Flippy seams and to blog or not to blog

One of my goals at the beginning of the year was to make a blog post once a week. Well since it has been about two months that has obviously been an epic fail. The thing is, I need to blog to get followers but I don't feel like doing it if I don't have them. I guess I need to just have the "build it and they will come" mentality. Okay, enough of my whining...

We had our monthly meeting of the Heritage Quilters of Huntsville last week. The program was presented by four longarm quilters, including me. The first quilter to speak had her note cards all prepared and did an awesome job. I was not so prepared and had to follow her, ugh.  I talked about my journey to quilting and how to select the quilting for a quilt, using about 6 or 7 quilts that were basically the same but all quilted differently. The third longarmer addressed custom quilting and how using a computer does not necessarily make it easier, just different (Amen sister).  And the last one talked about her business and designs. 

Deanna Plotts (Designs by Deanna) discussed the importance of pressing your quilt. She hit the nail on the head with that one. She didn't just mean pressing it to get the wrinkles out before you bring it to your longarmer, but pressing the seams all the way through construction. I have recently had a couple of quilts from beginning quilters that had serious "flippy seams." This happens when joining two sections of a quilt and the seam running along the bottom should be going away but as it goes through the machine it "flips" and starts facing to you. This is what it looks like. 

Since I have never taken a beginning quilting class one way I learned along the way is from doing Block of the Month programs at local quilt shops, particularly The Old Craft Store in Carrolltom, TX. Every month I would make my block and take it in and the nice ladies would actually look at it, not only to be sure I had made it but also they would take the time to look at my technique. They would give tips to me on how to do things better. That is where I learned a little trick to get the seam to lie flat if I made a flippy seam. 

You simply clip the seam where it flips, up to the stitching being very careful to not clip the seam for obvious reasons. Then you can press it nice and flat. 

I get asked a lot about prepping a quilt and how particular I am. Each quilter is different in their "pet peeves." Some despise clipping threads that come through the top, some demand a perfectly square top, I have even heard that some will refuse to do the job if it isn't up to their standards. For me, I am not so particular. The short and long of it is that it is your quilt and the more effort you put into making a nice flat, square quilt top with trimmed threads the better the end product will be. So it all depends on what type of quilt you are making and how much time and effort you put into it.  Is it going to be for a child to roll around on the ground with, is it an heirloom wedding gift, is it a show quilt? Each quilt will serve a specific purpose and should be treated accordingly. Your longarmer will do her best work hopefully no matter the type of quilt, but she probably doesn't want to spend hours of her time prepping your quilt when she could be working magic and quilting it, especially if it not an "heirloom"-y, work of art one.  Also, be sure to communicate all of this. Your quilter may forget to ask.

Do you have any "pet peeves?" Let me know :0) 

A little something of my own

As a longarm quilter I am staying quite busy quilting other people's quilts and making t-shirt and memory quilts. I do take one day a week to spend with my quilty friends at our stitch group called "Stitch Its." I mostly work on hand work there, lately that has been various appliqué things. 

This quilt is the result of a block of the month (BOM) from the local quilt shop the year right after we moved to Huntsville, 2011. I was a fairly new quilter and was determined to attempt every technique possible. I had also just started attending Stitch Its. So I decided to piece the blocks by hand. It gave me something to do at stitch group and I was doing a new to me technique. 

The outer blocks are the ones from the program. The original quilt had a large appliquéd tree in the center, and I wasn't too sure about that at the time so I made the large center star. I learned a lot doing this quilt. It was my first attempt at on point blocks. The internet is a wonderful resource when learning something new. I figured out that the corner triangles are not just the other ones cut in half, and the large setting triangles are not squares cut in half, etc. I digress... 

Not quilted and bottom row not attached

You may have noticed this is from 3 years ago. Where has it been? Well.... it was coming along nicely, until I put on the bottom row. It didn't line up (boo). So I took it off. And it has been waiting patiently every since. 

I have been needing to practice my hand-guided machine work and I can't do that on a customer quilt. I could do it on some plain muslin, but that's no fun. So I needed to work on one of my own quilts. I have a couple of other tops that are ready for quilting, but one will just need edge to edge and the other one is too big to start now. So out comes this one. With a few more years of quilting experience I was able to manipulate that bottom row into place. Sure there is a little fullness but it's done ;0)

I did blue fill feathery stuff on the blue points until I worked up the courage to
quilt the blue flowery fill on the white squares. 

I took a class last summer on fill and one on feathers and I finally used what I learned :0) 

White flowery fill on the white and flower points left "puffy"

All done.
The outer blocks have a hand guided loopy flowery pattern quilted in white.
The red border has some hand guided pumpkin seeds that are not very good, done in red so hiding nicely.
And the blue border and floral inner border have computer guided daisies.

Its nice and bright and I am pretty happy with my "practice" quilt. 

What is your oldest project waiting for you? 

Sallie's Quilt in the Lancaster AQS show

My friend Mary Marcucci allowed me to quilt her "Sallie's Quilt" last year. It was the first quilt that I knew ahead of time was going into our local quilt show.  I was very honored that she trusted me with it and honestly I was a bit nervous too.  

The quilt won "Judge's Choice" at the Heritage Quilters of Huntsville show from AQS judge Bonnie Browning. She did a walking tour (which neither Mary nor myself attended) and talked about what she liked in the quilts. Lots of people let us know what she said though. If it had just a bit more quilting in the sashing she might have given it best of show! Wow! 

So Mary brought the quilt back and I added the quilting. Mary entered the AQS show in Lancaster, PA and the quilt was accepted.  We are listed as semi-finalists on the web site and the judging was today. The results of judging will be announced tomorrow.  I'm so excited to find out how she did!

3/12/14: Update, well no ribbon this year. Mary and I are still happy to have had her quilt selected to be in a national level show. In Mary's words "we make a good team" :0)

Snow Day(s)

I am in North Alabama, by way of Frisco, Texas, and a native Floridian. All that is to say I am thin blooded. I do not like cold weather much. I would rather it be 100 degrees and sunny (I guess as long as I have a/c).  When it is cold I get chilled to the bone and can't seem to get warm no matter how many layers I put on.  If you have seen the news you know that the south has had its fair share of winter weather this year. A couple of week ago the school district here delayed school by two hours a few days and that worked well overall. This week, however, they cancelled school Tuesday and then Wednesday. Wednesday (today) it just rained all day until about 4 pm and then the winter weather finally hit. Needless to say, school has already been cancelled for tomorrow. Here are some snow pictures of the first round on Tuesday.

Our big Oak tree

The trees in the back yard with a dusting of snow

Max loves the snow

Izzie does not seem to love the snow

Making a snow angel

Max follows Izzie EVERYWHERE, she doesn't get a moment's peace.

Knowing I had a fun day hunkered down I decided to practice my needle turning appliqué. I normally use freezer paper and fold the fabric over and starch it for a nice crisp edge but want to do some more elaborate pieced and really need to be able to needle turn to do those. Here is a little wall hanging of a sea turtle I picked up in Florida this Christmas while visiting family.

I do know that when doing any kind of appliqué you should not sew it to your robe :0) So much for that project today. I wound up doing laundry and updating my web site instead!

What NOT to do when doing appliqué, sew it to your clothes.

What are you doing to stay occupied these days?

A Little Bundle of Happiness

This is Max (the puppy formerly known as Vance). He came to our family from Burrow Kountry Kennels in Osceola, Missouri. He flew as an "unaccompanied minor" on Delta yesterday. 

Thanks to Myra Burrow for making the transaction a pleasant one. I was scared to death that maybe it wasn't going to go well. There are all kinds of dishonest people in this world who want to take your money and run. I am happy to say that this went flawlessly 

My other concern was without being able to visit the breeder knowing about the kennel conditions (puppy mill?). I feel I did what I could by checking Humane Society reports and finding absolutely nothing negative about this kennel. 

On the ride home from the airport it was all I could do to leave him in his crate! Look at that face. Izzie loves him but doesn't realize how big she is. She is used to being the little dog at 20 lb! He looks like a guinea pig next to her. He sort of sounds like one too when he whimpers. 

His breed is Cavachon, which is the same as Izzie-dog. A mix of Cavalier King Charles Spaniel/Bichon frise. They are very low shedding and as hypoallergenic as they come. The hubster is allergic to regular doggies but can tolerate these guys. 

So this is what I will be consumed with/by for the immediate future. Off to the vet for his well-puppy check!  

Why to check seams

This is a first for me. As I was progressing and then rolling the quilt on the rollers this little nasty reared its head. ( you are looking at the backside of a quilt on the uptake roller after it has been quilted. The seam came apart, hello batting) I don't routinely check all of the seams of backings. Perhaps I should. 

If you are a quilter who takes quilts to a longarmer here is a bit of advice. 

I roll the quilts pretty tight when I am working on them. I pay attention to not put too much tension but there is still a good amount. So if the seams are not sound this can happen. 

The person who made the quilt may have trimmed the seams too close, but more likely just wasn't paying attention to her seam allowance as she went along. It is okay to take more than 1/4 inch and press open on pieced backings. 

Just wanted to share some info, things happen but if we take a few minutes to slow down and even correct booboos as they happen we won't forget about them later.

Happy quilting! I'm off to get our new puppy!

Saying Farewell to a Stitch Its Friend

I am in a stitching group that meets every week on Thursday 9:30 am until you have had enough. Most people leave around 2. So we spend a lot of hours together. Sadly one of our friends has had to move due to her husband's job. So to give her a proper send off we did what quilters do, made her quilt blocks incorporating things we know she likes. Purple is her favorite color and she likes house blocks. Here are most of them. (Read to the bottom for the funny story)

I think this is Linda V

Charmaine L's final block

Charmaine L, rough draft, but where's the purple? This has become an ongoing joke in the group. She even wrote on the block "periwinkle is the new purple."

Pat S, the door opens and has a button for the doorknob

Mary M.

Janice has a fur baby that she loves so I made her a dog house. 

Label made by Fran S.

Denise Pr birdhouse

Pam Anders

Fran S used her embroidery machine and even put the  house number on it for the 208 house. 

Marjorie L, outhouse. 

Rhonda S, always a little wonky :0) 

Dianne R, love the fussy cut fabric for the walkway, flowers and trees,

Kathy R, paper pieced mansion

Karen M

Kari H, always bright and cheery

Leanne L. , I can tell because of the LeMoyne star

Lynn B. 

It seems there are a few missing, so if I missed yours let me know and send a pic! Here a story about one that didn't quite make it in time.

Jackie H. knew she wouldn't be at the group the day of the party. So she planned ahead, made her block and mailed it to our fearless leader Christy. We live in or near Huntsville, AL. The government has decided we don't need a post office that processes mail here, so everything has to go to Birmingham and then come back. Jackie decided to check the tracking on her piece of mail (sent in a bubble envelope) so be sure Christy would have it in time.  It turned out that her house took a little road trip. From Huntsville, to Birmingham, to Atlanta, to Pensilvania (I think), back to Atlanta, Birmingham and then finally to Christy's in Madison. (the exact trip might not be right but you get the picture) Jackie says its a good thing it wasn't a trip around the world quilt! The block was delivered to Janice before she left town, so its all good. We will miss her bunches!