July's Free Motion Quilting Challenge

 This month our teacher for the Free Motion Quilting Challenge is Angela Walters, a young modern quilter whose lesson was a design she calls "Tiles" in which you divide the quilting space into smaller units and quilt each one before moving on to the next.
I had fun practicing this style until my machine began to act a little like it is in need of some TLC.  So although I wanted to do more practicing before coming up with a "final" piece, my machine is packed up and ready to visit the sewing machine spa for a little R&R.
So here are my samples for July.  I started by using the back of a plaid fabric that I thought would help me keep my lines straight.  Not so much.
And instead of using the same pattern in every "tile" as Angela did, I mixed it up and tried different ones, including some of the motifs taught by previous teachers in this challenge.

 I did quilt in the month and a heart in hand.  Okay, for a first attempt, not too bad. For this sample I used regular 60 weight thread in the needle and bobbin.

 Then I switched to Superior Rainbows thread in the needle with The Bottom Line in the bobbin.  I like this look much better.  I used a 90/14 quilting needle and did not have any problems, although I did have to decrease the top tension.  I didn't follow Angela's tile directions, just divided the space with random lines.

 For the last two samples, I did attempt Angela's swirl motif, using the Rainbows thread again. 

The Final Four

 I think that if my machine hadn't gotten tired, I would have done a few more samples and improved on my spacing and the straightness of the tile lines (or maybe not.)
This lesson was fun to do and helped me to learn a little about dividing the quilting space into manageable sized areas.
Thanks, Angela, for sharing your expertise and ideas.

The (Post)man Cometh

(Disclaimer: The following opinions are mine alone.  I have no connection to Superior Threads except that I am a satisfied customer.)


In these days of email, evite and Catalog Choice, not much comes in the mail except flimsy ads for home improvement companies and (thank goodness) the occasional print magazine and print birthday cards.   But those of us who like to shop online also get packages!

Here's a recent delivery to my house....thread from Superior threads and needles!

I treated myself to some silk thread for applique, some King Tut thread for machine quilting and some of Superior's highly touted titanium sewing machine needles.  I also bought a selection of 5 pre-wound bobbins of Masterpiece 50 weight 2 ply thread.  I thought this might be a good way to acquire different colors for applique without buying whole spools.

The Superior company also has a superior website!  You can learn a lot about threads, tension, needle-thread compatibility and more from their Reference Guides.  And there are many ways to try their threads: Deal of the Day, Thread of the Month, clubs and collections.   I've signed up for their newsletter and have enjoyed the issues I've read so far.

Superior has also begun selling fabric and you can use tools on the site to design blocks and match threads to fabrics and fabrics to fabrics.

Good products, good information and excellent service.  I know I'll be ordering again.  Check them out!

Dave and I recently spent a week in Lubec, Maine, with our friends Marge, Bob and Monica, a reprise of our trip in 2011.  We took advantage of the long ride north to stop on the way up to visit with my college roommate Peg in New Gloucester, and on the way south to visit with my cousin Carole in Camden and with friends and former neighbors Mary and Xavier in Boothbay Harbor.   We had perfect weather, lots of lobster and lots of laughter.  Here are some highlights:

Roomies!

   

The view from our window

A toast to morning in Maine!

On the ferry to Eastport

At the New Friendly Restaurant in Perry

Nobody does lobster rolls like the New Friendly!

Now this is how vegetable keepers should look!

Cigars on the last evening

"We happy few"

Blueberry Land!

Cousins!

Dave and I hadn't seen Mary and Xavier for years, and I FORGOT TO TAKE PICTURES!   Oh, well.  there's always next year!

June: Celebrations and (of course) THE CHALLENGE!

The month of June is a busy one for our family. Emily's birthday is on the 16th, Dave's is on the 20th, Father's Day always falls around then, and Dave's and my wedding anniversary is on the 22nd.  Whew!  We buy a lot of cards and eat out much more often than usual.  All of these dates remind us of how quickly our lives spin past and how important it is to appreciate each and every day. 
 This year was one of those significant birthdays for Dave.  Here's one of my favorite pictures of him, taken when he taught at the Edinburgh Academy.  Except for gray hair and beard, he still looks the same (minus the kilt!)

Thirty-eight years ago, this was the scene......

 And twenty-five years ago, our sweet girl arrived.....

 

 Here she is being greeted by her grandmother, her Aunt Marce, and her cousin Drew.

 

Despite all this celebrating, I did manage to complete my Free Motion Challenge for June. The teacher for this month was Cindy Needham who does exquisite machine quilting on whole cloth quilts.  Her tutorial included several parts in which she explained her choices of tools, her method of beginning and ending and burying threads, and her method of dividing the quilting space and quilting differently in each section, much like the Zentagle doodle method.

For some of my practice pieces I used quilt sandwiches I had used to try some decorative threads for bobbin quilting.  Since those threads were white, I used YLI Rainbows thread so I could see the difference between the two.

After several practice sessions, my final attempt is here.   I have a Bernina  and I have done some of the challenges using the BSR, but I did all of this month's quilting without it, and I am happy with the result.  My stitches are more even than I had expected them to be, and I think Cindy's suggestion about letting the rhythm of your machine help you to keep your foot and hands in sync really worked for me.  This is one lesson I think I shall be trying again and again.

 

 

I quilted the name of the month and a heart in hand, too, and I think I will do this on all the challenges for the rest of the year.

 

 I hope that those of you who are celebrating this month and quilting this month have as much fun as I did!

May's Free Motion Challenge

Sew Cal Gal's Free Motion Challenge continues, this month with a pair of video lessons from Leah Day.  I have followed Leah's blog and her personal challenge of creating 365 filler designs for free motion quilting.  She is very talented and I was really looking forward to her lesson.  She did not disappoint.  She showed two "foundational" designs, designs which start with a foundation line that becomes the basis of your quilting. 
I got myself organized this month by making lots of 9" blocks of muslin and batting so that I would be ready to practice whenever I had a little time.  That strategy worked well for me and I'm going to do the same thing for the rest of the challenge. 


Here are a few of the practice blocks.

So here is the big reveal.  First up, the stipple-like curvy quilting:

 

 And the second pattern with angular sewing around the foundation line: (Leah calls this railroad ties)

I liked this exercise because it focused on filling the allotted space evenly.  I was not entirely successful, but I learned a lot from practicing.  I used Superior Threads Rainbow in the top and Superior's Bottom Line in the bobbin.

This was not the only quilty sewing that was done this month.  I made a small patchwork teddy bear and a matching quilt for a friend's baby shower.  (And forgot to take a picture!)  And I am finishing a little quilt for my guild's challenge.  That one is a secret until our June luncheon, so I'll post about that later.

Escape Velocity Achieved (Almost)

  My trip to Florida was short and sweet and busy!   It was thrilling to see Marce and my brother-in-law, Jack so happy and excited to have begun to fulfill their long held dream of sailing around the world.  They have named the boat Escape Velocity and are blogging about their experiences here.

The boat is beautiful and much more comfortable and roomy than I (the landlubber in the family) had expected.  The berths and heads are in the two hulls, and the living space is in the bridge deck that connects the two hulls.

Before my trip, I did a little crafty business and made t-shirts with the boat name and picture for each of us.  I think they were a hit.

When they sold their house, Marce and Jack pared down their possessions to things they thought they would want or need on the boat.  The moving truck arrived on Tuesday.  We sorted through the boxes to decide what could wait in the rented storage locker and what should go right onto the boat.   Things for the boat included pantry and kitchen and bath items, along with the all-important cases of wine.  We packed the rest into the storage locker without an inch of space to spare.  Marce is the all-time champion packer!

Back on board, we had lots of "stuff" to put away into not very much space.

The previous owners left lots of food that they had acquired during their cruising trip of almost 4 years.  We had fun "reading" labels from different countries.

During all this commotion, Izzy, the "Adventure Kitty," always found a spot for watching or napping.

 We did take time out for some fun.  We even took a ride up to Archie's Seabreeze in Ft. Pierce for dinner one night.

 When I left there was still lots of work to do to prepare for sailing away, but I came home knowing that Marce and Jack are beginning a wonderful new chapter of their life together, and that there's a berth with my name on it so that Dave, Emily and I can achieve Escape Velocity, too.

FMQ Challenge, and a Trip to Florida

I'm flying to Florida tomorrow to help my sister and brother-in-law move onto their new home, a Manta 40 catamarran.  (I wrote about the last visit to their house in Pittsburgh here.)  We'll be busy cleaning and organizing and, I hope, hanging out together over coffee or wine.  Jack already posted a picture of their first dinner aboard, with Izzy the cat keeping watch.

But before departure, I quickly did the Free Motion Challenge lesson for April.  Don Linn is the teacher for April, and he demonstrated his method for marking quilting designs.  He uses tulle to make a "template" of a quilting design that you then trace onto fabric using your favorite marker.  Here are the supplies used to make the template.  You stretch the tulle in a quilting or embroidery hoop, place it over a paper copy of the design and trace the design using a permanent marker.  Then you place the tulle over your fabric and trace with your favorite temporary marking tool.  I use an air erasable marker.

 

Here is my completed quilting sample.  I used Superior Threads Rainbow with The Bottom Line in the bobbin.  Although the quilting isn't first rate, I really liked the marking procedure and will certainly try it again.

 

 I know I promised a post about one of the projects I took on our quilt retreat in March.  It's coming....after my trip!