Scrappy Star for Carrie, Swiss Cross for Nancy + a Label for Maria Elizabeth

Happy Monday, quilting friends!  I have two client quilts to share with you today, plus glimpses of my so-closed-to-being-finished Halo quilt, and an update on Mister Puppy Pants' recovery from ACL surgery.  Lots of ground to cover, so I'll try (and likely fail) to be brief...

Carrie's Scrappy Star Baby Quilt

This first quilt I'm sharing with you was made by my client Carrie.  There is no pattern for this one; Carrie just made it up as she went along.  Don't you just love how her star is mostly made up of squares, but with a couple pinwheel blocks and a half square triangle thrown in here or there for interest?  I think the pinwheels make it look like her star is twinkling!

Carrie's 42 x 42 Baby Quilt, No Pattern Available

We chose Judi Madsen's Flower Swirl E2E design to give this baby quilt a fun, playful vibe, and the batting is Quilter's Dream Bamboo blend for a super soft, snuggly baby quilt without too much bulk (this post contains affiliate links).  Here's a photo of Carrie's sweet baby quilt before I quilted it for her:

Carrie's Baby Quilt Before Quilting

Since we wanted to really notice the whimsical quilting design against the background fabrics, I used YLI 40 Tex Variegated Machine Quilting Cotton in color Paris Boutique.  

Another Month, Another Goal... Or Two: Of Bear Paws and Kaleidoscopes

 I was long-winded on the topic of that vintage Economy quilt yesterday, so today's post is going to be Short and Sweet!

I have a Major Goal for April as well as a Minor Goal.  The Minor Goal is to get my Color Outside the Lines bear paw quilt off my WIP list.  That entails labeling, binding, and hand finishing the binding on this one.  After clearing off the heaps of fabric debris on the cutting table from my kaleidoscope, I finally had room to trim the bear paw quilt and machine embroider its label yesterday.

Machine Embroidered Label, Ready to Applique

And no, that is not a typo or your eyes playing April Fools jokes on you.  I really did start working on this quilt SEVEN years ago, in May of 2014.  It will feel good to have this one done at the end of the month!

But my Major and Supreme Goal for April is to get my son's kaleidoscope graduation quilt, Giverny Teleidoscope, to the Finished Flimsy stage by the end of the month.  While I had the embroidery module and stabilizers out anyway, I went ahead and embroidered the label for Anders' quilt as well.  It's stitching out right now, while I'm typing this blog post.

Tuesday's To-Do List: Still Slogging Along With Butterflies and Clam Shells

 Might as well just get to the meat and potatoes this week!  Last week's goals turned out to be overly ambitious:

✅ finish quilting Modern Baby Clam Shells, AND 

✅ get it labeled and   

❌ bound, AND  

❌ get my Letter Home baby quilt top and ready to load on my frame.  

After quilting the pantograph design over most of my Modern Baby Clam Shells quilt and stitching in the ditch around my butterfly appliqués  a quilter who was more goal oriented and focused than I am would have finished up the quilting with some monofilament or color matched thread to machine quilt along the butterfly veins.  I decided to haul out all of my yummy hand stitching threads instead.  I ended up quilting my butterfly veins with Perle Cotton #5, which would probably have looked better with a longer stitch length, but I like it anyway:

Perle Cotton no. 5 for Hand Quilted Butterfly Veins

I like the idea of combining machine quilting with hand stitched details, and think I might explore more of that in future.  

Best of all, since my butterflies are turned edge appliqué with the backing trimmed away behind them and no fusible web or anything like that to add stiffness, they are super soft and smooshable and were very easy to needle for the hand quilting.

The purple butterflies got green stitching.  It's subtle, but I love the vintage hand stitched vibe it gives my butterflies.

All Quilting Completed, Ready to Trim

You know, I was really tempted to custom quilt this one, if I hadn't been up against a time crunch to get it finished.  But I have to say, the less densely quilted pantograph design makes this baby quilt SO soft and cuddly!  Custom quilting might have made for a stiffer quilt, and if I'd gotten too carried away with it, the baby's mom might have felt like the quilt was "too fancy" for everyday use and stuck it in a closet.  😱😱😱. Heaven forbid!  So all's well that ends well!

Attaching the Machine Embroidered Label

My bee group that used to meet in person Pre-Plague has been meeting on Zoom instead on Monday afternoons, and I used that time today to get this quilt trimmed and to attach the machine embroidered label I'd digitized and stitched out on Sunday.  I tried something new this time, using Aurifil 50/2 Cotton threads in the needle and also in the bobbin to embroider my quilt label.  I am really happy with how it came out!  That extra thickness to the thread (compared to regular embroidery thread and bobbin thread) gave the stitching more prominence, yet I had zero issues with puckering or thread breaks.  And although I love the sheen of trilobal polyester or rayon embroidery threads for other projects, I liked the matte lustre of the 100% cotton thread for this quilt.  I used one layer of water soluble topping, one layer of tearaway stabilizer in the hoop, with a second layer of tearaway stabilizer floated beneath the hoop.  I used my built-in basting stitch around the perimeter of the design as well, both to reduce the tendency of the embroidery to draw up and pucker, but also because the basting stitches form a nice, straight rectangle around the label design that I can use to trim the excess fabric and turn the two edges of the label that won't be caught in the binding.

My local chapter of the Modern Quilt Guild will be doing its first in-person stitch-together next Saturday, in the parking lot of the church where we usually meet, with masks and social distancing in place.  I'm planning to get the binding machine stitched to my clam shell quilt tomorrow and then set it aside to be finished with hand stitching at my guild's outdoor gathering. I sure hope the weather cooperates!

And then I can turn my attention back to the baby brother's quilt, based on the AQS Letter Home QAL.  So, that's what I'll be up to for the rest of this week!

Rebecca's To-Do List for This Week:

1. Attach binding to clam shell quilt by machine
2. Finish piecing Letter Home blocks
3. Assemble Letter Home quilt top
4. Piece Letter Home backing
5. Load Letter Home on the long arm frame

I'm tempted to put more on that list, but there's so much SHAME when I have to put red X's next to everything at the end of the week!  😉. Best to quit while I'm ahead!  I'm linking up today's post with the following linky parties:

MONDAY

·       Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts  

·       Monday Making at Love Laugh Quilt

TUESDAY

·       To-Do Tuesday at Home Sewn By Us

WEDNESDAY

·       Midweek Makers at Quilt Fabrication

·       Wednesday Wait Loss at The Inquiring Quilter

Tuesday To-Do List: Finish All the Stuff I Didn't Get Done Last Week

Good morning and Happy Tuesday!  My post for today's Long Arm Linky party got awfully long, so I thought it would be best to put my To Do's and Ta-Done's in a separate post this week.  Without further ado:  

Last Week's To-Do List:

Stay on top of the linky party and continue to spread the word to other machine quilters.  Get the linky post written and scheduled to publish in advance.

Finish the three remaining in-progress blocks for my MMBB quilt before I clear off my cutting table.

Trim excess batting & backing from Spirit Song

Digitize, machine embroider & attach a label to the back of Spirit Song

Make & machine stitch binding to the front of Spirit Song

Start hand stitching binding to the back of Spirit Song

Order a new ruler base for my Millie (because my current ruler base will no longer fit, once the thread cutter has been removed)

Well, I got SOME of that stuff done!  My linky party post was finished and scheduled for publication by mid-afternoon yesterday (you can find that post HERE if you'd like to link up with us!).  I finished two of the three in-progress blocks for Anders' MMBB sampler quilt, and I got well into the piecing of the third block last night:

I also got my 2" binding strips cut for The Quilt Formerly Known as Spirit Song (binding strips are at left in the photo above), decided to rename that quilt Sermon Scribbles instead, and digitized and machine embroidered my quilt label:

A few words about that: I know some of you will be disappointed that I changed the name of Spirit Song, but it just didn't feel like the right name for this quilt.  "Spirit Song" sounds like there is some deep, lofty meaning to the quilt, but it's just a lot of HSTs and a LOT of custom quilting.  It's not some crowning achievement that speaks to the world about any song in my soul, it's just a quilt I made to practice long arm quilting, a quilt that happened to be in the colors that our contemporary choir at church (Spirit Song) wears frequently.  However, I did furtively sketch out the quilting designs for this quilt on my iPad over the course of several weeks' worth of sermons, while sitting up at the front of the church with the rest of the choir and fooling no one into thinking I was taking notes on the sermon...  So the new name "Sermon Scribbles" feels like a better fit to me, since this one is really all about the quilting designs -- my sermon scribbles -- anyway.  

Those little Saran Wrap-looking bits inside some of the lettering are washaway embroidery stabilizer, by the way -- they will dissolve in the first washing of the quilt.  I used 60/2 cotton embroidery thread to stitch the design, same hot pink thread in the needle as well as in the bobbin, with one layer of water soluble stabilizer on top and one layer of tearaway stabilizer underneath.  I used my Bernina 750QE's hoop basting feature to stitch that rectangular box of basting stitches around the label before embroidering the text, and then I trimmed 1/4" away from the basting stitches so I could use them as a guide for the edges of my label.  

This Week's To-Do List:

• Finish that 15" orange block with the flying geese for Anders' sampler quilt
• Trim the edges of my Sermon Scribbles quilt
• Applique my label to the back of Sermon Scribbles
• Make binding for Sermon Scribbles, machine stitch to front of quilt & hand stitch to the backing
• Wash Sermon Scribbles and take that quilt out for a photo shoot!
• Piece backing for tumbler outreach top (next in line for quilting!)

My new acrylic ruler base was shipped from APQS in Iowa yesterday and should be here by the end of the week.  It looks just like my old one except that it's not quite as wide and it's designed to fit machines without thread cutters:

I'm also planning to order a different type of ruler base from Donita Darlington's Lakeside Quilting that I found out about through the APQS forum, one that is designed like an extended aluminum stitch plate that screws into the needle plate holes of the machine and has beveled edges that are supposed to slide under the side clamps better without getting hung up on them, but the small business that makes them needs me to mark my machine's needle hole on their cardboard template so they can drill the hole in my ruler base plate in exactly the right spot.  I still haven't gotten their template in the mail yet, so it will be awhile before I actually have that RulerMate base for my machine.  

I'm looking forward to trying both ruler base styles to see which one I prefer, and I suspect that there are going to be certain quilts where I want the Hartley base that goes on and off quickly, and others where I prefer the low profile, smaller footprint, and stability of Donita's screw-on RulerMate design.  By the way, Donita quilts on Gammill machines herself and she sells versions of this ruler base for most major long arm machine manufacturers.  

Alright, that's it for today!  I'm linking up today's post with To-Do Tuesday at Home Sewn By Us.

Vintage Double Wedding Ring Bed Runners Finished and Delivered!

Remember that Double Wedding Ring UFO that I told you about back in August?  A woman had contacted our Charlotte Quilters' Guild looking for someone who could finish an in-progress Double Wedding Ring quilt that she found in her mother's attic. She had a tub of assembled circular wedding ring blocks, a small section of a handful of blocks sewn together, and lots of tiny wedge pieces cut out.  Based on the client's recollection of when her grandmother had grown too ill to sew, as well as rough dating of the fabrics in the blocks and the techniques she was using (paper templates and scissor cutting), we think that her grandmother was working on this project in the late eighties or early nineties.

Vintage Double Wedding Ring Bed Runner

As is typical with vintage quilt tops, these blocks had lots of "personality" that made them difficult to assemble.  Each circular block had finished to a slightly different size, and there were signs of struggle in most of the deep Vs where the arcs join adjacent blocks.  I suspect the original maker set this project aside due to frustration and discouragement trying to fit the blocks together after she'd gone through all of that work to cut out every single patch with a scissor and then all of the curved piecing...  We've all had projects like that, haven't we, that we just need to put in "Time Out" until we're ready to deal with them again?

Vintage Double Wedding Ring with Curly Feathers Quilting Design

Instead of completing this project as a bed quilt as grandmother likely intended, we decided to select the blocks with the fewest piecing issues and use them to create two Queen bed runners, one for my client to keep, and one for her to give as a surprise Christmas gift to her cousin who shares fond memories of snuggling up under Grandma's quilts.

One Of the Two Bed Runners, Laid Out on Dining Room Table

I completed the piecing of the bed runners myself and starched them as flat and smooth as possible before passing them off to my friend Christa Smith for computerized longarm quilting.  (My machine is not yet computerized, and had been experiencing technical difficulties at the time I was making these arrangements for my client's project).  I knew Christa would do an amazing job, and she definitely came through!  We chose Jessica Schick's Curly Feathers allover design for the bed runners for a couple of reasons.  First, the labor involved in piecing the tops and doing the hand finished scalloped binding for two bed runners was significant, and an allover computerized pantograph design helped to keep this project affordable for the client.  Second, custom quilting the bed runners might have drawn attention to the imperfections of the piecing.  There also would not have been enough time to get the runners finished in time for Christmas if we'd gone with custom quilting.  But most importantly, the primary value of these bed runner quilts to the client is that it represents the last quilt her grandma made, and none of Grandma's older quilts that she remembers from her childhood have survived to be passed down.  Custom longarm quilting is definitely not the way that Grandma would have quilted this project back in 1990, and it would have made the bed runners more about the tastes and preferences of the quilters of today than about the taste and preferences of Grandma.  I think Grandma might have finished this herself with a hand quilted feather wreath of some kind in the middle of each wedding ring.  The way we quilted it gives a similar traditional look at first impression, does not upstage the piecing, and gave enough quilting to control areas of fullness in each runner so they lay nice and flat, without "overquilting" any area in a way that would look more "modern traditional" than truly vintage. 

So my amazing friend Christa of Cotton Berry Quilting quilted both bed runners and she also did the scalloped binding.  This is the friend who has the same model longarm machine as mine, who has gone out of her way to help me figure out what was wrong with my machine so I could get it up and running again -- one of the kindest, most generous and talented people I know.  (FYI, for those of you who might be looking for a longarmer -- although Christa is no longer doing custom quilting for clients, she still accepts customer quilts for computerized edge-to-edge quilting).  

Christa did the scalloped binding as well.  Then she returned the quilts to me and I personalized them with machine embroidered quilt labels.

Label Machine Embroidered on Bernina 750QEE with Mettler 60/2 Cotton Embroidery Thread

To maintain the vintage vibe, I embroidered the quilt labels with Mettler 60/2 cotton embroidery thread rather than using a shiny rayon or polyester embroidery thread.  

Digitizing the Labels On My Computer

I digitized the labels on the computer using my Bernina v8 Designer Plus embroidery software, utilizing the built-in settings for lightweight woven fabric and Run Liberty, one of the fonts included in the software.  

Digitizing the Label in v8 Bernina Designer Plus Embroidery Software

I increase the space between letters with this font to ensure the label is still legible with the font so small, and then I added a hand stitched French knot to the dot above each "i" after the machine embroidery was completed.  [Note to Self: skip the water soluble topping next time I'm embroidering quilt labels for a quilt that won't be washed immediately.  It was such a bear trying to remove all of those little stabilizer bits when I was finished embroidering!]

Second Machine Embroidered Quilt Label

Each of the two bed runners has a different backing fabric, but I went with the same fabric and thread colors for both labels.  After pre-turning the edges and pressing the creases with my iron, I glue-basted the labels in place before hand appliquéing them to the back of the bed runners.  And no, I did not put either my name or Christa's name on the quilt labels.  I know that quilt historians want to know the names, birth places, and blood types of every single person who worked on a quilt, but these are not museum pieces.  I feel like these small quilts are between a grandma and her granddaughters, and it felt wrong to put anyone else's names on the labels besides theirs.

I could not be more pleased with how these came out, and my client is thrilled with them.  As a quilter myself, I know how much it would have meant to the original quilt maker to know that her granddaughters still cherish her memory, and the memory of being wrapped in her quilts at the holidays.  These last two quilts from Grandma will surely be treasured.  But I'm also glad they are done and out of my house!  Now the only thing between me and the Jingle quilt needing to be quilted is a mountain of Christmas packages waiting to be wrapped...

I'm linking today's post with:

·       Whoop Whoop Fridays at Confessions of a Fabric Addict

·       Beauty Pageant at From Bolt to Beauty

·       Finished Or Not Friday at Busy Hands Quilts

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·       TGIFF Thank Goodness It’s Finished Friday, hosted this week at Home Sewn By Us  

Three Favorite Traditional Applique Quilts From AQS Paducah Quilt Week + Vintage Quilt Repair Update

Okay, my lovelies -- I know you wanna hear all about my adventures at AQS Paducah Quilt Week, but you're only gonna get this in dribbles because my brain is overloaded, there are 500+ photos on my iPhone, 45 pages of notes from the TEN classes I took (those are just my own notes above and beyond the handouts) and UPS won't be delivering my big box of show goodies until Wednesday.

Best of Show: Muttons and Buttons and Pearls, Oh My! by Janet Stone, Overland Park, KS, Photo by AQS

You may have already seen this AQS photo of the 2019 Janome Best of Show winner, "Muttons & Buttons & Pearls, Oh My" by Janet Stone.  Isn't it gorgeous?  You can find out more about this quilt and watch an interview with the quilter on the AQS website here.  I was not able to get a good, clear photo of the front of this quilt myself without anybody's head in the way, but I did get some close-up shots of details that caught my eye:

Prize-Winning Quilts ALWAYS Wear Labels...

Ah, yes -- we are going to look at the BACK of the quilt with the darling little sheep print fabric, and the quilt label.  The label is simple but elegant, conveying the relevant information in permanent ink, embellished with a narrow striped border and a smattering of pearls.  As long as Janet labored over this amazing prize-winning show quilt, this label did not take long to make at all.  And it's PERFECT!  (There is a moral to this blog post, y'all -- LABEL YOUR QUILTS!  No more excuses!)

Check Out the Nifty Binding Details

Janet's crisp, overlapping prairie points are adorned with contrasting blanket stitching and hand stitched pearl beads, and they are ingeniously sandwiched between two different "binding" fabrics, as you can see comparing this photo to the previous one.  

The other detail that called to me was the quilting in the white border between the appliquéd flowers:

I Love the Sweet Leaves and Berries Quilted In This Border!

This is simple connecting curves with a little "pearl" or pebble or whatever, nothing fancy, but it complements these simple folk floral appliques beautifully and the execution of the machine quilting is nearly flawless even with your nose 3" away from the quilt.  No galloping horses needed for THIS quilt!

You can see even MORE gorgeous detail photography of this quilt over on The Quilt Show's blog here.  

I'm only going to show you two more quilts tonight, because I'm tired.  Like Janet's Best of Show quilt, these are also very traditional designs and colorways but created using the best modern machine techniques.

Coxcomb Nouveau, by Wilma Richter and Leah Sample, Little Rock, AR

What I love about this quilt is how at first glance it's a straight-up antique reproduction, but the very modern geometric longarm ruler work quilting sets off the traditional appliqué and makes it feel fresh.

Geometric Ruler Work Quilted Background Sets Off Applique

Of course, since I was overloading on longarm quilting workshops at this show, I was especially focused on the way each piece was quilted.  After taking ruler work classes with both Judi Madsen and Lisa Calle, I have a much better idea of how to accomplish quilting like this -- after some additional practice, naturally!

1790 Love Entwined by Marlee Carter, New Gloucester, ME

The last quilt I'm showing you today is one I was delighted to recognize -- it's the first version of Esther Aliu's Love Entwined pattern that I've seen "in the flesh."  This is Esther's painstaking pattern based on an antique British quilt that she has only seen a black and white photo of in an old book, referred to simply as "1790 Coverlet."  That is some insane appliqué, don't you think?  Marlee did an amazing job with the appliqué.   

That's all you get for today, though.  I've got to get the binding on my vintage repair quilt so I can get it back to its owner, and I need to get Lars's graduation quilt loaded on my longarm frame and start quilting it -- I've only got a little over three weeks now to get it completed before graduation weekend and Quillow Sunday.

Just realized that I forgot to show you how the quilting and machine embroidered label came out for the vintage quilt!  The first time I shared this quilt with you it looked like this:

1960s Utility Quilt Top, Acrylic Yarn Ties, Poly Batting, and Backing Removed

The backing was in shreds and the quilt's owner requested a change in color, so I snipped away the acrylic yarn ties to free the quilt top for patching and seam repair.  You can read more about my process for repairing the quilt top in this post.

Quilting Allover Loopy Meander to Draw In Excess Fullness

I'm using new backing fabric (prewashed in HOT water to maximize shrinkage, since the fabrics in the quilt top have been laundered many times over the years) with 80/20 batting, Superior's King Tut cotton 40 weight thread in a variegated pinky-orange that reminds me of cotton candy or sherbet, and off-white Superior Super Bobs prewound 60 weight polyester in the bobbin that just melts into the lavender backing fabric and disappears.  I chose the loopy meander because I thought the random curvy quilting lines were a nice complement to the random straight(ish) piecing lines of this utility quilt, and the double loops were good for drawing in excess fullness in areas where that was a problem.  I wanted to quilt this close enough to marry the fragile vintage quilt top fabrics to the new batting and backing for strength, but didn't want to do anything with the quilting that would draw too much attention to itself and scream "Rebecca was here."  I am VERY pleased to say that this quilt came off the frame nice and flat and SQUARE.  Hallelujah!

My Patched Sections Blend In Even Better After Quilting

My goal with this quilt is to be as invisible as possible, so it still "looks like grandma's quilt" to my friend when she gets it back.  I digitized this quilt label in my Bernina v8 Designer Plus software and stitched it out in cotton embroidery thread on my Bernina 750QE sewing machine, matching the thread color to the original acrylic yarn (the original backing was that same Day Glo orange, too).  The orange dots on the new purple backing fabric and the loopy circles that I quilted in are supposed to be suggestive of these little yarn pom poms, too, since they are not going back on the quilt.  

Machine Embroidered Label Ready to Attach

I chose binding fabric in that same orange:

Label Attached, Awaiting Binding

GOSH I hope she likes this.  I am SO FAR PAST the point of no return!

After 30 hours of longarm quilting workshops, I have a much better idea of how I want to quilt Lars's Mission Impossible graduation quilt, and I have new longarm rulers and thread coming for that in the UPS box that I shipped home from the show.  And no, that doesn't mean I overspent -- I have a bulky quilt sample from each of the 10 classes that I took and I wanted to keep them all because I didn't finish any of them and I want them for reference.  They go with my notes

And so, without further ado...  my To-Do On Tuesday Goals for this week are:

1. Bind this Vintage Quilt & Return to Owner
2. Test Spoonflower backing for colorfastness & deal with any dye instability, then piece Mission Impossible backing
3. Load Mission Impossible and start quilting!

I'm linking today's post up with:

TUESDAY

·      Colour and Inspiration Tuesday at http://www.cleverchameleon.com.au

·       To-Do Tuesday at Stitch ALL the Things: http://stitchallthethings.com

WEDNESDAY

·      Midweek Makers at www.quiltfabrication.com/

·      WOW WIP on Wednesday at www.estheraliu.blogspot.com

THURSDAY

Needle and Thread Thursday at http://www.myquiltinfatuation.blogspot.com/