Panel Quilting

 I love it when a concept in my head actually turns out better than expected and there are days when this seems to be the exception rather than the rule. I have been browsing around to find ideas for how to include a large panel in a quilt and just haven't come up with any really great ideas. The panel I've been saving is not so much pricey, it's the fabrics I'm putting with it that are so I don't want to mess it up. Along comes another panel, bought at a thrift store, that gave me the push I needed to actually dream up panel quilt ideas of my own.

While browsing one of my favorite thrift stores, I spied a panel that said something I wanted to keep:

Center panel with 1 Corinthians 13:4-8

There were about eight of them and even though I was tempted to buy more, reason kicked in and I went out the door with only one. Showing it off to friends later I noticed it wasn't cut even on one side and that was going to be a problem so I went back the same day and traded it out for a better one. It didn't languish long when I got out block patterns and tried out various color combinations, as you can see from the block next to the panel above. Here's a close up of my experimentation:

Color combinations

The white or cream background was nice but just too washed out. When I tried a print as the main color you can see that it's so busy you cannot see the pattern.  Since I was using a 10" layer cake stack of fabrics (the colors were really great with the panel colors), I went with one of the dominant colors for a turquoise main color with the others as supporting fabrics. There was too much red/pink to my liking so my husband suggested I try more yellow. I had to look in my stash of fabrics to find a few more that would coordinate well but in the end that was what worked.

Mock up for borders

With my daughters' help in color coordinating, I added the blue and brown inner borders but when it was done it just didn't look complete so she suggested another brown border and that was exactly what was needed. I found a brown print in my stash that would work for the backing and I was on a roll. Deciding how to quilt the various areas was really fun with an outline of the large botanical elements on the panel, outline the word "love", free motion designs on the blue and brown borders, but what about those big 12" blocks? I moved to a walking foot and stitched in the ditch on one side of each V pattern. With only twenty blocks it wasn't too tedious even if I did have to take out stitching once in awhile due to puckering on the backing. Once I got to the final border I got excited to mimic the straight diagonal lines of the blocks by making a diamond grid along the final edge. There was even enough brown fabric left to bind the whole thing! I love it when I don't have to buy anything new and for this 76" square project I only had to purchase the turquoise solid. Here's the quilt I took to First Quilter's to show off as well as get some advice:

Almost done!

I shared with them how I wanted to add stitches in the panel area so it would wash well and not bunch up and I got two suggestions. I added an outline of a dove in the center of the words and also added some flourishes around the lines of text where needed. It worked out  with no spaces larger than the 8" required for spacing by the batting manufacturer. 

Which machine did I use? For this project I started on a Janome Skyline 3 that was wonderful for piecing but when it came time for the free motion sewing the Janome didn't have feed dogs that dropped so I moved to a Bernina Artista 200. While that was great for free motion, when I needed to use a walking foot I moved to the Elna Quilting Queen 7300 with its built in walking foot. I love all three machines but think the Janome is going to be listed for sale and the Bernina was only bought so I could learn the embroidery system. More about those things later because we are off camping again to give me a bit of relief from sewing. 

We do have some sad news: our beloved cat, Meg, was finally put down a couple weeks ago, just shy of her 19th birthday. She was my sewing companion many times sitting on the back of the chair seat with me, trying to vie for my attention. Here's a final photo of the quilt and one of our Meg. May this quilt give someone joy as Meg did for us.

Grand finale

Meg, our quilting cat

She's Not Blue

Today is the day I've been waiting for: the quilt I made for my sister Sue is being delivered. This quilt was truly a labor of love: love for my sister and love for quilting. Last spring, during shut down, I made a quilt for my sister Mindy. It wasn't a big plan, just a bundle of quilting fabrics I bought from a quilting friend for $3 that I managed to put together into a pleasing pattern. I liked it, quilted it with her name in it, and sent it off. It was more of a whim than anything but this time I wanted to make a quilt that was more of a custom order, just what the recipient would want. 

Finding a bundle of blue quilt fabric at the Goodwill Outlet (I always seem to find these great bargains), I brought them home, washed, and set them aside while I contemplated their use. Over time I finally thought about Sue's love of the color blue so maybe I would make her a blue quilt. Checking out quilt patterns, I fell in love with Triple Barnstar quilt pattern by Amy Gibson

and thought it fit with my sisters decor also. I sent her a photo of the pattern and a stack of fabrics to see how she liked them and if she would like a quilt like this. It was an enthusiastic YES so I got started. The cutting and piecing went together very fast, maybe due to the rather large size of the pieces, and I used my Singer 66 Red Eye treadle for the piecing. I can't explain why but I like to piece on the treadle!

Spread out on the bed: looking good

This photo was before sewing it together and it seemed okay; I sent this photo to my quilting daughter, Kelly, and she also liked it. Here it is spread out on the porch floor

In full view, top pieced and sewn together.

I shared this photo with several people and all were fine with it. I added the row of four stars at the top and bottom so it was bigger and better able to fit on a queen sized bed, the requested size. By now I hope you have found the flaw in my assembly. Take a good look at the corners: the two on the right are facing out (correct) and the two on the left are not. Of course, I didn't discover this until I was way too far into the free motion quilting to make the change. I guess this just shows how "unique" this quilt really is!

Next up was the quilting and I spent many hours trying to figure out what to quilt where. After learning more from online quilting sessions, I wanted to highlight the white spaces and let the blue fabrics have a supporting role. Once I figured out what to quilt where on a quarter of the quilt, it was easy to repeat the patterns on the next quarter and the next until I was all done. It has a star theme:

Large white spaces with stars and fill

This gets difficult to describe but I made three star templates that I then used to trace out the stars and then use a fill of meandering loops. Some spaces have scallops in large or small proportions, there are other sections that have been divided into quarters for looped lines. Well, you get the idea. I loved how the final wide white border turned out with packed leaves and it was fun to do, too.

Wide border before binding

Which sewing machine did I use? It's a new-to-me Elna Quilting Queen 7300 that I just picked up in the last month and is she a beauty!

Elna Quilting Queen 7300

I knew it would be a good machine and it was a very good deal but I didn't know I was going to use it for this quilt but it has some very perfect features. The free motion was made so much easier, I love the thread cutting (it's better than my Viking Designer 1), bobbin winding was super easy, the presser foot can pull way up and lock in place to get the bulk of the quilt under the foot, it came with a large table to help support the weight of the quilt, and it was just fun! I did have to watch my tension and when I forgot I ended up taking out three sections and quilting them again. It could be my new main machine but we shall see. Much to my surprise, it also has a built in walking foot that I used for the binding:

Walking foot on Elna 7300

It was just like the Pfaff IDT where it pulls down from the back of the presser foot and locks in place. I'm using it now for a chenille quilt and it's just perfect, keeping the fabric from sliding out of alignment. Finally, I made up a label using a Singer Quantum XL400 embroidery machine:

Label on the back corner

I took the quilt to church and my daughter's house for better chance on getting the whole quilt into a photograph so here's the final result:

Triple Barnstar in blue with added stars

It's out for delivery today and I can't wait until she gets it because she knows how much labor is involved and how much I love her. The flaws and errors? It just shows that it wasn't made on a machine but was quilted at home just for her. 

UPDATE:

Sue got her package on Wednesday so we had a long phone conversation at night: she loves it! Just so you can see it in her home, here is a photo she sent:

Triple Barnstar in blue for Sue

Free Motion Quilting...on a treadle

 At the last in-person River Rats TOGA, September 2019, I picked up a variety of quilting projects that were UFO's. That's right, they were UnFinished Objects and I love to take something someone else gave up on the bring it to completion. That might mean a different ending than the original maker planned on but, hey, they gave up on it so now it's my turn. 

Original pattern: Thimbleberries Countyside Wreaths

I had a wonderful time finishing up a red and brown quilt that had fade marks due to exposure to the sun. It meant I needed to remake a few of the blocks and then finish a few more for a grand total of 16 blocks plus sashing and borders.

Assembled blocks with sashing

Top of quilt complete with borders

Since this quilt was started with either a treadle or hand crank sewing machine, I felt obligated to continue it with a similar machine so I finished this up with my treadle, a Singer 66 Red Eye in a parlor cabinet. Now that it was read to quilt it together with batting and a backing, I realised I wasn't ready to use my treadle for free motion quilting. Maybe I could use a walking foot but, no, that wasn't going to work either because my machine was a back clamping model. Helen Howes has a nice explanation of this phenomenon and a whole page of back clamping feet. There is no darning or free motion foot nor a walking foot as an attachment for my Singer 66. I tried bare needle but that was a disaster so I had to set it aside until I either gained the skills I needed or found a different way to do this.

Several quilts later, I have more skill with free motion but it was a session at the Virtual River Rats TOGA in September where we could watch and learn how to quilt better with a treadle. It gave me the confidence to try again but this time I came prepared. I traded out my Red Eye for a much plainer Singer 66 that had a side clamp for a standard darning foot plus I now use gripper gloves and a super slider. Here's how I set this all up:

First, I needed to cover the feed dogs since they didn't drop. I already had a plate for this model so I slid it into place:

Feed dogs "cap" and clear plastic free motion presser foot

Next, I added a smoother surface so the fabric can glide better. I bought an oven mat that is a somewhat thin sheet that I could tape into place:

Mat taped in place plus additional light

Now I was ready to try this out. It worked! I decided to fill in the stars with straight lines so tried it with a walking foot as well as free motion and FM won hands down. Why? With FM you move the quilt but you can go backwards and on an angle, too. Using a walking foot you need to stop and turn the quilt for each line since you can only move forward and that's just too difficult. After I finished the stars I didn't know what to do with the other parts so I set it aside again but only for a couple weeks. By then I had finished Michelle's quilt and had more ideas of what pattern or design to quilt where. The first border had a version of triangles, sashing has X's that could look like diamonds, and the outer border got a diamond treatment using tape.

Detail of quilting pattern

The tape idea came from the book One Line at a Time Encore by Charlotte Warr Andersen. Using her concept but modifying it so I could use the same four pieces of tape on each side, here's how it looked:

Step 1: set up tape for 4 rows of stitches

I laid down four pieces of inch wide painters blue tape side by side. Starting in the corner, even with the red border, I marked the tape in two inch increments, drawing a line across all four pieces of tape. Then I removed the second one from the right

Step 2: first row of stitches in the second lane

and stitched from one side to the next in a long zigzag pattern at the two inch marks. Next, I removed the strip between where I just stitched and the red border. I made the same direction stitches to "ghost" this pattern:

Step 3: second row of stitches in the first lane

I tried to move the tape over to cover the row of stitches just made but then I couldn't see the exact point where I had stitched. Remember, this is on a treadle and I'm still working on getting it to stop exactly where I want! For the last two rows I reversed the design by removing the third piece of tape

Step 4: third row of stitches in mirror image mode

and stitching the opposite points. Where I had moved left to right I now went right to left for a diamond shape. The above photo shows the fourth piece of tape removed but I left it in place while stitching. The final row was identical to the third row for a finished look:

Step 5: last row of stitches just like third row

I liked this concept, although they stitched right through the tape and then even managed to reuse it. This worked for me and gave me much needed practice in slow treadling and free motion control.

The binding was added and now it is DONE. I cannot say I made this whole quilt on a treadle sewing machine because someone else constructed most of the blocks, but I did finish it on a treadle and even learned to free motion quilt on a treadle. Important take aways: use grippy gloves (can use gardening gloves that are sometimes dipped in a silicone-like substance), lay down a surface that helps your quilt to slide better, try different machines to find one that can use a darning/free motion foot.  It also helped to use books to get ideas on how you can make the process work better and for ideas on designs to use.

I have ideas for about four more quilts but I think I should put them on hold while I sew some other items in my pile of projects, including getting machines ready for sale. The Phoenix 283 is almost ready! Here's a view of the red/brown star quilt finished:

One version of Countryside Wreaths by Thimbleberries

Girlfriends

 I enjoy a wide variety of friends: neighbors, work, church, sewing, quilting, crafting, friends of friends. This week it was my turn to reach out to a friend who needed a hug (but we can't do that right now). 

Michelle had a great idea a year ago: why not have quilts on the back of the pews at church? It would give a warm and welcoming look to the sanctuary as well as a colorful and cozy touch. It sounded nice but was something we were not going to be able to do. Where would the quilts come from? Who was going to wash them every week? It was just too impractical but was still a great idea. Thank you, Michelle, and now you can sit down. This plea made me think about what was behind it and I could understand what Michelle was after, a feeling of warmth and welcoming that goes beyond words. So in the weeks after we rejected her idea, I asked Michelle if I could make a quilt for her and showed her some patterns and a few samples of fabric. She looked at all of the pretty colors and patterns and got real quiet, pointing to one pattern but had a deer-in-the-headlights look. Sometimes offers like this seem overwhelming so I figured I would ask later when she had a chance to think about it.

Along comes a pandemic where we are all stuck at home and unable to get out and do the things we normally do, at least in the usual ways. Michelle and her quilt kept calling to me so I got out a stash of colorful fat quarters and the pattern she liked and got some blocks made up:

Blocks light to dark

Each block was made up of a pair of fat quarters, making one the opposite of the other.  The pattern said to label the lighter colored block A and the reverse darker block in the sets B then arrange them by laying them out ABABAB. I tried it but it was too random so I tried lighter blocks at the top and working down to darker blocks as you can see in the photo above. That didn't seems to resonate with me either so I put them in sets by color:

Blocks in color sets of four

This was a better idea but now I needed more blocks, from 42 to 48, yet I could now balance out colors with the final six blocks. Without sashing, how should I quilt this together? Oh, did I have fun.  On the verticals I used variegated purple thread making loops and long curves. On the horizontals I used white thread and wrote Bible verses about hope and faith: you have to look really hard to see them! Finally, in the center of each block is a great big space where I made a large eight petaled flower

Free motion quilting of center flower, purple curves, and words

When first starting you have to keep from telling yourself  "that's 48 flowers!" but just to dive in and keep sewing. When it was all done I remembered to make up a label and had one downloaded in my machine embroidery files. It wasn't exactly a label but  a design I could use for one:

"To Michelle In the quilt of life friends are the stitches that hold it together. Karen November 2020"

Once I had the Singer Futura XL 400 out to play I made up a sewing machine cover out of some fabric I ordered from Spoonflower, using solid colored fabric for the embroidered side panels:

And I want one of those, and this one, and where's the pink model?

End panel

End panel using downloaded embroidery file

Didn't that turn out way too cute? I've had the fabric for several years and finally put the ideas together for something I will find joy in using and just looking at.

Quilt finished and ready for Michelle, I arranged to meet her at church where she was working in a children's program. It definitely took her by surprise but she loved it. We agreed the idea of quilts on pews sounded nice but was never going to fly with a pandemic! Although this was one of the quickest quilts I have made, it was about the most rewarding. Here's one final photo of the finished quilt:

Finished quilt for Michelle

Even during a pandemic we can find ways to hug each other. Feel the love!

The Girl Next Door

 Winter is here in the frozen north, even if they think we might have a few 50 degree days ahead. The snow pack is very real and now we hunker down and get sewing! I need to get a few more sewing machines listed for sale so everyone has a greater choice of models but I've been sewing and quilting and even with retirement there are only 24 hours in a day.

Back when I had 3-4 cabinet sewing machines in the garage, I sold a Singer 15-125 and received a Singer 66 as part of the deal. Why was it going out the door? It just wasn't used anymore and the table had a few dings in it. I finally got around to checking it out when we had a whole week of warm weather

Singer 66 table top

only to find a large chip on the front and a nifty piece missing on the top surface.  Above you can see the general flaking of the finish so it was going to need a complete stripping of the finish. I rarely deal with veneer problems but this one begged to be fixed:

Chip

 

A close up shows the degree of damage. Using a piece of the veneer from the front I cut and pieced it in:

Veneer glued down

It doesn't look too great at this point but when wood filler and stain were added it ended up looking pretty normal

Finished top

With a chunk of the veneer missing from the front, I chipped it all off, sanded it down and left it lighter than the original finish for a completely new look:

Two tone finish

What about the machine inside? It's a beauty, a classic Singer 66 in excellent shape:

Classic Singer 66 in her refinished table

I love a Singer 66, so basic yet so reliable. I think of it as "the boy or girl next door" who is always there and smiling, underappreciated, until someone realizes the beauty within:

Singer 66: where's that chipped piece?

Quilting has been taking up my time as I've been working on a quilt for a friend. It was an easy pattern and quick to put together:

Pieced blocks in one arrangement

Above is one version of the arrangement of blocks but I found I needed to even things out so instead of 42 blocks I ended up with 48 blocks. Right now I'm quilting it with various free motion patterns and writing. When it is all done I'll show you some of the features of this one but, for now, it needs to remain a bit hidden. A nifty surprise was finding 109" wide fabric for backing at Hobby Lobby. I only needed around 2 yards, it wasn't on sale so I could use my 40% off coupon for a real deal of only $15 for the backing. Saving my judgement until after washing, it came through the laundry just fine but did shrink. I'll need to buy a little extra next time. 

I better get those machines ready for sale because the weather calls for sewing, sewing, sewing!

Let's Makea Deal: trade offs

 Here we are in the third week of October and are in the midst of our third snowfall. Seriously. Like inches of snow, on the ground, not melting. I say it's the perfect time of the year to get quilting! I just finished up a quilt that took way to long to finish but here it is:

Quilt top

This was a conglomeration of partially finished blocks of my aunt's and ones I made up so  now all those little hexagon scraps of fabric are gone and done with. I love the blues and greens but it turned out a bit too green for my taste but isn't that part of the learning process? Not having enough fabric for the backing, I managed to piece fabrics together to make it look like it was in my design plan:

Quilt back

I liked the pieced border on the back so much I decided to use the same idea for the binding. Actually, I wanted to make the binding in navy pindot but I didn't have enough fabric so this was my next best idea. Here's a closeup of the free motion quilting:

Close up of the free motion work

Which sewing machine did I use? The Singer 1200 was so much fun to use that I just kept stitching until it sold. Yup, even the favorites get sold over here but it was quite the deal.

Gary really wanted the 1200 but was having trouble with the cost so he proposed a deal: part cash, part sewing machines. At first I said no but then I got to thinking and running the numbers in my head and decided I would be ahead if I took his deal. Here's what I got:

Necchi Nora

Singer 503A

Singer CG590

Pretty awesome, right? The Necchi Nora is the cream of the crop, in excellent condition, runs well, but came with no accessories. I thought I might have a set of cams but I only have cams for the Necchi Supernova. I hope I can be patient until I find some. 

Next up is a Singer 503 complete with accessories and print manual. Great condition, sews well, only missing the carrying case, but will still sell. Right now I also have the Singer 500A, the fully loaded version called the Rocketeer.  With both models I can list one and probably sell both. I'm not a huge fan of the Rocketeer, preferring the Singer 401 as the real classic.

The final part of the deal is a Singer CG590, their answer to home heavy duty sewing machines. I had a similar one a few years ago and had to admit it did sew heavy stuff as well as two layers of cotton. Dropping the feed dogs, I used it to finish up the free motion part on the above quilt and it worked well  but seemed loud and created an unpleasant sewing experience. It also came with accessories and is ready to go out the door. All told, when these three sell it will add up to more than the cash value of the Singer 1200 plus they are all ready to sell. I hope Gary is as happy with his machine as I am with the deal we made.

I've been practicing free motion quilting with my treadle and decided I needed to trade out machines. My back clamping Singer 66 Red Eye just would not work unless I used a spring type presser foot but they don't seem to come in any back clamping feet style. Instead, I put a more modern side clamping foot Singer 66 head into the cabinet and used a free motion foot. I did get the hang of it but now need to keep practicing. There's another quilt all put together that needs to be quilted and I'm determined to use my new skills on this quilt.

Snow or no snow, what are you thinking about sewing?