Wednesday, May 29, 2019

Apliquick and Silk....the Quilting

When I first starting quilting this project i quickly realized that the circles all needed to be stitched around and that the areas between needed to be flattened.  The best way to do that?  Microstippling.  


 Next I decided that all those gorgeous circles should really be roses.  So I started stitching with a variegated pink and red thread.  I love how they do look like modern roses.  Perhaps that will be the title!


All the white space in the background?   Simple.  My favorite.  Always.  Feathers.....yum.  There can NEVER be enough feathers.


Now to finish the quilting.  Maybe this weekend!

I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy

Thursday, May 23, 2019

Appliquik and Silk...an Experiment

I've been a little slacking on blogging lately.  Blame the end of school and the chaos that always brings with end of the year events, recitals, graduations, etc.  Plus, I am moving school (same district, different building and grade) and that entails LOTS of packing.  I am at 34 boxes so far....and there is so much more.  I'm hoping it'll be under 80?!  AND the week after school gets out I am teaching three full days of classes at the Minnesota Quilters Show.  It's going to be a blast, but it's a lot of prep work.  I will be glad when school is OVER.  So....my actual quilting has gotten waylaid.  And the one thing I'm really working on I can't share yet.  However....here's something fun!

I've been playing with (and loving) the Apliquick system for turning pieces.  One day I got a question stuck in my head.  What would happen with silk?  I ironed the interfacing to a gorgeous silk I bought from Frieda Anderson.  It was a dyed red with a lot of subtle variation.  I made a BUNCH of circles.  It worked fabulously.  Here you can see a test layout.


Then I decided to glue them down to my white background.  OOPS.  Even though I used a REALLY think micro tip on my Elmers glue, some of the glue came through.  Will it come out with washing?  Sure.  SO not the the end of the world....if the fabric doesn't bleed...hmm.  


Since the circles all have a variation, I decided the threads to stitch them down should too.  So I went through my collection of red and pink Glide threads and had a blast picking colors.


What was supposed to happen with this?  I twas supposed to have these lacy leather and sequin leaves on top.  I didn't like the effect, so the leaves went on something else.  Stay tuned to see what how I quilted it!


I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy

Monday, May 20, 2019

Paducah Inspiration Part 2

A few more inspirational quilts from Paducah.  The top one is from Japan.







I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy

Wednesday, May 15, 2019

Island Batik Ambassadors Make It Modern Challenge



Before I became an Island Batik Ambassador I had never made a modern quilt.  Now I have made many and they are some of my favorites!  I love having lots of negative space to quilt.  This month's challenge is Made it Modern with Hobbs Batting.





This month I started my challenge with my Accuquilt Go BIG! cutter.  It is so nice to be able to cut all my pieces accurately and quickly.  I decided to use to fun oranges and a teal Island Batik for my project.  I also used the black solid batik.  It doesn't fray easily and is so amazing to work with.


After sewing the main section together this is what happened!  I'm so happy with how it turned out.  


Since my quilt has a black background I had to use a black batting!  Hobbs black batting is terrific and worked amazingly well in my project.


Time to pick thread colors!  I dug into my Aurifil thread stash.  I have a lot....is that a stash?   I dunno.  I love it either way!  Here are the two I picked for the light orange and teal.  You can see that I quilted some feathers in the teal.


This is how I pick thread for my background.  I knew I didn't want to use black as it's hard to see for my eyes, so I usually pick a gray or a dark purple or blue to quilt large black areas with.  I laid a bit of each color gray on the quilt top to see how they would look.  I decided the purple was definitely out.  The two grays are very similar, but the top one in the photo is easier to see, so that's the gray I chose. 


You can see that when I'm quilting with this gray it's easy to see the feathers I was making.


You can see that in the whole quilt you can't tell that the thread is gray, and it certainly made it easier on my eyes since I quilting the entire background in feathers.


I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy

Monday, May 13, 2019

Paducah Inspiration

A few of my favorite quilts from Paducah a few weeks ago.  I love the quilting on this first one.


The next three are from Japan.  They're amazing.




I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy

Friday, May 10, 2019

Free Motion Friday - Tula Pink Kaleidoscope with my Mom

This was a quilt I just wasn't sure how to quilt.  So I handed it off to my mom to longarm.  She had a lot of fun.  More pictures next week!


Look at the stripes.  See the little extra detail she put in?  It's fabulous!


I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy

Wednesday, May 8, 2019

Ziggedy Zaggedy

This quilt has been done for awhile, but I've neglected to post about it.  It's a modern mini and is made of course with my favorite Island Batiks and Hobbs batting.  I was in the mood to make a modern mini one day, so I did!


Did you know Island Batik is now making a gray solid?!  It's fabulous to work with.


Each shape is a different red or red-orange Island batik.  It's subtle but you notice it when you look closely.


Starting to mark with my favorite Clover White Pen.  It irons off and is fantastic.


Stitching the baselines.



Adding the red diamonds.  They don't pop as much as I want. What to do...


Bubbles down the center!


Here's the back at this point.


Adding red stippling.


Look carefully at this next picture.  The bottom two diamonds on the left have a thicker red line.  And extra step, but worth it as it makes them pop more.


With all the extra red thread added.  Worth it!



All done.  TA DA!  Ziggedy Zaggedy named by my amazing son Roland.



A close up of the finished quilt.


And the back!


I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy

Monday, May 6, 2019

Flower Inspiration

How do you capture a flower in a quilt?  That is an interesting question.  But here are some flowers to inspire you today.



And a good giggle from a sign above the register at Hancock's of Paducah.


I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy

Friday, May 3, 2019

Free Motion Friday - Quilting a Unicorn

Sometimes I get myself into trouble by volunteering to do things.  Fortunately, it wasn't the case this time.  I had such fun quilting this unicorn for my friend Ann!  It's a gift for a friend of hers who is 8.  


I started with wavy lines in a variegated thread for the mane of the unicorn.



The horn itself got some elongated bubbles.


I stippled the unicorn's body and did swirls in the background.


It was such fun!

I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy