Ongoing Quilt Projects, Continued from the "No Appreciation...." Thread

[speckledhen]

( @speckledhen ---Please note the peek of the wall hanging behind the thread It inspires me daily)

That old thing? My hand quilting days are long gone, for the most part. I do like Attic Windows, though.

Love the decal. I remember chickenzoo makes decals. I like it! I found out that my maternal great grandmother was named Alice Maretta. My mother's name was Maretta June (went by June), obviously named for her grandmother, and in one old hens' pen, I have hens named June, Maretta and Alice, but I named Alice for a shade of blue called Alice Blue because she's a crystal blue color.

 

[DuckLady]

Wow. I do like my monster walking foot.
I also think I am getting the hang of FMQ. It's a hard adjustment from moving a huge machine (longarm) over the quilt to moving the quilt under the free motion foot. After I got the quilt done, I practiced for a few hours with rulers and just swirls to learn some control.

 

[speckledhen]

Finally. Shown on my queen size bed. Most definitely a king size!

 

[21hens-incharge]

Finally. Shown on my queen size bed. Most definitely a king size!
View attachment 1479556 View attachment 1479557

That is yet another beautiful piece! I really like the feather work.
I am eons away from even trying that.

The new quilting machine has an issue. It either hates every thread I have tried or the batting or is just plain defective. I keep getting poor tension results no matter what I try.

I will keep messing with it.

In the mean time I have started making the flowers for a grandmothers flower garden quilt.

 

[speckledhen]

My feathers are not great, but I do them anyway. They're a good border motif, gets it done fairly quickly. The easiest way to learn feathers for me was starting with Angela Walters' video on the paisley feather on YouTube. I did that one, then tried others she did tutorials on.
Is the machine that Singer you got? Tension can be a real bear sometimes. My Janome has automatic tension, which is awesome, but my Brother has to be monkeyed with some.

 

[21hens-incharge]

I think your feathers are beautiful.
I have watched tons of Angela Walters videos. She has a very encouraging way about her. Her videos give me courage to try.

Yes it's the Singer. I am going to mess with it in the morning with a different batting so we will see. I do know that it despises any coats & clark brand thread. My ancient brother machine is a little work horse and doesn't care what thread. I love that cheap little machine.

If I cannot figure out the singers issue I will take it to the shop.

 

[speckledhen]

I think your feathers are beautiful.
I have watched tons of Angela Walters videos. She has a very encouraging way about her. Her videos give me courage to try.

Yes it's the Singer. I am going to mess with it in the morning with a different batting so we will see. I do know that it despises any coats & clark brand thread. My ancient brother machine is a little work horse and doesn't care what thread. I love that cheap little machine.

If I cannot figure out the singers issue I will take it to the shop.

Is the batting high loft? Unless it's really thick, I'd doubt the batting was at fault. I generally like a low loft batting, whether it's cotton, a blend or a polyester, but I've never considered that the batting was the culprit in a tension war.

 

[DuckLady]

I am in love with Angela Walters' methods. I am finally piecing the quilt from her first challenge. My first intention was to do it on my longarm, but I think I will use my sewing machine. This last challenge she is doing will be on the longarm, but I am waiting til the challenge is done, so I don't tie up the longarm for 3 or 4 weeks. By waiting, I can do it in a day.

 

[21hens-incharge]

Is the batting high loft? Unless it's really thick, I'd doubt the batting was at fault. I generally like a low loft batting, whether it's cotton, a blend or a polyester, but I've never considered that the batting was the culprit in a tension war.

Yes it is high loft polyester batting. It is not what I will use in the quilts but just some left overs I thought I could practice with. Still trying to find time today to mess with it.

I have my dogs and my sons dog all day along with all the regular stuff. The dogs don't always play nice.
Maybe they will nap.

 

[speckledhen]

For the first time ever, I frogged (un-sewed) a finished pieced quilt top. It was quite the disaster, if you recall-the seams didn't meet right in an arrangement where they had to be 100% precise to make the overall 3D design work properly. It was a shame, really, such a bold statement that quilt would have made! I've never had so much trouble with what seemed to be a fairly straightforward design. The blocks were easy enough, a chevron type log cabin variation in grays and whites with red corner piece.

I had placed it in a tub with other WIPs (works in progress) for about a year. Since I am between projects, I pulled it out, hoping that looking at it with a fresh eye would find it not quite as awful as I remembered it. Maybe I could just quilt it and call it my Blooper Quilt. Well, it was bad...really bad. So, I sat with my trusty seam ripper and slowly disassembled every block from each other. I kept hearing the voice of the robot Johnny Five from the movie Short Circuit in my head...NO DISASSEMBLE! LOL.

When all 30-something blocks were severed from each other, then each was pressed and starched, then the task of trimming them up to make them the same exact size again from their slightly askew state began. Last night they were finally in stacks, neat and pressed. So, today, I reassembled them in a format where they do not have to be so perfectly aligned.
Here is my current plan for them. I had called it my 3D Fudge Quilt because of an old quilter's joke..why do quilter's love chocolate? Because they're always fudging! Well, fudging didn't help me much with this one!

The blocks had to be cut down to 9.75" including seam allowance, so will be finished size of 9 1/4" if all goes right. Lap quilt, couch throw, crazy baby quilt, whatever.... before a border is added, if it is, it should measure about 55" x 64.75". What border would work on this? I'd think only narrow one, but what color would you use?