Commentary about works in progress, design & creativity
I checked in with Colleen about her foot not about my quilts, but she sent me a photo of Scrap Dash on the machine.
With the photo she said she had finished Gelato and was getting ready to work on Scrap Dash. I love this quilt and can’t wait to see what she has done.
Surprisingly, I have more donation quilting to show. Tim is on a roll and, the other night, sent me a photo of the finished quilting on the Blue Improv quilt.
With the Purple Strip donation quilt, this one makes two this week! I am thrilled for a couple of reasons: 1) I have something to write about and some donation quilts about which to feel good and 2) I haven’t been working on any donation anything so these finishes are a bonus.
Tim quilted swirls into the top. The quilting is hard to see with everything going on with the piecing. He sent me this detail and it looks good, which is no surprise.
I don’t know who he has to bind it.
Tim sent me some photos on Saturday of the purple strip donation quilt I finished back in March of 2019.
I really like the skinny rectangle motif he used for the quilting. I think it echos the strips I used.
It took him awhile to quilt this. I think he was having a hard time getting inspired. I can understand. I blame the pandemic.
He’ll get someone to bind it or maybe I will next time I visit; we’ll see.
It wasn’t too long ago that I helped Tim put this quilt on the machine. The other day when I visited, he showed me the finished piece. It was even bound by Sue S! That made it a true group quilt. I was really pleased at how well it came out.
I finished this quilt in March of 2020, right after the shelter-in-place order, so this one is getting done much faster than the Purple Strip Donation quilt I talked about the other day.
Tim said that he doesn’t really like yellow, but this quilt was just cheerful. That comment made me super happy. I really love making cheerful quilts.
The quilting is a lot of swirls, which looks really nice. I am not sure how he decided what to do, but I like what he usually chooses. Also, Tim is quilting these for free so I am not complaining.
The back is pretty basic, nothing fancy in terms of piecing, but it looks good. also, cheerful.
I visited the Tim the other day. I had some things I wanted to give him (no quilts this time), so I stopped by. While I was there I saw that he had the Purple Strip Donation Quilt on the machine. I finished this top and back in March of 2019, which made me very happy. I know he’ll finish it soon and I can’t wait to see it.
Tim sent me a text last week showing that he had quilted the Traffic Jam quilt. Yay!
I really like this pattern and it looks great quilted. Looking at it makes me tempted to make one with a red background and fabrics for the foreground that were mostly white with pattern. I don’t know how it would look, but the idea intrigues me. I definitely want to make another one of these quilts.
Tim quilted flames. He said he had an idea which didn’t come out the way he hoped. I think it looks great anyway and these donation quilts are a good place to practice quilting and other skills.
I went to retrieve a piece of fabric that Tim quilted for me. I will be making bags for our dining room table leaves. Because making quilts and never showing them in person is not fun, I brought some of the donation tops I have made since March. Tim has a number of my donation quilts to quilt. I told him I just wanted to show him the quilts, but he insisted on keeping a couple of them to quilt. Tim kept the Traffic Jam quilt, the Plaid donation quilt and this one.
I didn’t argue with him, but I insisted on helping him load one of the quilts, the first Blue Strip donation quilt on the longarm. I made this back in March. Since then it has been languishing in my ‘going to guild’ bag. I was just about to ask if anyone wanted to quilt some quilts. I will still do that for the 2 Spiky 16 patches I have, but I have many fewer to try to pawn off.
If I help him get a quilt on the machine, he quilts it relatively quickly. It is also good practice for me, so we pinned this piece to his leaders, he tested the stitch length and did a bit of the quilting to test out the machine and the pattern. I am pretty excited that these quilts are out of my bag. I told Tim I would be back to help him get another quilt on the machine.
Last year I bought fabric to make a Christmas mat. The intention is that we will lay this mat on the floor and put our Christmas tree on it.
I was supposed to work on it and finish it last year, but stuff happened and I didn’t do it. I was able to use a friend’s longarm last week and I got the thing quilted. It isn’t finished.
My friend has a new HQ Amara on a large frame. I was excited, but also apprehensive as it has been a long time since I longarmed anything.
My intention was to free motion, but I ended up decided on a computerized pattern. Since the fabric is just one length of yardage – no piecing it didn’t seem necessary to spend a bunch of time on it. I thought choosing a computerized pattern would make the process go faster. Overall it took us about 2.5 hours to quilt a 41 x 44 inch sandwich. My friend is still learning and the software isn’t as intuitive as I expected it to be*.
We both worked on it and I was finally getting the hang of moving the quilt from a finished line of quilting back to the right to start the next line (no, it doesn’t do it itself) when we finished. I was glad to finish, because it was exhausting. I am VERY grateful to my friend for helping me quilt the thing and also for just getting another project quilted.
*SIL n.2 and I have discussed how longarm computer software manufacturers don’t have the market to make really great software. If longarm software sold as much as something like Microsoft Word, then there would be more development, but the market just isn’t that large. It is a shame, but business is business.
If you, mostly, do not quilt your quilts yourself, then part of your quiltmaking process should be preparing your quilt for your longarm professional. You can read my longarm rant which implies things to think about when choosing a longarm quilter, but regardless of who you choose, you will still have to prepare your quilt.
To be honest, when I get to the “YAY! I have finished my top” stage, I am done with the quilt. However, I also don’t want a bunch of tops laying around, so I am working on finding the Zen or meditative qualities of finishing my quilts.
For the top, don’t worry much about pattern or block design when thinking about the longarmer. I am more interested in what I want for the top.
Back
However, when I get to the back, I do try to be nice. Part of the process or creating the Zen or meditative space in my head of finishing my quilts deals with the back. I no longer piece tiny squares together to create a coordinated back. I try to use very large pieces of fabric, which not only enables me to finish the back quickly, but also lessens the number of seams on the back for the longarmer.
My personal, fabulous longarmer has never complained about seams, but I also don’t want her to become frustrated with me. I make pieced backs. That is just what I do. I see no good reason to buy additional fabric for the back when I have perfectly good fabric in my fabric closet that is not being used.
Lately, I have started to try to remember to piece the seams open on the back. It doesn’t really matter in terms of construction, IMO, but it lessens the number of layers that the longarm needle has to punch through. My personal, fabulous longarmer has never said one way or the other, but I figure that it can’t hurt.
If I know that the end of the seam will be on the outside of the quilt or NOT crossed by another seam I will also backstitch. I do this on the front also, so that the threads don’t pull apart as the quilt is being stretched on the longarm machine. Of course, I don’t always know, but I do my best.
I try to make the back at least 8″ larger (4″ on each side and 4″ on top and bottom) all the way around than the size of the top. To do this, I lay the top on my design floor and build the back on top of it.
Post-it Notes are your Friend
I measure the top and the back and pin a post-it note to the quilt saying what the sizes are. I use hot pink post-it notes. My quilts are generally square, but usually not perfectly square. They are often off by an 1/8″, but not much more. If I put the post-it note on, the longarmer clearly knows what s/he is dealing with and can’t blame me later for lousy piecing (Well, s/he can, but I can just look at him or her sarcastically and not feel bad).
Top and Bottom
You might think that any idiot could tell which is the top and bottom of your quilt, but that is not always the case. I had a quilt where the back was really large – much larger than the 4″ all around that I normally make it – and my personal, fabulous longarmer put it on sideways, because I didn’t mark the top and the bottom. She is not in my head, though she is in my fantasy life, so now I put a post-it note with the word ‘top’ on both the top and the back. Top on the post-it note means “dude, this is the top of the quilt.”
Pins
I take them out as I piece. There is no later. If my personal, fabulous longarmer runs over a pin I left on the quilt, I pay to have her machine repaired. My fault, my problem.
Embellishments
I embellish with anything 3D AFTER the quilting is done. If there is some reason that I put a button or beads in a section of the quilt, then I pin a very bright post-it note to that area. I also point it out to her when I bring the quilt to her. If my personal, fabulous longarmer runs over an embellishment on the quilt, because I didn’t warn her, I pay to have her machine repaired. My fault, my problem.
Press, Press, Press
As much as I despise pressing the top and the back I do it just before I take the quilt to the longarmer. Then I hang the top and the back on a pants hanger. The pants hangers have to be tough and have really strong clips, because those quilts are heavy. If I don’t press the wrinkles will not ‘quilt’ out.
This is the last step. Once the quilt is on the hanger, it is ready to be taken to the longarmer.
Keep in mind that your personal longarmer might have different requirements for how you prepare your quilts. Make sure that you know what those are before you take your quilt to be quilted.
Dear Longarm Quilter,
Thank you for taking the time to quilt my quilt. I really appreciate your assistance, your artistry and your attention to detail.
I want to support your small business, which is one reason I come to you. I want you to be successful and I want to be able to recommend you to my friends. I was a small business owner in the not-too-distant-past, so I know it is hard work and can be thankless at times.
I have very high standards, which I will warn you about in advance. I have even higher standards for charity quilts. I do my best work on these quilts, so the recipients know I care. I expect the same from you. If you feel anxious about meeting those standards, please send me away with my quilt. I want my quilt done well and I don’t want to increase your anxiety level. I will respect you for being honest.
Please remember that this is a collaborative effort and what I say to you in our initial meeting is pertinent to how I want my quilt quilted. I have worked hard on the piecing and want your quilting to fit well with my piecing design. Please do not overshadow my piecing with inappropriate quilting. Please do not try to sell me on your designs. Listen to what I want and tell me if you can’t, or don’t want, to do what I want. My quilt is not your playground to show off the quilting that would be much better suited for a whole cloth quilt.
I will tell you that my backs are always pieced and I don’t always press the seams open, that my quilts are almost never square (though not terribly off), and that I use fusible and raw edge applique’. If you can’t, or don’t want to, deal with any of these peculiarities, please tell me upfront. I’d rather know and find someone else. I will respect you for being honest.
Please act professionally. Do not whine, after the fact, about my unsquare quilts, pieced backs or fusible applique’. If you whine afterwards, I will suspect you are blaming me for your own poor longarming skills and I am not interested in excuses. If you have, or think you might have, a problem with my quilt, please don’t take it on in the first place. I will respect you for being honest.
Please be generous about your competitors. Making snide comments about them does not endear me to you or make me loyal.
Please make sure your machine is in good working order. Please make sure you know how to load the back tightly so there are no pleats. Please clean the oil up so it doesn’t stain my quilt. If you do get a pleat or have a problem, I expect you to rip out the quilting and do it over AND not charge me for the time. Your mistake = your problem.
Please have the quilt done when you say it will be done. If it isn’t done, please call me and we can work out a new time to get the quilt. If I arrive and the quilt is not done and you are not working on it, I won’t be happy. Please be realistic about your commitments. Can you really finish my 5 quilts this week? REALLY?
Finally, if someone else picks up my quilts for me, don’t tell them that you screwed up and are glad they picked up the quilts instead of me since you knew I would be angry. If you think I will be mad, fix the problem. I have a phone and can call you. I can be angry over the phone.
Thank you, Love, J
I need to stop with the large quilts. However, I like making large-ish quilts, though. The problem is that I am too short to photograph them. Perhaps I just need to win the lottery and have my own personal photographer at my beck and call?
OK, enough with the fantasy world.
I went to Always Quilting on Friday and quilted FOTY 2009. It has been awhile since I went there to quilt a quilt on their Gammil longarm; July 2009 to be specific. I was pleased that they had tidied up the quilting room. I had enough space to spread out.
General Thoughts
First, I trained for my longarming day. It can be quite hard on my body, because, essentially, stand up for 6-8 hours. I took the day off work on Thursday, so I wouldn’t be exhausted Thursday night and then have to get up and go stand in front of the longarm on Friday.
I also brought a second pair of shoes and switched halfway through. I would love to see them get one of those industrial rubber mats to put in front of the machine. If I see one on Freecycle, perhaps I will get it for them.
So, the biggest problem with my longarming is that I don’t have enough time practice. Time is relative, too, because it involves making a top and a back I want to quilt myself, taking time to spend a whole day quilting the quilt and getting a slot. That being said, I am much more pleased with the stitch length and quality this time around. I felt a lot more comfortable with the stitching than I thought I would. I wasn’t as anxious about ruining my quilt.
I forgot to put a quilting border on the quilt, which sent me into a bit of a panic when I was pinning the quilt on to the machine’s leader, but I couldn’t do anything about it, so I let it go.
I could just quilt a bunch of pieces of fabric and give them away as comfort quilts, but it still costs money to do the quilting. Perhaps I can find a way to get the details stuck in my head without paying to learn. I did sign up for another longarming day at the end of July. I have to confirm it does not conflict with a trip I am planning.
I did the same pattern as I stitched on FOTY 2008 and the Eye Spy. I also practiced during the week before my session. I didn’t do as much practicing as I would have liked, but I think it was enough.
I try to be well mannered, which involves not ignoring people when they talk to me. It was a little bit of a problem on Friday when I was either trying to deal with the machine or concentrating on driving the giant machine. Other customers kept walking in and talking to me about the quilt. It was really nice to be complimented, but I just couldn’t concentrate on them and the work I was doing. The fabulous Roberta, one of my helpers at the shop, was annoyed when I mentioned it, because people are not supposed tojust walk into the longarm quilting room.
Lil Sissy stopped by on her way to the airport. She forgot my coffee, but beggers can’t be choosers. It was great to show off a bit for a non quilter. She, of course, wanted to drive the machine. I couldn’t let her, because she hasn’t taken the class. She did take some in process photos, which was great except for the person in them!
Roberta and Diane were my helpers. It is so great to have them there to assist. After my needle broke and I had three bobbin changes, Roberta knew I was a bit done for and just took over changing the bobbins for me. She talked me through, but was a godo teacher in that she knew when not to push and when to let the reins out a bit.
Yes, I ran out of bobbin with a 2×2 grid of blocks left to do. I quilt really small motifs – at least I did on this one.
I am really pleased with the way it turned out and may quilt It’s a Merry & Bright Wrap myself, too.
I spent time yesterday machine quilting the Fabric of the Year 2008 quilt at Always Quilting. It took me 3.25 hours from the time I started pinning the piece to the machine until I took it off. It was the fastest I have ever done longarming-all three times I have quilted a quilt on the longarm! I can’t really take all the credit credit for the speed, however. I did focus on the longarming, but the helper did everything for me except the actual quilting.
The quilting part is actually the speediest part of the longarm process. The other parts of the process are pretty time consuming. You have to, first, pin the quilt to the leaders on the machine afer you center it. When the bobbin runs out of the thread, you have to wind and change the bobbin and start up again, etc. While these tasks sound really straightforward, they add to the time it takes to move the process along.
Since I am not an expert, all of these tasks take me longer. I need to learn how to complete the whole process alone. In order to get the process straight in my head, I need time. I need time to think and make logical connections between the tasks while I am quilting.
Today was not the day to do this. They wanted me to quilt my quilt and get off the machine. They had a Kid’s Camp going and needed to have one of the girls finish her quilt after I was done and by the end of the day. As a result, anything except for the pinning and the quilting was done by my helper. I didn’t ask her to do this. She just, basically, muscled me out of the way and did it. It was fine. I have had a long week or so and was tired.
I am particularly fond of the quilting in the red next to the red circles with white background.
I stopped in this spot for some reason and snapped a picture so you could see an image of quilting and non-quilted spaces. See how tight the quilt is? You could bounce a quarter off of the top.
I make my labels by printing on fabric something that I type into a word processing program, like Word.
This is how the back looks after pinning it to the leader. I was looking down from the top.
Here is how the back looks from the other side when it is pinned to the leader. I am trying to collect pictures of the entire process in an effort to make a visual tutorial for myself, but it is taking me awhile.
After you finish a row, you have to cut the threads and move back the controller to the left side of the machine to start the next row. Before you can start quilting, the quilt needs to be rolled up to an unquilted section.
I don’t like borders that much, especially if the quiltmaker has just slapped them on to make the quilt bigger. However, I decided to add these borders so I would have something other than the piecing, which I like, to trim in order to square up the quilt. I wrote about this issue in a post from 2005 when I was binding Feelin’ Blue. I added a grey that had been hanging around the fabric closet for awhile. The ladies at the quilt shop were a bit horrified that I was going to cut this off. They liked the grey.
It was something I tried and it worked ok. There was still one corner that got a little distorted. We’ll see how it looks after I put the binding on.
Last weekend, after longarming all day on Friday, I spent time on bindings. I made and machine sewed the bindings for Eye Spy and the Crazy Test. Last night I worked a bit on doing the hand sewing on the Eye Spy. Neither of these quilts will have sleeves, so once the hand sewing is done, they will be done.
The pattern I used to quilt this quilt with is called Double Bubble. I wanted to use the same pattern as Thoughts on Dots, but I didn’t remember to look carefully at it before I left. I am pleased with this pattern and may used it again for the FOTY 2008 quilt.
[click photo to view detail of quilting]
Practice does make perfect as well. I thought I did pretty well the first time, but my stitches improved immensely this time. I didn’t add a practice piece to this quilt and it turned out that I didn’t really need it. I worked really hard at going the same speed regardless of what I was doing. I didn’t always succeed, but I improved.
Here is the famous crocodile fabric quilted. I think using it worked out really well.
My next longarm day is in April and then I have no more quilts to quilt, so I need to get on the stick if I want to keep up my momentum. We’ll see.
One of the things I did to prepare for my longarm day was to doodle. I got out the sketchbook and did some doodling in it. It wasn’t true doodling, because I used some reference materials, including some designs from a Melody Johnson class I attended in 1999 as well as some worksheets and the book from a Sue Nickels (nice little bio) class I took sometime later, perhaps around 2002 or 2003. This was all before Diane Gaudynski exploded on to the scene.
The paisleys and little 3-petal flowers would be too difficult for me at this stage, but perhaps later. Still, the whole idea is to get your muscle memory into shape. That flowing doodling kind of motion is what you want to achieve when longarming.
You can see how into those sashing curved designs I was. I really wanted them to work. I may still use them in another quilt even if they aren’t perfect.
One of the things I did when I was in the machine quilting groove was make a worksheet of designs for my quilt class. It has some basic designs and ideas on it. I still need to make the other class information, but at least this part is done.
I know I haven’t mentioned it in a while. Frankly, they all kind of bailed on the basting part and I don’t know if they will continue. It is a little disheartening, but I have an idea in my mind to teach a class like this elsewhere at some point (no plans at this time), so perhaps the work won’t all be wasted.
So, yesterday was the big day. I went to Always Quilting and quilted a quilt on my own. The short version: it was good, it was hard and I needed help.
During this foray into the world of longarm quilting I was able to complete the quilting for a quilt and a practice piece. I am thrilled to haven gotten this far on a quilt on my own! It has been awhile since I quilted anything larger than a journal sized quilt.
One experience/feeling I wasn’t expecting was that I felt like I learned a ton! I always feel that it is a good day when I learn something new and this was an even better feeling, because I learned something related to quiltmaking. Neither of these pieces will win any prizes, but I really feel like the experience was successful.
Above are the two finished pieces. They were sewn together to make it easier to get them on to the longarm machine. I cut them apart before I came home. I sewed the top patchwork piece to the quilt (bottom) in order to have a practice piece to work on before I got into the quilt itself. I always warm up when I machine quilt at home and I didn’t think this longarm adventure should be any different.
For the practice piece, I pulled out some old blues and sewed them together. I do like that Nancy Crow leaf fabric, but was never very successful at using it in a quilt.
Two details of the Crazy Test quilt. The line of stitching you see at the bottom (upper photo) is basting and I will need to pull it out. I think the flower stitching on the bottom photo looks ok. It is an all over pattern, but I don’t think it competes with the sashing or the blocks. In the blocks, it is nearly invisible.
Above is a detail of the first bit of quilting that I did. I quickly learned that this kind of fabric has two problems:
When I have someone else quilt a quilt, I focus on the piecing. I want the quilting to blend in and not take away from the piecing. Thus, I was surprised to find that I wanted to see the stitching. It makes sense to be able to see the stitching as you actually stitch! I found that when I was done with a section, I wanted to be able to see what I had done. Above, I don’t think the stitched flowers, as a design element, look that good on top of the leaves. The two design elements compete with each other.
The stitching in the leaves is the stitching that I also did in the blue and white striped fabric at the top. It shows up a lot better on the black and was a lot easier to see as I stitched over the Nancy Crow fabric. I had planned to use that pattern (from a 1999 Melody Johnson class) in the sashing. I like the way it came out, but if you examine it closely, you will find that the lines are not parallel and the ‘legs’ are different sizes. I think I will have to practice more before I can use that one on a real quilt.
Contrary to the flowers over the leaves that I mentioned above, I don’t mind the parallel lines over the leaves in the photo above.
My general preference when viewing quilts is to see the quilting compliment the elements of the quilt. For example, I usually like to see different quilting in the sashing than I do in the blocks. What I found after yesterday’s session was that those differences in the quilting pattern require lots of practice. Longarming in general requires a lot of practice. If you think you can go and buy a longarm and start quilting for other people, more power to you. After doing some of the math, I fiure that I can quilt 10-12 quilts for less than $500. This means it would take me years to pay off even a Handiquilter, which runs about $8,000.
After realizing that my planned designs were not going to work, Kit suggested a flower pattern. The bottom section is the all over flower pattern that I decided would be fine for my first longarm project. The section in the blue RJR Christopher Columbus fabric (bottom left, above) is the right size. As you can tell from other photos, I stitched smaller and smaller motifs as I moved through the quilt. As a result, the quilting took a lot longer than I anticipated. I think the flowers show up pretty well in the photo above. This was my first attempt at them. Somethings I had to think about while learning this process and trying out a new pattern:
I like the above photo, because it shows the quilt rolled up on the machine. You can also see the flowers pretty well.