Some Assembly Required

Crawling all over a quilt on the floor to pin baste the layers together is getting very old, and also hard on the knees.  Since I have had my old quilting frame still sitting in a box in the garage, I decided it would be a good thing to set it up in the new studio, even if I only used it for quilt basting.

I had bags of the small parts, but it had been put away long enough that I thought I'd lost the instructions, and began laying out the piees on the floor, trying to figure out the best way to begin, and also wondering why two of the bolts were marked with black X's.  Well, what do you know, good packing paid off, and I found the instructions on the machine table, just under the canvas that is used to pin or sew the quilt tops and backs to!   That made the assembly easier:-)

You begin building the frame upside down on the floor,

and then turn it right side up, to finish the assembly. 

The quilt top on the floor was folded in half, temporarily, just so I could measure it for batting and backing, and then all tree were pin basted to the canvas leaders, which were attached to the bars with velcro.  I did have to do a little fiddling, since my leaders were shorter than the quilt, but between now and the next quilt, I plan to purchase and prepare new ones that will be the width of the frame (well, at least set up at this width, I'm also going to need even longer ones that will be used when the frame is extended to king size, which I'm going to need to do when I'm ready to baste my new bed quilt tops).

Once the quilt was on the frame, pin basting went quickly, which was great, because I didn't have much time to get it done!

In case you noticed the machine in the frame, and were wondering why I didn't just machine baste the layers, well, there are really two reasons for that.  The first reason, is that my old Bernina isn't meant for use in a table, and I was just going to give it a shot, which I did, but quickly gave up, when I decided I didn't have any more time to spend.  I do have a newer Bernina at home, that has a start / stop button, and I'm planning to try it out in the frame next time.  The other reason was that I didn't happen to have any water soluble thread, which I was hoping to use, so that I could just run a few rows of quilting, and end up with a basted quilt, which I could just quilt and then wash the basting out, instead of needing to stop, clip, and remove the basting as I quilted.  Well, it's something new to try on another quilt.

Innovations Quilt Show

The Innovations Quilt show had some very amazing quilts this year, as well as some special exhibits! My friend Ellen and I traveled together, and it was a lot more fun than going by myself, and she pointed out many things I would have missed! My camera battery also died before I got to Sharon Schamber's gorgeous quilts, so I don't have any pictures here, although you can visit the gallery on her site to see better pictures than I could have taken. Her site can be found at: http://www.sharonschamber.com/ .

I love this pictorial quilt of Venice, and have been dreaming that someday I will be able to make my own version (maybe someone will let me use their picture:-)). I was hoping that the label would be readable when I got home, but it isn't, so if you know the maker of this quilt, please let me know so that I can update this entry with his / her name!




I love this quilt! It has so many features I love, and is a wholecloth quilt. I don't remember seeing a label on this quilt, so if you know who made it, please let me know and I'll update this post. It was in the area of Irena Bluhm's quilts, so it's possible that it belongs to her, but I don't know.



This next one belongs to Irena Bluhm. I have her book and have to say it is beautiful! She is such a nice lady to chat with, and I purchased a couple books from her, but don't have them yet, as she is shipping them to me. Her website is: http://site.irenabluhmscreations.com/index.html .

This quilt is similar, but has been made by Pat Noonan, one of her students!

Judy Irish is so much fun to talk with, and when she's not longarming quilts for authors and others, she finds time to make a few fun quilts herself. This one has so much texture when you see it in person, I'm sure the picture can't do it justice! I don't know if she has a website, but does have a blog at: http://wildirishrowsquilting.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default .

Kathleen Craig made this beautiful moonscape, and I'm reminded of a wholecloth that I need to get back to. Isn't it beautiful!

Finally, I was able to see one of Ferret's quilts in person, and I must say it's awesome!!! I"m amazed how she was able to convey such a realistic image with such few pieces of applique! Her blog can be found at: http://ferfab.blogspot.com/ .

Yes, of course I've been quilting

The problem is, I just can't show you what I'm making - not yet. But in the meantime, I thought I'd show you how I quilted a couple of the borders on the quilt I just finished quilting. No, this isn't the front - it's the back, and I'm sorry to say I have been having tension issues.

Tension problems always seem to rear their ugly heads on this machine anytime I decide to use those pre-wound cardboard-sided bobbins. Yes, it's good thread, my machine just doesn't like the cardboard, and although I have tried, it doesn't seem possible to have good tension (I think the cardboard rubs inside the bobbin case), and in trying to get them to work, I usually end up messing it up, which sometimes takes me a while to get "just perfect". I finally did get it fixed, but I'm not as happy with this quilt back as I could have been. I've decided they are just not worth it, and in the future plan to wind any remaining pre-wound bobbins onto my own bobbins.

My Quilts at Innovations

This Fantasy Fish quilt and my Water quilt are in Tacoma, WA for the Innovations machine quilting show. Wednesday and Friday I'll be down there to see how they did in the show, as well as take classes (and of course, there's a vendor mall too). If you're in the area, the show runs September 16-19.

Busy, Busy, Busy....Quilting

Right now I'm very happy that my studio is in the daylight basement. It's so much cooler than the main floor of my house!

Sometimes I'm in a mode to work on one project from start to finish, and other times I love working in more of an assembly line mode, where I rotate around to the different jobs, while working on more than one project. When I can, I like to begin by doing all the rotary cutting, then preparing appliques (if the quilt has them, and I know which fabrics I will be using). The next step is piecing, building blocks or some kind of center panel (some of my quilts have a plain fabric panel for the center, so this step can be skipped), then move on to assembling the center panel, and adding any borders. Depending on the quilt, appliques may be added when I'm working on the blocks, or may be added after the whole quilt top is assembled, and on some quilts like my Fantasy Fish pattern have appliques being added on the center panel, and then more when the quilt top is finished - or placed and partially attached before borders, folded out of the way while the borders are being sewn, and then completed afterward. It all depends on the individual quilt that I am working on.

Just like assembly line piecing, working on multiple quilts seems faster when I batch some of the work - making tops, quilting finishing. Right now I'm working on quilting some tops. Since I can't show you the projects themselves, I thought I could get away with posting a few close-ups of the quilting....

Off to Houston

after a week of ups and downs. I'm going to take lots of classes, look for my quilt in the show, and hopefully meet some old and new friends. They did send me a letter that said they moved it to the painted quilts category, so I'll look for it there. After this week's events, it is more difficult to pack than it would have been otherwise, but will give me something to look forward to, and keep me busy.

My new baby

is big and heavy, but just what I need, and it came in time to be set up for my birthday! It was shipped as freight, and I was told to have help available when it arrived. So what toes a mom of 3 boys to? She bribes her oldest son and some of his friends to help, and is amazed how strong they are. They decided to carry the whole crate around to the studio door, which turned out to be a very wise decision, because it was much easier to lift when using the wood framing, than once it was removed.

The quilting table came in that crate, and my new George quilting machine came in a separate box to protect it. One of them asked what I would need it for, and before I could answer, another asked him if he had noticed all the quilts they had passed in the house, and that was what the machine was going to be used for. Of course the boys had never seen a long arm quilting machine, and commented that I must be a hardcore quilter to get such a machine. So here it is, my new baby George!