Let the Quilting Begin!

Tracy wrote:

Woo-hoo! I've actually done some quilting on the first panel! Look!


Okay, so it's the back of the quilt. But the first round is quilted - the straight and incredibly hidden utility quilting, to keep everything lined up and stabilized. And wow, Jean, you were right - that black fabric just sucks all of the light into itself!

Time to press, stretch, press and quilt - 200 minutes, or 3/4 of "Honor Among Thieves" audio book (abridged), by Jeffrey Archer. I expect that the next one will not take quite as long.

(Oh, and that's Keith standing on a stool behind the quilt - remember, it's over 7 feet long.)

I've also identified the quilting motifs for the border and the kaleidoscope blocks. Now to trace them all out.... !

Leading done!

Jean wrote:

Hot dang! I finished the rose window leading. The little Clover iron was a must, as it had to fit in between the leading lines. I just left it on the entire time I was sewing down the leading so I could reattach loosened sections.

The circular leading was so easy (it was about time something was easy). Only one start and stop per circle, so I just ironed and sewed, ironed and sewed.

Boy, that black leading really eats up the light. I just aimed the needles where I wanted them to go, as my eyes could only see black. When the sun came out, I saw stitches! I'd recommend you set up your machine outside on a sunny day to do those borders!!



Spent most of yesterday morning online looking for things to put in the triangular corners of the rose window. I bought a few things as well as the scroll cross.

Auditioning Thread

Tracy wrote:

Although the utility quilting was done with black thread, the fancy quilting will be done with (mostly) fancy thread.

After dragging out some specialty threads that ranged from subtle to gaudy, Jean and I narrowed it down to a handful. After Jean went home, I narrowed it down some more (!)

The first thing to do is to unravel a yard or two of thread from each spool and pile it up on the quilt top.

What I was looking for was something that had zing, but didn't set off my (fairly sensitive) gaudy-alarms.

I ended up with these possibilities/probabilities:


Top two are black rayon and silver holo[graphic]-shimmer; bottom (left to right) are black metallic, rainbow holo-shimmer and opalescent holo-shimmer
Eventually the black rayon was taken out of the mix, because of that whole "suck the light out" black Kona cotton thing. The rayon would only catch the light if a) the quilt was moved around or b) the light source moved - and since I don't expect either of those things to happen once the quadriad is installed, it got rejected.

Next up was to take the threads for a test drive, to see how they held up to the cotton, and if they had the proper zing. I encourage you to click on each picture to see the larger version:

(This is NOT one of the motifs that will be going on the quilt.)

I quilted the motif using all four of the target threads - you can see where I've written their color number in the corners. The picture was taken in full-on sunlight so I could see maximum sparkle and determine if it was zing, or just plain gaudy.




Here it is again, in less dramatic lighting. The black here is much closer to real-life.


All of the threads passed the "test" on the suck-the-light-out cotton. They also behaved in the machine - metallic threads frequently shred in the eye of the needle - and the back of the sample even looked good!

Now that I've found the right threads, my next step is to call the quilting/fabric shops to see if these specific brands and colors are carried locally. I do NOT want to get partway through and have to change threads. You know that having different threads where they are supposed to be the same would send me over the edge.

You do know that, don't you?

She's not so quick, but she's clever

Tracy wrote:

I've been trying to keep track, and (based on the number of audio books that I've listened to), I'm at about 72 hours for machine quilting.

Yes, 72 hours sitting at my sewing machine.  I'm not telling you this because I'm looking for a poor baby.  No exclamations of awe are required.  It's just background to what I'm about to share.

I have to take my glasses off when machine quilting.  Usually I stick them in the neckline of my sweatshirt (greatly increasing the probability of smudges from my chin when I look down just so).  Sometimes I live dangerously and lay my glasses on my sewing table - running the risk of losing them amongst the clutter (and of course it's hard to look for my glasses when I can't see because I'm not wearing my glasses).

71.5 hours into my quilting odyssey, I had an idea.

Here's my cel-phone purse thing-y, larks-headed over the neck of my quilting floor lamp that's located between me and my sewing machine.


Where do I sign up for the local Mensa group?

I Only Make It Look Easy, Part One

Tracy wrote:

Okay, my last post mentioned the estimated number of hours I've spent at my sewing machine, just quilting and not sewing.

I am constantly amazed by the amount of time it takes me to quilt (actually, I'm amazed at the time it takes me to do pretty much anything at the sewing machine). I mean, it's sit down, sew one or maybe two squiggly lines and move on, right? Why, then, does it take me at least 45 minutes and usually over an hour to do one single block?

In an effort to document the how/what/when/where/why... well, that might be too ambitious, but let's try this, step by step.

First off, not even included in the at the sewing machine time, there's the three D's: determine-design-duplicate.

I start by looking for and assessing potential quilting motifs. This involves looking through my library at home - both in books and on my computer, checking out the city libraries, surfing the  web, and sitting down with pencil and paper (and a mega-eraser).

Once I find something that looks possible, I then have to figure out if it's quilt-able. Well, I guess everything's quiltable, but I'm hoping for the thing that will give the biggest bang for the buck (and create the fewest gray hairs while doing so).


F'r instance, this motif is quite cool, but it would drive me to drink. So many stops and starts and backtracks!

This one is also cool, and I can "walk the maze" in a continuous line. If you trace the motif with your fingertip on the screen, you'll find that this one will is made up of two continuous lines.

I've already accepted the sad fact that whatever I will be quilting will have crossed lines - the over/under weaving knot stuff (which I absolutely love) is not realistic for any more than a one-time thing*.

*Refer back to the gray hair and drinking comments*

Once I've got some 'possibles', then it's time to do some graphic manipulation. In the event that I've gotten a motif from an online source or from my computer, it just begins with opening the file. If it's from a book or a drawing, there will be scanning involved.

Once I open the file in my graphics program, I can then clean it up by removing stuff I don't want to use, or combining two different designs into one. After that, it's mucking around to make the motif into the correct size (1/2 inch smaller than the block size) and then printing. (that's 3 minutes, 3 seconds just to open and resize an existing, already-cleaned-up motif)

That's it for TWO of the D's: Determine and Design. Next up is Duplicate. And I'm still not at the sewing machine.