Table Runners

Last summer I won a major prize in a shop hop drawing -- ten yards of Hoffman Christmas fabrics. Nine different one-yard cuts, and one two-yard cut.  I have been making Christmas table runners, and I have just finished my third one.  Here they all are:

These are fun little projects that don't take too much time to do, and they look really nice too.

Wonder Clips

Like most Americans, I love a good bargain, and Last Friday was Black Friday, with deals galore!  I don't like the Black Friday crowds, so I do my bargain hunting online.  I made a few purchases, and in the mail today, my WONDER CLIPS arrived!  Perfect timing too, as I was just starting to bind my kaleidoscope quilt.  (Yes!  I finished quilting it!)  The wonder clips are great helps in getting the binding done FAST, and accurately.  They are not foolproof however, as I did fall off the binding in a couple of spots and had to hand sew about 3 inches on the back.  But I am VERY HAPPY with my new clips, and will never use a pin for binding again!

  

What I especially liked about these little clips is that I can remove them with one hand, unlike a pin which requires me to use both my hands (one to lift the fabric, one to pull the pin--I put pins in very close together, and to remove them can cause you to be pricked if you're not careful!)  I can continue sewing the binding while removing the clip.  AND no chance of blood on the quilt from a persnickety pin!  Much quick to clip than pin--time saved.  Much quicker to unclip than unpin, more time saved.  No stopping to remove pins, so binding just became about twice as fast as before.  Or is it, only half as slow?  Binding is a slow process.  Anyway, I get done quicker with less aggravation, so I'm in LOVE with my new clips!  Try them!  I got my pack of 50 for @ $13.00 at a Black Friday sale, but they also sell them at JoAnn Fabrics, and with a 50% or 60% coupon, you could even get them cheaper than that!  Also, I'd get the box of 100 if I were to do it over again, 50 clips is not enough.  But they are so quick and easy, you can re-use them as you go along, so even 50 is better than pins!  There are 2 sizes, small and jumbo.  I have the small ones, and for bindings they are PERFECT!  Yesssss!  I'm in love!

Early Christmas Present!

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Bob gave me an early Christmas present so that I could use it in finishing off my Christmas gift quilts.  It was a "ruler work" foot and a set of ruler work templates:

Merry Christmas, Vicki (from Bob!)

I am THRILLED to say the least!  I couldn't wait to try them out, so after a practice or two (perhaps I should have practiced a little bit MORE before I took them to the quilt...)  Here's my first official "ruler work"!

Flower and clam shells

You can see the flower added to the center,  The template size was perfect, and fit exactly in my orange center.  There was a little slip on one of the petals, but I think it turned out well enough.  I did not try to fix it.  The clam shells arch the inner points.  I'm not sure they "fit" the design, as there are no curves anywhere, but I was so excited to try them out.   

STRAIGHT lines radiating from the corner!

The best of all is that ruler work pressure foot.  I can use REGULAR rulers with it, and it doesn't hop, so the quilting goes along so smoothly.  I wish I had had it for the stitch in the ditch earlier on, but I will be using it for the blocks, stitching in those ditches with beautiful straight lines.  I am sooo happy with this gift!  Bob, he KNOWS what I like!

Center is Quilted

Quilting the kaleidoscope presented some challenges.  Not so much as how to do it, but WHAT do do.  So many sections!  I didn't want to lose any of the "WOW" factor that I feel this medallion center has.  I didn't want any quilting to detract from the design and colors of the center.  I looked at the Gallery of Quilts in Ricky Tim's book, and a lot of those quilts were quilted with meanders, feathers, flowers, pebbles, squiggles, waves, and various other free motion designs and I think the quilt design suffered from all that busy-ness.  So I decided to keep it simple and just stitch in the ditch.  I'm not that good at stitch in the ditch, and some of my lines are wobbly, but I think it is just fine and I'm not going to redo it.  It's not that noticeable from the front (which is the whole point of stitch-in-the-ditch!).  It shows more so on the back, however, because I used a darker thread.

Quilted on Front

Quilting on Back

Now, midway thought quilting this inner section, Bob received a package in the mail.  It was my Christmas present, and he decided to give it to me early!!  So that I could use it in quilting my quilt!  What a sweetheart!  It was a special "ruler work" sewing machine foot!!  And some templates, a "starter" set.  (More on this later!)  Well of course I had to try them out!!!  So I added in some clam shells, and a flower design in the very center. You can see this on the picture above.  But mostly, I used my straight edge ruler for straight lines in stitching in the ditch, and so the later part of this quilting in this section is much improved with my new rulers!  I also did ruler work for nice straight radiating lines in the corners.  It's so much easier with rulers, and such better results!!    Notice (in the above picture) wobbly crocked lines in the center areas, and the outer part, nice and straight!

Table Runners

In between quilts, I like to do a smaller project, something quick and easy, like the Skinnies I made for Linda.  I've been eyeing that Christmas fabric I won last summer, and decided to make some table runners for Christmas gifts this year.  I don't have any patterns, so I skimmed Pintrest, and the internet for ideas, and made up my own patterns from a couple of samples I saw.  I have two done, and hope to get in a couple more.

This first one I made is for me!  I rarely quilt for myself, so this is a real treat.  I measured my hutch and made this table runner to fit:

  

Here is a second runner that I made for a Christmas gift  (can't say for who just yet!)

The interesting part of these projects is that I have to figure out the pattern.  I had to do research on how to size/cut side triangles, and in the second one, I had to bind a 135 degree angle which was a new feat for me too!  So much math in quilting!  Sheesh!

Ready to Quilt

I have been working hard on the Kaleidoscope Medallion quilt, and the top is finished now.  I really loved putting this together.  I love the orange sashing in the quilt and the orange in the Medallion.  I was worried that my blocks would be boring, but in this arrangement, it's anything but!!  Here is the finished quilt top.  I had made 20 blocks, but this arrangement only used 16.

Taped to the floor and pinned, ready to quilt.

Final Layout

I have been working on my center kaleidoscope (TY, Ricky Tims, for the inspiration), and am loving how it's turning out!

It's really big, and I had planned on having it set on point in the quilt center.  But then I would have to add REALLY HUGE setting triangles to make the corners, and I think that added too much "dead space."  True, I could quilt something fun in those corners, but I just didn't like how it looked.  So I went back to the design board (EQ7) and jiggled the layouts, and came up with this one:

This ends up at 82" square, used 16 of my 20 blocks, which is a good thing.  There are 4 blocks that I won't use, and I have some that I don't like, and can easily find 4 to remove from the lineup!  My sashing can be a little wider now and I think the whole thing looks more balanced.  I like this layout a lot, and have decided, THIS IS IT!  I have tried so many possibilities in EQ7, I'm not sure which is which anymore!  So I can start sewing again, and stop fiddling with "how would it look IF...!"  This quilt should be ready by Christmas!

Kaleidoscope Medallion

Well, I TOLD you I was intrigued with Ricky Tims's kaleidoscope quilts, now I will SHOW you just how intrigued I was!  I've decided to make one of these as a center for my Block of the Month quilt with the quilt guild blocks.  I played with the layout in EQ7, here's my final (?) version.

I think this layout is a lot more interesting than my other two choices, which were:

Soooooooo!  Guess what I did!?  Yep!  I made a medallion kaleidoscope!  At first I didn't know what I was doing (mirror images always confuse and befuddle me!)  but I followed the directions, and it all came together as I went along.  Just like Ricky Tims said,  "Trust the process!"  It works!  

Here is my medallion, in each of its five stages, first the layers of strata, then the stars.

Round 1:  

 

Round 2:  

  

Round 3:  

  

Round 4:  

  

Round 5:  

  

So, there it is! I have to say that Round 5 didn't go as planned in the directions.  I wanted to use the blue focus fabric in the kaleidoscope but didn't have much left.  Not even a 2" strip! I pre-cut my borders at the very beginning while I still had long strips so I didn't have to piece the border more than once per side.  I didn't want to use those  or cut into them even a little!  So all I have left were small pieces, so I FUDGED the last strip.  I sewed the 3 rows, but then figured out where the point would come and put my scrap of fabric there on each half of the strata and sewed.  I aligned my template and cut, making sure there would be seam allowance all around.  It looked like this:

I'm not sure how it will all sew together, the layers didn't have that tight "fit" that the other strata did.  More "fudging" may be in the works as I sew these pieces together.  But I had enough scraps to make it work and I think it looks great!  I'm not sure what the final quilt will look like exactly.  EQ7 shows the final quilt as finishing off at about 90" x 90" with a 36" medallion set on point,  six 12" blocks with 1.5" sashing per side, and a 4" final border.    I could put the medallion square on too instead of on point but the quilt would be smaller and I wouldn't be able to use all the blocks.  So I will play with these things after the medallion is done.  

Stay tuned!

Papermate to the Rescue

I mentioned earlier about how my cutting mat was filled with fibers.  I went shopping but could not find an artist's gummy eraser.  But I found these "Black Pearls" by Papermate in the office supply dept. of our local variety store.  "Clean erase, minimal residue" is what it says on the package.  I thought I'd give it a try.  Guess what!  It worked like a charm!  With hardly any effort on my part, it pulled out the fibers, not a lot of eraser crumbs, and my mat is clean and smooth again.  I'm very pleased with my Black Pearls!

Here is the before and after pics:

  

Miracle Workers!

Ricky Tims

I have recently found a new Textile Artist (ie. Quilter) that I have become intrigued with.  His name is Ricky Tims, and I got a couple of his books from the Library.  He is known for his convergence quilts and for his medallion kaleidoscope quilts. I saw samples of both these kinds of quilts at the quilt show, both in Madison and here in Darlington.  These kinds of quilts definitely fall under the category of "art quilts."  They tend to be smaller and more abstract.  Nothing traditional at all!  Still, I am intrigued by his gorgeous quilts and the process which he lays out for you in each of these books.

I know I will have to give both those kinds of quilts a try sooner or later!  Here are the books I borrowed:

  

Fuzz!

After trimming my Bucky quilt to square it for binding, I found this mess IN  my cutting mat!  All these fibers are embedded in the cuts!  I tried washing it out, but they are stuck in really good.  I read that an artist's rubber eraser works good on rubbing these fibers out of the cracks.  I'm gonna need one of those!  For now, I just turned my mat upside down so I don't get fuzz on other fabrics.  Oh, and by the way, I had to clean fuzz out of my bobbin case every time I changed the bobbin.  Fleece may be easy to work with, but it is very messy and leaves lint and fibers EVERYWHERE!

Ruler Work

One of the challenges I faced in quilting the Bucky quilt was in the outer border.  I wanted to make parallel lines, in pairs.  I have seen this in other quilts and I liked it a lot.  Nothing like a simple, masculine-looking touch to finish off the quilting.  Only it turned out to not be so simple.  I tried to free-motion quilt the parallel lines. Problems:  1)  They have to be PARALLEL to each other and all the rest of the lines.  2)  They have to be PERPENDICULAR to the edge and the border.  3)  They have to be STRAIGHT!  4)  They have to be the same width apart.

This was harder to achieve than I thought.  I consider myself to be a fairly good free-motion quilter.  I have done a lot of it.  But I found this very hard to do.  Lines were slanty, lines were crooked or wobbly.  Same width wasn't too tricky, I can measure.  I ripped out, a lot!  I remember something called "ruler work", whereby you free motion quilt using a ruler next to your pressure foot.  There are special, extra-thick rulers for this, and also a special thick pressure foot.  Neither of which I have in my possession.  Hmmm.  Still, I tried it with a regular ruler, and my free-motion foot, and, after a few bobbles, I had fairly good success.  Not perfect, but WAY BETTER than what I had done previously.  One helpful thing was my stripe was just 1 inch wide, so I lined it up between two one-inch marks on the ruler, and presto!  Instant Perpendicular.  Also, I learned to wait until my needle was in the red stripe to change hand positions.  There always seems to be this little "jog" in my lines when I change hand positions, so using red thread and stopping the needle in the red stripe, the jog (if there is one) isn't so noticeable.  I also added sandpaper gripping dots to the bottom of the ruler so it didn't slip on the fabric.  It really helped move the fabric and ruler at the same time.  Consistent pressure on the ruler was also very important.  There was a definite learning curve to this process, and as I went around the quilt adding sets of parallel lines, I got better and better.  I know I will be using this process in the future.  I might even invest in an extra thick ruler and pressure foot!!

  

Bucky is DONE!

I think I have set a new speed record for a full size quilt in less than 3 weeks!  From buying fabric to binding on.  It was a simple pattern, and there is no fancy quilting, mostly stitch in the ditch.  Still it is finished and I can move on to new horizons!  I took it for Show and Tell at the Quilt Guild meeting tonight.  Here it is:

Bucky Progress

The Bucky quilt is coming along nicely.  I am almost done with the top, just one border to go.  I have made the border, but was very sloppy with my seam allowance, and my 9.5" width turned out to be only 9" wide.  The cornerstone star block that will fit in the corner is way too wide.  I will have to rip the pieced border apart and resew it with skimpy-er seams.  Grrrrrrrrr!  What was I thinking!??  It seems I have done a lot of ripping out of this quilt!  I changed the background of the cornerstone stars from white to black,  I think it looks a lot better that way.  But I had to rip apart one of the stars so I could rotate the "Y" sections so the black is in the background position, and resew the block.  Very time consuming, but luckily I only had to do one that way.  Anyway, here are the 3 seams on the quilt that DO fit nicely!

I have decided to bind the quilt in the black/white herringbone fabric (looks gray in the picture.)  I think I will have enough to do it.  (Fingers crossed.)

Bucky Borders

The Bucky Badger quilt is coming together really quickly, I knew that it would.  I am now working on the very last border, and the cornerstones.  Here's how it looks.  Not a bad week's work!

The outer border will be black, 9", with a thin red strip in the center.  A 9" border seems wide to me, but I want to put those same stars in the corners as cornerstones. Those stars are 9" blocks, so that dictates the size of the border.  I suppose I could make smaller stars though....  I'll have to think about this.  I'm not sure what I'll use for binding yet, I'll see what I have when I get that far.  Probably not black though, Red would look nice against the black, so that's a good possibility.

I'm not really crazy about the Badger prints next to that grayish border.  I wish I would have reversed the colors, black on the inner rail (surrounding Bucky) and the gray on the outside but with a black border.  Too late to change it now.  I had a hard time (not really "hard" just time consuming) matching the stripes in the plaid.  Things are out of sync in a couple of places, but the white stripes match, so maybe it's not that noticeable.  In order to line up the white plaids so that the vertical lines would match in the corners with the vertical lines on the side borders, I had to fudge a bit.  The lines were offset about an inch.  So I took tiny tucks in the top and bottom borders, about an eighth of an inch or so, next to the Wisconsin "W." There was a little wider space next to the vertical white plaid line at that point. I could remove some of that extra space and it wasn't noticeable in the overall design.  Sewing an eighth of an inch tuck next to that wider space removed a quarter of an inch from the width of the border.  Doesn't sound like much, but doing it 4 times removed that offset inch, and my vertical lines could match up!  I'm pretty pleased with that.  I will quilt over those extra seam line when I quilt this and camouflage my fudging even more!!!

Bucky Badger

Awhile ago, my friend, Linda, has asked me to make her a Badger quilt to give to her son for Christmas.  So yesterday we went fabric shopping, and today I started.  I have a pattern especially designed for sports fans and team fabrics, so I am excited to get to work!  This is the same pattern that Heidi from Pins and Pieces used to make a 56" x 56" quilt for Bo Ryan, head coach for the University of Wisconsin basketball team.

Bo Ryan (center) with his quilt from Heidi (right)

Mine will look something like this, but no pictures of Bo Ryan, of course.  I will put a scanned pic of Bucky Badger in the center instead.  Mine will also be much bigger.  I designed the parameters in Electric Quilt, and mine will be around 76 x 82.  This is a really easy pattern with big sections so it shouldn't take me too long.  The backing will be a Badger print fleece.  I used fleece for the backing of Bailey's quilt, and it's very nice to work with.

Here a good start.  (Love my "design wall, an old flannel tablecloth pinned to a big piece of cardboard?  Gotta love flannel!)

Darlington Quilt Show

Darlington had its bi-annual quilt show this year and, as a member of the local quilt guild, I helped with that show.  We raffled off the Jewel Box quilt (which I helped make last spring).  I entered 6 quilts and 1 wall hanging in the show this year, and although I didn't win any ribbons, I did get some Viewer's Choice votes on my various quilts.  I say "my" quilts, but I mean quilts that I made!  I borrowed Kaylyn's, Bailey's, Maggie's and Luke's quilts for the show, as well as entered 2 of my own: Kaleidoscope Stars and Bottled Rainbow quilts.  I also entered Bob's deer wall hanging which I gave him for Christmas last year. Here they all are, in the show.

Bottled Rainbows

Kaleidoscope Stars  

Kaylyn's Hexies and Cubes

Bob Deer Wall Hanging (left), Bailey's Deer Country

  

Luke's Deer Quilt

Maggie's "In Memory of Kay"