A Weekend Post - Quilts at Organic Valley

The other day I posted photos of my quilts that were at the Organic Valley Quilt and Rug Show on my Crafty Sewing and Quilting in My Garden, Kitchen, and Home Blog. Friends and family suggested that I post them here too!  So here they are. In March I was invited to bring three quilts for their display!  The quilts were in their show from April through June 18th.  

I used my Easy to Sew Quilt Pattern to create the first quilt for a fabric challenge for Quilts by Barb's Retreat last year.  This quilt was also featured in the Ribbon Quilting video - click here for the post about it and here for post with up close photos of it and here for the link to the video.

My Red, Yellow, and Blue Baby Quilt was created for a challenge for Project Quilting.  I posted about the whole process of construction from choosing the colors, through the sewing, and the quilting .  Click here to see those posts.

This next quilt was made using a variation of the Easy to Sew Quilt Pattern.  I used four extra wide backing fabrics to construct this quilt. The floral black and white prints, the solid black, and the solid white.  Click here for the post about using extra wide fabrics for piecing.

Hope you are having a wonderful weekend!

Marcia

FAQ's - Friday's Frequently Asked Questions - Why and How?

After a couple weeks of FAQ's I have found that sometimes I don't give enough information, when I answer the questions. 
Example:  Why I do something? or How I do something?

This was a previous question and answer.

What size should my quilt backing fabric measure? It should be 6 inches bigger on all 4 sides.  That's 12 inches longer and 12 inches wider.

WHY?

Why does the backing fabric need to be so much larger than the quilt top? 
 I have to pin the top edge and bottom edge of your backing fabric to long rollers, so I need extra at the top and the bottom. And your fabric needs to be wider on both sides, so I can clamp three clamps on each side to hold it taunt.  I ask for more on the sides than most long arm quilters, because I do not want to bump into the clamps on the side when I am quilting, thus resulting in a zig or zag in my stitching lines.  See the next few photos.

There is more than 6 inches of backing fabric on the sides of this quilt.  If your backing fabric is larger, don't cut it off. Leave it on.  It gives me more room when I am quilting the borders without bumping into the clamps.  I give you all of your backing fabric back after I trim your quilt.   Most customers prefer to have me trim their quilt, so it is ready to bind, but I have a few who like it left long.

Previously asked question and answer.

What is free style quilting?  I manually move the quilting machine to stitch on your quilt - no computers, no patterns or stencils.  I just move and stitch wonderful designs all over your quilt.

How do you move the quilting machine?  The quilting machine has wheels and it rolls or glides in a smooth track in all directions.  I hold onto 2 handles one for each hand on the front of the quilting machine, but I only hold onto one handle with my right hand. I move the machine like it is giant pencil.  I use my left hand to smooth the fabric. There is not at gas pedal like a sewing machine. I push a run button with my thumb and then when I move the machine it starts stitching.  When I stop moving the machine, the stitching stops. Then I have to turn off the run button.  It is very different that a regular sewing machine.  I have made some videos and put them on You Tube that demonstrates how I run the machine.  Ribbon Quilting with a Twist video shows you best how the machine runs, but it doesn't show the stitching as the colors are too dark.  It was the first one I made. You can see how I hold the handles with one hand and I smooth the fabric with my left hand.  I think the video of outlining the veins of the Poppy shows you how moving the machine makes the machine stitch.  It goes a little slower and faster, as I outline the flower.

This next quilt is a great example of finding designs in the fabric and creating designs to fill the block.  My customer asked me to outline some of the designs and to fill the squares with repetitious patterns - Zentangle patterns.  Some patterns will be repeated, but they will all look different.  That's the cool part about free style quilting, it is "one of a kind" every time you quilt. 

There are more photos of Zentangle patterns or "Wachuta Doodles" in the photo gallery.

Enjoying May everyday!

Marcia

P.S. Don't forget to enter this week's  Giveaway ! 2 prizes again!

A Big Thank You!

My Big Thank You goes out to all who made Project Quilting happen!  To all the participants, the sponsors, the judges, and especially the organizer and creator of Project Quilting, Kim.  Also the general public for viewing and voting! And last but not least , my  friends and family who supported me through hours of crazy quilting ideas and creations which resulted in wonderful final projects for the contest. 

Project Quilting gave me permission to create... What I mean by this, is that I didn't have to follow a pattern.  I would come up with an idea and just start drafting it out on paper or in my head and just go with it!  Sometimes I would have to cut and sew and then rip it out, but I tried new things and really created the ideas that were spinning around in my head!  An extra bonus for me was that I watched a lot less TV at night.  I quilt customer's quilts all day and my only free time are my evenings.  Thanks to project quilting for filling my evenings with creative thinking! 

I am very please to have placed third in the contest!  Makes me smile!  Kim created a wonderful mosaic of my projects.

Watch for an April post which will include the photo directions for making a quilted tote bag from a small quilted piece like a baby quilt or quilted wall hanging.  Learn how to make it in April and do it in May for May for Me!

Do you have a small quilt you would like to make into a quilted tote bag?  Join us for the May for Me celebration!

I thought a made a Baby Quilt ...Gabby thinks I made a Gabby Quilt!

These are the final pictures for the Project Quilting Season 2 - Challenge number 1 - Primary Colors Quilt. I had a blast!

It did push me to be a better machine piecer and quilter! I really enjoyed the process. It was a great quilt challenge.

It is so cool to see the photos of the work in progress on Flicker and now the final projects are coming in. What a color delight to see all the primary colors on display!

Follow the link on this blog to my flicker photos and I put more photos on my website photo gallery too! ENJOY!!!

Quilting is complete! Glad I took the challenge! What a blast!

What a blast!!! I definitely went outside my box on the quilting part of this challenge --- trying a variety of patterns and not afraid to make a mistake !!! Glad I took the challenge!
Project Quilting

The next step was the quilting of the borders and the lattice strips. I quilted the border with a free style Zig Zag pattern using yellow and red thread on the blue border and blue thread on the red border and yellow thread on the yellow border. On the lattice strips I quilted with a wavy line that joins a daisy at each end. I used the yellow thread on the yellow and green strips and red thread on the red and blue strips!

Back side of the quilt. You can see all the patterns and color changes on this side of the quilt. Done with the quilting... binding is next!

Wachuta Doodles - Starting to quilt the block part of the quilt!

I started to quilt my challenge quilt for Project Quilting - Using a form of Zentangle quilting which I personally named Wachuta Doodles.










I quilted on just the open blocks.... creating a pattern design in each block. Just had fun making patterns... the dot blocks - circular designs, the flower blocks - zig zag patterns and the plain white blocks - cross hatch and basket weave patterns. What a blast!
















More pictures from the yesterday's quilting at the end of the day will be on another post - maybe tonight or tomorrow! Photos in the Photo Gallery --- Click any of the photos and it will take you to the Picasa Photo Gallery where you will find all my photos - click on that and then on Project Quilting. Also photos on Flicker.