foot made for walking

the quilt batching continues. that group of quilts i got backed and basted went right on through to the quilting stage. my walking foot came out and had a big two day workout. i'm not generally a fan of my walking foot and straightline quilting, but there is a time and place for it. 

recently, i've been reading and rereading jolene's "a year of quilts" and "scrap quilt diary" at bedtime a lot. like many quilters, jolene has a go-to quilting preference: she most often, if she's doing it herself, will straightline quilt 1" apart, vertically. i've had that at the back of my mind lately since i've been looking at so many of her quilts. and she's right - it's pretty effective all the time.

so when i needed to make some quilting decisions, i thought about jolene's straight lines. the first quilt i was quilting was "bathsheba," my single girl quilt. i wanted to handquilt this one like all my other liberty + chambray quilts, but the slightly wobbly top needed some help. in the end i decided to do a combination: wide straightline quilting for stability and handquilting for decoration.

since i needed evenly-spaced quilt lines, i dug out the guide bar that attaches to my walking foot. i don't recall every using it before because i don't think i've ever actually done evenly spaced straightline quilting before. i've only every done echo quilting, stitch-in-the-ditch, or marked lines to follow.

this foot contraption is a beast! just look at all the parts and screws. i was lucky i found all the pieces and figured out how they went together (thank you manual). the guide foot can go on either side of the walking foot and has an adjustable bar, which is part of the reason it's so big and awkward. but it sure works for all those parts and things hanging out everywhere.

my quilt lines ended up being something like 1 3/4" apart simply because that was the smallest distance achievable with the guide foot to the left of the walking foot, which is where it made sense to me to have it when sewing.

that's not "bathsheba" in the photos of the foot - that's "grellow garden geese." after i completed "bathsheba," it felt logical to leave the same foot and thread on, and do the straightline all over again for this quilt. i did mean to do it vertically, not horizontally, this time, but i started out with the quilt turned horizontally, so just did it that way again. 

i considered doing vertical lines down the middle of each row of geese, right through their points. but once i was done with the horizontal lines, it was bedtime, so i called it a day and called the quilting done. it's a low-stakes quilt and i didn't feel the need to add anything else after all. plus, trying to do a straight line through all the geese tips might reveal more misalignments in the quilt top. the horizontal wobbles are already revealed this way, best to leave that alone.
 

when "sunny crossroads" came up for quilting, i thought for a while before committing. there is this great handquilting pattern i've seen for the crossroads pattern, which i've wanted to do for a while now. but i also know i have a lot of handquilting already in the queue. so i decided to do the same echo quilting i did on my previous crossroads quilts (here and here). that was still done with a walking foot and i could leave the gold thread on the machine because it would work with this yellow quilt, too.

don't the gathers in the quilt after it's passed through the foot look so pretty? i think so.

i got quilting away with my movie going on my phone nearby. after a few rows i realized i was only echo-quilting the joining seams and not echoing the roads like i intended too. i was not in a mood to go back and add the missed lines. so, i decided to keep going like i was and if i decided to add handquilting later on, this was a good compromise for stabilizing the quilt. it'll be another hybrid and that's great. it's not a fall quilt, so it's not like i'm in a hurry to get it completed and in service. maybe it can be my new spring break handstitching project? probably should finish the other one first, haha.

can you tell which side of the sashing i stitched on? it's pretty hidden this time.

then it was time for the last basted quilt - "groovy liberty." it's going to be another handquilted liberty + chambray quilt, but it needed some stabilizing stitches. i don't want to see these machine stitches, so it was stitching-in-the-ditch on this one. and i finally had to change my thread color. gold wasn't going to blend here so i switched to a neutral grey i used for piecing most of these quilts. but the walking foot stayed. i was really happy not to change that foot.

found a little oopsy while i was quilting! i'll have to topstitch it or something.

i generally avoid stitch-in-the-ditch because i have a hard time keeping the stitches in the ditch and the whole point is that you don't see the stitches, they hide in the ditch. however, i was taking my time, sewing slow on that turtle, and was pretty shocked how invisible most of my stitching was, right up to the last line or two when i must have been a little tired. i think the thread blended really well, too, so the stitches that didn't make it actually in the ditch just don't show. 

i'm pretty shocked at myself for getting so much done recently. i'll say this in favor of straightline quilting - it's fast. really, really fast. i got most of these done within the span of one movie each. that's quite satisfying when you don't care so much about the quilt design, which i didn't for these quilt. as much as i like my modern loops fmq and orange peel design, this straightline thing has grown on me and will be making appearances again, i'm sure.

batching

do you know what this means? basting party!

while i was at it with basting "bathsheba," my single girl quilt, i pulled out the other tops ready to go and had a basting party.

"grellow garden geese" was next in line. i'm excited to get this one done and in use this season.

i didn't fuss too much about the backing on this one, but i'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. i stayed truer to the name and original vision for the quilt on the back - there's more grellow and less other colors here. there was inexplicably a large piece of the perfect grellow colored solid in my stash, which i used for the bulk of the back. i added a strip of pieced leftovers and a strip of a very old grellow-colored kate spain dandelion print, circa 2012, to the top. but that wasn't quite enough, so i added this mushroom-colored "henna garden" to the bottom, and that completed the back. I do like a nice, neat pieced backing.

moving on to "sunny crossroads" and i'm actually going to miss seeing how this one nests together so nicely on the back. because i made opposite paired blocks from each fabric pairing, there were an even number of low-volume and yellow blocks, which alternated throughout the top. i always pressed to the yellow prints, which made nesting these seams a cinch. and it looks nice, too!

i'm so very pleased with this backing. i had a false start a few weeks ago when deciding on a backing, then landed on the perfect selections, which got put together during this party. i was able to include the selvages from the two prints in the backing. i'm also happy to say i have plenty of that sunny "katie jump rope" print left for something else.

i put this photo in my instagram stories with the two designers tagged on the photo. denyse schmidt comment on it and reposted it to her stories! big fan girl moment for me. denyse is the sweetest. i met her at quiltcon in the spring and have interacted with her several times since online. she's as lovely as her fabrics.

i cut it close on this one - the backing was barely wide enough for the "groovy liberty" top. and i didn't do a good job cutting the batting, either. fortunately, it spread spread a little when i smoothed it out after spraying the backing.

i wore my basting socks so my feet didn't get all gunky and dirty. once i basted a couple of quilts barefoot just before i had to go to pilates class. i found out just before leaving for class just how dirty my feet were and they wouldn't wash clean. at my studio, pilates is done with your feet in toeless socks or barefoot, with your feet on the equipment a lot of the time. my feet were so stubbornly sticky and dirty that time that i had to cancel the class last minute. my teacher said it was the most unique reason for cancellation she'd every heard. so now i always wear my basting socks to keep my feet clean.

my basting station - the central hallway in my house. that tile is ugly and has been ever since we moved in here 22 years ago.(maybe you can see my wood samples because we're finally going to change it out?) but it's a good place to baste quilts.

 and some of these to keep me going. it's a party, right?

next up will be the quilting party and then the binding party.

so much quilty partying going on here.

i do enjoy batching my quilts this way.

single girl nearly done

who would have thought my first curves quilt would be one of the fastest makes i've ever done? not me.

but here we are with all six rings complete (i opted for six in the end), a backing ready to go, and borders added.

originally, i only added 3" patchwork borders to the sides to increase the width, but that looked weird, so i added some to the top and bottom as well.

i have to say i wish i had added more background first and then the borders, and made the patchwork borders thinner. but i didn't have enough of the brown crossweave left to do that and the patchwork border was my only option with what i had on hand.

i got a little help with piecing the borders. this guy showed up and ran the foot for me. you can't see that he's stepping on the foot over there to the side. he was pretty good at stopping on time (mostly) and such a good sport to stand there for a while as we worked. at one point he said, "i need a chair," but there wasn't room for one. i told him when granna builds her new house with a big sewing room, we'll make sure there is room for a chair for him next to me. 

he was in such a congenial mood. he kept telling me he liked everything. "oh, i like your machine. oh, i like that fabric. oh, i like [fill in the blank]." we were looking over the 16 patch blocks his aunt d5 and i have been making for "pinky stinky" edna and he said he really would like some honey bears for a quilt. ah, too bad, buddy! those are long gone.

he also kept asking if we could do pins because he likes to do pins and take them out when we sew. i didn't need any pins this time around, but i'll find a need for some next time he comes to help me.

d5 helped me get a photo of the flimsy and dropped a corner in this shot. i think it's a fun, funky touch to this funky top. maybe you can see what i mean about the circles could use a little more breathing room between them and the border or a skinnier border. but we have what we have and we're taking it. i think the quilt looks much better squished up and draped over my lap, which is how it will be mostly viewed anyway. it's not often a lap quilt is seen spread out in full.

for my next "single girl" quilt, and yes i will make more, i will get enough background fabric so i can give the rings space to breathe.

once i got the rings complete and the top assembled, i decided to keep going. i'm using a single large piece of liberty tana lawn "libby" print in some beautiful fall colors for the back, so that was easy enough.

this top is not perfectly flat and the blocks aren't absolutely square. it has wobble to it. someone commented on instagram that the quilting would help hide this. true, but i usually handquilt my liberty + crossweave quilts. so i had to consider other options this time.

i decided to do some straightline machine quilting, spaced about 1 3/4" apart, and then to add some handquilting around the rings later. i found a golden thread i had on hand, aurifil 2318 in 50 wt, that coordinated with the top well. at first it felt like it showed too much, but i like it now it's all done.

 so close to a finish on this one after only a few weeks! i give the sewalong credit for that. also, i knew if i put this aside, i wouldn't pick it up again for a long time. i needed to keep at it and push through all those curves. and i did! 

a lesson in contrast

 i have 30 fall-colored liberty prints i was pairing for nine patch blocks. many pairings i liked, but as the pile thinned, inevitably i had to make less desirable choices with what was leftover after my favorite pairings were made. these two smaller-scaled prints seemed different enough in color that i thought they would be okay together.

however, just look at them worked up in the block - they get completely lost in each other. they flow right together and you can't see the pattern at all.

this is for two reasons: value and scale.

the size of the design in both is quite similar. this is scale. since there's no difference in the scale of the prints, they read the same from a distance.

secondly, and more importantly, the value - relative lightness/darkness of their colors - of the two is the same. neither one stands out from the other because their color tones are the same medium colors with a lot of white mixed in. the "betsy ann" print (blue and brown flowers) is colored flowers on a white background and the "feather meadow" (white flowers) is the opposite having an olive colored background. it wasn't so obvious until i pieced them that they were so completely similar.

the lack of value contrast is primarily responsible for the two fabrics reading the same and the pattern being lost. the scale also being the same, the two are virtually indistinguishable in a block pattern.

i didn't fancy unpicking all those little seams, but the longer i looked at those blocks throughout the day, the more they bothered me. i finally gave in and undid them. then i went back to my remaining prints and broke up some other pairings to find better mates for these two prints.

you can see the contrast is much better now and the pattern is clearer in these blocks. the top set has the highest value contrast and the pattern is distinct. the second set is still closer in value, but because there is so much white in the "betsy ann" print and the "ciara" print is more densely colored, there is just enough contrast to distinguish the pattern. the difference in scale between the prints also helps.

sometimes you want a more distinct pattern to emerge through contrast and sometimes less is desirable. i'm going for a range in this quilt, but the original solid-looking blocks set was too subtle. i'm getting better at spotting the contrast before i make blocks, but obviously i still misjudge and have some learning to do.

constant never

 

i have been reveling in the fall vibes this month, so happy with muted, earthy colors. and i'm right in the middle of several fall quilts with no desire to do anything else. i've been steadily at work on wensleydale, and fully committed to the single girl sewalong (with the tandem nine patch project). 

but "pinky stinky edna" has been sitting on the sewing room floor (such a bad choice!) for a while now. the other day i opened up the blue doors, fully intending to sew some curves and make my next single girl wheel. but as i stepped over her, i was feeling so bad for edna that i stopped and tried to figure out how to better situate her.

"one foot on sea, and one on shore,

to one thing constant never"

looking at the set of 16 patch blocks d5 has completed, i had a desire to see them with the pink fabrics. i decided to pause my plans for a second and put together the first row of the edna "just real quick." famous last words, right? being "pinky stinky," just about everything went wrong that could. but i persevered as usual and two hours later i had the first row assembled. 

despite the headaches, this was a nice sidetrip. i actually really enjoyed the not-autumnal pinks. now, back to browns, oranges, deep blues, and curves or fpp.

vintage or calm?

my sashing plan for the autumn nine patch has been to use a wheat colored crossweave i have in stash. it looks nice with the blocks, but it also felt a little less cozy to me than jolene's soft, scrappy neutrals sashing in her beatrix potter autumn nine patch from the book. my fabrics are also bolder, more saturated than her choices, so i knew i wasn't going to have the same cozy, vintage look as her quilt. it was mostly the layout idea i was using to guide me.

but then i noticed this beautiful woven fabric i bought to use for a background (possibly for "spinning elizabeths") and it reminded me of the feel in jolene's quilt. so now i'm thinking of using it for the wide sashing in my quilt.

it has a lovely vintage vibe to it, but it's also a tad busy. the quilt would definitely look more cozy and jolene-like, but the blocks will stand out less against the pattern.

 

this is the wheat crossweave. it's calm, clean, and crisp. the blocks stand out distinctly against this background. it has the right fall vibe to it. but it's less cozy. i wouldn't exactly call it boring, but it does make the quilt overall look a lot simpler.

here's a look at the beatrix potter nine patch from the book. doesn't it look like it's been around forever rather than something newly made? it's quite dreamy.

i like both ideas, but i'm completely indecisive about which to do. i suppose i could just make two quilts? there are very few blocks needed and i have enough fabrics. that seems a little redundant and excessive. better to just make up my mind.

another idea i have is a meet-in-the-middle compromise: place a thin wheat border around each block and use the strip sashing.

decisions, decisions! options can be paralyzing, can't they?

single girl finds a friend

the easiest way for me to cut into my liberty fabrics for the single girl quilt was to cut strips first. most of my liberty projects use 2.5" strips. i find if i stick to this size, then i always have pieces ready to go for the next project when inspiration strikes. i have also used 3.5" and i think a few 4.5" strips, but most recently i find myself cutting at 2.5". 

so, that's what i mostly did for this project. 

after piecing the first single girl wheel, i realized i'm going to have a whole lot of leftovers. and especially after cutting one or two strips off each of the 30+ fall prints i'm using for "single girl," i realized just how much fabric i have here in fall colors. and i knew i needed another project for these fabrics.

after my first single girl sewing day, as i was getting ready to sleep, i looked over jolene's "a year of quilts" book. the beatrix potter colored nine patch quilt from the fall section of the book caught my attention. an idea was formulated.

the idea was so good, i decided to go back to the sewing room and try it out. i putted around down there, did some calculations, made a choice, and paired these two beautiful fall colorways of "theo" and "capel" for a set of nine patch blocks from 2.5" squares.

they are so darn cute!

i paired off the rest of the fabrics and then finally went to bed (waaaay too late).

fall quilts are out

for many years, i did not rotate much in my wardrobe or house for the seasons beyond the ocassional holiday items or for a short-lived major shift in weather. i think this comes from living in a place that does not have the distinct traditional four seasons. when more than half the year is HOT and the parts that are actually cold are a matter of weeks, it didn't feel reasonable to be pulling out fall items in what was still very much summer at home. my quilting itself wasn't seasonal, nor were my quilts in the beginning. i was just quilting whatever colors i was loving and feeling at the time and there weren't enough of quilts to go around for the whole year, much less by season. 

but over the years i've begun to view and feel the seasons differently. i revel in sweater weather, even if it's only measured in weeks. i change my wardrobe colors for time of year even if the fabric weights aren't much different. if the weather doesn't signal a season shift, i make it for myself.

in my quilting, i find myself wanting to work with colors that feel right for the time of year. and i have made enough quilts now that i have a good handful for each season. i still don't have holiday quilts, but i definitely have seasonal quilts these days.

so even though it's warm enough to swim still and we don't get our handful of fall colors until december, late in september, when the weather had gotten slightly nice, a little less HOT, finally cool(er/ish) at night, i put away the summer quilts and pulled out my fall collection for the family room quilt baskets.

this one has my original crossroads quilt, which isn't absolutely fallish, but works with the others in the basket, fall trails, and fall paint lake.

this basket has fall log cabin, dorothy's girls, and collins in it. collins is one of those cross-seasonal quilts. it's not overtly any one season but has echoes of more than one in it. i just sneak it in the back of the basket there because i like it so much. the browns in it are what allow it to slip in to the fall collection. it'll stay through winter and spring, too.

the first weekend of october, we were gathered as a family in the family room to listen to the semiannual general conference sessions of our church. it's a church-at-home weekend we enjoy twice a year. i frequently use it not only for the uplifting, comforting, inspirational messages, but as a time to get handwork done whilst listening. 

as everyone gathered for the first session, people grabbed quilts out of the baskets and snuggled in for their listens. even the grown son did. that made mama smile and feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

 i was cozied up under my first holiday quilt, liberty christmas log cabin, in my new fall skirt. it looks a little like the holidays are colliding in this picture. maybe someday this voluminous skirt will be worn out and i'll be using it for a quilt backing. someday.

it was a lovely conference weekend, quilts and all. and my seasonal quilt making is in full swing at the moment. there are several new fall quilts in the works right now. i'm reveling in the colors and seeking out the moodier, cozier, subdued palettes and prints for the time being. give me all the fall quilts!

finding my curve groove

one, two, three

i've got a few things worked out, a system in place for these quarter curve blocks that make up the "free-wheeling single girl."

this is what the cutting mat looks like while i'm piecing the patchwork arc sections. here's what's going on, top to bottom:

• four sorting piles for fabric strips at top
• fabrics for current arc piecing and scissors to trim, middle ground left
• square ruler and rotary cutter for trimming seam edges, middle ground right and bottom
• arc template with fabric pieces being placed and ruler for determining placement angles, lower left corner

the details for each of these follows.

rotating for variety

at the top of the photo are my strip piles i choose fabrics from. the wheel block is made in quadrants, so i have four piles of fabrics i'm rotating through as i piece so each fabric is used once per wheel and the fabrics are shuffled from block to block.

the pile i'm working with for this arc is right under the four piles, with the scissors next to it/them (i've split it into light and dark fabrics to make selection easier). 

as i work from this pile for the current quadrant, i put each fabric i've used into the new piles for the next blocks. if you look at the fabrics i've laid out on the ring in the bottom left corner, you can see those three fabrics have been placed on top of the fabric piles in order. that's how i sort them to keep variety going in each ring. when i'm done piecing this block, i'll pick up the next pile and start piecing from it, sorting those strips across the piles as i work.

getting the angles right

there are a couple of ways to work out how to angle the patchwork pieces so they look right in the wheel. denyse draws guidelines on her pattern sheet and uses those for reference. some people use a pen or small ruler laid out to figure it out. this is my system.

i put the arc template piece in the corner of my mat with the two ends lined up with the edges of the mat so the arc is sitting in the corner of the square like it will be in the block. then i lay my starter fabric piece in place up there on the upper left of the template. i use my ruler, set in the lower left corner of the square, to figure out where the next fabric piece should be placed so the seams all angle in toward the center of the block.

i found that if i put the ruler to the right side of where the seam will be, i can lay my new piece, right sides together, lined up with the ruler. 

as long as the upper right ruler edge is touching the outer left edge of the first piece of fabric just above the template when i place the new piece, i know i'll have enough of the fabrics in the seam allowance because i will be sewing the seam 1/4" to the left of where the ruler is. you can see here the ruler crosses the under piece of fabric up there at the top right.

i'm keeping the bottom of the ruler in the lower left corner of the mat and angling to the top right of the piece of fabric already in place.

trim before sewing

then i put the new piece on top, right sides together, lined up along the ruler. i remove the ruler and carefully slide the fabrics above the template, where i trim the pieces along the right edge of the top fabric, removing that little wedge of the lower piece. (in the cutting mat photo, you can see i keep a small ruler and the rotary cutter just above the arc to the right for this purpose.) trimming the seam edge like this allows me to sew along that edge cleanly without the lower fabric hanging out so far on the right. also, if something happens in transfer to the machine, i know where to line up the fabrics again. this saved me the step of going back to the mat to trim the seam allowance before pressing the piece open. i wasn't doing the trimming til after sewing before and i find this is much better and more accurate.

especially because it also allows me to do this:

use the correct foot

i've started using the 1/4" compensating foot and it's been a game changer! it's so much easier to keep the fabric edges lines up with the guide on the foot rather than trying to use the 1/4" mark on the plate like i was doing before. i'm almost thinking i didn't need to order that curve master foot that was recommended to me because this feeds the curves in so well. it's also made most of the gathering i was getting disappear, too.

i owe this discovery to the companion nine patches i've been sewing along with the curves and my dislike of changing feet. i was having trouble keeping me seam allowance accurate on the nine patches with the general piecing foot that was on the machine. i think it was still there from the last hsts i pieced, which it's necessary to use for that type of piecing across the middle of fabrics. the tana lawns were being squiggle under that foot. i got fed up with messy blocks and changed to the guide foot to see if it would help. it did! and the gathering stopped, too. win-win. 

when i next went back to piecing the curves, i left it on for the arc pieces and decided to cut them before sewing so they could go under this foot. it helped there, too. 

so i tried sewing the curves with the guide foot and was so happy to have great results there, too. what a win!

now i have three wheels complete and several more sets of nine patches. both quilts are coming along nicely.

working with curves

here is that first single gal wheel complete. i unpicked and fixed the section joint on the right side up there. it looks much better now. my second two blocks went together much better than the first two did. i almost seemed to get the hang of this curve thing. curves are still completely mysterious and so not intuitive for me, but somehow i'm making some anyway. i don't have my head wrapped around how/why they work at all, but that hasn't stopped me from producing some! my intuition for how squares, rectangles, and triangles work seems to be off all the time anyway, so maybe i'm better off for not knowing how it works.

i mentioned that i downsized the block a little to fit on my available background fabric. i took a photo to remind myself what i'm doing. 

this is the piece that was giving me the trouble. i started my reductions by taking off the seam allowance on the two tip ends for this piece. then i cut the seam allowance off the end of the pieced arc and (top photo) cut it off the two straight sides of the inner curve. it seems to have worked! my pieces are fitting together and i'm getting wheels, so something went right. lucky guess!

*on my second cutting, i realized if i flipped the templates for the second set cut from the same large strip, it solved my fit issues. oh, well. next time! there's no switching sizes now.

pinning curves together is wild, so upside-down, inside-out, and backwards! 

my tana lawns are playing more slippery than usual. i tend to get slight gathering across a seam no matter what i do. but i'm able to smooth them out before i press the seams open and so seem to have avoided the problems i could have. i should probably be using a small needle or something, but since i don't know what else to try - i'm moving forward. it seems too much work to problem solve when i'm able to fix it well enough with the smoothing.

 by the time i made the first quarter section block, my cutting table was a wreck. it already has stacks of wensleydale fabrics waiting for future blocks. with the three template pieces and various other rulers and cutting tools i need for each stage of construction, it's a regular circus on here! i'll see what i can do to tidy it up a little.

day two, two wheels comlete.