Two quilts for exhibit

At the Monday Modern meeting this week we started planning our exhibit. This is very exciting except that the quilts need to be done in 2 months, about 6 weeks earlier than I thought. Our exhibit is in mid September but we need to submit the quilts at our August meeting. I understand the reason for this, but it's so soon.

I have progressed on my grey quilt and the flimsy is finished. Here's a peek.

My hexi bee blocks are now on the design wall with the (second) green solid that I have purchased. At first I thought this green was wrong too, but it's growing on me. I need to make a few more and cut some more solid hexis and some partial ones for the edges and then I'll be ready to start sewing.

Originally I planned a pattern that would allow me to avoid having to y-seam everything, but it was too busy looking. This layout is good but it will take me a while to piece them together. Usually I see this as the home stretch of the flimsy construction, but not this time.

My experimentation on the Swiftquilter continues. I signed up for Crafty's "Free Motion Quilting with Feathers" with Angela Walters. It's been really helpful, but no class can replace practice, practice, practice. Here's a sample feather and some surrounding doodling.

I will be moving my blog soon to sit under my business web site. Not much will change, only the location. Stay tuned for details.

Something grey

The Monday Modern Quilters are planning an exhibition in one of Auckland's historic houses. Part of this includes a small challenge quilt which is a modern interpretation of a traditional idea. I like to think that most of the quilts that I make 'from scratch' fall into this category, but maybe not. For some reason I have been struggling with this challenge. I have had lots of ideas, but I worry that they are not 'modern' enough. This is probably because some of my trademarks are not necessarily aligned with what some people think of as modern.

Last week, I decided to move forward without reservation. My first decision was about the colour selection. I have been enamoured by grey for a while now and decided it was time to pull all of my greys out and have a look through them. I was surprised how many I have collected. I debated adding a bit of colour, some chalky blue solids perhaps, but decided against that.

I'm keeping my overall design a bit of a secret for now, but am working on some of the sections of the quilt that I will share with you. So far, I've made a bunch of square in square blocks. I like the chevron designs that have magically appeared between the light squares when I sewed them into staggered rows.

The next part of the quilt requires about 300+ little rectangles which I am cutting out now. All of the pieces are quite small because the finished quilt is small (about 30"x45"). I tried to get them all cut out this weekend, but my new toy got in the way. I'm on my own next weekend, so no excuses.

A new toy to play with

On the weekend I picked up a new toy that I purchased on Trade Me (the NZ equivalent of eBay). For those of you that read about my experimentation with the borrowed Handi Quilter a month ago, you will know that I had some problems. So, I went looking for a better (I hope) solution.

This solution comprises a NZ made Swiftquilter frame, a Juki TL98 machine, and integrated handles and speed controls. You may be aware that I recently took over the agency for Juki domestic machines - the man who was the agent designed and manufactured the Swiftquilter as well. We may be adding it to our product line, so I wanted one to play with.

I enlisted my hubby to put it all together. This turned out to be quite straight forward. The frame goes together easily and sits on top of a trestle table. With the help of a spirit level and some bits of wood and cardboard, DH had it leveled and ready to go within 45 minutes (trestle tables and old floors are never straight).

I decided that it would be prudent to create a test quilt made up of a scrap of batting and some unbleached muslin (calico) that I had lying around. I also used 'any-old' thread (maybe not such a great idea - I had some breakages).

Loading the quilt layers is a little fiddly, but I had to remind myself that pin basting even a small quilt can be very time consuming and the results are rarely perfectly smooth. Once loaded, it was ready to go.

Having two sets of handles - one on each side of the machine - made it possible to stand on either side of the table. The controls can be used to switch on/off the machine or I can hold down a button to run it. There is also a speed setting on the controls. This means I don't have to use the foot pedal which was pretty tricky to do the last time I tried this.

The Juki TL98 is a domestic version of an industrial machine - it is heavy, fast, and only goes straight. An ideal machine for this application because FMQ is seriously hard on sewing machines. The speed is a bit daunting (it goes twice as fast as any normal domestic machine). At first I shied away from the speed, but after practicing for a few minutes I cranked it up and found that the stitches were much more even at higher speeds.

This setup, like any similar setup (including a 'true' longarm) does limit your quilting designs. I suspect that I will eventually sort out what works best and perhaps use a combination of the frame and my usual FMQ techniques to customise my quilting. It is obvious to me though, that if I want a repeated all-over design, this setup would allow me to do that in a fraction of the time it usually takes me.

One drawback - my living room is now a quilting studio. My daughter was away this weekend, but when she came back she complained that she could not hear Adventure Time on Cartoon Network over the machine. Heaven forbid she misses out on the intelligent commentary of Jake the dog!

Phone cover

A couple of weeks ago I bought a new phone. It's a fancy (and expensive) thing that I am just getting the hang of. I do know that I will need to change my data plan - it seems to jump onto the internet all of the time without asking permission.

After 3 days in my handbag, I realised that it would not last long without a cover. I thought I could just buy one, but since it is neither an iphone nor a Samsung Galaxy, that appeared to be out of the question. Making one seemed the only solution.

I debated a few designs including wrist straps and pockets for money. But, I decided on something simple - a little sleeping bag of sorts.

The fabric is one of the many woodland creature fabrics I picked up before Christmas for my advent calendar. The lining I had for some reason. I pulled a button from the button tin and the elastic was stolen from DD's drawer of hair accessories. It took less than an hour to make and I've had so many comments about it. I might end up making a bunch more - one to suit every mood.

What am I up to?

Somehow weeks have gone by without me noticing. Lots of excuses, but do you really want to know them all?

I have been busy - first, my husband and I have a new business as the agents for JUKI home sewing machines. Although they are the largest manufacturer of sewing machines in the world, they are mostly know for their industrial machines. Initially, we will be selling select models direct through quilt/craft shows and online. Watch this space.

Since my last post, I have rescued my string hearts quilt from the disastrous quilting experience that I had with the Handi Quilter. I have not given up on the idea of using this approach but this was just not the right setup for me (part of the new business will also include the SwiftQuilter - a NZ manufactured table-top frame).

I unpicked some quilting but eventually had to sacrifice a whole row and make more blocks. I had a couple others from the Block Lotto that I used on this row too.

I did the quilting using a combination of straight stitching around the hearts, free-motion flowers in the space between the hearts, and a last-minute addition of decorative stitching down the 'spine' of each heart (mainly to reduce puffiness).

The little quilt is sweet and looks lovely and crinkly out of the dryer. No plans for it - probably will end up on the growing pile in the living room now that the nights are getting colder.

A few months ago the Monday Modern Quilters had a challenge to make a cushion using some curves and using free-motion quilting. I resorted to pulling out my drunkards path templates and made blue polka-dots on a beige background.

The back of the cushion is a piece of fabric that my mother bought me (along with some others, including the binding fabric) that match my living room furniture.

I did quite a bit of quilting on this one and am pleased with the results. I decided to bind it like a quilt and I love the way it looks like piping. Surprisingly someone else in the group did the same thing (honest, it was just a coincidence). I'm hoping to do a few others in similar but different designs.

Trying something new

A couple of months ago one of the Monday Modern girls kindly donated a Handi Quilter frame to anyone who wanted to try it out. I picked it up this weekend thinking that I would give it a go - nobody else seemed interested. I watched the (long) setup instructional video that I found on YouTube. It was a bit daunting. The first thing I realised was that taping this thing to my French oak dining table was not an option, so went to the local hardware super store and purchased a reasonably-priced 6-foot trestle table and a few rolls of clear packing tape.

I had won 38 low-volume string heart blocks from Block Lotto in February. I figured I could piece together a small quilt using these blocks without a huge time investment and use it as my guinea pig project.

The initial setup was easy enough but did take a while. The worst thing was the slight numbness on my finger tips after sticking and unsticking packing tape to them (see Mythbusters 'Duct Tape Island' episode for an extreme case of this type of injury).

The loading of the quilt was a little fussy, but I managed this with the help of a spare pair of hands. I admit it was easier than the usual laying out of the sandwich and pin basting.

With my machine ready to go, I realised that my usual approach to quilting did not work with this method. Basically on a frame you must quilt in long, narrow strips. You can't start in one spot and then move to another like I'm used to when FMQ without a frame. At this point I knew that I had put it on heading in the wrong direction. But, I tried anyway to do a few passes. Lesson: you can only go from one end to another, no 'skipping' sections. So, I pulled it all off and unpicked all of the quilting I had done and started over.

I'll stop here to say that I am not against this approach to quilting. The learning curve for any new skill can be steep. But, my entire living room is dominated by this project, and it was not going well.

After taking a night off, I came back to it and reloaded the quilt facing the other way. It's a little quilt (36" x 54") but it takes the full width of the rack. I'd need 2 tables to do anything bed sized. I then discovered that I can only stitch up to 6" from the end pieces of the frame. So, I'm left with the two edges unreachable.

Moving on...I continue forward. Try a few things. Stop and unpick. Repeat. Unpick. Grr.....

Here's my problem right now: the machine moves quite freely without much resistance so controlling it is difficult. I find myself overshooting all of the time and a 'straight' line seems impossible. It's like using an etch and sketch - the machine moves horizontally and vertically and theoretically you can create any line by combining these, but it's hard.

Did I mention that I broke a needle somewhere in this process?

It was time to try another approach - I am in the process of taking over the Juki domestic sewing machine agency in New Zealand and now had access to another machine. This one with a much bigger opening to work with, so, I swapped machines. A better option, but it sure goes fast (scary fast).

I decided to sacrifice the first row of the quilt and just go at it.

My conclusions (with some male advice and analysis):

• You need some kind of hand control or a machine that you can turn on and off - trying to use the foot pedal is impossible.
• The bigger the space under your machine's arm, the better. Even one more inch makes a huge difference.
• Don't buy a cheap table with a plastic top, it is not smooth and even (also my 80-year old native timber floors don't help). I have read that people mount the frame on a flat hollow door and this can work well.
• Be right handed - I am not, and controlling the machine with my left hand while standing on the 'good' side of the machine was hard.

I have not given up, but will take a break from this approach to quilting until I can resolve some of the issues above. I have a solution for some already, but my left-handedness is not negotiable. I know it's strange to stand on the 'wrong' side, but I might give it a go.

Manwhile - to my lovely friends at Block Lotto - I will sadly be cutting off the row that I demolished with crappy quilting and will use the few blocks I have left and a few more that I will make to recreate a row. I will quilt it using my usual FMQ techniques (and this Juki machine). Stay tuned...

International quilting day

There was a rumour of rain this weekend. It's been so dry in Auckland this year and we are desperate for rain. A wet weekend is a quilting weekend, so I was hopeful about getting some things done.

This week I've spent some time on my Cotton Robin round robin second border. So far so good. But, it's hard to judge when working on a project for someone else - is less more or is more needed? That's about all I can say about that one.

Last night I picked up my butterfly hearts quilt again. After sewing the hearts on with a running stitch of embroidery floss, I decided that it was too delicate to hold up to wear & tear. I tried a machine zigzag around 2 of them, but the results aren't great. This could be my technique or maybe it's just not the right approach.

So, what now? Carry on? Take them off and try something else? Needle turn? Buttonhole? This one has been on hold for a while and I really want it done.

(...later the same day...)

I did a few more hearts with the zigzag and this is the way I will proceed. Sometimes, I have to compromise to get the job done and this is one of those times.

Today I went to a small quilt show put on by one of the local groups. I've been a few times over the years and admit that my taste is changing and this group is probably not producing work that I appreciate these days. So, I asked myself - how can I look at each piece and still appreciate elements of it without necessarily liking the whole thing? So, I broke each one down by colour, fabric, pattern, and quilting. I enjoyed this approach and it made the trip to the show worthwhile - working through each element systematically allowed me to filter out the elements that did not appeal and focus on those that did.

I've also been working on the Monday Modern curved cushion challenge. I did some FMQ on the background using some biscuit-coloured variegated thread I picked up at the show. I should have done the circles first, because there's some puffiness I'll need to deal with now. I just didn't know if the circles needed anything, so I left them. I've now decided that they do need something but don't know what yet.

More sewing on the cards tonight - Melbourne Formula 1 is on TV, so I'm steering clear!