Fallen Sky

If I were a James Bond aficionado, I guess I would have changed the name of my quilt to Skyfall. But I'm not, and he doesn't put me in mind of a piece of sky, which this quilt, along with the gemstone turquoise, both do. Funnily enough, when searching the gemstone for quilt name ideas, I came across a few references to a piece of the sky fallen to earth, but this one, "carved from an azure heaven and slipped to earth," I particularly love, as it's so eloquent.

This is the October challenge for us ambassadors for Island Batik. We were to make a quilt using a paper-piecing technique, either English paper-piecing or foundation paper-piecing. This one is made using the latter. All the fabrics (except the backing) were supplied by Island Batik. All of the threads except the purple was supplied by Aurifil, and the batting is Hobbs Batting, though I purchased it myself!

In the Shadow of the Plus in Modern Patchwork

I can finally write about my quilt which is in the current issue of Modern Patchwork! You can get your copy now in major stores and bookstores, or click the link in the sidebar to purchase online.

It started with my fifth design, back on February 10, that I drew in the second #30quiltdesignschallenge2018 I hosted on Instagram this past spring. The design got a ton of interest and likes, and I knew it was a good'un, so I removed it from Instagram. I played with it a bit and came up with the shadowed plus signs floating on a large background plus. I then decided to submit it to Modern Patchwork in early March, and it was accepted!

A Quilting Motif and A Longarm Technique

As you know, I'm working on quilting the Cows quilt. I have four heifers left, a few churn dashes and the barn. Well, I also have to finish the other half, or two-thirds more like it, of the border.  As is usually the case when I quilt a quilt, I have a very, I mean very, vague quilting plan in my head.  Once the quilt is loaded, it starts to talk to, sometimes whisper to, sometimes cajole, me.  Such was the case with this one.  I had no idea how I was going to quilt the churn dash blocks, also known by several other names, including Hole in the Barn Door. Most à propos for this bovine bedcover. Once loaded on the frame, I had an idea...

"What the heck?"  you're probably thinking, or maybe, "Ooh, love that fabric," or even, as Tish said when I sent her the yellow cow all quilted, "Those swirls are awesome!"

Here is how you quilt this block in one pass, ditch stitching and all! AND this can be done on either a longarm or a domestic machine! Use a ruler or your walking foot.

1. Start here. ('well duh')
2. Stitch to point 2 (probably still, 'well, duh,' but just in case...) the centre of the inner 'box'
3. Stitch a square in the centre of the purple rectangles, which in my case, for this 12" block, is 1" in from the seam line. Go all the way around until you wind up back at point 2.
4.  Stitch out to point 4.
5. From point 4 stitch another elongated 'v' shape (we're doing dot to dot à la Angela Walters in case you haven't noticed) ending at point 5.  Which is really point 1. 😉
6. Stitch in the ditch (aka SID) over to point 6. Note my attempt at dotted lines to indicate SID!
7. Stitch in to point 7, which is the top right corner of the box you stitched in step 3.  Repeat from step 4 for all four corners of the block, ending back at point 1!

Then I SID along a floral seam line to an inside corner, stitched in the ditch all the way around the inner square, and did the swirl filler in there, then went back out again and continued the swirl filler for the background around the outside. I'm using Superior Threads So Fine colour 403 which blends nicely with both background and all the churn dash blocks.

A LongarmTechnique for Continuous Quilting

About a year, maybe more, ago, a reader asked if I could explain how I advance, then back up, then advance a quilt on the longarm. This was when I was doing Dayna's quilt, Shoot for the Moon, and trying to get as long a pass as I could at some of the intricate designs on her quilt.  I found myself doing this for the outer border design for this quilt.  I am self-taught, other than watching online videos and Craftsy classes by Leah Day, Angela Walters, and Natalia Bonner, oh and Jamie Wallen Youtube too, and none of them talk about this, so it's just me. If you think that "GASP! This is just not done!" well, I do it, and it works fine. 😁

For the top section of border, it was easy to start on the left side of the quilt, about 15" down from the top left corner, quilt up to the corner, across the top border, and down to the same starting point on the right side of the quilt. I did the border after I'd quilted the first row of cows and churn dash blocks, so I advanced the quilt and continued down the border for another 15" or so (I have an 18" Avanté). This meant I could quilt longer without breaking thread.

1. So now I am at the point where I have quilted two more rows of cows and churn dashes and I want to do more of the border. First stitch in the ditch between the border and the background of the quilt. Also stitch 1/4" in from the outside.

2. Next, advance the quilt, and SID as you just did. You can see I was able to stitch all along the red churn dash and about half way into the barn block. Do this SID on the border on the opposite side of the quilt as well.

3.  Then, back up to where you started the ditch stitching (first pic).  At first when I wound the quilt backwards, I freaked because the quilt sandwich, in its entirety: top, batting and now backing, got wound up on the belly bar!

Yikes! I thought something bad would happen...but it didn't!  So starting at the point where I was in photo 1, I switch now to my mauve thread, and continue the border motif over the course of that length of the border, advance the quilt to photo 2 spot, and continue doing the border up to being level with the barn.  I'll stop there.

4. Then I go over to the opposite side, in this case the left, back up the quilt again to the photo 1 spot, but on the left side of the quilt, and pick up where I'd left off on that border, quilting down until I'm level with the barn block.

The barn block is in the bottom right corner, so once I've finished quilting the last two rows of the quilt, I'll be able to pick up the border motif about the level of the bottom of the barn roof, quilt down to the bottom right corner and across the bottom, and back up to meet where I left off on the left side of the quilt!

It's not as wonderful as doing the border in one continuous pass like you can with a DSM or sit-down quilt machine, but you can get fairly lengthy passes.  And it is wonderful not to have the weight of the quilt to manipulate through the machine.

Having a dedicated quilting machine means I can still piece if I feel the urge...

Blocks 103-105. Clockwise from top left: 103: Helen Smith Grant - Captain of her husband's ship when he took ill, she navigated rom China to Montreal in the mid-1880s, as well as taking care of her children. The family settled in Victoria, BC, where, in 1895, Helen became the first and only school board trustee in Canada. 104 - Lois Irene Smith - Canada's first and foremost ballerina, idolized by Karen Kain, she established the Lois Smith Dance School in Toronto. 105: Helen Irene Battle - first woman in Canada to earn a PhD in marine biology. I used a fish print for one of the centre background triangles and a shell motif embossed on an ivory fabric for another.

I made block 106 this morning, so as of writing this post, I am only two blocks behind in the 150 Canadian Women QAL!  I aimed for one block a day this past week, and I've done it, so if I can keep that up this coming week, I should be all caught up by next weekend. Yay! I also worked on a couple of my RSC 2017 projects, which I'll show you in another post.

Linking Up
Cooking Up Quilts
Free Motion by the River

I Work Well Under Pressure

One day to go to get the Q1 FAL list done.  This is another of my goals completed.  I had so much fun with these!

I stitched them up last April

April 2015

when I designed a set of six placemats (that post is here) to take to Angela Walters' Dot to Dot class in Sarasota.  You can read about that highlight of my quilting life here.  I made three pairs: two in blues and two in greens.  The pinks are not really in my décor, so I concentrated on getting the blues and greens done.

May 1, 2015

Here was the first one quilted but without binding:

No clue what the names of the Kona solids are, sorry

I did that Dot to Dot design in the fuchsia triangles on both mats.  In this second one after I quilted the centre one, I thought, "Hey, these are equilateral triangles; what if I rotated each one so they radiate around that central pale pink triangle?"  Yep, quilt talked to me again.  I made up the dot to dot design in the fuchsia HRTs.  I don't think I've done the fern design before, which is basically a feather-design, and I love how easy it was and its effect.  I rotated them too!

Unlike the first four, these had to have binding. Not sure why I didn't cut the backing bigger all the way around as I did for the blues and greens mats.  I've suddenly, as I viewed this post in "Preview" realized why...doh!  I believe I'd had the thought to make these up into a bag...ah well, that's what I get for being menopausally scatterbrained, and for nearly 1-year-old UFOs.  (Ya, 'cuz I never have any UFOs older than that, nope...)  Yay for me because I found some Kona black strips (I think) in my black scraps bag.  Have I said yet how very glad I am I brought all my smaller scraps with me?!

All bound. I added in the white straight line quilting after I bound them and confirmed what I had suspected, that I'd done this in the first four.

Here is the other one:

Fabulous texture, n'est-ce pas?  The Spirograph-esque design is Angela Walters' from her book, Shape by Shape, but I did it in a triangle as opposed to a square. You can see it drawn and then stitched out by The Quilt Journal here. Thanks to Judy at Quilt Paradigm for showing me that take on this easy and effective FMQ design.  I did it with my walking foot, since I don't have a ruler foot for my Bernina. I drew two lines ahead of my stitching with a Hera marker, since you can't draw the entire design ahead of time.

I had to incorporate feathers, you know me...imagine my surprise when I checked the photos of the first four and found I'd done that on one of those too!

The backs.

Throwing finished quilts around on the ground again...

No clue why but one turned out about 1/3" narrower.  Looks more in the photo for some weird reason.
It was super hot and humid the day I finished these, so, unlike her usual close scrutiny of my projects, Bella chose not to be as involved.

Hot Himalayan puddy-tat

You know I often snap photos of gorgeous flowers.  Here are two more delicate spring flowers, one is a black-eyed Susan I believe and the other, no clue.  The flowers are orchid or iris-like in appearance but not size, they are very small.  On one corner they were so prolific it made me smile.

This post might end up as part of Soma's Wandering Camera linky next month.  I told her that I'll be sure to snap photos as we go what always feels like "back in time," heading back home to Kingsville, Ontario, and share those on the first Thursday in April.

Great spot for early morning coffee or afternoon tea; I will miss it.

Linking up with
Let's Bee Social
and later with Leanne at She Can Quilt for the Q1 FAL

Dot to Dot Placemats

Yay! A finish on Friday!  But "sniff" as well, because I missed the ALYOF deadline on this project by mere hours.  All I had left last night at 10:20 was about another hour's work...and then to blog about it, so make that probably two hours, knowing me.  Because I was again going to Mysore yoga for 6:30 this morning, I was going to be up before 5:30, so I thought, nope, ain't gonna happen; I need sleep.  What did happen yesterday besides a long but good meeting with our financial advisor, was dropping off all our stuff for income taxes.  Normally they're due April 30 in Canada; because of some glitch, the deadline has been extended to Monday, May 5.  Glad all that money stuff is out of the way, but it interfered with meeting this particular deadline.  Ah well, so I lost out on some possible prizes; I won in the new placemats division, right?

Bright sun or inside were my options, so a little over-exposed

This morning I set to work on them as soon as my "had to" list was done, and an hour was all it took.

I worked on the royal blue sections in the Dot to Dot class I took last week with Angela Walters (in case you missed it, not on Craftsy, but in person).  The Merged Lines design (top left) I did at home. It's out of her Shape By Shape book, but she did show a group of us how to do it during the class. The designs in the pale blue squares are ones she showed us in class, but I stitched them at home.

I did the royal blue sections here as well in class; the designs in the pale blue are from Shape by Shape

Remember that weird-looking triangle design that I nearly ripped out?  I'd mentioned in that post if I added in something symmetrical (one of her many tips) on either side, maybe I could salvage it?

I think it worked out pretty cool!

I did a different filler in the four "mountains": pebbles, ribbon candy, wishbone and then back and forth lines.

Here are the green placemats.

Feathers? In a Dot to Dot class? I just had to; they're my favourite...and yep, been there, done that as in took Angela's Feathers class on Craftsy ;-)

The designs in both green placemats are from this class, the Craftsy class I took last year, and her Shape by Shape book

I did all four on my Bernina (which is now, woot woot, dropped into my IKEA hack sewing desk, yay).  I don't have any rulers to use with a DSM, so these were all FMQ, no walking foot except for the lines in the white sections.  For the longer lines I used my Hera marker to help guide me.  They aren't perfect, but, as Angela said over and over, FMQ is NOT perfect.  I just LOVE the design in the lower mat, lower right square; I used it several times on Shamrock.  But I also love the design in the opposite corner, the aqua rectangle!  That is actually a border design from Shape by Shape but I thought it could work in that rectangle.  I added one more echo of triangle shapes.  Need to do this on a big quilt!

What do they look like on the back?

Pretty freaking cool I'd say!

Label crazy, that's me; I just put one on...sorry about the shadow at the bottom

I used the same thread in top and bobbin, Isacord for all of the FMQ; white Sulky rayon for the walking foot quilting, and Robison Anton black rayon for stitching down the self-binding.  I think that's what you call turning the backing, which is cut 1" bigger all the way around, folding it twice and stitching it down.

Think the angle is a little better here...whatever; they just look so cool!  btw that's Pelee Island wine sitting in the Ann Arbor, MI pottery wine holder, just had to point that out.

Bella is happy to be directing my sewing efforts in the "up north" sewing space.

The lake and the temperatures were absolutely beautiful today, about time!

Once I wash these babies up, I'll take another picture or two...maybe in the shade!

Our daffodils are way behind everyone else's but that is because Joe only planted them last Fall, so they're just babies.  I'd forgotten he'd done that; what a nice surprise to come home to!

Placemats stats:
Size: 18 3/8"X 14 3/8"
Pattern: my own design
Fabric: Kona solids
Warm 'n Natural batting scraps
Threads: Isacord #3951, 4421, 5450, and 3600; Sulky rayon 1001; Robison Anton rayon
Quilted using Angela Walters' Dot to Dot designs

Linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts, and TGIFF

Coming Down...

off the high that was my Dot to Dot class with Angela Walters. 

All right, LOOK what my computer took me to when I went to get the URL to paste for her name!!

February 25.  I met Anna, my neighbour who lived across the street from us in Florida, a day or two after I wrote this.  I knew she was a quilter, a young one, but little did I know that I already had met her, on two other occasions last year! She worked part time at Alma Sue's and was a member of the Sarasota Guild.  She is the one who told me that the guild was bringing in Angela; had I not finally gone over to introduce myself, I might not have found out about Angela being here, certainly not in enough time to be able to get into the only one of her four classes that still had space. Sadly for me, Anna moved back to her hometown in northern Florida February 28.  Happily, however, for me, I was able to get into the Dot to Dot class a few days later!  Incidentally, Angela's post where I wrote this comment is well worth a read/watch.  More than once.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...er trunk show and class...

Not only did I have to remind myself to close my slack jaw in class when viewing her slide show, but I also had to make a supreme effort to swallow frequently; otherwise the drool would drip onto her beautiful quilts that we were allowed to touch, handle, hold, photograph, all to our heart's content.

Recognize the fabric? "Textures" -- look at the header of my blog! And yep, those are my legs, my fingers, holding (and before and after petting) her quilt.

And THEN, there was meeting Angela, on Monday night at the guild meeting for the first time, eyes brimming with emotion as I tried (inadequately) to find words to tell her how much all her free videos and demos online, how much every single Craftsy class of hers has helped me, beyond measure, on my Avanté, but also has helped me grow in machine quilting on my Bernina.  Going back Tuesday morning for another 3 hours with this warm, funny, ("My husband says I'm not funny.  But I think I'm frickin' hilarious. Sarcasm is my love language!" ) humble, genuine, inspiring, creative, and so-very-talented quilter was such a treat.

The chocolate says "Quilting is My Therapy", and yep I saved it, knowing I wanted a picture for my blog--I ate it after the pic, dark chocolate! But of course, she has taste.

She is very wise.  To fully round out my dorking out over her, geek that I am and always have been where school and education are concerned, I took notes, furiously scribbling to try to get it all down, even videoed segments of her instruction.

"There is no such thing as imperfection in FMQ.  You just need to know how to fix them. " (the mistakes) She talked about the eye needing to see symmetry, and that symmetry is basically all it looks for, so "if you make a mistake, do it twice and then it's a design element!"

I planned to rip this out as I messed up one of the "dots" to hit.

Now, however, I'm thinking if I do something symmetrical on either side of this "mountain" it could look kind of cool.  I need to get crackin' as these are my ALYOF April goal.

Kinda cool here too, no?

Although I didn't get nearly as much accomplished as I thought I would, my brain was totally full of information and inspiration.  She talked, gave you theory and practical tips and answered questions, then showed you slides and her quilts and gave further clarification and ways to use particular designs, and then gave you 15 or so minutes out of each hour to practice the technique on your sample.  Each hour was broken down in a similar fashion to the Craftsy class: squares, triangles and then borders in the final hour.

Rest assured there will be more Angela wisdom forthcoming.

The trip home was uneventful.  The dogwoods didn't disappoint, although there seemed less of them in Kentucky and Ohio than I saw last year through the Carolinas and West Virginia.

Ohio

On the trip, I actually got a fair bit done on the last border of my runner.  I have about 10 more double-rows of the serpentine shape left to quilt.

The little bag I made back in January came in so handy for my handquilting tools!  Below you can see my favourite plastic open-backed thimble that allows your nail to be free.  The condom-looking thing is a finger from a latex glove which I use to grab the needle to pull it through when 3-4 stitches are loaded onto it.

I'm using Gutermann quilting thread, and the Clover chalk pencil Angela uses (learned about these in one of her Craftsy classes).  That pencil is better on the Old World Santa fabric than the Bohin one.  There is too much white in the fabric; the streaks wreak havoc with my eyes, so I need a thicker line.  The plastic serpentine shape is my template for marking the woven curves border design.

And so there you have it, the first post back on good old Canadian soil.  Mmmm.  Even though said soil is a little darn cold for this time of year!  Still, I think Spring is about to surpass Summer in my favourite season list.  I was musing this morning (didn't get this finished last night, TOO tired after a 5 am start to the day--Mysore yoga!) that no matter whether one is living in 90F steamy tropical heat (Gulf, beaches, cicadas, palm trees), the tundra (pure white snow, frozen lakes, polar bears), or the desert (sand dunes, endless blue skies, meerkats(!!)) Mother Nature gives us something upon which our senses can feast, and our creative juices can start to burble.

These swans literally took my breath away last night on the way to teaching yoga.  I pulled over, got out of the car, crossed the road, tiptoed into the grass, but not before this pair had pulled apart...oh my GOD, but they were in the necks intertwined, facing each other, classic swan pose.  That vision will stay with me forever.

A group of about 25 more were just past these two lovebirds

Rocco is happy; he has made a new friend.  This is Charlie, an 8-month-old Scottie.  He is adorable, although a bit rambunctious.  Good thing Rocco is so tolerant.  Charlie's 'mum' wants me to knock on her door and walk with them sometimes so Rocco can help teach Charlie some manners! They've recently retired here from Vancouver, and live just up the street.

Meet and greet

A Few Little Tips (pun intended) and a Little Progress

Wait, what? Is this some kind of bad Michael Jackson parody of a post?

Nope.  There are a couple of badass tips here; I'm talking bad fingertips and badass quilting tips.

White gloves.  First up, I love my Machingers, and I'm not being paid or compensated to write about them.  I just adore them, and could not function as far as FMQ goes without them. Period. This is my second pair, already in need of a wash, as you can see.

Yoga Mat Tote Bag

Hold on to your MATS!! I've got a finish in time for Melissa's A Lovely Year of Finishes, Sew BitterSweet Designs, June linky party.  There will be LOTS of pictures in this post!

I blogged here that my June goal was to finish my yoga mat tote bag.  Ha.  As in start it, more like.  And finish.  Well, I did it!

Here is the finished quilted fabric.  I had to take indoor shots yesterday afternoon as we had quite a run of thunderstorms.

I am really happy with it.  I love this Isacord thread, as did my girl, Avril, and I love the threadplay in many of these designs.  Many of them are Leah Day's of her 400+ Designs on her blog.

I drew the "om" Sanskrit symbol you see in the second square down, second column from the left.

This was my view as I quilted it, so the "om" symbol had to be done sideways

I also quilted my name in the bag, but it is now hidden in the casing and only "ndra" is visible!  Like the om, I had to write that sideways too. . . which was a brain exercise in itself! The design in the far right column second row from the bottom is my own, based on a motif in the lining fabric, a swirl in a flame shape.

I got a better picture between storms, but in the front hallway, so you have some natural light.  It was just soaking wet everywhere outside, and I wanted to get cracking on making the damn darling bag.

This shows the richness of the turquoise thread better

I used my blue ruler (I feel so much more confident and am much more accurate now, despite having that scary accident with it) for the two straight line designs in the top row, and the diamond design in the second row from the bottom in the picture above.  The top square on the far left is one of Leah's, and the other two are based on Angela Walters' Dot to Dot Quilting designs, a Craftsy class I took last winter.

I free-handed the two feather blocks, well, everything is freehand, except for the om.  I am really happy with how they both turned out, especially the  one with the pebbling all around it.

The om, I traced, and then used an X-Acto knife to cut out the symbols and get the circle as round as possible.  I used a Bohin chalk marker, my new favourite marker, to trace the stencil I made onto the black, as well as registration marks for the "brackets" design around the circle.  

It stands up nicely

I decided to have the lining fabric on the outside of the bag strap, with the black side facing the bag.  I LOVE the lining fabric.  It's Jason Yenter's "Winter Wonderland" for In The Beginning fabrics.  The main fabric is, of course, Kona cotton.

Looks pretty amazing lying down too, if I may say so!

I sewed in a small pocket just below the casing I made for the drawstring. Cellphone, car keys size.

I decided to apply a grommet for the drawstrings to feed through as opposed to two buttonholes.

That Buddha insisted on being in every outside shot!

Bella HAD to figure out a way to lie on the new quilted item!!

I can't make this cat any cuter. 

I've written a bag tutorial for the bag, which I will post tomorrow.

Bag Details:

Fabric:100% cotton

Size: 29.5" tall by 22" circumference

Linking up with Marelize's Anything Goes Mondays, and Melissa's A Lovely Year of  Finishes!