My sister had started a few quilting projects at the time of her passing. That was a girl with very few unfinished projects!

One was a SET that included a queen-sized bed quilt top (completely pieced), a matching wall hanging (laid out on the design wall) and a set of commercial pillowcases with extra blocks to decorate them with.

I took a lot of time practicing on her longarm machine with lap quilts until I was confident that I would not ruin the projects she had begun. The last week I got brave and loaded the two quilts one after the other and quilted both with a feather pattern from one of her pantograph rolls.

I was SO pleased that everything turned out perfectly!

I laid them out at Mom's house to photograph them:

She had designed this set of projects for her daughter's new house. They are boxed up and ready to mail tomorrow.

I hope I did her proud and that they will be used with loving memories!

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 10:30 PM PST

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18 months ago I went on a quilting retreat at the beach. My sister was with me when I bought two fat-quarter stacks of lovely teals and magentas. Without a specific plan for them, these fabrics were put away for a 'someday project'.

When my sister passed away, her stash of fabrics and patterns were given to me. I went through all her patterns and found one that she had pulled from a magazine in 2011. And there it was - In the same colors as I had bought with her! PERFECT!

I used the borrowed die-cutting machine to cut the required strips and this quilt came together quickly.

I used fabrics from her stash for the border, backing and binding and I did the quilting with the longarm machine I inherited from her estate.

I feel like this was kind of a joint project and I thought about her all the time while putting it together.

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 10:27 AM PST

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Even with a huge stack of already-cut project kits I had compiled (over 30), I just HAD to gather scrap strips from my stash to make this quilt as soon as I saw the tutorial for it from Missouri Star Quilt Company.

For quite some time I had been just cramming leftovers of strips and other small cut leftovers into a bin. And I do mean CRAMMING. It had finally gotten out of control and I had separated out the 2 1/2 strips from the 2 1/4 strips and the 2 1/2 squares, etc. I had set aside to use a bunch of the small odd bits and cut others with a die-cutter on loan to me. 

Then this tutorial came out and I knew right away that this was the project I wanted to use for the 2 1/2" strips. I combined these with new strips I cut from some muslin yardage given to me this summer.

I finished with a wide border from other gifted yardage and put it on the longarm for quilting with a paper pantograph.

Isn't this fun? I can stroll through these square knot blocks and point out the history of the fabrics and what other quilts I had used them in.

This made a SMALL dent in the scrap bin - so much more to go!

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 9:55 AM PST

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Last year I bought a couple of fat-quarter stacks that had a wide range of values of in a single colorway. Each stack had the same abstract prints with gold paint features - dots, swirls, circles, and more.There was a magenta stack and a teal stack.

I set these aside until I found a pattern using these same colors so I cut out the parts for that and set them aside to sew up later. The leftovers went into this quilt as those colors enhanced a floral print I had leftovers of.

I called this quilt Blooming Stars to describe the flowers coming in the center of the stars.

There are white background, floral cornerstones, and dotted sashing throughout.

Purple borders pull up color from the florals.

The quilting was done on the longarm using a paper pantograph.

Binding is a lighter shade of the teal and it also is of a shimmery nature.

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 12:01 AM PST

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I saw this quilt tutorial on Missouri Star Quilt Company and immediately thought of a couple of stacks of 'stone look' charm squares. Combined with while cotton for the background fabric and some tone-on-tone blacks for the trim this turned out exactly how I envisioned.

I also got a new paper pantograph for the longarm and I think this quilted up beautifully.

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 12:01 AM PDT

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From my stash of fat quarters I selected 4 that looked good together to create another Convergence quilt from the instructions created by Ricky Tims.  I truly love how these come together.

I wait until the center is constructed before selecting material for the borders as so much depends on the final layout.

For this one I chose a small border of tiny houndstooth followed by a dark teal print with browns and golds in it.

I used a paper pantograph and teal thread for the quilting.

The whole thing is brighter than this appears but I could not adjust the color intensity enough without totally skewing the look of the quilt. This will have to do.

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 3:30 PM PDT

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I had a quest: 1) find a pattern for a set of fabric rolls I had acquired 2) find a use for a little scenery panel that came from someone's stash 3) make a quilt as a gift for a guy (no frou-frou!). When I came across this pattern in an old magazine I knew I had the solution.

Unfortunately the fabric rolls were not going to stretch to fit the layout so I set out searching my stash for coordinates and cutting more 2.5 inch strips from them.

The fabric panel was not quite large enough to equal one of the pieced blocks so I used a batik to frame it up to fit.

I used a different pantograph roll (with oak leaves and acorns) to quilt this, carefully working around the panel rather than over top of it. Then I did free-hand quilting on the scene - following along the outlines of hills, houses and fences.

The quilting was completed in dark green as it blended well with all of the colors in the piecing.

This will shortly be on its way to the new owner.

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 12:01 AM PDT

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At a yard sale last year I picked up a variety of Asian fabrics. They were from a sample pack so the sizes varied. I set these aside while keeping an eye out for just the right pattern that would have a feel of asian design but would look good with the scrappy look of mixed fabrics.

When I saw this pattern in an advertisement for a fabric line in a magazine, I immediately knew that it was the one.

I cut it so that there are NO DUPLICATE fabrics in the whole thing. There are some with the same design but in a different colorway from the fabric line so they coordinate.

I made the top while on a quilting retreat in June and set it aside to do on the longarm machine. But I wanted to have lots of practice under my belt so I would not ruin it. I found a pantograph roll that was included in the things I got delivered with the longarm. Perfect!

Here is a closer photo of the quilting.

I found great prints to use for the borders, backing and binding - all having some gold pattern overlaying them. This coordinated with the golds featured on the prints.

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 12:01 AM PDT

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I made this quilt top this summer and got it sandwiched back in June. I was prepared to do the quilting on my domestic machine but set it aside for other stuff. Then I got the longarm machine and figured I would do the quilting on that.

Well, two issues with that: 1) I had spray basted the three layers together so I wouldn't be able to do the standard loading of the machine and 2) I had wanted tonot have a lot of extraneous material beyond the top so I could fit it in my domestinc sewing machine. That left me no fabric to attach to the leaders on the longarm.

So I found some heavier fabric and sewed it on the two edges - about 7 inches of it. This was what I used to load the quilt onto the machine.

Then I just practiced making patterns on the quilt with free-hand stitching - different patterns in different decorative areas.

I had a lot of tension problems and thread breaks on this but I think it was due to the spray baste that was in the sandwich.

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 12:01 AM PDT

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I needed something to use for practice on my new longarm quilting machine I found a couple of printed panels in my stash and loaded one backing and batting to put both of them on.

The first is fall-themed illustrations set up in framed areas. I used these to practice echo quilting - steering around the outer edges of the decorative elements using the edge of the round foot as my distance guide. I had a bit of an issue with the tension of the quilt sandwich as some nuts on the collar of the back roller didn't get tightened. This allowed the quilt to sag whenit should have stayed taut resulting in some bubbling.

In any case...

The second panel is much narrower and has three gourds in framed sections. I used the gourgs to try some thread painting, tracing over the top of the decorative swirls on them. 

I then tried tracing along the edges of the frame lines to practice vertical and horizontal control.

I gave both of these hanging sleeves and bound them with the same print as the backing.

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 12:01 AM PDT

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Thanks to YouTube I was able to figure out on my own how to load my first quilt onto the longarm machine. Yay Me!

Then, with YouTube I was able to figure out how to set the stitch regulator as I wanted and baste the first section of the quilt sandwich. Hooray For Me!

And finally, I went to my class on Thursday and had hands-on training on the whole enchilada. We used a sample sandwich of plain fabric to practice a wide variety of free-motion fill patterns plus how to thread, change bobbins, fix problems (most user error) and maintain our machines.

So today... two days later... I approached the already loaded lap quilt, fired up the machine, gave it a new bobbin and thread cone, cleaned the rails, and adjusted the stitch regulator for 'the real deal'.

About an hour later, voila! It was fully quilted and ready to take off the machine. Another hour to trim it and bind it - label added - and DONE!

This quilt is from the book by Ricky Tims on Convergence Quilts which I had to order from a different library system. - Fascinating concept that had found me selecting about a dozen sets of fabric from my scores of fat quarters. I will be making MANY of these quilts. So easy with stunning results.

For the quilting, I did large rosettes in the four corners and then echoed ripples out about 3/4 of the way across the quilt in both directions. The ripples all cross one another and overlap at the center.

Theinner border was not quilted. The outer border got leaves and vines. I use this a lot on my domestic machine and I wanted to test with a pattern I was familiar with.

This quilt will go to the hospital's Passages program.

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 11:11 PM PDT

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I have been gifted with a longarm quilting machine! We drove up to central Washington in the middle of July  to disassemble it and transport it back home. Then we had to wait until today for the service techs to do the reassembly and add a few features.

Now I have to wait for a new power cord for the computer and then for August 15 when I can take a class.

I have never laid hands on a longarm machine before and I don't want to break anything! I don't know how to load a bobbin, thread the machine, or anything.

I plan to spend a lot of time watching various YouTube videos to bring me up to speed.

I named it Sasquatch (Squatch for short) because it has a big footprint (bigfoot print)! The frame is 12 feet long and 4.5 feet deep. It has a 26" sewing head on it.

You'll no doubt be hearing a lot about this in the future - or at least seeing a lot of the resulting quilts!

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 12:01 AM PDT

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On the Quiltville blog in November 2017, a new mystery quilt was started. Now, I have said to myself ('declared' is more accurate) several times that I would never do another mystery quilt, but I got sucked in by the inspiration photo, the name and the color palette (coral, teal, chocolate, cream).

While I worked off and on toward the goal what I didn't like was:

1. I had too wide a range of values within each color reducing the continuity in the pattern.
2. This designer works with REALLY small pieces.
3. The pattern is for a queen sized quilt with no details on downsizing it. I didn't NEED a queen sized but had to make all the parts anyway becuse you don't know how they all go together until you have all the pieces in hand.

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 11:16 AM PDT

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At the last posting of quilt finishes I indicated that I had three more to finish off to meet my goal of having six to donate to the hospital. Well, I have finished those three with a week and a half to spare!

I've shared before about the quilter whose children gave our group all her fabrics when she passed away. The last piece I had of those I took was a yardage with half-square-triangles printed on it. I found a tutorial on Missouri Star Quilt Company for a block called 'Royal Wedding', that used 4 blocks of 4 hst. I cut the yardage into groups of 4 units with a 1/4-inch border for the seam allowance. Other 'Betty' fabrics with coordinating colors went into the internal sashings. TOTALLY different measurements than MSQC pattern but I got the effect and I'm very happy with this result.

The next one was made from fabrics I got on deep discount. I selected the butterfly feature fabric and then chose several coordinates. The pattern was torn out from a very old magazine.

What looks like plain yellow is actually a gold imprinted over yellow.

When I was buying that discount fabric, I bought more of the gold and then added several tone-on-tone fabrics in jewel colors.

This is a pattern that I scratched out on paper and I have no idea what the source is!

So this wraps up the year with 15 quilts finished. I have two more in progress, one cut but not started and one ready to cut. I have no illusions about any of these being complete by the end of the year so I am closing off the count.

Of those, 14 went to charity (hospital or pregnancy center) and one to a lady who had just lost her companion dog.

Many plans for next year. After all, the BIG fabric store just went out of business and I have three large bags of brand new fabric from their final sale!

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 2:25 PM PST

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I kind of set aside quilting for a bit to work on other hobbies but I had six in the final stages waiting for me. I got four of those quilted earlier this month and then actually finished one up. This is a lap quilt.

I had a fabric bundle that I thought was fat quarters so I picked out this pattern. Unfortunately, when I opened the fabrics up I discovered they were all only fat eighths! That did not give me enough of each fabric to cut and lay out the way they were supposed to go so I cut more coordinating fabrics at home and went with dark/light combinations in the four-patches within each block. Originally the light in the four-patch and the light in the adjoining half-square triangle would have been the same.

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 11:55 AM PST

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It is a good thing the fabric I was given had applique elements PRINTED on it because I don't DO applique! This was another of those printed 'cheater' fabrics. The blue blocks were all part of a printed fabric and all I had to do was cut blocks with an added 1/4 inch around them, piece them together using a sashing and add a border of cute houses from the same donation source.

The applique elements on the blocks as well as the mitered-corner frames on them are all part of the printing.

I did NOT want to do free-motion outlining of the frames or elements so I did an all over free-motion medium meander. It is backed with the same medium-blue showing in the binding.

This will go to the hospital's Passages program - my 72nd quilt for them.

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 9:43 PM PDT

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This quilt started out as a piece or yardage printed with a pattern of patchwork. I cut out 9 portions of the pattern, eliminating sections that I didn't want. What I ended up with was stars with 4-patch corners.

I pieced these together using sashings from a striped fabric (you've seen this fabric a lot lately on recent projects) and cornerstones I cut from scraps of other parts of the yardage.

I quilted this around the stars and the 4-patches.

The binding is made from scraps of the original yardage.

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 8:42 PM PDT

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I had made available to me a partially finished quilt top with six diagonally pieced string blocks. They had been arranged strangely and bordered several times. The top was not large enough and the 'design' was not something I wanted to just add more borders around.

I thought to spread out the string piecing a bit so I used a square ruler to 'extract' the pieced blocks, cut them on the diagonal across the strings and added a triangle of patterned fabric to bring it back square again. This gave me 12 blocks.

That activity shrank the overall size of the blocks and they weren't going to be enough. So I made 4 more string blocks in the same style as the originals, cut those diagonally and attahed the patterned fabric as with the first set. This gave me 8 more blocks for a total of 20.

I used sashing between and arranged them to create chevrons across with a 4 x 5 layout.

I added a border all around and quilted it with stitch-in-the-ditch around each block and on its diagonal.

The bonding matches the sashing on this lap quilt for Passages.

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 11:16 PM PDT

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Remember when I showed the recently made bracelet from the class at the Sew and Stitchery Expo in Puyallup? Well, today I finally finished all the other homework that I had left from three other classes I took.

First up was a class where we used Gelatos and Inktense Watercolor pencils to 'paint' a flower on muslin. Then we cut it out and mounted it to a background fabric with a fusible glue. With verigated thread we did thread painting over the flower. The instructor showed us a different way to bind it without any showing on the front side. Here is my finished wall hanging.

Another class had us learning to do free-motion embroidery. This was just like free-motion quilting but with no batting. We did have water-soluble stabilizer on both top and bottom. We stitched with verigated thread, following the lines on a provided illustration.

At home we had to soak off the stabilizer, add batting to the back and stitch around the image and trim away extra batting. The rest of the finishing was just like any other quilt with borders, quilting and binding.

And here is my finished wall hanging:

The third project was a wallet. The class was advertised as a 'serger project' but when we got to class the only use of the serger was a new feature - the machine sewed a chain stitch. REALLY!?!?! I wanted to learn to use a serger and I get a chain stitch? I could have constructed the whole project on a regular maching. Harrumph!

The other thing they were overly excited about was 'cork fabric'. May I just say... Big deal!

So, beyond that, we did make a wallet (with extremely poor instructors and assistants and instructions) and I had a lot of work to do at home, including the hardware.

I have several photos of this project. Here you see it closed.

I did all that top-stitching on the cork fabric, too.

Here is a view that shows the hardware.

That little tongue flips up straight out and then you can open the wallet.

This is a view of the outside when opened. There is a full zippered pocket for carrying currency.

And, finally, the inside view. On the top is a zippered pocket for coins and on the bottom are slots for credit cards.

You can see in the photo above how the hardware is held on with ittsy-bitsy screws.

So, homework all done - and it only took me three weeks to get it done!

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 10:15 PM PDT

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