Quilting

Boxcars on the Track moves to it’s permanent home

Last week Aytan was over and the quilt was ‘finished’. Except for the label, so I wasn’t willing to give it to him yet. Here he is before I bound it, wearing his Spiderman sweatshirt, introducing Mickey to his boxcar on the quilt. Then a few days latter, the binding is done and once again, he has it and is loving it. He likes to put it over his head like a tent. I think his face says it all! I was able to get it away from him that day, I immediately set to work on the label.With big bright embroidery thread I set to work. His name, my name (Savta is Grandma in Hebrew) and of course another train.Then I sewed it on the back with blanket stitch and it was done.I still wasn’t ready to give it to him. Once he has it at home, I’ll never be able to take it away and of course I had to take it to share at LAMQG, my quilt guild. There is nothing better than sharing one’s work with other quilters who appreciate what we do. Except giving it to Aytan himself.

So last night we popped over and gave him the quilt. He had friends at the house but he got so excited. Actually, they and their mom did too – they all liked the trains and Mickey. Aytan knew just what to do.

First you put it on the bed. Yes, trains are a theme in his roomThen you climb into bed and pretend to go to sleep. Two seconds latter he was up and running off to play. According to my daughter-in-law. At night he didn’t want to sleep under the quilt (maybe it was too hot?) but he demanded that it stay on the floor right by his bed. I think we have a winning quilt here. I have achieved what I set out to do – made him a beloved heirloom.

Leah

Bragging rights

The LA Times finally published the article about The Modern Quilt Movement I’m not quite in the picture I am right behind Craig’s head waiting to show my quilt, the Chuppah Yochanan and I made.

We did get a mention, if not by name: “Quilters of all ages filled seats and stood around the store’s cutting table to admire group members’ efforts, which included a minimalist design inspired by rush-hour traffic on the 405 and a Jewish wedding chuppah created for two future grooms — a collaboration between one-half of the couple and his future mother-in-law, who often attend guild meetings together.“

So there is my two seconds of fame in the media.

Leah

Have I mentioned how much I love my Juki TL2010Q? The quilting was just so much fun.Here is the section of the background. Doing swirls and circles. It just went so smoothly. I used Aurifil thread. Yes, it’s the go to thread for quilters these days and I’m on the band wagon.When I quilt, things are much more bunched up, but hey, here you can see quilted vs. the unquilted section yet to come.I used a special quilting ruler and a special quilting foot to get the straight lines.I did not switch to the walking foot, two many turns. I love all the other quilters and crafters with blogs, I learn so much about the different tools out there. This ruler and 1/4″ thick quilting foot really make a difference. Using quilting gloves helps as well.I needed a special quilting foot as well. The one on the right came with the machine, you can see it has a thin narrow foot that sits on the quilt. It would just slip under the ruler and that defeats the whole purpose. I paid a lot of money for the foot on the left, simply because it stated that this is for the Juki, I am being very careful not to use something that might damage the machine. As you can see, the foot part is 1/4″ thick itself and glides smoothly next to the ruler.Quilting done! My SIL mentioned that the straight lines reinforce the box-car while the swirls look like smoke.I bound the quilt with the solids, a nice colorful touch.Spiderman has place of honor on the back. I put a line of box cars there as well, I actually like how they blend into the background fabric. And of course, the remainder of the train tracks.Just a close-up of the quilting from the back.

The spray-basting worked! I don’t have creases on either the front or back. I have since learned a few new tricks that I will use on the next quilt I need to baste. Always learning, there is never a point where I can say I know it all.

So it appears the project is done, not quite. I need to make a label as well as do a final wash. I really want to see how pre washing the batting affects the quilt. That will happen very soon.

Linked at Freshly Pieced

Leah

Basting the quilt

It didn’t take long to finish the top.I don’t have a design wall to pin up my quilt. I use the floor, yes a messy floor with the fabrics lying all around. This way I can see if the distribution of colors is working. As the quilt grows I do have to move out to the living room for more space.Box Cars on the Rails, I think that will be the name of this one. I went outside to photograph in natural light. Hence the shadow of the camera. I have no interest in learning photoshop – I’d rather be sewing, so the shadow stays.Over at Mama Loves Quilts Nicole gives a very good tutorial on pre-washing and drying cotton batting. Since I like the idea of a smooth quilt with well defined stitches I gave it a try. Of course I also pre-washed the fabrics. I’m hoping that this will take care of the shrinkage so when I wash the whole quilt – there won’t be too many changes.Assembling the items for basting. One thing that is missing is the masking tape. It’s there, just not in the picture.There are quite a few quilters out there who have posted about this kind of basting. I’m not sure I like doing this for a large quilt. One of my big problems was that the batting got heavy and pulled away from the wall. So I moved to the grass.I think I should have tried to smooth the batting out more, I was able to smooth out the top and the backing, but there are some creases in the batting which hopefully won’t be noticeable once the quilting is done.

I try and use as many of the fabrics from the top in the backing, I’m sure you noticed a new fabric that has nothing to do with trains or Mickey Mouse. Yes, that is Spiderman. Aytan is loving everything Spiderman right now. I didn’t want Spiderman on the front, I’m hoping this quilt will last a long time, so I figured, the back is the place for him. That way in five years Aytan can look back and remember what his favorite thing was from when he was four. At the moment he seems more excited about the back, he wanted to take it home, luckily I managed to get it away from him without tears.Looking good, now onto the quilting itself.

Linking up with WIP Wednesday

Leah

A quilt for Aytan

Before Aytan was born, 5 years ago, I set out to make a quilt for my first grandchild. I was too impatient to wait to find out the gender of the baby. So I made a baby quilt with pink, green, light blue and brown stars.I had recently gotten back into quilting and had found a wonderful book that showed how to make these different 8 point stars with strip piecing.

It is time for a new quilt and I’m working on it right now. Aytan loves trains, a passion I am trying to cultivate. He likes riding them, he loves model trains – so what better theme than trains.

I set out to find fabrics, some in local stores, some from online sources.A jumble of fabrics after being washed. Notice the train tracks along with train related fabric. If you are seeing some Spiderman mixed in there, that is because right now Aytan loves Spiderman and that is also a passion I keep feeding. I will be putting that fabric on the back of the quilt.

Now for a patternI love it when someone else designs a well thought out pattern. I don’t need to do everything myself. Allison from Cluck Cluck Sew designed this one. The name says it all. I found the perfect fabric, train tracks to connect the boxcars.Here is a complete quilt block. I chose a grey for the background and decided that the center of the boxcar would always be a solid color.

Here is the first row of blocks complete. I showed it to Aytan and he thought it was very pretty, I think I have a happy customer.

You noticed the non-train fabric boxcar? Yes indeed that is Mickey Mouse, thanks to his Mom, Aytan loves Mickey and everything Disney, so into the quilt he goes.

I’m in no rush to finish this, I am enjoying the process of seeing the quilt top grow gradually. I’ll probably be posting this for a few weeks at WIP Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced.

Leah

Quilt and Dress being shown at the Modern Quilt Guild meeting

I sort of cringe when I see myself in these photos. I figure, if I’m sharing all this on the blog, I better get over my self-consciousness!

Leah

Urban Nine Patch – finished

I sat down, quilted, binded and put on the label. Oh and of course took pictures.Here it is in all it’s glory. This picture was taken before I washed the quilt. Yes nice crisp lines. Here is a close up, you can’t really see the quilting on the prints, except for the straight lines in the large grey areas. Yay for a walking foot and a machine that cuts the thread itself. I’m talking about my Juki.The back is made up of the leftover fabrics from the piecing. So once again, quilting is not obvious.You get the idea of what the quilting looks like. Initially this quilt was meant for me. I had made the blue/grey quilt for Joel so this was going to be my, cuddle up quilt. I was posting pictures along the way on FB and before I knew it, a good friend claimed it. It is her colors! She wants this quilt and is willing to exchange a piece of art for it.

I don’t sell my quilts. I have given baby quilts as gifts but this is a full size quilt and the time and effort put in are much more than a baby quilt. An exchange, now there is an idea, I said yes.

If this were a wall hanging, there would be no need to wash it. Since it will be used as a quilt should be – I washed it. I don’t want the new owner to have any surprises if down the road she decides to wash it herself.Here it is washed. What’s the difference you ask?The top is unwashed, the bottom, after washing. Now you can really see the difference. I didn’t prewash the fabric, I used 100% cotton batting. Then threw it in the washing machine and dryer and this is the result. The quilt shrunk a little but it is also much softer and cozier. You can see the quilting in action, how it makes everything much more three dimensional.A quilt isn’t really finished until there is a label. It’s the artist signature, name and date.This is why I still need the Babylock machine. It does basic embroidery, which is a nice easy way to make a label.

Next week I will show this off to my Quilt Guild and then it’s going across the country to Connecticut to my friend Lynne. When I get the artwork from her, I’m sure I’ll post about that as well.

Leah

It works! Chuppah trial run

Yesterday the boys went to visit the Dads in the OC and put the Chuppah together. First they ordered 8′ birch poles.Here are the poles leaning up against the side of the house. Sturdy and tall enough for a lot of people to stand under.These are what I call massive eye hooks. No problem of the chuppah falling off of these, even if it was twice as heavy. Lucky for us Paul has some massive tools, so this was not a problem for him to drill and glue the hooks in place.And here it is, luckily Paul has long arms so he is holding two poles while Yoch is taking the picture, I have no idea if there was a decision to coordinate the orange shirts. Yup, that’s my boy Yishai with a big grin on his face.

This really was a group effort. Yoch came up with the design idea and pieced the top and bottom. I pieced the corners, quilted and bound it. As well as came up with the sturdy ties.

Paul and Darryl bought the poles and affixed the eye hooks and are the first to give it it’s first trial run. 35 days from now, the four brothers will be proudly holding up the chuppah while Yish and Yoch stand under it to get married. I’m getting all verkelmpt, so I’ll stop here.

Leah

FMQ (free motion quilting) a large quilt on a home sewing machine

I’m new to making videos and putting them up on youtube. But hey, the only way to learn how to do it – is to do it. I’m sure I will get better at zooming in on my actual work, but for now, you can see me in action on a large quilt.

I follow other blogs and am very impressed with FMQ that people are doing, but rarely do you see them working on a large quilt. It’s fun to practice on something small, but here you have a chance to see how I deal with the big bulky quilt, stopping, moving, readjusting.

While taking Angela Waters Quilting feathers she showed a wonderful new tool to me. The Grip & stitch. These replace those quilting gloves that I find hard to use. What a difference these make. I really feel like I have control now, with a lot more experience, my FMQ will shine.

Leah

Urban nine patch Quilt

When I start a large project, like a quilt, I like to work through and finish it. I’ll have knitting on the side and maybe some easy dresses for the granddaughter. Not so with this project. There have been serious interruptions.This is the urban nine patch block, designed by Jenny Pedigo, using her wonderful quick curve ruler. The sewing and quilting worlds are full of gadgets, gizmos and tools of the trade. Sure, I’ve bought some that really weren’t worth it, but others like this ruler are wonderful.Jenny is so busy designing patterns to go with this ruler, I haven’t even tried to create my own yet.My colors tend to be brighter, more jewel tone. I had bought a few of these fabrics with my friend Becky in Orange County. I was looking for something different. This is what we in the quilting world call low volume. With a punch of color in the reds and green.

On Flicker there was a quilt along group. Although they finished their quilts long ago, it gave me some good ideas about the layout. I love the blocks on point rather than on edge. I love how when put together this way, bright bold green circles emerge.I had a few fabrics at home to add to the mix but that was it. I didn’t want to run out and buy a lot more. Sometimes being forced to use fewer fabrics makes the quilt much more interesting and less scrappy looking. Actually I did have to buy more of the background fabric, luckily I got the end of the bolt at Sew Modern and yes I bought one more of the peach colored fabrics as well.

Now for the border, I guess you can’t take the scrappy out of the quilter after all.The three fabrics that didn’t go into the border are the background, the inner squares and the dark green. There was some creative engineering to get the corners to fit. But hey, it’s fabric and it’s a quilt, so I made it work.

I finished the top a few months ago, other projects and a not very helpful sewing machine got in the way. I’ve finished a baby quilt and the Chuppah as well as sewing clothes and other items. So it is high time that I start working again on this quilt.

Leah