Ta Da, It's Flutter!

Flutter is finally finished!

I started this quilt in 2015.  The top went fairly quickly.  I knew I wanted to hand quilt it but the finished top sat in my sewing room until early this year because all my hand sewing time was taken up with Rondeau.  After a false start with a quilting design that wasn't quite right, I landed on this pattern of diagonal lines and am pleased with the way it came out.  

I didn't quilt through the butterflies, just around them, which made things easier.  Hand quilting through the added layer of fabric plus the adhesive from the fusible web would have been difficult.  But the butterfly pieces are small so this works out fine.

By the way, my new favorite tool is this Clover needle threader, wow, is it ever fantastic!  Well worth the price, it makes threading the small eye of a quilting needle a breeze!  Why didn't I get one of these earlier, it would have been so handy while I was English paper piecing too?  Live and learn and now I won't be without one.  If you are certain that the eyes of needles keep getting tinier and tinier, along with the font size in newspapers and restaurant menus, you need one of these gadgets.  So easy to use!

In the photo above, you can see how the quilting design comes together across several blocks.

I used a variety of ecru fabrics for the block backgrounds and a Hoffman strip pack/jelly roll for the butterflies.  (A charm pack will work too.)  I used a dark brown tone-on-tone from my stash for the binding, it matches the butterfly bodies though you can barely see it.  The pattern is Little Butterflies by Laundry Basket Quilts. There is a stencil available that makes cutting out the shapes much easier.

Must go, I have another quilt waiting to be bound.

Quilting By Hand Is Slow Going

I didn't intend for such a long time to pass between blog posts.  My current project is hand quilting this butterfly appliqued top (Little Butterflies by Laundry Basket Quilts) and it is taking forever so I haven't really had anything to write about.

It did not help that after a couple of weeks of working on my initial quilting design, a grid created by vertical and horizontal lines, I decided I didn't like it and used a seam ripper to take it all out.  Then I started again with diagonal lines.  There will be a second set going in the other direction so they cross.  I like this look much better.

The blue painters tape is how I mark where to quilt.  It is very easy to follow and no markings to get rubbed out or removed later.  I'm using tape that is 3/4" wide.  I estimate I've finished about 20% of the quilting, but I hope that means this won't take all year to finish.  I just got two quilts back from my longarm quilter and they need binding.  Then, there's all the other projects I have in mind...

What I'm Working On Now

A beginning of the year trip to Hawaii.  I worked on my dance steps and my tan.

Just kidding about the tan.  I'm a redhead and that just doesn't happen, less white is all I can hope for.

  Despite much time spend relaxing on beaches.  This one is Kapalua Beach on Maui.  

Lots of fun and now I'm back to real life again.  My first order of business is to clear the decks in my sewing room.  My sewing room doubles as our guest room and one of Miss Main Street's friends stayed overnight after interviewing for a job to teach English in Japan after graduation.  The room got its first clean in quite some time.  I sent two finished tops off to be quilted and unearthed Little Butterflies, a project I appliqued and pieced in 2015.  So, definitely a UFO!

Little Butterflies is about to be quilted, by me, by hand.  I've been meaning to do this for a while but got side tracked by other projects.  My plan is to quilt a sort of grid behind the butterflies, to make them stand out more.  No marking necessary, I use painter's tape.

Painter's tape comes in several widths (I'm using 7/8" wide) and it sticks to the fabric without leaving any residue behind after removal.  You can re-position the tape several times so each piece is re-usable.  After a few times, it won't stick as well; I just ball that piece up, throw it away, and start with a fresh piece of tape.  No marks to wash out after quilting is done.

I'll be back soon with some progress shots.

Say Yes To The Dress is Finished!

Ta-da!

Finally done and it only took about 18 months.  To be fair to myself, I worked on it off and on, not continuously.  And there are many hours in all the hand applique and hand quilting.

Here's a closer look at the quilting.  I quilted a grid behind each dress form, which helps the dress pop off the background.

And I quilted a swirl design in the border, using a stencil I had on hand.  Even though I washed the quilt to get the markings out, a few faint pencil lines remain, fortunately hardly noticeable.  I used a Sewline pencil to mark the quilting lines in the border.  I used painters tape for the grid. 

I'm very happy with it and think it will look terrific hanging in my sewing room.  But when I showed it to Mr. Main Street, he said, "What are those?  Trees?"  Thank God, I have you, Dear Readers, for a little appreciation!  (It is highly likely that Mr. Main Street had never heard of nor seen a dress form until now.)

The pattern I used for Say Yes To The Dress is called Pretty Dresses and is in the book Quilting With My Sister, by Barbara Brandeburg and Teri Christopherson.   The book is out of print but available on Amazon.com.  And they have released the design as an individual quilt pattern. 

The original design is 16 dress blocks, set four by four and finishes at 50" by 58".  I made my version smaller by reducing the number of blocks and it is 38" by 44".  Also, the original design calls for fusible applique but I added seam allowances and used needleturn applique.

The pattern calls for small pieces of lots of different prints so it is a great user-upper of scraps and stash.  I enjoyed unleashing my inner fashionista to pick out the various dress prints!  And the only thing I had to buy for this quilt was thread to match the fabrics for the applique.  I even had a piece of batting on hand.

What's next?

 

Say YES To The Dress

I moved my Pretty Dresses quilt off the back burner and am focused on finishing the quilting.  I'm doing this one by hand, so naturally it takes some time.  However, I think it's time I finished up.  I started work on this quilt in January, 2012, and began tackling the quilting last summer while watching the Olympics on TV. 

I quilted some definition into the dresses and cross-hatched the background, which makes the dress pop off the background. 

 

I'm working on the border now and am about one-third of the way around.  I had a stencil for this spiral design that both fit the border width and fit with the design (sort of thread unwinding from a spool - well, if you imagine it really hard!). 

 

I still need to decide what to quilt in the sashing.  I'm looking forward to having this one finished and up on the wall in my sewing room.

 

 

The Olympics and Hand Quilting - Perfect Together!

Ordinarily, I am not much of a sports fan.  But that changes in an Olympic year.  My favorite events are swimming and gymnastics, but I can become absorbed in just about any event.  And how about the Opening Ceremony!  James Bond and the Queen parachuting into the stadium was the highlight for me, but I also enjoyed the athletes parading in and the ceremony of lighting the torch. 

I am currently glued to the tube but watching the sporting events of the Olympic Games on TV is the perfect time to do some hand quilting. 

This is my version of Pretty Dresses (note to self:  must come up with better name).  I am quilting a grid in the background behind each dress manniquin and I use blue painters tape instead of marking the quilting lines.  Here's a finished block up close.

With three weeks of TV watching, I just might be able to finish quilting this wall hanging.

Quilt As Desired

Those famous last words in the pattern instructions, "Quilt as desired."  Well, I'm at that point on my Pretty Dresses wall hanging.

I got the borders on last week.  Then I planned out the hand quilting.  I'm making use of a stencil I had on hand for the border.  Sewline mechanical pencils are my tool of choice for marking for quilting.  The lead is very visible and they stay sharp, so much more convenient than marking pencils you have to sharpen.

I started by putting a few curved lines of quilting stitches in each skirt.  Next, a grid of straight lines in the background behind each dress.  Instead of marking the grid, I'm using 3/4" wide painters tape (masking tape works too).  I stick a strip down and quilt along the edge, then move the tape over, stitch again, and so on (and so on, and on, and on - it will take a long time!).

This is the center block.  The quilting in the background makes the dress pop.  When I took the photo, I'd finished one set of diagonal lines and had just started the set in the opposite direction.  But I've finished that block now.  Just eight more to go.  I'm not sure what I'll do in the sashing but I am thinking some kind of curved or wavy line. 

And while I quilt, I am mentally planning my next project.