Quilting Loft 2.0

A DIY renovation to my upstairs to create a place where I can be creative and build my skills as a quilter, in particular in long arm quilting.

Fire & Water

Completed the class project from my local quilting class on Sunday night. I have to say I will likely never do hand binding again even though I do love the look and finish of it. It's just too tedious and irritating with the loss of dexterity in my fingers from the RA. I did use a bad type of thread for it so maybe someday I'll try it again but for now I will have to keep exploring machine binding.

So here is my finished project! I quilted free hand flame type designs in the small frame surrounding the center squares and the rust colored areas around the brighter orange star points. In the gray area I quilted one of Leah Day's designs called Underwater Rocks. I am going to use the quilt as a wall hanging. The colors go perfectly in my house :)

Jackie's Quilt

Years ago I offered to make a quilt for my mother in law and she picked fabrics out and gave them to me. Then I pretty much stalled out on any sewing projects because of not really having a decent space to work, and just having no idea how to quilt it on my own. Anyways, I recently got out her fabric and decided to try a basic pinwheel quilt since she said she liked the pinwheel design after I painted it on one of my jumps. I finished the top today and plan to get it basted together tomorrow. It's about 70"X58".... Large lap, sofa nap type size. I learned a lot making this and in a few years when my skill is better I will make her another one with better craftsmanship, but overall I am really happy with it. My first pinwheel blocks:

Progress on class project...

I finished piecing the project for my class at The Needleworks last weekend and then sort of delayed starting the quilting because I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do on it.

Eventually I made myself baste the sandwich together and doodle some ideas with my ceramic pencil. I also looked through a bunch of Leah Day designs from The Free Motion Quilting Project. I decided to go with a design called Underwater Rocks for the grey parts, in a blue thread, but I haven't started that yet as I needed to quilt the centers first.

I decided on a freehand flame type design in the rust colored areas and stuck with my plan to leave the center squares and orange star points as is.... Puffy and unquilted, so they would stand out. So, I've done all the quilting in the squares, just have the grey areas left.

I decided to audition the design and thread color choice on a scrap of the grey batik (a well taken suggestion from many of Leah Days videos - to take the time to test things out and audition things) and I am glad I did because the thread I picked is too light. So I'm going to do another audition with a darker thread soon.

Once I find the right thing I'll finish up quilting this and have it ready for our last class, where we will learn binding. I am really looking forward to this part and hoping I can learn a lot. My one experience with attempting binding didn't turn out great and I want to get that technique down before I am ready to bind Jackie's quilt. I am more than half done piecing that and since I am ahead of class for tomorrow and can't FMQ at class I am going to work on piecing more of Jackie's quilt there.

So here are some pics of the project as it is right now. Hope you can see the quilting! I'm excited because this is the first quilt for which I have chosen my own quilting design.

Quilting class at The Needleworks

I am taking a quilting class with a couple of friends at a local quilt shop called The Needleworks in Saegertown, PA. We are making a small table runner, which I may turn into a wall hanging instead. I finished my "homework" for the first class over the weekend, but forgot to add this to my post catching up on all my latest stuff. So here it is.... I am really excited about how it is coming together.

A quick catch up on what I've been up to...

So I finished the Heart Flower and Feathers whole cloth quilt and had my first experience with binding. It didn't go well but it's done and I learned some things from my mistakes.

 I also began  making my first appliqué piece and I am pretty excited about how that is coming along. I based my design off of a pattern available in the July/Aug 2013 issue of Quiltmaker called the Fall Skinnie, "Hoo's there?" I changed it to make a spring or summer version though.
Here is what the pattern looks like:

And here is my version made for spring!!!

Other than that I did some practice of free motion quilting freehand spirals...

And I got my nine patch blocks pieced for the BBQA for February! First time doing nine patch blocks, pretty happy with how they ended up. I did make an error when I was precutting all my fabric for the whole project and I didn't cut enough piece for this and I don't have any extra of the blue so I had to border one block in the green but I think it looks good and it's neat to have the variation. Looking forward to quilting them!

Finished the quilting on Heart Flower and Feather Wholecloth! And my spiral blocks for BBQA!

Started trying to do micro-stippling!

Crossed my line a few times and it's not as small as it should be but overall I'm pretty happy with it! More tomorrow!

Finished the outline quilting on Heart Flower and Feathers :)

Just wanted to share a picture of my finished outline stitching on the little Heart Flowers and Feather Wholecloth Quilt. Pretty happy with it, a few mistakes here and there, but overall I'm pretty stoked. Tomorrow and Tuesday I will work on some filling with micro-stippling.

Heart Flower and Feathers Wholecloth Quilt!

In the beginning of December 2013, the snow was blowing and I was unable (or unwilling due to the temperature) to spend my time in my usual pursuit of riding my horses. I started thinking about why I had not really gotten to any of the quilting projects I had wanted to do and had already purchased fabric for. I honed in on the answer that I was unmotivated to create the tops I had planned on making because I didn't know how to quilt them. I am a beginner at sewing and quilting and while piecing didn't give me any pause, I was just at a loss on how to really quilt a quilt myself. I didn't really *want* to send them out for quilting, nor could I really afford to. So after some searching around online I came across Leah Day's Free Motion Quilting Project.

I began voraciously watching her many online tutorials on YouTube and I was hooked. One part of the 2012 Quilt Along I just loved was the Heart Flower and Feathers Wholecloth Quilt. I really wanted to try it out, so after doing a couple of the 2014 Building Blocks Quilt Along that I am participating in right now, I decided to give it a try! It may be the first of a few because I know the first one (or two) won't be perfect and I really love this little quilt and want a nice one to hang on my wall in my sewing room. I am sure going to learn a ton by doing this little wholecloth quilt - I could even keep them unbound and then eventually bind them together to make a table runner. How cute would that be!

Thursday I prewashed and dried my fabrics and ironed and starched them, Friday evening I marked my fabric with the motif and basted it and today I got started quilting it. I've made a couple mistakes on the curves of the hearts, but I don't think they will be too noticeable once I add the micro-stippling filler. I am so thrilled to actually be working on this. The weather has been absolutely frigid here, single digits and sub-zero and looks to stay that way through the middle of the coming week, so I will have plenty of time to work on it!!

Here is a photo of it marked and basted and another two of it after I quilted the center heart flower and overlapping square rings. Not too shabby!! The splotches, like in the center indent of one of the hearts is from my marking pen when it was going over top of the scotch tape I used to put together the four pieces of paper that make up the entire motif. It should come out with water.



    

New Year, New Sewing Room!

Part of the reason I had not continued with learning how to sew and quilt in years past was the condition of the area where my sewing stuff was located. It was dark, unwelcoming, disorganized, and without good work stations. So around the middle of December I decided - Thats it! I am fixing this situation. Since our house doesn't have a basement or attic, all the "stuff" that has no where else to go would end up getting thrown into my "studio." So, the first step was a major purge and reorganizing.

Here it is before the makeover, but after the purge:

The next steps were painting the room (I hate fake wood paneling), figuring out the layout of the room and constructing a large work table. I found an online IKEA hack using their Lack Tables, which are small side tables and putting them together to make a large work space. Here are some in progress pictures: 

I also built a Light Box: 

In addition to the Light Box, I got a frame for a beautiful piece of art that was a gift from the artist when I was child. I also sewed a curtain, chair cushions and a pillow. Other than that I made a new top for my ironing board and a smaller 18 x 18 press board that I can have at the work table for when I am piecing or whatnot. I have my Huskystar C10 set up as a Free Motion Quilting Machine in the Gidget 2 sewing table, with the Queen Supreme Slider mat and a modified generic free motion quilting foot. I following Leah Day's tutorial on how to modify the foot. I have my Brother Project Runway LE for piecing and regular sewing, which I can move onto the big work table or have at the brown desk, depending on what I feel like. 

Here are photos of the room basically finished: 

I am super excited and have already made a bunch of things in the room like my BBQA blocks, a few ribbon belts, ribbon pillow and wreath, scissor/tool cases, and next is a small FMQ Wholecloth Quilt project from some of  Leah Day's old videos. I just loved it and I wanted to make it. 

Pictures of what I have made so far in my new studio! 

So I just wanted to add this post, to remember this process and what happened in the very end of 2013 and beginning of 2014! New Year, New Sewing Room, New Adventures!