WIP Wednesday #22

This week in the life of me!

First, our challenge mini's were relieved last Thursday.  Quite a collection!  This is mine:

Front

Back

Here's the collection of 31 quilts that were donated:

I quilted the wedding present over last weekend and attached the binding.  First full quilt I've quilted on my new machine and was quite happy with the outcome  :)   To get ready for this I completed SewCalGal's Leah Day May challenge.  Here are the pictures:

 I have to tell you that I LOVE this machine!  I seriously tipped these samples over twice checking whether I was looking at the front or the back.  THANK YOU HANDSOME!!!  You know who you are!!!  :)

As for the May To Do list...  Wedding present - working on binding then need label :) Will be complete...
Mason's top - have last blocks partially together and set to sew...  We'll see...
E's no progress.... again - we'll see...
CC#4 - we have a reprieve - darn!  LOL  Concept is mapped out - picking fabric to add to the one required  :)

MAY - TO DO!!- Still Plugging away.... (one more week!!)

Complete special wedding present (sorry no further information as it's a secret!)

Complete Mason's Quilt - top is about 3/4 done! 

Complete E's....  oh shhhhhh  that's a secret too!

CC#4 - due June 5th (slight reprieve  :)

Weekly: work on two FMQ projects!  Oh and if you are following these you know that it's Leah Day of http://freemotionquilting.blogspot.com/ as the guest on SewCalGal's project!!   http://sewcalgal.blogspot.com/p/free-motion-quilt-challenge.html Have my quilt 'sandwiches' ready to work on this!!

If I get that much done this month I'll feel accomplished!! but I have several other charity projects I could also work on just in case I run out of things to do!!

Completed Projects-May:
SVQG 2012 Mini Challenge Quilt - Reveal this Thursday!!
Assorted blocks for SVQG Comfort Quilt Committee 

New Projects:
None

Ongoing Projects - weekly/monthly 2012:
2012 weekly - year long - FMQ Free Motion Quilting Projects - Plan to spend a lot of time practicing FMQ in 2012!
Leah Day's - Quilt Along - weekly quilting - Wednesday LinkUp http://freemotionquilting.blogspot.com/
  
2012 monthly - year long - FMQ Free Motion Quilting Projects - include donated amounts - shows one person CAN make a difference!!!
SewCalGal's - Free Motion Quilting Challenge http://sewcalgal.blogspot.com/p/free-motion-quilt-challenge.html
4 Patch 4 Hope - 72 4-patch blocks (January&March 2012)
Valor Quilt Bee - (May owe 5 to date)

(new group - plan to hit these with the 2 -FMQ projects I have joined!!)
UFO - 'T's  (UnFinished Objects - Tops!!! - AKA To Be Quilted!!!)
Snowman Quilt - top together awaiting borders, quilting, and binding 8/17/11
Batik Log Cabin couch quilt - Blues - top complete
Boat Log Cabin Quilt 8/17/11 - took pictures - hanging in sewing area
Blueberry Conversion Quilt - Ricky Tim's Style
Jelly Roll 1600 quilt! - completed top :)  Although rethinking.....

No progress:
Mason's graduation quilt - restart!! - Take 2!
Camp Bed Quilt - Free Motion / Crazy Quilt Part 3 of 30 (sorry - no photos yet-will follow  :)
Couch Quilt - formerly Mason's graduation quilt-see take 2!!
Eric's Browning Quilt (Christmas present 2010!!!)- binding done - cross quilting to go!!   :)
Berry Bliss Twin Quilt 2of2 played with several designs... still deciding pattern 8/17/11 (got some fat quarters for this!)
Row Robin Sampler Quilt! have 5 strips of four blocks each... MoVeD the rows around... Still Thinkin...  8/24/11
Sunflower Glacier Star -Completed June's block - 4  behind now! progress!!! 9/4/11  
SVQG - Mystery Quilt - Received instructions completed month 1
Two baby quilts! - pinks using D4P design - still piecing blocks...
Door quilt for camp

This week’s stats:
New projects – 0
Completed projects –0
Currently in progress –17

2012 Free Motion Quilting Challenge - January - Just in time!!

Quick blog to update that I have done the January portion of the 2012 Free Motion Quilting Challenge.

Here are some shots of my practice for SewCalGal's FMQ  Challenge.

 

Then I tried practicing on the border of  my this week's practice piece for

Leah Day's Quilt-Along

Here's the original practice with the straight line free motion quilting.

No big problems with the plain straight line sewing though I believe a lots more practice is in my future.....

Then I played with stippling tight, medium, and larger...  Then I drew lines and practiced more free motion...

 

And then 'stitch in the ditch'....

And..... below is the biggest problem I ran into this week....

Odd thing is that I didn't 'feel' it when it happened but found it when I tipped it over...

Thread issues!  

Any ideas on what happened here???  Oh well, Unsew and resew it when I go back and get that one line I missed....  did you notice???

Quilt Along #2 with Leah Day

Well here we are at Week #2 of Leah Day's Quilt Along

I started with a practice piece but neglected to photograph it.

This is a picture of a quilt that has been hanging on my wall for years!  I pieced and tied it when we first moved into our home in 2001.  But this is it's lucky week as I am going to take the many quilts I have made over the years and one by one - or maybe week by week - quilt them as I practice my machine quilting skills and this one if first up!

This quilt is a wall hanging measuring about 33" square.  Not too big of a project to jump in with!

Close up of stitching - back

A little hard to see with this fabric but I was pleased with the result.

My quilting guild, The Souhegan Valley Quilters Guild has a display starting today at the Amherst Public Library in Amherst, NH.  This quilt along with 37 others will be on display for the next month or so.  If you are in the area stop by and see them - it's worth the trip!!

A few pictures of the display from Jeannine - nice job Jeannine, Trudy, Lois, Sue W. and Sharron A.

Quilt Along #1 - with Leah Day

I'm posting my attempt at Quilting Along with Leah Day.  We're are supposed to go through and practice her lesson of the week and post our outcome.  This is to help the free motion quilting community grow and learn together by sharing our successes AND OUR MISTAKES.   :)  The following is work I normally would hide at the bottom of a pile somewhere in the back of a closet!!!  But since we are ALL here to learn together......

Here goes!!

First, a huge THANK YOU to Leah for all of her hard work and consistant blogging which I know has helped me immensely in my growth as a Free Motion Quilter!

So...  Here is my first attempt at lesson one.  I am using a machine that is pretty new to me.  I've been wishing the machine I am more comfortable with was here but it wasn't available.  The following picture is the full shot of my first attempt at Quilt Along #1.  I used black then navy blue thread on the front and white thread on the back as I wanted to see whether stitches were even..

Full shot of attempt #1

Close up of attempt #1 showing issues - front

Close up of attempt #1 showing issues - back

another shot of attempt #1

 

thread broken and shreaded on front

tension issue

black thread from front showing on back

2nd try :)

I was much happier with my second try.  Leah asked that we ask questions and discuss issues, so here goes.

As I started I was having lots of issues with thread breaking and I found that my IDT (integrated dual feed) was engaged.  I found that disengaging the IDT fixed some of the issues and sewing became much better.  I still had issues with broken and shredded thread.

My questions to Leah, beyond anything she is already thinking I should be doing differently are:

1)  Thread:  Do you have a favorite thread?  Are there any threads that you would NOT use for this?
2) Do you have a favorite needle?

I think the old saying that 'practice makes perfect' runs pretty true here.  That being the case I'd have to say that I have a great deal of practice in my future!!  Looking forward to starting Quilt Along #2!

Marie

Patriotic Trip Around the World!

This is a quilt that I made as a Thank You to our friend Christine.  It didn't take me long to decide on a Patriotic theme for Chris as her camp is filled with Red, White, and Blue items, flags and more, in honor of her family who has proudly serviced our country!

I decided to use five fabrics in the quilt using red, white, & blue, as the color choices and flags and stars as theme fabrics.  Once I collected the color and design fabrics I thought they would fall wonderfully into a Trip Around the World Pattern. This is the quilt with one layer of each fabric. 

And this is the quilt completed.  It measures 60" square - my favorite size for a couch.

I machine quilted this quilt on my Pfaff.  Can you see the Stars?!  This is my first attempt at a free-motion meandering star design.  

 I love the way that the red variegated thread shows up on the back. It was however a bit lost on the busy trip around the world pattern on the front  :)

Art Quilt

 I have always been fascinated by trees.  Since I was a small child I loved to draw trees, not that I'm very good at it, just that it is so amazing how the branches grow and head off in all different directions.

Maybe it's because I am ALWAYS in SO MANY DIFFERENT DIRECTIONS AT ONCE!!


 
I wanted to play with the yarn in this picture and it just looked like a great 'bark' color so I decided that it would make a good 3-D tree feature.

I cut out a background piece for the tree top and two landscape pieces for the bottom and placed them on the blue fabric I wanted for the sky.  Using detailed embroidery stitches I outlined and attached the tree top to the background.  I then sewed the yarn into place to form the tree.

Once the tree was formed I used detail embroidery stitches and free-motion quilting to add dimension to the landscape pieces at the base. 

Stars sparkling in the night.

I continued free-motion stitching the sky then add small Swarovski Crystals for create tiny far away stars and larger shell buttons for closer stars.

And here is the completed Quilt

It's to be one in a series...

I better get creating!!!

MJ Art Quilt Tree Series 1 Fall Tree Night OOAK Wall Hanging

  This Art Quilt Mini measures 11" x 11 3/4"

To View in my Etsy Store