Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Apple Core Quilt Top......18 Rows Done


Progress Report:

Apple Core Quilt Top


Click Images to Enlarge:


18 Rows Done

80 x 60 inches so far...

I started this Apple Core Quilt top a year ago.





It takes 12 hours to complete a row...

Cutting time, marking seam lines, piecing the row, then adding the row to the quilt top.

216 Hours so far...




This is my Take-A-Long Quilt

I only work on this when we are traveling down the road at 55 mph




Piecing while traveling is "Found Time"

I never would have pieced this at home by machine, but traveling in a car with lots of time on my hands......this is perfect!

Today I assembled 10 more rows to sew...
Luckily we are traveling next week.....yeah~!

CLICK HERE to view Tutorial

CLICK HERE:  to see My Quilts


CLICK HERE to view Grandmothers Flower Garden Quilt

CLICK HERE to view Clam Shell Quilt

CLICK HERE to view Winding Ways


May Your Bobbin Always Be Full,
LuAnn

Raffle Quilted.....Basted


Mondays I spend with my local quilt guild.

I packed up the Raffle Quilt top and brought it with me...


Click Images to Enlarge:


Spray Basting is my preferred method of basting





If you have never spray basted, start small with a small wall quilt, work your way up to a baby quilt, etc.
You get better with practice...





The weather was just perfect for spray basting...
Warm and No Breeze

My sister helped me get this basted.
It took us maybe 20 minutes.





Raffle Quilt Basted

I am ready to get this under the needle...

CLICK HERE:  to see My Quilts


CLICK HERE to see the previous post on this Raffle Quilt

CLICK HERE to view The Harlan Valley Quilters Blog

CLICK HERE to view The Mary's River Quilt Guild Blog


May Your Bobbin Always Be Full,
LuAnn

Sunday, September 26, 2010

Raffle Quilt.... Stitching Applique


Today I am stitching down the applique on the Raffle Quilt


Click Images to Enlarge:


I don't use a heavy satin stitch around the raw edges.
I prefer a small zig zag that doesn't draw too much attention to itself.





I match the thread color to the applique shapes.
It blends in...
That is the look I am going for here.

I am using YLI Variations Polyester Thread.
It has a nice sheen to it.




My favorite zig zag stitch for applique is:
Zig Zag Width.....3
Stitch Length.....1
It creates a tiny little zig zag big enough to catch the edges of the applique, but not too big and bulky.
It lays flat and nice.





When you zig zag, the needle should fall into the background fabric when it goes over to the right.

I also prefer an open-toe foot to allow better visibility as I follow along the edge of the applique shape.

The Steam A Seam Lite 2 Fusible Web acts as a stabilizer, the fabric doesn't pucker from all of the applique stitching.




Keep your Needle in the DOWN position
(if you have this option on your machine)





Every time I stop stitching, the needle is in the DOWN position.
This keeps the quilt in place and doesn't allow it to move.

If you don't have an Up/Down option, just hand crank your needle down into the quilt to keep it from shifting around when you stop.





I put on the movie, "How to Make an American Quilt" and the time just flew by while I stitched the applique down.....even the tedious center of this pink flower.




After 7 hours of stitching, all the the applique' work is complete.

Tomorrow I will baste the quilt sandwich together and audition some quilting threads.

Until then...

CLICK HERE:  to see My Quilts


CLICK HERE to see the previous post on this Quilt

CLICK HERE to view the Vintage Beauty Raffle Quilt

CLICK HERE to view the Gummi Dots Raffle Quilt


May Your Bobbin Always Be Full of Raffle Quilts,
LuAnn

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Metal Leaves on Quilt...


This is where we left off on Wednesday...


The Tree and Leaves are painted.
We are now ready to get this basted into a quilt sandwich.





505 Spray

At this point, the quilt is 20 x 30 inches.
Some basting spray will hold all the layers together securely during the quilting process.





Scissors work nicely to cut out the leaf shapes embossed on the sheet of metal.

You can click the images twice to zoom in closer.




Before I begin the quilting process...
I cut out a few leaves to see how they look on the tree with the painted leaves.
I think this is turning out like I envisioned it.





Auditioning Threads

I decided to choose threads that would blend with the painted fabric.
I don't want to cover up all of that beautiful sun dyeing with threads that demand too much attention.





I chose the green variegated thread to outline the tree and leaves.





The Yellow Variegated thread will work for the center section.

These are YLI Variations Polyester Threads
They have a subtle variation of color, which I prefer.





The yellow thread is adding lots of texture, but is not covering up the sun dyed fabric.





The Pink Variations thread is also working great.





I decided the Purple thread was a bit too dark for the purple section of the quilt.
I chose the Blue thread for this area.





All of the quilting has been completed...





Trimming off the excess
Nearly all quilts benefit from being trimmed down a bit.





Need to cut out more leaves and get them positioned on the quilt to be stitched down later.





A glue stick kept the leaves in place until I was able to stitch them onto the quilt.





The needle stitched through the metal leaves like butter.

Feed Dogs down and free motion quilting foot.





I anchored the stitches at the beginning and end of each leaf.





Leaves stitched in place





Name Plate
I embossed my name & date on a piece of scrap metal, cut it out and button hole stitched it onto the front side of the quilt.

A rotary cutter worked easily to cut the name plate to size.




At this point I am undecided on an edge treatment.
Not certain if I need a binding, or perhaps just a facing.
I also may add a few leaves that have blown off the tree.

For now, I will take this to class today as a sample for the students.

CLICK HERE to see the previous post on this quilt.


CLICK HERE:  to see My Quilts


CLICK HERE to view Gel Glue Resist

CLICK HERE to view Fabric Paper

CLICK HERE to view Feathered Star


May Your Bobbin Always Be Full of Metal,
LuAnn