 30) 

a) finish quilting the inner section - Done!

Ultimately I opted to quilt on the black and white blocks with a mid-sized stippling. There is so much happening visually with this quilt that anything fancier would just get lost. I didn't quilt the colored blocks in order to give them just a bit more sculptural relief. 

b) finish quilting the border - Started

Close up of the stippling from the back side. 

c) block and square up the quilt - Not yet
d) make the binding - Not yet
e) attach the binding - Not yet
f) make the sleeve - Not yet
g) attach the sleeve - Not yet

I just couldn't resist doing something other
than stippling in the outer border. I purposefully
opted for a blending versus contrasting thread
on the front side so that the eye wouldn't
be distracted from the bold, overarching
pattern of the pieced quilt.

2) Leah Day projects.

a) Baste the face, torso and arms to 





Express Your Love II. - On hold until the quilts with deadlines are completed.

b) Do Leah Day's Free Motion Quilting lesson. - There was no lesson this week






3) LifeBook 2014 - Do the assignments. - Done!

Tam Laporte taught this lesson on creating a Quirky Animals totem.

4) Little Lake Butte des Morts in Fall (Due August 3) - a commissioned quilt - On hold until quilts with earlier deadlines are completed. 

Start piecing the quilt.

5) Tickling the Ivories - make and attach the label.

It is down to the wire for finishing Tumbling Blocks. The big question is what will happen first. Will I finish the quilt or will my grandchild be born? You will know the answer to this either next week or the week after that. Obviously I will be focusing on finishing up Tumbling Blocks next week with brief dips into other projects for balance.

1)  Tumbling Blocks I (Due April 30) 

a) finish quilting the border
b) block and square up the quilt
c) make the binding
d) attach the binding
e) make the sleeve
f) attach the sleeve

2) Leah Day projects.

a) Baste the face, torso and arms to Express Your Love II. - On hold until the quilts with deadlines are completed.

b) Do Leah Day's Free Motion Quilting lesson.

3) LifeBook 2014 - Do the assignments.

4) Little Lake Butte des Morts in Fall (Due August 3) - a commissioned quilt - On hold until quilts with earlier deadlines are completed. 

Start piecing the quilt.

5) Tickling the Ivories - make and attach the label.


I am now linking up to two blogs on Friday's. The first is Leah Day's Free Motion Quilting Project and the second is Nina Marie's Off the Wall Fridays.