Miss Andrea Quilts: Longarm Machine Quilting

Showing posts with label Longarm Machine Quilting. Show all posts

Thursday, June 15, 2017

Summer Evening Photo Shoot - July Star Blocks

I can't think of anything I would rather do on a beautiful summer evening than photograph one of my quilts,

especially when this is the scene that greets you on the other side of the fence!

(What is it about a meadow scene at that magic hour just before sunset that always makes my heart ache for heaven??)

My friend Susan and her husband own a lovely B&B on West Ridge Road in Elizabethtown and were kind enough to allow me to photograph my "July Star Blocks" quilt on their property.

I just love this quilt!

(I can hear my friend Diane saying, "you say that about every quilt you make" - ha ha!)

I think the reason I love it so much is because I hated it when I first got started on it over a year ago. It's super scrappy and has dated fabrics that I no longer love mixed in with current fabrics that I really, really like. It was way too much. I was so looking forward to making this quilt ever since I saw Allison Harris's photos of it six years ago on her blog and had been collecting fabrics for it ever since. Terribly discouraged, I set it aside.

But then, I read this blog post re: mixing solids in with prints and what ratio to aim for. I don't usually work with solids unless it's a large amount of a background solid in one color, and just couldn't envision it. But, she was right! I purchased two shades of red, two shades of blue and one shade of gray and mixed them in with the remaining blocks I hadn't yet stitched. It did the trick! I was amazed.

This post by Allison on using solids was helpful too.

Jackie Padesky's instagram photo inspired (I actually copied her!) the computerized quilting design done by The Last Stitch Quilting Service. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, isn't it?!

I have a feeling I am going to cart this quilt all over the place this summer, looking for good spots to photograph it with flags or barns (or both!) in the background, but for now, I wanted to at least share these photos and the story behind the quilt!

(I so want to take a picture of it in the field in front of this barn - wouldn't that be an amazing picture?!! - but not sure I can pull that one off. In the meantime, I need to keep my hands on the steering wheel and my eyes on the road!)

Monday, June 22, 2015

Did I Bite Off More Than I Can Chew??

I'm not sure!

I debated and debated about having Kathy O. long arm quilt my Modern Building Blocks quilt top. I knew she could fly through it and the stitching would be perfection, but in the end I decided I should tackle it myself, especially since it's simply straight line quilting with my walking foot. And, I plan to enter it in our local fair in August and really wanted to be able to say that I pieced and machine quilted it myself.

I'm stitching the rows 1/2" apart.

I've stitched four rows so far - this is going to take me 4.EVER!

(Kathy, I guess it's too late for you to bail me out????)

I'm not 100% happy with my stitching, so I may rip out those first four rows....

I'm using Hobbs 80/20 batting; it's a bit thicker than the Warm & White/Natural that I often use, so I think I need to adjust the foot pressure so there isn't as much drag. Since this is such a big quilt (84x96!), there's a bit of distortion by the time I got to the bottom of the quilt. This is the biggest quilt I've done the straight line stitching on; I've never had any issues with smaller quilts.

I've been keeping a card file for each machine quilting scenario I've done (both FMQ and walking foot), noting the batting, thread, needle, stitch length, and foot pressure. It gives me a good starting point every time I tackle a new project.