Tuesday, August 28, 2012

At Last: the Facets of Time and a Baby Play Quilt


My 'Facets of Time' quilt turned out really well, I do believe.  The finished quilt measures 68 1/4 inches by 80 3/4 inches.  Here it is on the couch in the living room.  :)

I had to rip out a seam or two to re-do as I was quilting it, but I am really pleased with the end results. I quilted the segments of the hexagons 'in the ditch' and free motion quilted the borders. I used a meander pattern on the brown inner border and a free motion butterfly kind of a pattern on the outer border.

I was able to finish it using my Janome which I had surprisingly had some problems with earlier. Turned out that my usually dependable Janome Horizon Memory Craft 7700 machine just needed a bit of adjustment to the tension (Thank you, Red Deer Sewing Centre! ) It also needed a better quality needle, a Schmetz to be exact. It works beautifully again now!

I used the back fabric of the quilt and flipped it over to the front to make a mock edge, but I admit, I do prefer the look of a separate edging around a quilt.

I have placed  this little beauty in my living room on my white couch and it looks great against my terra cotta colored wall behind it. :)


Play Quilt:



Now I am working on a 'play quilt' for my twin 7 month old grandbabies. I have 4 "Delectible Dino" blocks for it, plus I'm working on 4 "Hankie Pets" made of Minkee with hand embroidered facial features and 3 dimensional floppy paws. These Hankie Pets are a lot of work; More work than even the dino blocks!  (The Hankie Pet block patterns are from a Black Cat Creations pattern called Hankie Blankie Pets Baby Quilt.)

I started with the easiest one, the green Minkee frog, then worked on the blue Minkee puppy and after that the yellow Minkee bear.  I ripped out quite a few stitches at first until I got the hang of it and started liking my hand embroidery noses and eyes.  I still have to finish the pink Minkee kitten.


10" X 5" rectangles about to turn into pinwheels



I got tired of doing the embroidery and went on to make some of the pinwheel blocks. After making 4 of them with yellow heart fabric and the fabrics from the background of the hankie pets, I tried to place the blocks according to the arrangement on my hand drawn quilt diagram. It didn't seem to look quite right, and I saw that I would need to make some pinwheel blocks with the same blue fabric as the dino blocks to make them all 'fit' together. (The last of that blue fabric...)



I want to make some 'surprise' blocks, too; create a peekaboo flap that will have an appliquéd animal underneath it to add some interest for our babies...

My daughter suggested some ribbons attached to the quilt blocks for the babies to finger. I also want to put some 'prairie points' on it someplace for them to inspect and grab.... This little quilt plan is just developing and changing as I go along. I hope I am going to love the end results! :)


A possible arrangement for the play quilt blocks....

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Machine Quilting 'Facets of Time'

Facets of Time quilt, pinned and waiting to be quilted


Have been working pretty steadily on quilting my 'Facets of Time' quilt. I machine quilted 'in the ditch' around the 'wedges' (can't really call them squares). That took a while as the quilt had to be re-folded on an angle so many times to accommodate that.

After that I thought about which free motion patterns I might like to do around the borders.  My favourite one is a free motion butterfly pattern joined together by curliques. I set up my Janome for that, changed the needle,  decided on thread color and got started. I had nothing but trouble after that. The thread kept breaking as I tried to sew.  I cleaned under the plate, I adjusted the tension, and re-threaded the thread, but it kept happening again and again. Was my thread too old? I was at a loss and was getting frustrated! I have been using my Janome 7700 so much since I bought it 18 months ago and I think it likely needs to be cleaned and adjusted professionally now. Time to take it in to the Sewing Centre.


I set up my old Pfaff 1546 machine and that same thread worked perfectly on it. I have quilted 2 of the borders now without much difficulty and I am excited about finishing it! One last border to go! :)