Just in case you've got a little extra downtime this weekend and are online looking for quilty inspiration:
Free motion quilting sites for domestic sewing machines seem to be a bit filler heavy, so if you want some great ideas on how to quilt your pieced quilts, look to the long arm quilters! Here are some talented ones:
Bethanne Nemish at White Arbor Quilting does amazing work on all types of quilts. See her quilting gallery and also her own show quilts.
It seems I'm especially fond of quilters with 3 children, as are the 3 following quilters- especially if quilting was a sanity aid during the younger years!
Margaret Gunn is doing ruler work and McTavishing in this quilt. Here's some beautiful work on a customer's Washington Medallion.
One of my blog readers is an excellent long arm quilter for hire: Michelle at Mmm Quilts.
Angela Huffman of Quilted Joy is an overachiever. Not only is she a fabulous long arm quilter, business woman, hosting quilting classes by Karen McTavish, but she had her three kids all at once!
Me? I'm not doing much quilting right now, just some necessary paper pushing, organizing, and cleaning done. But I'll be working on July's Free Motion Monday series on feathers over the weekend.
Now there's some serious eye candy to be seen from all over at Quilt Inspiration!
LuAnn Kessi's Sketchbook is always full of ideas and fun.
Now, just because I featured some long arm quilters, do not think you need a long arm to create your own beautiful quilts! As domestic machine or sit-down long arm quilters, one of our strengths is the intricate detailed work we can do. But this can be a weakness when it comes to bed quilts as we can get too dense with fillers. So enjoy these sites and get some quilting in this weekend.
Today is the celebration of America's Independence Day, and we're having a cookout on my wonderful porch, followed by fireworks out at the lake. Happy Fourth of July!
PS- Make sure to respect the various sites' wishes when it comes to their images.
Sharing tips, tricks, and inspiration from my own free motion quilting adventure.
Free Motion Quilting with Rulers- an Update
I've had two emails recently that made me decide to do a little update on using the Janome "ruler toe" for free motion quilting in conjunction with long arm rulers on my sewing machine.
This is one half of the Janome Frame Quilting Feet Set part #767-434-005. Yes, it's labeled as for the 1600P, and the open toe foot in the package is useless for my purposes (though great if you are using it on frame, its intended purpose).
I put an email in to Janome a while back, and I heard back from Alison Newman, Janome Educator at Janome-America and she has checked with their service people and given a big thumbs up to the use of this toe with the convertible free motion feet sets, whether the low (202002004), high (202001003), or 1600 version (767433004).
This was great to hear as a few readers had said their dealers told them they couldn't use it with their machines, only the 1600.
I've been playing around with some new rulers from Top Anchor Quilting Tools, as you can see in the above pictures. Making stars without marking is perfect right before Independence Day! These look like they'd be cool for long arm quilting on a frame and I'm seeing if they'd be good for those of us who move our quilts instead of our machines. More on them in a future post.
This is one half of the Janome Frame Quilting Feet Set part #767-434-005. Yes, it's labeled as for the 1600P, and the open toe foot in the package is useless for my purposes (though great if you are using it on frame, its intended purpose).
I put an email in to Janome a while back, and I heard back from Alison Newman, Janome Educator at Janome-America and she has checked with their service people and given a big thumbs up to the use of this toe with the convertible free motion feet sets, whether the low (202002004), high (202001003), or 1600 version (767433004).
This was great to hear as a few readers had said their dealers told them they couldn't use it with their machines, only the 1600.
I've been playing around with some new rulers from Top Anchor Quilting Tools, as you can see in the above pictures. Making stars without marking is perfect right before Independence Day! These look like they'd be cool for long arm quilting on a frame and I'm seeing if they'd be good for those of us who move our quilts instead of our machines. More on them in a future post.
Free Motion Monday Quilting Adventure: Grid-Based Designs Week 5
It's the last week of free motion quilting grid-based designs and I'm adding clamshells to my quilting sampler. Using a marked grid makes this design so much easier and uniform.
Each clamshell is made by one curved line. The top part of the shape is made from the two clamshells above it. The line of stitching is a semi-circle going across two squares. essentially, four squares of the grid mark one entire clamshell shape. Here's a video:
The basic clamshell is able to be used in many different sizes depending on the type of project you are quilting on.
Clamshells can be easily dressed up with extra fills or lines. Have fun with variations! Wheee! If you are particularly talented, you can add in the variations as the clamshells are stitched, reducing back tracking. (I am not quite that talented.)
Curvy lines going into the clamshell from the side. I didn't care for this one too much.
Tear drops from the center top. These center top variations are easier to add as the clamshells are being stitched than some of the other variations.
Above, I repeated the clam shell curve upside down before transitioning to a smaller clam shell. I went back and put a dot in the center of each square, essentially making a grid twice as small before I stitched this tiny size.
Now here's some longer clamshells with tear drops in between each one. Let's just ignore the foul-up just to the right of center above, shall we?
Added additional tear drops and swaggy curves.
Clamshells are a wonderful, versatile design, but be careful when choosing their size. I had to go back in and do these variations, not just to show you but also because the plain clamshells weren't as dense as the rest of my quilting on my sampler.
I don't stitch clamshells often, so I consulted a great book by Renae Haddadin, Fill'er Up Quilting Designs, to get some ideas on the variations. Great book!
Participation in the link party portion of this blog series is way down. I bet a lot of folks are busy with summer time things, but still, if you have a blog and have done some of these grid-based designs or others, go ahead and link up to share your creativity.
Some quick rules:
Each clamshell is made by one curved line. The top part of the shape is made from the two clamshells above it. The line of stitching is a semi-circle going across two squares. essentially, four squares of the grid mark one entire clamshell shape. Here's a video:
The basic clamshell is able to be used in many different sizes depending on the type of project you are quilting on.
Clamshells can be easily dressed up with extra fills or lines. Have fun with variations! Wheee! If you are particularly talented, you can add in the variations as the clamshells are stitched, reducing back tracking. (I am not quite that talented.)
Curvy lines going into the clamshell from the side. I didn't care for this one too much.
Tear drops from the center top. These center top variations are easier to add as the clamshells are being stitched than some of the other variations.
Spiky fan things.
Clamshells with swag....
Above, I repeated the clam shell curve upside down before transitioning to a smaller clam shell. I went back and put a dot in the center of each square, essentially making a grid twice as small before I stitched this tiny size.
Now here's some longer clamshells with tear drops in between each one. Let's just ignore the foul-up just to the right of center above, shall we?
Added additional tear drops and swaggy curves.
Clamshells are a wonderful, versatile design, but be careful when choosing their size. I had to go back in and do these variations, not just to show you but also because the plain clamshells weren't as dense as the rest of my quilting on my sampler.
I don't stitch clamshells often, so I consulted a great book by Renae Haddadin, Fill'er Up Quilting Designs, to get some ideas on the variations. Great book!
Participation in the link party portion of this blog series is way down. I bet a lot of folks are busy with summer time things, but still, if you have a blog and have done some of these grid-based designs or others, go ahead and link up to share your creativity.
Some quick rules:
- Keep your post relevant to this quilt along please. Spammy posts will be deleted.
- Make sure you link up to the individual post, not your home page as nobody wants to have to search around for the post if they're a little late to the party.
- Reciprocate! Link back to this post somewhere in your post or use the clickable blog button in your sidebar. You've got to dance with the one who took you to the party, so make sure you link back.
- Don't be a wall-flower. (Talking to myself here too. In person I am so stinking shy!) Visit the other links, be sociable, and leave comments.
- Please make sure you leave me a way to contact you if you are a no-reply commenter, especially if you ask a question.
Don't forget to bookmark this blog, follow, or sign it up in your favorite feed reader. Like the facebook page (I do post some short things on it pretty regularly), or even check out my Pinterest boards. I'll be visiting you too!
Next week the design of the month is feathers!
Next week the design of the month is feathers!
Free Motion Quilting Design: McTavishing with a Twist
I've been doing more of my favorite free motion quilting design, McTavishing. Inspired by Karen McTavish's release of the 2nd edition of Mastering the Art of McTavishing, I've been trying my hand at a scroll-based form of McTavishing as shown on the second DVD included with the book.
I shot a video of my progress with this design, but I need to work on it. I found myself going so fast and in a rush. I would like to pick up speed as I quilt, but not get too sloppy while doing it.
I love how it starts with the basic scroll shape worked all over the area instead of using the regular McTavishing registration lines. This seems to help distribute the scroll shapes more evenly than working from one side of the area and filling each scroll as you go.
I want to be able to do my C's better. Karen is so good at this! I'd also like to include a few of the regular S shapes of the regular McTavishing. Practice, practice, practice!
Now the winner of my copy of Karen's Mastering the Art of McTavishing..... I had 120 comments on the giveaway post. I had my lovely Leah choose a number between 0 and 120 and the winner is Bonnie58! I've sent her an email notification already.
For those new readers, I did a whole series of posts on McTavishing as my first Free Motion Monday Quilting Adventures Series.
I shot a video of my progress with this design, but I need to work on it. I found myself going so fast and in a rush. I would like to pick up speed as I quilt, but not get too sloppy while doing it.
I love how it starts with the basic scroll shape worked all over the area instead of using the regular McTavishing registration lines. This seems to help distribute the scroll shapes more evenly than working from one side of the area and filling each scroll as you go.
I want to be able to do my C's better. Karen is so good at this! I'd also like to include a few of the regular S shapes of the regular McTavishing. Practice, practice, practice!
Now the winner of my copy of Karen's Mastering the Art of McTavishing..... I had 120 comments on the giveaway post. I had my lovely Leah choose a number between 0 and 120 and the winner is Bonnie58! I've sent her an email notification already.
For those new readers, I did a whole series of posts on McTavishing as my first Free Motion Monday Quilting Adventures Series.
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