Paisley and Swirls

I have to say, I LOVE FMQ Friday. Leah Day has given me so much more courage to work through and issues, she's made me a confident quilter. So this week, I've been quilting away on my Red Window quilt and I think it's coming along nicely.

 I finished the red section Wednesday and moved on to quilting both of the sides - swirls and paisely

 I'm doing different size swirls. I like that they are really sort of 3D.

 I still have a bit left to quilt.

 The back is dark brown fleece and the quilting really shows up on it. I think this quilt will be very snuggily.

 The paisley side is going a bit slower. I really love paisley, almost all of my quilts have it somewhere on them.

 Still a bit more to stitch on this side.

My quilting is going sooooo much better, since I now have my machine threaded properly. Funny how that is.

Today I'm linking up with Leah for FMQ Project Link Up.

 Color Me Quilty!

Pat

WIP Wednesday

I think I found a huge part of my ongoing tension issues with my Tiara; I missed a thread guide while threading. Isn't that sewing 101, know your thread path for threading your machine???? I can tell you that I feel a little silly missing the stirrup guide!

I think it's a testament to the machine that it ran as well as it did, threaded incorrectly. Threading it correctly has allowed me to loosen the top tension and less thread breaks. YIPPEE!

I will say that quilting on the Tiara really makes the quilting go quite quickly.

I finished the red section of my Red Window quilt and I started the quilting the left side of the quilt. I think this quilt will be nice and snuggly with the fleece on the back. I love how well the quilting shows on the fleece.

I've also made good progress on my casserole carrier this week.

I've been waiting on something to add to my carrier to make it complete. I received it yesterday, so hopefully I'll finish this up this weekend.

All in all, not a bad week!

Here are this week's stats:
In-process: (6)
Express Your Love
Grandma's Quilt
Charming Squares Quilt
Red Windows Quilt
Humphrey's New Bed
Casserole Carrier
 
New projects: (0) 


Finished (0)


I'm linking up with  Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday!

 

Color Me Quilty!

Pat

Baby Lock Tiara Thread Tension

There is definitely a learning curve with my new Baby Lock Tiara, not so much with the actual free-motion quilting part, but getting the tension set properly. There are no numbers or settings, just screws and knobs to turn. In my day job I'm a Quality Engineer, you know I have to find a way to measure things. After some research on the internet, it seems that bobbin tension is the key to setting tension on a longarm. I watched numerous videos on how to test it and thought I had it, but I was still getting "flat-lining" on the back of my quilted pieces, which would normally say I had to tighten the top tension,  except that was so tight the thread kept breaking. So I decided to buy a TOWA gauge just to be sure, it measures tension in M Class bobbin cases.

I thought I had my tension set quite loose, but it was still too tight. After a few more adjustments, my stitches finally look good.  So I basted my Red Window quilt and started quilting it.

I'm using red thread on the top and brown on the bottom. Not seeing much of the wrong color on either the front or back - Yippee Skippee!!!!

The back is dark brown fleece.

This quilt is so soft, perfect to snuggle on the sofa. I'm feeling a little better about my new machine.

Linking up with Marelize at Stitch by Stitch for Anything Goes Monday!

Color Me Quilty!

Pat

FMQ Friday!

I had so much fun last night quilting the inside piece for my casserole carrier. I'm getting the hang of my new machine.

Can you see in the green stripe where I quilted "mmm mmm good" over and over again. I thought that was fitting for a casserole carrier. Don't most casseroles have Campbell's soup in them????

The back or actually inside of the carrier is flannel

Here's the outside panel. I think they look good together

The inside panel will wrap around a casserole dish.

This is the original carrier. I still have to add handles and join the panels together. There are a few more features I need to add to make it function properly, but I think it will be pretty cool when it's done.

Today I'm linking up with Leah for FMQ Project Link Up.

 Color Me Quilty!

Pat

Joining In the "Mod Olives" Quilt-A-Long

Jenny at Sew Kind of Wonderful is having a Quilt-A-Long (QAL), using her Quick Curve Ruler. I joined one of her QAL a couple of years ago and made my Urban Nine Patch baby quilt that I just love. So, I think it's time to join in again.

Sew Kind of Wonderful

Last night I went into my stash to look for fabric combinations. What do you think of this?

I've ordered some Kona "Coal" for the background, this was the darkest grey I had in my stash. I think "Coal" will be darker but a bit warmer. I also think I'd like to get a little more "Text" fabric for the centers of the block. I'm pretty excited about this project, I haven't done a QAL in a while. Yippee, Skippee!!!

Color Me Quilty!

Pat

WIPping It Up!

Well, I'm not very focused this year, I seem to be flitting from one project to another. I started fiddling around and making a casserole carrier this week. It's a good project to learn how to use my new machine.

I'm using two layers of batting; Insul-Bright and Warm and Natural

Inside of my carrier is flannel.

The original that I'm copying

I also worked a bit on my Express Your Love/Goddess quilt this week.

So that's what I've been up to this week.

Here are this week's stats:
In-process: (5)
Express Your Love
Grandma's Quilt
Charming Squares Quilt
Red Windows Quilt
Humphrey's New Bed
 
New projects: (1) 
Casserole Carrier

Finished (0)


I'm linking up with  Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday!

 

Color Me Quilty!

Pat

The Start of a Casserole Carrier

A few weeks ago, when I was cleaning out my father's apartment, I came across my mom's casserole carrier. I'm not sure where she got it or if someone made it for her, but I remember her using it. It worked great. The only problem, it is seriously ugly!

So I decided that it would be easy enough to make a new one for myself in a bit more modern fabrics.  I figured that this would be a great project to practice quilting on my new machine. So I started making a prototype casserole carrier.

The back/inside of the carrier

I'm using Insul-bright and with another layer of Warm and Natural batting. If it turns out, I plan on writing up a tutorial for it and posting.

I'm linking up with a Quilt Story for Fabric Tuesday and Free-Motion by the River for Linky Tuesday.

Color Me Quilty!

Pat

A Little More Goddess

Yesterday was such a lovely day to stay in and quilt. I decided to work on my Express Your Love/Goddess quilt and see if I could over come some thread breakage. I know that I'm still working through some tension issues on my new Tiara, but I didn't think that the Isacord thread breakage was all just tension. Then I read Linda's post, over at Linda's Landscapes,  regarding humidity and polyester thread breaks because of static. The humidity in my house is in the low 30's this time of year, so I set up my humidifier and got it up to about 45%. Didn't have one unscheduled thread break, although I did slow it down a bit.

 

All of the FMQ fills are some version of Leah Day's designs. It's so nice to be able to just flip through and pick out a fill to try out.

Anyway, I'm off to quilt!

Color Me Quilty!

Pat

FMQ Goddess Hair

It feels so good to be back working on my Express Your Love (Goddess) quilt. This panel was designed by Leah Day for last year's quilt-a-long. Several quilts jumped ahead of her last year, but I'm really ready to continue work on her. Last night I got several "strands" of her hair done.

Poseidon's Eye is one of Leah's motifs. Really enjoyed quilting it.

Ocean Currents and just squiggly lines. Funny, I had the most trouble stitching the squiggly lines, my thread keep breaking. I still don't have the tension perfect.

I'm psyched that this is a long weekend coming up with no commitments to do anything but quilt.  I'm hoping to start on Leah's new quilt-a-long.



Today I'm linking up with Leah for FMQ Project Link Up.

 Color Me Quilty!

Pat