Intense swirls & pebbles

It has been a nose-to-the-grindstone kind of month. Back to quilting the bed quilt. I want to finish and gift it before winter.

Swirls and pebbles à la Angela Walters

There's a reason for those gaps. Filling it completely with swirls and pebbles was so intense. Turning out lovely. But makes me want to tear out the quilting elsewhere.

Results may vary

I’m gearing up for major fmq by getting rid of the cobwebs around the hand-eye-sewing machine-fabric coordination. Just stitching samples, four inches squares. Just practice.

Here’re two samples based on an interesting pattern shown on Amy’s Free Motion Quilting Adventures. All straight lines. It’s a stitched version of a Twisted Log Cabin. She has a video showing how she did it.

same pattern, different results

The one on the left was stitched first. No rulers. And other than the perimeter square, no marking – spacing eyeballed. I did turn the square so I am stitching the line straight on from back to front. 

What if I don’t turn it? Thus the second sample on the right. Yeah, I could use more practice stitching in other directions. The lines aren’t as straight, the spacing is uneven, the resulting curve is rougher, and the center is off. 

It’s got wonky charm, doesn't it? 

Pause after battle

taming the bedquilt

Quilting this monster bedquilt was like doing battle: fierce fighting in the middle and a few skirmishes elsewhere.

I'd walking-footed along both sides of major seams and fmq'd in the ditch within each nine-patch triangular block. As Cindy Needham says, stitch E-S-S (every stinking seam).

laid out on my bed for inspection

I've learned . . .

• the open toe walking foot lets me see enough for straighter and truer stitches;

• using the fmq foot is like driving a sports car instead of a moving van; and

• when restarting, take a stitch in place and relax the finger hold so that the first stitch is not tugged awry. 

wool batting puffs up each triangle

Quilting is on pause as I contemplate motifs: may leave the printed triangles as is, and add feathers and swirls in the larger solid areas. 

FMQ inspiration & evolution

Love the patterning on this building spied in an architectural magazine:

rendering of expansion to Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg proposed by Dominique Perrault

Inspired, I stitched these samples as a warm-up for fmq:

pattern evolution from straight lines to s-curves

I find curves much easier than straight lines. Is it that way for you too?

Temptation

Can't believe it is December. Where did the year go?

The Janome 6600 went in for service before Thanksgiving. Just as I was about to pull out my backup machine, the shop called to say it's ready. Great timing!

Not only does the shop provide excellent service, they also sell new machines and sewing & quilting supplies. I test drove two new machines with wider 11" throats - new Janome Horizon MC8200 and a Bernina (sorry didn't note the model). The Janome fmq'd more smoothly.

Tempting as the new machine was, I came home with my 6600. I can't really justify a new machine. Yet. Might change my mind after wrestling with the next quilt beast. In the meantime I'll finish the year with my fmq quest: samples and smaller ufos. Quest to continue in 2013 with larger works.

Meanwhile, Three 1 and Three 2 are part of the Alameda County Arts Commission Exhibition at the Alameda County Administration Building, 1221 Oak St., Oakland, CA. It opens today and runs until 2/21/2013.

Quilt as desired

Are you someone who can be ready for a trip at the drop of a hat? Then return home and jump right back into your routine without much jet lag? I am envious because that's certainly not true for me. Out of state trips always knocks me out for a week.

This two-week trip was wonderful despite a couple of hiccups. I re-connected with a long time (not old) good friend near Detroit. Together we took a short trip to Toronto. Then I'm at the Crow Timber Barn for a workshop - Machine Quilting: Inspiration, Design, Critique with Sandra Ciolino. I'll save the hiccups for another time and get down to what you really want to know about - the workshop.

iso right thread color & weight for Golden Sol

Sandy, our fearless leader (she prefers facilitator), not only quilts beautifully, she's a great teacher! Communicative, structured, generous, caring, attentive, open, non-threatening, organized and more. The qualities you wished all your teachers had. She deserves lots of credit for setting up an environment for everyone to thrive. What a difference five days made!

We were a small group of seven with not a bad apple in the bunch! Couldn't ask for a better group of people!

Machine quilting wise, each of us started in a different place - from little to some experience. But that was okay. Sandy gave each individual plenty of attention and guidance from wherever we were. Nudged and nursed us along until we were quilting with confidence.

We were also diverse stylistically. I expected more Nancy Crow students since it was at the Barn. Instead three had never taken any workshop with her and two had taken only one workshop. So we had a diverse range of quilt tops to critique.

The critiques were a fabulous learning experience. These were not a show-and-tell what's-good-what's-not likes-dislikes kind of free-for-all. Sandy provided a timed 5-step structure adapted and revised from Art + Quilt: Design Principles and Creativity Exercises by Lyric Kinard. Of course everyone wanted to know how to quilt their tops - our reason for being there.

The critique structure really worked and we really got into the swing of it. Sandy even joked she'll packaged us up and take us on the road! I got some helpful feedback and am no longer stymied by my larger tops.

The very first exercise was another fabulous learning experience. It made us take the plunge. Jump off the cliff. But in a non-threatening way. It opened up options. Very freeing. We learned there are no rules for thread color, thread weight and stitch lines. Sure, fiddle with the thread tension until that works. Otherwise, quilt as desired! 

I've heard that many times but was clueless as to what that meant. Now I know. There is no one way, no perfect way. Explore, experiment, play. Trust your instincts as an artist and quilt as desired.

With inadequate choice of threads, I didn't get far on the circle with straight lines shown at the top. So I started on these two small black and white compositions in the workshop:

geometric stitches with white, variegated white, variegated gray and black

organic stitches with contrasting variegated thread

A lot of intensive quilting. Geometric stitches requires focus whereas organic stitches flow more. By late morning Friday, I could only doodle:

stitcher doodles 

more stitcher doodles

Many thanks to Nancy Crow for going forth with the workshop despite our small group. Without your faith, this enriching experience would not have happened. When she offers this workshop again, go for it! You won't find a better teacher than Sandy nor a better facility than the Barn.

Apropos, Perfect Happiness was the title of Robert Genn's Tuesday Twice-Weekly Letter, which led with this quote from Winston Churchill: "The way to be happy is to find something that requires the kind of perfection that's impossible to achieve and spend the rest of your life trying to achieve it." Read the rest of it here. 

Maturing twins and other things

quilted

I've finished quilting the challenging twins and intend to have it squared, faced & sleeved by next Wednesday's mini-group meeting. Then they'd be ready to hang at the next EBHQ community show. I've learned a lot from this project. More about that later.

No more quilting projects before my October trip. But I intend to continue with fmq each day by quilting more little 4x4 samples of Leah Day's beginner-intermediate designs.

In the meantime, I'm preparing for a two-day dyeing feast with my friend Pat. We'll combine a couple of exercises from True Colors with Carol Soderlund, to dye neutrals in dark and medium-dark values. All one yard pieces - at least 26 yards total. A real dyeing experience (as opposed to little sixteenths last year (here and here).

I'd rather be in the studio (or the garden) but I'm actually doing some housekeeping. It's starting to look presentable for my critique group which will be meeting here next week. I clean for a reason!

Challenge of twins

I've been spending time with the twins.  In a recent post I described the birth of non-identical twins in response to a group challenge. Now they've been pieced:

non-identical twins pieced

And I'm in the middle of quilting it. Of course I am fmq'ing as part of my quest.

I started by quilting along lines of the bolder prints: 

follow the print lines 1

follow the print lines 2

Then mimicked other prints:

pebbles on dots

double e's on ribbons

Those were the obvious ones. Remaining prints are more subtle and I stretched to come up with a quilting motifs:

T's

roses on floral print

Then quilted their polar twins in a similar fashion:

T's

extended print lines

Or close cousins:

marbles

e's

wiggly grid lines

Or distant cousins:

flowers on a string

With three more sets of twins to quilt, I have a week and a half to finish before my mini-group meeting.

Because these filler designs are so varied, I have doubts about this approach. The quilting will not make it more cohesive. What the hey! - it's a worthwhile experiment and experience. It will be perfectly okay when it's done. 

Succumb to fmq practice

I thought free motion quilting was for others, not for me, but I've changed my tune. Admittedly I'd resisted for a long time. How to get there without so much work?! Now that I've succumbed to daily fmq practice, I'll get there eventually. Here's proof that it has ruled my studio time.

You'd think a simple change in direction to create a checkerboard effect would be easy. It was.Until I spaced out and discovered many squares later they didn't alternate properly anymore. Then it got ugly. In the few tedious hours it took to un-stitch several squares, I could've finished them all! Thenceforth I marked the direction of each square and quilted in one direction only. Thus avoiding or aborting further mishaps. It's now ready for binding:

fmq'd mini whole cloth with trapunto

This Ohio Star would make a good pillow:

fmq'd Ohio Star

The pink one just needs a filler around the perimeter . . .

waiting for fmq around perimeter

. . . or maybe not. 

Now is a good time to get moving on a group challenge due in mid-September. An opportunity for design-play once again plus another opportunity for fmq, of course. 

Really good news: the machine quilting workshop with Sandy Ciolino is a go! Yay! This also means a get together with a Michigan friend for a trip to Toronto! Yay for that too!

FMQ habit

I've fmq'd every single day since 7/7/2012! It has become an(other) obsession.

I've continued with Leah Day's beginner-intermediate filler designs, designs I learned about in last month's machine quilting class with Jill Schumacher and played with my own variations as well.

beginner-intermediate filler samples & more

Here's what the mini trapunto whole cloth  looks like now:

mini trapunto whole cloth in progress

Not much progress but many trial samples. On the left are the designs I'll use: from top to bottom, Jill's Waffles in the middle, Martha's Marshmallows in the hearts and Seven Treasures of Buddha around the outside.

And here's the Ohio Star:

Ohio Star in progress

Though Jill had advised me to quilt a simple border pattern because any fancy quilting won't show up, I saw it as an ideal opportunity to practice spirals and hide any wobbles. Those samples to the left are more spirals which I'll quilt in the solid blue and white areas around the star. The design is Leah Day's Swirling Water. It took multiple attempts to get this intermediate level (woot!) design right.

Since these two projects are stalled waiting for thread, I am working on this one:

pink mini whole cloth in progress

I'd barely started this one in a long-ago workshop with Sue Nickels and had shown it here, before I'd removed all the straight stitches. Not too much thinking needed since I'll quilt it similarly to this practice one:

practice for the pink one

All this practice has certainly helped my stitch quality but I'm still clueless about quilting my own improvisational work.

In mid-October I am going to the Crow Barn in Ohio for a machine quilting workshop and further fmq education from Sandy Ciolino. Check out Sandy's website and read what good things Kathy Loomis and Annette Guerrero say about her.

If you want to quilt your own non-traditional projects and improve your fmq, then you really must join me there. A great environment. We'll laugh, eat well, and learn lots too!

After three weeks & three days

I've fmq'd every day for three weeks. Then this weekend, three days more fmq in a workshop with Jill Schumacher, Quiltmaker to the Queen. These are accomplishment from that workshop:

Ohio Star fmq'd in the ditch with monofilament thread

two continuous fmq motifs

another version of feathered wreath

mini whole cloth quilt with trapunto

stitched sample of new filler design, an adaptation of a sashiko pattern

This workshop has a more traditional quilting perspective. Nevertheless, I've learned a lot though I'm still unsure how to quilt my own work.

I've gained two new ufos. The above filler pattern, 7 Treasures of Buddha, may be used in the gridded areas of the trapunto quilt. I prefer to not mark quilts nor use stencils, so I'm looking at Leah Day's 365 filler designs to finish the Ohio Star.

These additional hours of practice practice practice have given me dose of fmq confidence, though I won't become quiltmaker to any royalty any time soon.

Note: For another perspective on Sandy Ciolino's machine quilting workshop, see this post by Annette Guerrero. Annette was already an accomplished quilter when she took Sandy's workshop. What could be better than endorsement from another quilter?!

Audience with the Queen

Not Elizabeth. Not Latifah. I'm off to see the Queen of Quilting, Jill Schumacher!

Tomorrow is the beginning of a three-day quilting retreat at a not-so-local quilt shop, Always Quilting, a 45-minute drive away (In commute traffic?! Don't count on it!). They're providing breakfast, lunch and dinner, so I'll be machine quilting all day and into the night. The machine quilting gods should grant me better stitches after this!

Meanwhile I am not putting all my faith in the gods, I am continuing on my own fmq quest. Not only have I been making samples of Leah Day's beginner-intermediate fillers, I am fmq'ing two fillers onto this ufo.

12x12 ufo from machine quilting workshop

One filler, Leah Day's Matrix, in three samples.

three Matrix samples

The top one in turquoise is from a couple of years ago. The other two just recently. 


I cheated on the larger scaled one by stitching each line from back to front. Result: smoother stitches. It's really tempting to turn a piece and very easy for small ones. 


The smaller scaled one provides a more honest appraisal. No turning. Result: wobbly lines. Really shows I need more practice stitching in other directions. Still it's an improvement from the very first sample. So it is true . . . practice practice practice! 


The second filler is the popular pebbling pattern. 

pebbling sample

I took an hour to stitch this. Of course Leah's was faster and more beautiful. 


Here's the UFO stitched with the two fillers plus a bonus. 

quilted ufo

I went micro! Those small tight spaces screamed for tiny stitches. You can see how much smaller I quilted in this side by side comparison.

samples with quilted ufo

It was good practice for this next UFO. 

18x18 ufo from machine quilting workshop

The markings are barely visible. It's essentially the same pattern with additional long feathers on each side. And better fabric instead of muslin. 


I'll quilt this later. Right now I am getting ready to meet the Queen.

FMQ milestone

Out of 365 free motion filler designs, Leah Day designated 91 as beginner level. I'd made samples of most of them in 2010. Now I've made the rest. All 91 samples. A milestone! 

these complete all 91 beginner level filler designs

Don't look too closely! Admittedly some of my samples could be better. Sometimes I'd lose my concentration. When my attention wanders so does my stitching. Then all goes to heck. Once you head down that track, you just keep going. Kinda like bingeing on a guilty pleasure, eh?


On the other hand some of them look good, imho. Some movements felt more natural. These result in better stitches and smoother transitions. 


I'll keep going with beginner-intermediate level filler designs. Meanwhile I've dug into my ufo pile for something to fmq and found multiple candidates. Let's see if I can fmq an actual project. 


At the end of the month I'm taking a workshop: Quilting Queen Retreat with Jill Schumacher, an introduction to machine quilting at Always Quilting. A three-day mini-retreat. We'll start with an Ohio Star Block, so stencils, feathers and stippling, I expect. 


Every bit helps. I've committed to free motion quilting every day. This may limit work in other areas, but my goal is fmq proficiency by the end of the year. The litmus test: comfort with quilting one of my bigger tops  (not necessarily finishing, but at least starting). 

can I ever contemplate fmq'ing this?

How do you do . . . ?

Update:
For another perspective on Sandy Ciolino's machine quilting workshop, see this post by Annette Guerrero. Annette was already an accomplished quilter when she took Sandy's workshop. What could be better than endorsement from another quilter?!


My apologies if you've seen the rest of this post before. Due to technical difficulties and user error, the rest of this post was temporarily un-published.

How do you do IT? Machine quilting I mean.

quilting Orange Rhyme

So many decisions. What designs/patterns/motifs to quilt? where to apply it?
Quilting to stand out or blend in? contrast or complement the quilt top?
And thread: color, solid or variegated, weight, fiber type.
Let's not even get into batting.
Use the walking foot? or are you comfortable with free-motion?
Quilt on a home machine? or on a mid or long arm? 
Do your own quilting? or have someone else do it? 

I've pinned my hopes on getting answers from Sandra Palmer Ciolino. She's teaching a one-week machine quilting workshop at the Crow Barn in October. 

I've already taken a basic introductory class, and a two-day workshop with Sue Nickels. I've followed Leah Day, Heather Thomas and Angela Walters online. I've stitched up many samples from The Free Motion Quilting Project. 

beginner designs

But I still don't get it - I have not mastered free motion quilting. Okay, admittedly I haven't practiced consistently. Yes, I know, practice, practice, practice! Two to three hours a day for beginners; more if not particularly gifted. Yep, that's me. 

the only finished project with fmq

My last quilt was intensely stitched with a walking foot.

lines up to 3/16" apart

Sure wasn't much fun getting the bulky thing to turn around under the machine arm. Free-motion would be the ticket to avoid that. Someone said, "don't let your skills limit what you can create". So my goal is to master fmq. 


A whole cloth quilt is not for me. Instead a perspective that'll work with abstract improvisational compositions. In time I may figure this out but I'm impatient. If fmq will never be my thing, then I want to find out soon. 

Sandy is a fabulous machine quilter using her domestic sewing machine. Check out her gallery of recent work on her website. I've heard much praise for her last workshop. She has quilted for Nancy Crow - that's alone is quite an endorsement. Plus she's a sweetheart to boot. 

There's room in the workshop. I'm hoping it'd be a go. Worst case scenario, it won't and might not be offered again. So won't you join me in Ohio for the workshop? Would be good for you. But really - full disclosure here - I'm asking in my own self interest.