Hubby's Monopoly Quilt

Hubby's birthday was yesterday and I made him his own quilt. I wanted something masculine looking, or at least not floral, and I saw this monopoly fabric and just had to buy it. Since he loves our doxie I made the center block out of dachshund fabric I had picked up in Harrisburg a few years back. Since I did not want him to see it I actually quilted it at work on the Pfaff sit down quilter. It went pretty fast but I also decided to use a template ruler for the border and that did not turn out too well. Apparently one needs to practice with those rulers for awhile - anyhoo my hubby does not seem to notice my irregular quilting on the borders!

 

 

 

Happy New Year and Finally Those Christmas Gifts

I absolutely love Christmas! One of my favorite things is giving gifts that I have made. I have not been able to post about them lest the recipients were reading the blog. So here is what I made this year.

The first gift that I finished was a Charlie Brown Christmas quilt (twin size) for my oldest son.  He loves Charlie Brown and while I was in Annapolis at a quilt shop back in August, I saw a sample and just had to make this quilt. It was a big hit and he was wrapped in it all Christmas Eve.  I finished early in October which allowed me to start the rest of my gifts.  I also made a table runner from my extra fabric.

 

I made numerous runners from several different patterns. The first was from a French Braid pattern and I did some embroidery with the embroidery machine to quilt it.  I love Batiks and love the color of these. The colors reminded me of my daughter-in-law so this was made for her dining room.
 

 

 

 

 

I also did some 'quilt as you go' runners, actually quite a few.  This first one is made with fabric from a quilt shop in Morgantown, W.V.  I went there to visit my aunt and using my iPhone app Quilt Shops, was able to  locate a nearby shop.  It was a great store and I thought these fabrics would make a great runner for my sister-in-law. 

 

 

My daughter needed Christmas pillow covers so I made her 2 from my Christmas fabric scraps (actually I used alot of my best friend's scraps as mine were not enough) plus a table runner just as an added surprise.  She was happy with all the items when I visited her in mid December.  While I visited with her in Baltimore, we went to G Street fabrics and she helped me pick out a few fabrics.  I then went home and made her a table runner out of the fabrics she helped me choose and surprised her on Christmas day with the runner. I made it with small tumbler ruler and am pretty happy with the result.  I think I will buy the large tumbler template now.  She couldn't believe I had time to make it for her.

 

 

 

 

So for now, just a few more of the runners.  The Zig Zag runner was fun to make and went together easily.  I think the next time I make it, I will try to do the 'quilt as you go' method.

 

 

 

 

 

I made a few embroidered towels too.  I found that a nice hostess gift is a personalized tea towel.  I use the linen like towels from Pat Cattan's because they launder pretty nicely.  They also do not need a topper.  For my hand towels I use Apt 9 towels from Kohls and they definitely need a topper when embroidering.

 

 



 

 

 

 

 

That is all for show and tell for now.  have a good New Years Day!! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Basting a Quilt with a Microstitch Gun

In the past I have made quilts using the 'quilt as you go' method and thus never had the issue of how to hold the quilt top, batting and backing together while quilting the item.  But I have started to quilt the conventional way of piecing the top first and then quilting the backing and batting after it has been sandwiched.  In my first item the  Pumpkin Runner I used adhesive spray to hold the layers together and then free motion quilted it without any problems. However I next had a twin size quilt and a long runner to quilt and did not think that the spray basting was a good solution.  I knew I was not going to hand baste them and really did not think I wanted to pin baste either.  So I started asking other quilters what they do and an employee at my local quilt shop suggested gun basting.  I bought the Microstitch gun shown above on Amazon.com for around $20 and it came with 1200 plastic tacks.

The premise of the gun is that you place the needle through all layers, squeeze the handle and it puts a plastic tack in the hole that holds the pieces together.  One has to hold the item off the surface so that the tack can have space to go through the 3 layers.  Thus you have to hold the bottom layer up with your hand but this could have the potential of sticking your fingers with the needle and tack.  So my hubby had a 2' X 4' ceiling light grid that I employed to keep my quilt up off the surface of my rotary mat. First I laid my mat on my cutting table and then hung the center of my runner over the center of the table with the sides hanging over.  This allowed me to smooth all layers; backing right side down, batting and top right side up.

 

Once my runner was sandwiched and stretched I slipped the lighting grid on top of the rotary mat and under the runner layers.  I then smoothed out all the layers again. As you can see below, this allows the item to be easily stretched over the grid.

 

 

 

 

 

Now I could easily place the needle of the gun into the sandwich through a hole of the grid, allowing the tack to be placed appropriately without having the needle hit the mat below.  I placed my tacks about 3-4 inches apart and approximated the distance by laying my hand flat next to the tack that had been placed.

 

 

 

I used about 720 tacks for a twin sized quilt (about $3 worth) and 150 tacks for the runner shown above.  The tacks hold the quilt together well and I was able to free motion quilt without having the layers shift. Also I was able to sew right over the tacks without any problems. After my quilting was done, I sewed my binding on and then easily snipped the tacks from the backing side. It took about 1 and 1/2 hours to tack baste the twin quilt and 20 minutes to do the runner.  It took about the same time to remove the tacks. 

 

Thus far, I am a fan of gun basting a quilt.  I plan to use this method for any new quilting projects.

 

 



 

 

Free Motion Quilted Pumpkin Runner

 

 

As I referred to in an earlier post, http://juliannasjourney.blogspot.com/2012/08/pumpkin-runner.html, I have been practicing free motion quilting and am really getting better at it.  I want to FMQ 2 quilts by Christmas so I need to get better at it.  With this in mind, I quilted the Pumpkin Runner shown above.  I used different patterns on the background, pumpkins and border.  Hopefully you can see my designs in the following pics.  The different patterns really added alot of dimension to the runner.

 

 

I did a circular design in the center of the pumpkins and a 2 way design between them.  On the right I used a graded long parallel stitch which looks great on it, although it is hard to see in the picture.

 

 

On the border I used a paisley design that I saw on Leah Day's site  Paisley  and it did come out fairly well for my first try.

 

A few things that have helped me with FMQ are Little Genie Magic Bobbin Washers http://www.daystyledesigns.com/magicgeniewashers.htm, the teflon oven liner http://juliannasjourney.blogspot.com/2012/09/fmq-and-teflon-slider.html that I made a slider out of for my machine and quilting gloves.  Along with these items, I have practiced FMQ for 15 minutes a day for weeks.  But I must say what finally made it click was a comment that I read, unsure of where I read it, that compared drawing with a pencil; when you draw you move the pencil around the paper but when you free motion quilt, you move the fabric around the needle.  For whatever reason, this radically changed how I envisioned the patterns and I have become better at FMQ.

 



Pumpkin Runner

I got together with several friends and started a monthly sewing club.  Our first project is the pumpkin runner shown above Pumpkin Runner from Hoffman Fabrics.  It was intended to be made of batiks but we each went through our fabric stash to come up with our designs.  We were able to get most of the front constructed in our first session.  Next we will add the backing and batting and at the next session we will free motion quilt our runner.  The directions for this runner are vague for beginners but we figured it out.  The term 'snowballing' was new to us and so I found a tutorial on how to snowball http://quilting.about.com/od/quiltpatternsprojects/ss/snowbal_economy_4.htm which clearly explained it. The last part of constructing the runner was the mitered corners which proved to be the most difficult part but again, we figured it out.

Now we are all beginners at free motion quilting and it is truly an art in itself. There are many helpful videos on the Internet but the most comprehensive source is The Free Motion Quilting Project by Leah Day http://www.freemotionquilting.blogspot.com/.  FMQ takes hours of practice but I am quite intrigued by the beautiful results I see posted everywhere on the Internet so it has become an obsession to me to master it. 

So look forward to the posting of my finished product in the next few weeks.