Combining quilting motifs

I've been hard at work on the Tree project, and it's nice to see some progress with the quilting!  Here's what I got done this morning.  I took pictures after each step, so you can see it "growing"!  I started with some yellow paisley in this background section between two branches.

Then, I added a feather in metallic thread.

I echoed the feather with darker blue cotton thread, then added a second feather, up by the paisley.  It's kind of hard to see in this picture.

Here's a closeup of the echo quilting around the fans.

My goal is for different motifs to flow easily together.  Rather than plan what to stitch in each area of the quilt at the beginning, I sew for awhile, and then when I run out of bobbin thread, (or get bored!) I switch to a different color or different motif.  So far, I'm happy with how it's coming out.

I've been working on this project for over a year now, and I hope to have it done in time to enter in the NQA show. I have to buckle down to get it done in time, so there isn't much else to write about here- just more pictures of the same thing.  Hopefully this is still interesting to read- writing about it helps me stay motivated, so thanks for looking!

I'm linking up to Leah Day's Free Motion Friday, and Nina-Marie's Off the Wall Fridays.  Check out these great blogs for plenty of inspiration to start your weekend.

Ode to my seam ripper

This trusty little friend has been working hard for me.

As I've quilted my Tree quilt, I've gotten wrinkles on the back, mainly near the stitch-in-the-ditch quilting.  I fixed one area so far, by taking out the stitches, flipping it over, and quilting from the back so that I can hold the excess fabric taut.  It worked pretty well, with the wrinkle nearly gone and the stitch quality on the front still pretty good.
Here's the back, and the front for comparison.

Once this section was fixed, I kept quilting, and pretty soon I had 2 more wrinkles to fix.

More fun for my trusty seam ripper! She can't wait to get to work. See her peeking out from the pocket of my quilting apron?

Despite these setbacks, I am still making progress and having fun with this quilting!  Here's an overall shot of the back.

And here's a close-up of the Swirling Water design from the front.

Some progress, and some frustration

I made some significant progress in Tree #1, but unfortunately I'm now pretty frustrated.

I'm quilting it with a variety of patterns, and switching up the thread color as I go along. 
Here I started with Paisley in white, and then added Cucumber vine in yellow along the edge.

I've done some feathers with metallic thread, which is working quite well.  I've tried universal needles and metallic needles, and honestly there isn't a difference for me, so in the future I'll probably stick with universal since they're cheaper.  Here's a shot of the back.

Now for the frustrating part:  I started by stabilizing the major seams by quilting straight along them, with watersoluable thread on the front and regular thread on the back.  Now as I go over these lines I'm getting some little wrinkles. Yuck!

The watersoluable thread dissolves easily, so I took out the straight line going through this feather.  It helped a little, but the wrinkle is still there.  Now I'm wondering if I should take out all of these straight-line "stabilizing" stitches before I do any more quilting.  As I did these straight lines, I took out lots of safety pins along the way, so I'm wondering what will be worse- having no stabilizing stitches and no pins in these areas, or keeping the stabilizing stitches which seem to be causing wrinkles when I quilt over them.  Any suggestions?

Yay for retreats!

Last weekend I enjoyed a super-fun quilt retreat at my mom's house! Great conversation, delicious food, a couple of movies, and of course- lots of sewing- all of the elements of a great retreat.  What makes it really special for me is seeing my friends back home, some of whom I only see a few times a year. Here's a look at the accomplishments of the group:
Claudia finished her quilt top with Alaska fabrics, commemorating a family trip.

My mom pieced 2(!) tops with Asian fabrics- these will be great machine quilting practice for me.
And I get to keep one when they're done!

Linda started a fun challenge- 180 4" squares completed in the next year, or 1 every other day. See how hard she's working!

 

And Janet reverse-sewed these fun prints when her design wasn't working out. I'm sure it will turn into something great!

Don't be fooled by this picture.  Honestly, my usual look at a retreat is still in my pj's, with unwashed hair til lunch time, but I thought I'd spruce it up for the blog and put on some real clothes. Check out the wrist pincushion- I love it!

A couple more friends came by, although I didn't get pictures of everybody.  Marilyn, Janice, Debbie, and Wendy- hope you had a fun time too!
Thanks to my mom for hosting a great weekend!  

Work in progress

Here's my current work-in- progress.  You can see the freezer-paper pattern on the left side, and pieces I've already cut on the right.

 

It's the second quilt in my tree series.  I'm trying to use more solids and low-contrast prints, so that the quilting plays a bigger role in the design. This is a stretch because usually I like the energy of lots of prints. 

 

I'm not sure what I think of the solids mixed with prints.  Maybe solids should just keep to themselves, because they don't blend well. But I think I'll wait and re-evaluate after its quilted.

 

Here's the sketch I started with.  It shows some of my ideas for the quilting.

 

 

I'm going to a mini quilting-retreat later in the month (yay! can't wait!) and I'd like to have most of the pieces cut out so I can do lots of piecing while I'm there. 
I'm linking up with Nina-Marie's Off  the Wall Fridays.

 

 

Thread sample

My tree quilt is in danger of becoming a UFO, because I'm not sure my quilting skills are good enough to really quilt it the way I want to.  Partly to procrastinate on the boring steps of piecing a back and basting, I sewed a quick sample to test the threads and patterns for the quilting. Usually I just dive into projects, but I was really glad I took the time to do this test piece, because I learned a lot. 

 
Here's  my sample, quickly pieced from scraps from the top.  I tested these threads:
Coates and Clark Polyester- yellow
Mettler Silk Finish Cotton- variegated gray
Aurifil Cotton, 50 wt- blue
Superior Threads Glitter - gold
Superior Threads metallics- blue
Superior Threads silk- light green







In general, I prefer polyester and metallic.  The cotton just didn't look as nice.  I had thought that variegated thread would be fun, but actually it just seemed to highlight tension problems on the back, because it is impossible for the top and bottom threads to match, because they both keep changing!

I was pleasantly surprised by how easy the metallic and glitter threads were.  I followed the manufacturer's instructions and reduced the upper tension to 1 (usually I set it around 3 for polyester thread).  A 90/14 topstitching needle is recommended, but I all I had was a 90/14 universal.  I used Bottom Line thread in the bobbin, and the biggest problem was visible holes on the back.

See the holes? Maybe using a topstitching needle will fix this?  Do you have any other suggestions?

 

I thought the silk thread looked the best on the back, partly because the color blended in well with the backing fabric, but also because of its light weight mistakes are harder to see.

Here, the feather itself is quilted with silk, the clamshells in the top right have Bottom Line in the bobbin, and the stippling in the upper right and bottom left are cotton. 

Here are some patterns I think I'll use: 

Swirling Water

 

Pebbling:  It can be time consuming, but I really like how it fills in the gaps around other motifs.

Flowing leaves and Cucumber vine:

 

 

I'm linking up to Leah Day's UFO Sunday.  Hopefully by next Sunday I'll have the back pieced!

Goals for 2013

Here's what I'd like to accomplish with my quilting in 2013, in no particular order:
1. Improve my machine quilting.  Specifically, I'd like to experiment with a variety of threads, improve my free-hand feathers, and maybe try out some different types of batting. Here's some metallic thread that I am admiring, but I haven't used yet.

 

2.  Put my work in more shows.  I'd like to enter Sacred Threads (already have the entry done!), NQA (the top is pieced, just have to quilt and bind it), and maybe a few more.  Here's my entry for Sacred Threads, tentatively titled "Leaping People".

3.  Try teaching some quilting classes.  I did a demo for my Modern Quilt Guild, and it was so much fun that I'd like to try teaching.  Out of the 3 goals, this seems the most challenging, but putting it in writing makes me committed to giving it my best effort.
4. Finish 4 quilts in the Tree Series.  So far I have 1 top pieced, and the next one started.  Tree 2 and 3 are merely ideas at this point, so this is a pretty ambitious goal. 

What goals have you set for 2013?