Quilt along #15 - Sharp Stippling

I was really silly to think I would have a quilt top -pieced, basted and fully prepared to start quilting it, along with Leah's different designs she has planned for us over the coming weeks.  I am really excited to move away from stippling to different types of designs/stippling.  This week we learnt  sharp stippling.

I prepared this quilt top thinking I would stitch in the ditch all along the strips and sashing, and filling the blocks and borders as we learn different designs.  But I'm not nearly done preparing this quilt. 

Kayleigh is teething, so you can imagine how tiresome it is trying to keep her happy during the day and night.  With her being so groggy I find it hard to take some time to work on this quilt.  Normally I would get a lot done during her nap time, but even that has been cut shorter.

So I got a practice piece ready and followed Leah's video on sharp stippling.  At first I was nervous, as I am so used to normal rounded shapes of stippling.  I was afraid I would mess it up, and go completely in the wrong direction.  I was surprised at how easy it was.  I first traced the design on paper to familiarize myself with the flow and direction I should follow.  I then got behind my machine and started quilting.  It sort of came naturally and I would definitely use this design on my quilt.  The only thing I still find hard is to keep my machine at a constant speed, at times I noticed that my stitches got very big, I will have to work on that!

Thanks Leah, you're a great teacher and a wonderful person for sharing your knowledge!!

I am very eager and exited to learn new designs.
Happy quilting.

The Liebster Award

I started quilting by 'accident' and by accident I mean that it was purely because I wanted to try something I have never done before.  And from the word go, I was hooked.  I finished my 1st quilt mid February, and at the end of March I started this blog.

I started blogging about my quilting because I wanted to share my progress on Leah Day's FMQ Project.  I found quite a few inspiring ladies out there, who also shares their love for quilting.  And to see all of their beautiful creations made me want to do it even more...

So you can imagine my surprise when I received a Liebster blog award from a fellow blogger/quilter.

This award is given to bloggers with less than 200 followers. Hopefully this gives those bloggers more attention. As a recipient of the award, you have the chance to thank and link back to the blogger who gave it to you as well as pass it along to five other deserving blogs.

I’d like to thank Danielle Hudson for giving me this award, she made me a very happy lady! Check out her blog, I promise you will love to visit her and her beautiful creations.

The rules of engagement for this award:

• Thank the person that nominated you on your blog and link back to them.
• Nominate up to five other blogs for the award.
• Let them know via a comment on their blog.
• Post the award on your blog. 

My nominations are:

Hettie Pringle - Stitchingmatters

Rashida - RK Embroidery

Rosemary - The Knitting Quilter

Mallory Anderson - Everyday Quilter

Karin - Beary Quilts

♥♥♥ I think this is a great idea, so share the love and make someone smile ♥♥♥

Quilt Along #15: Sharp Stippling - Preparing a quilt top

Today I've been working on a quilt top to use over the next few weeks as we learn new free motion quilting techniques with Leah.  

I will post a photo of the completed top as soon as I've added the borders.

I'm not entirely sure if the sharp stippling will look good on the flower print fabric, so I thought of using that design on the borders, I'm planning on using plain black fabric. 

Initially I thought while I was cutting all the strips for this quilt top, that it was going to look too busy, that the colours wont match and that it will just look a mess.  But so far I'm quite happy with the result, once I've added the sashing and borders I'm sure it will look even better. 

I cant wait to start quilting this quilt.  I've been so occupied with my Sampler quilt that I haven't been practicing FMQ and I need the practice.  Not to mention all that pink fabric is getting a bit drab, so working on this quilt is just what I need...

Sampler quilt block #6 - Monkey Wrench

 

This quilt block - Money Wrench was done the same way using the foundation piecing method as the Pineapple block I did before.

Using tear away stabilizer I traced the pattern on four 6" pieces.  I placed the fabric pieces on the unmarked side and stitched along the marked lines of the foundation.

I used 3 different print fabrics, of which I chose a plain pink fabric as my background.  From the strips I made the four-patch blocks to create the center pieces.

To make sure I got the patches right in the center of the template I held it up to a window to make sure the seam lines were lying exactly underneath the drawn four-patch on the foundation and that the centers matched.

I placed the four-patch block on the unmarked side of the tear away stabilizer and pinned the first two background colour fabric triangles and stitched on the marked lines of the stabilizer.

After every two pieces added I pressed the triangles back against the seams with a hot iron to keep the fabric flat and to ensure that I wont by accident mess it up when I added the next two triangles.

After every row, I would fold the stabilizer back right on the drawn line I had just stitched to expose the seam allowance and I would trim off the excess.  It created a perfect ¼" seam

This is one of the four finished blocks.  Each block was pieced the exact same way.

After I had my four finished pieces I stitched them together making sure the points matched neatly.

This block will be one of my favourites for this sampler quilt, I enjoyed making it, and love to look at it :-)

Sampler quilt block #5 - Pineapple

Last night everyone went to bed early, so that was a nice time for me to start with my next block - Pineapple.  

I had a lot of fun piecing the block together using the foundation piecing method.  I have never done it before, so I took it slow, making sure to follow each step carefully.  I started out by tracing the pattern on a piece of tear away stabilizer, marking every row by number to make sure I wont get lost adding the strips of fabric.

I did not cut the fabric ahead of time, instead I cut the pieces as I needed them, because I was using 4 different colours and prints I did not want to make any mistakes by going ahead of time.

After I added a row with a specific colour or print fabric, I would fold the stabilizer over to cut a neat 1/4" seam following the drawn line in the front.

As the pattern grew, I was amazed at how 'perfect' the rows were.  I would definitely use this method again, maybe I'll try and come up with a few designs of my own.

Other finished blocks:  

Electric Fan

Stacked Blocks

Tangled Star

Celtic Applique

Sampler quilt block #4 - Celtic Applique

Making this block was quite a challenge.  

I had all the fabric cut, placed the applique pattern on the block of fabric, started to make the binding strips and that's when I realized I was stuck...  I did not have the right tools to create the 1/8" binding strips, so I had to improvise.  

After I stitched the binding and took it to the ironing board, I used a cooking skewer to open up the binding to create a tube to make it easier to iron flat with the stitches at the back.   It worked great!   So many times I have thought of throwing it away, I've never used it, and it was just tucked away in a drawer in my kitchen, finally found a good use for it now :-)

Other finished blocks:

Electric Fan

Stacked blocks

Tangled star

Winter is near...

I have been, these past few days making the most of my sewing room.  Every spare minute I have, I am measuring, cutting, stitching and piecing new blocks for my sampler quilt.  

I think however I should change my whole approach with this blog.

I am going to try and post photos of every step of how I've created them.  Hopefully it will encourage others to share some of their own quilts with me by linking them up to my blog.

Winter is upon us here in South Africa, and comparing with our last winter, its colder sooner, so I'll be indoors most the time.  

Looking outside at the beautiful colours of the leaves changing, I'm inspired to make a medium sized wall hanging quilt, hopefully someone can share some of their ideas with me?

I was thinking, maybe a rust/reddish colour fabric cut into a single leaf shape on a black background?  With some detail on the leaf using free motion quilting... Please I need some inspiring ideas...?

Sampler quilt block 3# - Tangled Star

Making this block was really tricky for me.  The pattern I used was so confusing, but once I had the one section done, it went better.  

Even though my measurements was right, I completely messed it up.  While I was busy making it, it all looked fine, but once I pieced the whole thing together it was clear that some of the corners don't even line up nicely!  My markings was right, I'm sure, but I think because you have to cut the pieces with a seam allowance around the template, I did not cut all of them exactly the same size.  I think I should make templates with exactly the same size seam allowance around it, that way all of them have to be the same... 

I think I should just re-do this block completely, pull the stitches out and try again!

Over all I think the colours look nice, it blends nicely together... and putting them with my other finished blocks I think the end result will look great!  

Sampler quilt block #2 - Stacked Blocks

I have finished the 2nd block for my sampler quilt - Stacked Blocks.

I think the first time I have ever done paper piecing was when I was in school, and if I remember right my mom finished it for me, I think it was for a pillow.  As a child I never liked sewing, and what amazes me is how much I enjoy it today.

I really find it hard to decide on the colours of the fabric.  I never really know what works together.  Although I like how it came out, I am not so sure about the printed fabric.  I still have to make quite a few blocks, I hope that when I put them all together it will look ok...  Click here to see the first block - Electric fan.

Hearts & Feather wholecloth

So, my hearts and feather whole cloth is done!  

I enjoyed every minute working on this little quilt with Leah on the free motion quilting project.  

One thing I should have done differently was the binding.  I tried (for the 1st time) to do a blanket stitch when I added the binding, and I think I should rather have done it by hand.  The stitch itself looks great, but my hand was not as steady as I would have liked. Next time for sure, I'll add the binding by hand..

Here, my baby girl Kayleigh (11 months old) took the quilt from my hands and when she put it down on the carpet, she climbed on top... so cute!

Sampler quilt block #1 - Electric Fan

I finished my 1st block for my sampler quilt - Electric Fan

Not so sure if the bright pink works.... 

I know I'm going to have lots of fun making this quilt, making something different with every block, trying different techniques as well.  

I really had trouble stitching a perfect 1/4" seam with every quilt I've made so far, but this time I went a bit slower and I think I have finally won!

Applique flower and stems wall hanging quilt

I thought of trying applique the other day, not even knowing which direction I should go, I searched the web for basic application of applique.  Seeing how simple it was I started straight away.  I started tracing basic shapes like circles, hearts , triangles and squares on cardboard.  

Using anything I could find, like different size bottle caps (for circles) I started tracing them on cardboard and cutting them out.  

From there I played around mixing them up, using the sharp edges of the heats and circles I made flowers too.

Even putting some of these shapes together made pretty designs.

That was when I thought of making a small but simple flowers with stems wall hanging quilt using my applique templates.  Again not sure where I will end up I arranged them on a piece of fabric to see the sizes of the flowers and ended up cutting 4, 10" blocks.






I roughly cut a piece of colour printed fabric that I wanted to use for the flowers, stems and leaves and ironed a strip of applique paper to the back of the fabric.  I then traced the designs on the applique paper and cut them out.

I used 3 different colour print fabrics for the whole quilt.

Pulling the paper from the back of the applique, I ironed on the flower making sure I applied the heat long enough to make it stick to the fabric.

Before I started stitching the design to the fabric I pinned a piece of wash away stabilizer to the back, to secure it nicely and to make sure the fabric wont pucker up.

I used a zig zag stitch to secure the flowers and stems to my block.

As this was a test quilt, and I wanted to see what I can do, I tried different filler free motion quilting on each of the four blocks.  Again Leah's designs came in very handy and used Stippling, Wandering Clover, Paisley and Echo-Arches.

Stippling

Paisley

  

Echo-Arches

Referring back to Leah's quilt along #7 I pieced the blocks together using binding strips, following her instructions was easy and I will definitely use this method again


 

I enjoyed playing around with this little wall hanging quilt, and found a spot in my sewing room to put it up.

Flowers and stems applique wall hanging quilt