Quilting Along with Leah Day - Week 22

Hibiscus Haven
21" H x 24" W

While Leah Day took some much deserved time to focus on her work, I created Hibiscus Haven. Week 22's assignment was the just the impetus I needed to finish Hibiscus Haven by adding the label.

Back Side of Hibiscus Haven

I create all my quilt labels on my ink jet printer. I use pre cut cotton sheets that are backed with a release paper. This way the fabric feeds easily through the printer. It also means that I can have a reasonably small label and still fit everything in that needs to be there for exhibiting my work. 

Mini digression...

Note how the hanging sleeve at the top of the quilt is actually two sleeves with a gap in the middle. This allows a slat to be slipped through the sleeve. Eye screws are added at either side of the slat. Then when the quilt arrives at a gallery it can be hung with nails through the eye screws, with filament line through the eye screws or by stringing picture hanging wire across the slat. The wire would be held in place with thumbtacks where the slat is visible between sleeves. Then the quilt can be mounted to the wall, just like a picture.

Back on Topic...

Close Up of Label for Hibiscus Haven

I follow the same format for labeling all my exhibition quilts. I always put an image of the quilt on the left hand side of the label. The right hand side I start with the title, in italics in a color that is taken from the quilt. Next goes my contact info. I have "erased" this from the image for security purposes. Finally, I put the size of the quilt and the date it was completed.

In the past I would have trimmed the label to size, folded under a hem, pressed the hem, ironed it flat and then sewn the label on the quilt. The point of Week 22 was to starch the hem and fold it over a freezer paper template. Must say I loved how crisp the starch made the edges. I also tried to keep my ladder stitching to the size of seed beads. 

This method worked well for a simple rectangular label. But would it stand up to an odd shape?

Label for Marvels of the Deep

Absolutely! The Marvels of the Deep label is still attached to its freezer paper template. I will be bringing it with me when I go visit the quilt's owner, my granddaughter and sew it on then. Don't you think it is perfect for her quilt?

Marvels of the Deep

Marvels of the Deep is based on Fantasy Fish created by LAM designs. It isn't an actual pattern. It is a collection of shapes that can be appliquéd to a background of your choosing.

Quilting Along With Leah Day - Week 21

Wonky Block Quilt
40" H x 36" W

My Wonky Block Quilt is done! Well at least the piecing and quilting aspect. I would need to trim and bind it in order to truly finish it. I use Photoshop to clean up my images before posting them on the blog.

The goal of Week 21 was to use a zentangle doodle to divide the quilt into random sections and then fill those random sections with the five free motion quilting patterns we have been practicing. 

Back Side of Wonky Block Quilt

I began by marking the back side of the quilt with zentangle loops. It is MUCH easier to see marks on a solid fabric than it is to see them on patterned fabric, particularly patterns that incorporate a wide range of values and hues. Since I use the same thread in my bobbin as I do in my spool, I could start by quilting from the back side, too! If this were to be a show piece versus a lovey quilt, I would not have had the courage to free motion quilt the doodle and its echo back side up. I opted to free motion along the line of the doodle for practice. I find long lines of quilting the toughest to "hide" the wobbles and detours that come from stopping, starting and readjusting my hands on the quilt sandwich.

Detail Showing Several of the Quilting Patterns
as well as a Section of the Echoed Zen Tangle Doodle

Once the doodle was stitched I flipped the quilt over to the front side. The stitched doodle anchored the sandwich and it "marked" the sections where the stippling, sharp stippling, circuit board, loops and what I think of as flame patterns were to go. I opted to start and end my quilting section by section instead of travel stitching along the doodle. Perhaps with a little more planning I could have been sure to start and stop at junctures like the one in the detail above, but since it is so easy to bury threads with a cheater needle it just didn't seem worth it.

Detail Showing Several of the Quilting Patterns
as Seen on the Back Side

One of the areas where I can use extra practice with my free motion quilting is with larger than small scale. It was tempting to really go to town with micro stippling within the "loops," but I held myself back and did mid scales patterns over the whole quilt. Although my circuit board may not have precision crisp corners and straight lines it is less round than when I was first introduced to it and I rarely get hesitation build up or loopy thread. This practice is really paying off!

Quilting Along with Leah Day - Week 20

I'm still playing catch-up from our vacation in the Canadian Rockies. We ended the trip at the Fairmont Hotel on Lake Louise. This is an image taken by my husband from our room early in the morning before breezes and canoes disturbed the lake. Note the near perfect symmetry of the landscape.

Lake Louise

Week 20's assignment from Leah had her followers playing with potential layouts and eventually selecting one using the wonky blocks from the previous week. This proved to be much harder than I anticipated. My wonky blocks just didn't like to play well together. Some of it had to do with the broad spectrum of values in the fabrics going from fairly light to very dark. However, the fact that lines created by the piecing of the blocks were close but off had an unsettling, jarring effect. Nevertheless I preserved and discovered that symmetry helped. I also added an extra strip on two sides of the quilt (top and bottom of the horizontal quilt) in order to "finish" the border.

Wonky Top Hung Horizontally

Wonky Top Hung Vertically

I'd love your feedback. Which do you think works best, the horizontal or vertical orientation?

Quilt Along with Leah Day - Week 19

I've been on vacation hiking in the Canadian Rockies, while Leah Day cranks out the assignments. Now I am playing catch-up.

Instead of QUILTING Along with Leah Day, Week 19 has us PIECING along with Leah Day to create a "modern" quilt block. This was a challenge of a different sort for me. Precision piecing is something I LOVE to do. Leah recommends her wonky block method because no precision is needed. She requests that we gather 15 or so approximately 7" square fabric scraps and some solid coordinating yardage. Clearly, Leah buys and cuts her fabric differently than I do.

I usually buy half yard lengths and cut selvedge to selvedge strips to create the various squares, rectangles and triangles that make up the majority of my quilts. If I have scraps they are strips and small geometric shapes. So, my scraps were pretty much useless for this project and I didn't want to cut 7" squares out of multiple fabrics. Instead I devised a way to create square scraps from strips.

A Section of the 8.5" Ribbon 

I selected approximately 10 similar fabrics from my stash. Most of these fabrics were purchased back in my early days of fabric collecting. In other words they are 20 to 25 years old. I cut multiple 2.5" selvedge to selvedge (or the longest length possible) strips from each fabric. Next I sewed the 2.5" ends to each other, making yards and yards and yards of "ribbon." I divided the sewn strip in half and seamed those 2 pieces lengthwise. Divided it in half again and sewed those 2 portions together lengthwise. This resulted in an 8.5" wide by very long ribbon.

A Single Wonky Block After the Unifying Solid Fabric "L" Has Been Added

In Leah's example she created the wonkiness by skewing the squares under the strip they were to be attached to. Since my squares had seams and I didn't want to inadvertently force the seam in the opposite direction it had been press towards, I opted to cut "wonky" squares using my 9 degree ruler. Then I could line up the wonky edge of my pieced square on top, versus underneath my strip and keep my eye on the seams while still achieving skewed squares. It worked for me.

Finally, I Played With A Possible Layout

Quilting Along With Leah Day - Week 18

Going Loopy - Week 18

Upper Right - Lots of "l's"

We are going loopy with Leah Day this week. Gone are the straight lines, sharp points and angles of recent weeks. Instead the lines are curved and peppered with loops.

Once again, Leah broke down the assignment to its most basic and built up to the most complex over a series of small steps. Rather than approach this as I did in the past, by selecting a solid colored piece of fabric and marking chalk lines to both guide me and distinguish between the steps, I opted to quilt a practice block I had on hand. I stitched the four different levels of the assignment in the four corners and did the final free form in the remaining five pieces that form a plus sign.

The assignment reminded me of the exercises we would do in fourth grade when I was learning how to write in script. Rather than practice individual letters, we would create rows and rows of loops and  waves.

The machine quilting in the upper left is the most basic of the exercises. Leah described it as a row of "e's" but it was closer to how I write my "l's".

Upper Left - Upside Down "l's"

I thought the work in the upper right, which was an upside down version of the "l's," like the tails of many "y's" looked the best. I shortened the line between loops and focused on the just the loops.

Next, I tried my hands at alternating between "l's" and tails, much like an open, loosely flowing figure 8. It did flow smoothly, but wasn't particularly compelling to use as a quilting motif.

The final assigned pattern was to alternate between "w's" and "m's" with the middle of each letter being a loop. The advantage to this pattern was that you could cover a lot of ground quickly.


Once the formal patterns were complete I tried my hand at doodling loops.

My final thoughts on Going Loopy, is that worked up very easily. It is definitely the kind of stitching that I can float away on. My take away is that it is best suited for cranking out "lovey" quilts.

Lower Right - "g's"

Summer is here and so is my vacation. There will be no Musing from me for a couple of weeks. I look forward to catching up with you and sharing more of progress with Leah's assignments and my personal work when I return.

Lower Left - "M's" and "W's"

Quilting Along With Leah Day - Week 17

From Top to Bottom - U's, L's, Tessellated F's, H's
and Mixing and Matching

Leah Day is back from a much deserved time away from creating Quilt Along assignments to provide her groupies with the next challenge. When she left off Zippling was the topic. The distinguishing feature of Zippling is its sharp angles and straight lines. This week the focus was on the building blocks to create a Circuit Board quilting. Like Zippling, a Circuit Board  uses straight lines. However, the angle is no longer acute, instead all angles are right angles.

Leah had us start with the most basic shape of a circuit board - a squared U. Next we tried tessellated F's, an H and L combo, before ultimately attempting to design our own circuit board.

Detail Showing a Mix of Straight Lines, Solid Right Angles
and Some Beginner's Learning Gaffs

I find it easiest to mark my fabric with horizontal chalk lines in order to guide my scale when I am first learning a pattern like this one. It is like practicing script on lined paper versus blank paper. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I only got lost once while executing the various letter designs. (Naturally, that is the spot my husband focused in on when in photographed the close up of my practice.) For a first pass I managed to keep predominately straight lines and right angles. I found it helped to stop at the angle versus in the middle of a line. This made it easier to create the right angle. If I continued to run the machine as I executed a right a angle I would invariably soften the angle with a slight curve.

It is helpful to have many free motions patterns that I am comfortable with and can turn to, so that no matter what quilt I design, I have the perfect quilting pattern to accompany it. Would I use Circuit Board again? Probably not, at least until I am fluent enough with it to avoid channeling and the appearance of rows.

Hibiscus Haven is Done!

My Motivation

Persistence, faith and gumption is what it takes me to go from idea to completion of an artwork. When I start a new work it seems brilliant. That is the hook that motivates me to begin.  Somewhere in the middle a combination of panic and drudgery take over. The panic is due to whether I will be able to pull off a successful composition. The drudgery comes from the shear repetition of piecing and stitching that is a natural process of making the fiber art that speaks to me. Once I consider a work finished, as I do with Hibiscus Haven, my confidence, that dipped in the middle returns. There is the shear relief of completing the piece from beginning to end. There is also the sense, that yes, this will do. I have another work to add to my website and hang in galleries.

Hibiscus Haven is Done!

Detail Showing Floating Leaves and Binding Finish

Hibiscus Haven is my own design. However, Leah Day's genius in coming up with 365 different free motion quilting designs needs to be mentioned here. Her designs are my bible when selecting a motif to quilt into the background. I used her Floating Leaf pattern in Hibiscus Haven. Prior to Quilting Along with Leah, I probably would have done a small scale version of the design. However, now I am able to modify the scale of my free motion quilting, I chose to do this at a medium scale. I wanted the scale of the quilted leaves to match the appliquéd leaves. Another nod to Leah, is that I have always created bias binding and hand stitched it down on the backside of the quilt. Since, I had used the button hole stitch with the appliquéd leaves and hibiscus, I opted to use the button hole stitch to secure the binding to the front of the quilt, a method that Leah endorses.