A Banner Day: Free Motion Quilted

After seeing the quilted word art I've begun offering in my Etsy shop, Top Anchor Quilting Tools commissioned me to make a banner for their show booth. Since the necessary colored threads got hung up in some foul weather and the kids have had a bunch of snow days, I'm running short of time.

 In order to get the good color contrast without stitching every last millimeter, I'm using a 30 weight thread that always gives me a bit of trouble. I've tried larger needles, even smaller needles. Different tensions too, but every once in a while some ugly happens. Would you believe I'm getting better results with a smaller needle? Seriously! It certainly does not like backtracking at all. But I'm forging ahead.

I'm surrounding the logo with the various rulers that Top Anchor sells and to make sure they are easy to see on the banner, I'm doing some bobbin work. That's turning out pretty well.

The feather wreath is one of the harder templates for me. It's a lot of fun and so cool to get such a perfect wreath, but you have to be very careful to use the printed guidelines to position the ruler accurately for each plume. Just a tiny bit on each plume and you'll be way off when you get back around to the beginning. Similar to having an accurate piecing seam allowance. Using rulers and templates is a great way to bring uniformity and evenness to your quilting.

Hands-down, my favorite template from them is the 5 pointed star. It's one of the easiest to manage on a stationary machine, simple to line up if you get off a little, and stars are always handy designs for quilters. Do a couple of offset repeats of a star using the same anchor position and you get some really neat designs.

Another of my favorites is the Dahlia. Above is just a simple single version, but offset a second one and it is really fabulous. You can also do a third repeat and it starts looking like Spirograph You can see an older video I made using the Dahlia template, or see the accompanying post.

It's been so much easier to use these templates on my Janome 8200 compared to the 6600. No prongs in the way of the ruler and it's much easier to use the rulers behind the foot.

Now to get back to stitching. I've got to get this banner and another sample quilt done before Tuesday morning when I leave for Lancaster, PA. I am so excited to go to the show. Let me know in the comments if you are going to the AQS Show. Hopefully we can meet up.

If you are in this current winter storm nastiness on the east side of the US, I hope you are staying warm and not having to travel out in it. Come on Spring!

Crazed Quilting Week

Taking a few quick moments to blog. This week is shaping up to be CRAZY! And to top it off, I just got a call from the school that they may cancel school tomorrow. Tomorrow being the one day I would have to quilt without any little feet running around.

I've got 2 projects to finish for the Top Anchor Quilting Tools booth at the AQS show in Lancaster next week. I might be sewing binding in the hotel room the night before.

 The thread for the second project got hung up in bad weather and arrived 5 days later than planned!

My sister is getting married in 4 weeks and I'm co-hosting her shower on Sunday. I'm sticking to the quilters' maxim that a quilt done before the first anniversary isn't late.

Worst of all, my husband's father passed away a few days ago. He was well loved and a sweet guy who had been living on borrowed time for quite a while. We are glad his suffering is over and he is with the Lord. Hubby will be leaving Saturday for his service and returning Monday, then I leave Tuesday for Lancaster.

Crazy!

BTW, I just got the current version of the Westalee Ruler foot in the mail today. I am going to have to delay the review by 2 weeks now, but until then, here is the back of the packages, so you can see the feet a little. I got the foot in both low and high shank versions.

Free Motion Ruler Work: Midnight Snowflakes

I am having a great time with my new Janome 8200 and quilting with rulers. This machine is so quiet, plus the visibility and ability to work behind the foot with standard 1/4 inch thick rulers is so much improved over my 6600.

Not that the Janome 6600 isn't a great machine, it's only when it came to ruler work behind the foot that I had any issues. In fact, the 6600 is no longer mine. It sold yesterday at the shop. I showed it the day before to a young mother and I hope it was her husband who returned the next day and bought it for his wife. I didn't get her name, but I gave her my card so I'd love to hear from her. (I want to let her know that there are some customized settings on the machine that I should have returned to the defaults before it sold.)
 

Isn't this a cool batik to free motion quilt?

I'm working feverishly on a sample quilt for the Top Anchor Quiting Tools both at the Lancaster AQS show in less than two weeks. All of these snow days have slowed my quilting down. The kids have been having plenty of fun; sledding and drinking hot chocolate. I've been doing more laundry than ever since giving up cloth diapers a few years ago.

The batik motifs are based on 8 points and most of the rulers I'm using are based on 6 points, so it doesn't line up well, but I think it's still pretty! You can see the anchor post in the middle of this design.

For the ruler work motifs on this quilt, I'm using Yenmet Metallic thread. It's a blend of turquoise blue thread and silver metallic. It's working beautifully! I'm using a 90/14 universal needle in the machine and Glide thread in the bobbin. I did take the tension off of auto so I could use a very low tension on the top.

I'll work on getting a few in process shots soon, maybe even a video if I can get the kids to be quiet long enough.

What have you been quilting on? Are you doing any ruler work? Anybody else longing for spring like I am?

DIY Cone Thread Holder

If you do a lot of quilting your own projects, you can really start burning through a lot of thread. And because you can never have enough thread, it doesn't take long to realize that buying the larger cones is more economical.

But you've got to have the right holder for cones of thread. They feed thread off the top of the spool. A vertical spool pin won't work, and the newer horizontal spool pins/holder aren't really made for cones and won't fit the really large cones.

Horizontal spool pin on the left, vertical spool pin on the right.

The Janome Skyline S5 has a nifty spool cap for the horizontal spool pin for use with 1000M cones, which is just absolutely brilliant! They work on other Janomes with horizontal spool pins, which is all but the lowest end machines, though I don't know if these little things are available individually yet.

My previous machine, the Janome 6600 already had cone thread holders built into the machine and so I have a ton of cone threads. My new 8200 doesn't have cone thread holders! There is a 2 cone thread holder accessory for this machine that screws into the back of the machine. I have one ordered, but in the meantime, I'm making do.

You can buy a separate cone thread holder and they are handy--IF the base is nice and heavy. There are some really cheap plastic bottomed ones that just don't work well.

I rigged up a temporary solution, and while it's noting new in concept, I thought I'd share it with you in case you find yourself needing one.

• I used a wide-mouthed pint Mason jar, but you can also use a coffee cup. Then came the ugly part- a wire coat hangar and since I couldn't find any wire snips in the house, I couldn't make it pretty. 

• First I straightened out the hanger (sort of).

• Then I determined the height I needed to bring the thread above my machine. It needed to be high enough that the thread wouldn't get tangled up in the foot storage area on top of my machine or cut by the bobbin thread cutter (a handy feature when winding bobbins!) 

• I bent a curlicue into the end for the thread, not a closed loop as I just want to hook the thread into it, not actually thread it through.

• Then I wound up the excess around the jar to create a base for the wire. It doesn't stay tightly around the jar, but is somewhat self-supporting.

• Finally, I used my handy-dandy painter's tape to secure the upright portion to the jar.

It sure isn't pretty, but it works perfectly!

Now I can use my large cones of thread with no problems. Off to quilt!