Quick burials

Here's a tute on burying your threads in your quilt without a self-threading needle.

All you need: one sewing needle and about 30" of thread. Fine threads don't work well. Use a grabby thread. I use glazed cotton hand quilting thread and a long thin needle with a big eye. 

1. Thread the needle with the thread doubled: fold the thread in half and put either the end loop or both cut ends through the eye. 

2. Pull the thread so the loop end hangs longer than the cut ends. 

3. Optional: on the quilt, pull the bobbin thread up to the top and tie it the top thread. You could bury each thread individually, but then you'll have twice as many to do.

4. Insert needle near these thread ends to be buried and come back out an inch or so away. For a smooth end, I bury it just about in the same place where the bobbin thread came up. Also if I direct my needle back toward the line of stitching, it seems less likely to pull out. 

5. Grab thread ends and pull through the loop. As you pull the needle out, keep threads end in the loop. 

6. Cut excess thread ends as needed. Voila!

After you get the hang of this, burying threads is easy and speedy. And you can make thread starts and stops just about disappear.

After composing this, Cindy Needham made a great You Tube video of this technique. So follow the link. Much better than any photos! 

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.

Trip tik

A road trip is just the ticket for hand stitching.

I'd stitched on facings following Kathy Loomis' perfect faced quilt tute. Thanks to the three hour drive and quiet moments, hand stitching was finished before the return trip.

Attached the sleeve during minutes in the waiting room. Done! Yay! The birth of finished quilt no. 3.

Sandwiches

Been making sandwiches. Don't salivate yet. Not for eating - for quilting.

Six tops. Pressed & measured. Backs & batting. Sandwiched & pin basted. Vamoosed the pins after re-basting with water soluable thread. An assembly line.

Gathered and put away tools and supplies once. Cleared design wall and worktable once. Cleanup is always a B I G deal.

Et voilà! A new milestone. Six sandwiches to go. Got things done. I like that. Threads and stitches next.

Squaring up

Extra fabric hangs around the edges of this improvisational piece from the Lines Curves Shapes and Figure/Ground workshop. It was cropped for my last post, but as you can see here, it really needs squaring up.

I have no tried and true method to square up pieces bigger than my worktable. This one is about 54w x 42h. Here's how I did it this time.

I smoothed it out on the design wall, picked a side to start, then chalked a straight line. Using my biggest square ruler, I rotated around and chalked other sides with the hope that the last side would be at right angles to the first one.

To review I pinned fabric strips along each chalk line. 

I see I could've started with another edge. Okay, once more around.

Comparison of the two photos side by side.

Until I can get to a big table to cut and sandwich it, I securely pinned the strips along the chalk lines.

Next time I'll try squaring it up in Photoshop first. How do you square up?

Sometimes a great notion

Sometimes not.

An idea for curvilicious seams tested using print fabrics to reduce my stash.

Ugg! Blame fabric & color choices on poor studio lighting. Can't hurt to cut it up.

Restructuring on the design wall. Better but not great. Possible to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear?