Antique Sampler top done!

 

 

[caption id="attachment_1205" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] Antique Sampler, top only[/caption]

I just love this quilt!  The pattern and quilt designed by Sue Daley was one of those quilts that I wanted to make exactly as the original...no design tweaks, no changes of colour scheme or types of fabrics, no block substitutions, no size change, nothing!  I did the quilt as block of the month from Quilter's Paradise (Califorina) and they did a terrific job in their fabric choices.

I enjoyed every bit of sewing in this quilt...all hand applique and english paper piecing.  The only machine stitching was to stitch the blocks together into the setting and to stitch on the borders.

Sunflower Block...geesh!

 

The Grandmother's Choice block this week was one heck of a challenge.  The sunflower block had three main sections...the petals that form a circle, a centre circle, and background that went around the petal section.

I chose to hand-piece the centre petals.  I then thought I would machine sew the surrounding background ...I guess my handpiecing wouldn't win any awards, as I realized that I hadn't quite formed a circle with the centre flower and my background was flopping all over the place in weird folds.  Hmmm...  So I decided to applique the background on top of the petals...I cut a square an inch bigger than the block size, cut out the  circle and carefully laid it on top of the centre so that the points would be pointy!  That worked out okay, and I was able to trim the block to a 8 1/2" square shape!

The centre circle had to be made a bit smaller than on the pattern...if I used the original size, some or most of my inner points would have been cut off.  By making the centre circle smaller, I kept my points but did end up with some points that didn't quite reach the circle.  Better that I think than lopped off points!

 

[caption id="attachment_1201" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Sunflower Block, Grandmother's Choice b.o.w.[/caption]

Jane's Path...top done!!!

Jane Stitckle sat on her porch sewing the little blocks from scraps of fabric.  I imagine Jane getting restless, waiting for news or visitors, walking up and down the porch and thinking of the events of the day.

[caption id="attachment_1196" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] Jane's Path, 85 Dear Jane blocks, 84 alternate cross blocks, 72" x 72"[/caption]

Solved it myself!

I think all of us enjoy a trip to the sewing machine mechanic about as much as trip to the dentist...or worse!  My experience, and I'm pretty sure this has happened to many of us, is... take the machine to the mechanic and explain the problem with samples.  He then fiddles with the machine, cleans it, might make an adjustment or two (likely not the ones you expected) and returns the machine to you  ( in a week or two or three) with the words "it worked fine here; no problems found; must be something you're doing".  Arrggghhh..  And a $100 bill to boot!

So with that in mind, I was determined to figure out how I can fix what was my happy machine back to its good working condition.  I played with adjustments again all Tuesday morning.  Then gave up with a sigh that yes it will have to go the shop.

That's when I found the Craftsy class on sale, the one I've had my eye on for a several days, Design It Quilt It by Cindy Needham.  All I can say is wow!   In the second or third lesson she covers tension, and as I'm accustomed to a vertical bobbin, I was happy to have some good visuals on adjusting a drop in bobbin.

My problem with my machine, it seems, was the bobbin tension was not near tight enough.  Even though I had been adjusting the spare bobbin case, I hadn't yet tightened it enough to really solve the problem and once I did, voila!, thick threads, thin threads, my regular Aurifil, all making lovely free motion stitches with just slight adjustments to the top tension! I have no idea why the bobbin tension became loose over time, but its fixed as far as I'm concerned!

[caption id="attachment_1182" align="aligncenter" width="300"] front of quilt, photo adjusted to try to show black thread quilting on the dark fabric[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1183" align="aligncenter" width="300"] back of quilt, showing nicely formed stitches[/caption]

Just another word about Craftsy...I had signed up a for a different free-motion quilting class and quickly discovered that there wasn't much new for me in that class.  I contacted Crafsty about their class guarantee, and they refunded my money, no fuss no muss!

Mis-behaving sewing machine

I've been so very happy with the Janome 7700, but the last few quilting sessions it has been giving me grief.  I keep getting a broken top thread, and/or loose tension on the stitches.

I've tried using a second bobbin case with a tighter tension (leftover from my old janome 6600); different needles, different threads, different top tensions...nothing is giving me good results.  Before I go completely  nuts, I'm going to take it in for service and see if there's something that the tech can find or adjust...then I'll know if its something I'm doing wrong!

 



 



 

Blue and White Dear Jane

Yesterday I finished up the 84 setting blocks for my Dear Jane quilt.  I had been making these blocks in "batches" during the summer.

 

I had got to a certain point in the Dear Jane quilt when I decided I just didn't want to make any more blocks!!  I had looked through the Dear Jane book at the various settings others had done, searched for pics on the web of various Dear Janes, and realized that some of the Janes I liked best weren't the ones that used all the blocks in the original setting.

So I got to work on an Electric Quilt file of what I might do with the 90 ish blocks I had.  My favourite turned out to be using this "x" block as an alternate block.  I drew it in EQ, using various widths for the X band, and tried it both with the white band, blue triangles and with blue band, white triangles.  I played with various colours and arrangements.    Once I was happy I had to figure out how to sew the block!  I used the EQ rotary cutting directions to determine the cutting width of the X bands, and the dimensions to cut the triangles.  I did end up having to cut the triangles a little larger, and I cut the X bands about a 1/2" longer than necessary so I could just trim the block into square later.

When I finished sewing the block, I marked a line down the centre of each X band and use my newest cool ruler to square up the block.  I bought this Tucker Trimmer ruler last spring, not so much to square up half square triangles but to square up blocks that has two diagonal lines.  I love the clear markings on this ruler!



 

Once I got those darn setting blocks finished, this morning I had to see what a few rows looked like!

Works in progress

Keeping up with Just Takes 2...here are the blocks so far for the third quarter...I think this quilt is going to be a stunner!

 



 

And, just six more applique blocks and some star blocks for Stars and Sprigs.  I'm pretty sure I'm changing the setting.  The original has a marvelous applique border.  But since I like my quilts to be mostly useable, I don't think that the border would be all that practical.  So I finally came up with the idea of embroidering it with an outline stitch; then, I came up with the idea of medallion setting with the applique border on the inside of the quilt; then I thought maybe I'll embroider that inner border.  So still thinking.



 

 

[caption id="attachment_1162" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Stars and Sprigs by Kim McLean[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1163" align="aligncenter" width="300"] EQ sketch of Stars and Sprigs medallion[/caption]