Seeing what you're doing

The Festival of Quilts is a great time to shop around. If you are considering getting a machine quilting frame, this Birmingham show is a perfect opportunity to test drive all the frames on the market. I'm going to devote the next few posts to considering what makes a great frame. What important features should you consider when you're shopping around for a frame? Let's consider visibility. First and foremost, while we're machine quilting it's vital to be able to see what we are doing!

One of the assets of machine quilting on a frame is the viability. Machine Quilting while sitting at the sewing machine limits what you can see to the 6 X 8 inch rectangle of quilt sandwich between your hands. Upgrading to a machine quilting frame immediately opens up your field of vision. Now instead of a little rectangle you can see an entire section of your quilt, which is really helpful in executing a design. Being able to see where you've been and where you are going makes a big difference in the quality of your quilting.

There are many things that can get in the way and block our vision while quilting. One culprit is the structure of the frame itself. Sometimes the handles get in the way, the scaffolding can make it difficult to see what you're doing. Sometimes the frame is designed so that your own arms block your vision as you move the carriage. This is particularly true if you are working from the front of a frame. So as you try the various frames at the show, ask yourself "Can I see what I'm doing?"

Another culprit is vibration. This is perhaps the most frequent problem. The up and down movement of the needle on the sewing machine creates vibration. A good sewing machine is designed to limit the vibration. But no matter how good the sewing machine, there is still going to be a certain amount of vibration. The question to ask is, "Is the vibration interfering with my vision?" A good table will limit the vibration as will a good frame. The materials a frame is made of will affect the level of vibration. Wood dampens vibration while metal amplifies it. So when you try the frames think about the vibration. Some frames vibrate so much that you just can't see what you're quilting. So while you test drive the frames next week make sure that you consider the vibration and make sure that you can see what you're doing.

Child's Play

Today we set up our 6 foot Art Quilter frame with the JUKI sewing machine at my son's primary school. Peter is in year 6 and his teacher wanted some help with a textile project. She'd asked me to quilt some 'sari' fabric that the class had picked up on a school trip to Leicester.

I suggested that we get the kids to do it. Peter's teacher liked the idea. Kids love machine quilting. They're not afraid to try new things. They thought the JUKI sewing machine was brilliant. The Nifty Grip speed control handles were easy to use. They quickly realized that the needle was like a pen. They loved making the sewing machine go wherever they wanted and really liked the trail the thread left to show where they'd been.

They doodle all the time - so warming up was easy.

We decided to only use one layer of fabric and give everyone a chance to machine embroider their name and any other designs they wanted. Everybody had a couple turns. Then we took the fabric off the frame, sliced it into triangular flag shapes with the rotary cutter, hot glued it to some dowels and made flags.

Start to finish it was just over two hours. The kids really enjoyed the afternoon. The flags were a hit! Everybody liked taking home their very own hand guided textile project. Quilting is cool!!

A Piece of the Action

One of my favourite things about shows is watching people's expressions as they try a machine quilting frame for the first time. There is a moment of stunned disbelief as the carriage holding the sewing machine starts to glide effortlessly over the top of the quilt at the touch of a finger. The eyes widen and focus, considering the new potential that this sort of tool opens up.

No more pinning or basting or gluing or tacking! No more frustrating pain in the neck as you try to hold the layers of the quilt together AND move them smoothly round the bed of the sewing machine. Within seconds of guiding the sewing machine over the top of the quilt you are creating a bold and flowing line, the stitch length is already pretty good and you begin to imagine what you could do with a bit of practice. Exciting stuff!

People start with circles and loops. The needle has become a pen and the thread is transformed into gloriously coloured ink. The perfectly tensioned quilt top becomes the paper. As this realization dawns people go on to writing their names and begin drawing flowers and stars, houses and at this show... cats! I'll end with one of my favourite drawing from the Italian show; this lovely woman, trying out our frame for the first time began drawing people holding hands. Just wonderful!

After the show closes for the evening, Emily and I cut out the designs from the show demo quilt sandwich and keep them to hand out as machine quilting samples. Quilters are so tactile! Having watched a demonstration or had a go yourself, it's good to walk away with a sample of what can happen when you put a JUKI TL98-P on an Art Quilter frame. If you would like a 'piece of the action' give us an email and we'll send you a machine quilting sample:

martha@machinequilter.co.uk

Hugs & Kisses

Look what I quilted yesterday! This is a 'Hugs and Kisses' table runner. (The pattern makes X's and O's, a suitable sentiment for Valentine's Day)) I'd originally used this pumpkin seed pattern in an autumnal coloured quilt. Now I wanted to see how the design played out in other colours. It was fun choosing lots of pinks and reds and lots of different whites.

First I needed to choose the threads.

I wanted a lacy look so it had to be 'Lace White'.

For the quilting, I began by simply scalloping around the edges. I wanted to achieve a 'doily' look. Scallops are such a useful and prolific pattern. Once you start looking for them you'll see them everywhere! I'll post the rest tomorrow.

Honeysuckle Vine

I decided to use yesterday's momentum to get me going on a UFO that's been ripening...for a few years! This quilt was inspired by a quilt on display at a show put on by one of our local groups, called the Pea Room Quilters. One of the gals had made teddy bear quilt for one of her grand children. The top was pieced out of flannel and it was backed with a good quality fleece. It was the softest quilt I ever felt! I've been using fleece ever since. But this is the first time I've paired it with flannel.

I've used a honeysuckle vine design for the quilting pattern using King Tut #989 Malachite on top and a green pre-wound in the bobbin. Anything with a loop makes it easy to maneuver around the available space. I thought that the leaf pattern would go well with the autumnal colours. I'm waiting for the morning light to take a good photo of the quilting, but meanwhile, here's the line design.

Catching the Bug

My friend Angie caught the quilting bug. Well, actually the piecing bug and the fabric bug too!It's such a good infection! I made a quilt for her daughters and now Angie has pieced a quilt for her sister's new baby boy. She's been collecting fabrics that a little boy might like and completed piecing her first top. I offered to quilt it for her. After feeling guilty for several weeks for not getting round to it, I finally got the kids to set up the frame after Church today, and it was done in an hour and a half! Oh the joy of a finished project!!

I've used this fun variegated King Tut #921 Cleopatra on top. I love this thread, especially with the bright colourful fabrics that Angie has used here. I've just quilted hearts and loops, a good pattern for favourite things. Angie's mum is fond of hearts too. I think that baby quilts are really about blessing mums and grans.This little quilt has bright red non pil fleece for a backing. I've used red pre-wounds in the bobbin. This creates a lovely texture on the back and it's soft and cuddly too. The pre-wounds hold so much thread - I only had to change the bobbin once. Now I feel great, I've done the quilt and blogged about it all in the same afternoon.

Just 4 Fun

This year, just for fun, we decided to have a Space themed party to celebrate Pete's 10th birthday. The space theme left us wide open to include include everything in any space film from the last 30 years; from Luke Skywalker to Mikey from Monsters Inc.

We dressed up and gave out glow in the dark wands.

We decorated monster cupcakes and made kiwi aliens.

The kids had a blast.

For decorations we were able to use some space/time themed quilts that the kids had made years ago for a Festival of Quilts children's competition. And with the left over fabric, stashed away all those years I decided to make a space themed table runner. I'll write more about the table runner tomorrow.

Deep AND Wide

One of the reasons that I love my JUKI TL-98P is that when they made the throat of the machine longer they made it taller too. Many of the other longer armed domestic machines on the market are only longer. Now long is good. I love having those 2 extra inches. In fact they seemed like miles more room when I first switched over. But once you put a sewing machine on a machine quilting frame the height of the arm really makes a difference.

It matters, as you can see in the photo because the first fabric bar is going under the arm of the machine. And as the quilting progresses the fabric rolls on to this bar and the roll gets bigger. That's where the height comes in handy. The JUKi TL98-P is 2 inches longer AND taller. The extra inches don't matter much when you're starting out. But they make a big difference as you come to the end.

UK Fleece

Fleece makes a wonderful soft snuggly backing especially for children's quilts. Machine quilting on fleece creates a fabulous texture. It's economical too, as it does two jobs, backing and wadding, for the price of one. It's important to get the good quality non-pil polar fleece because the cheap stuff ages badly. But sometimes it is hard to find good quality fleece at the right price. Last month, I stumbled on a great UK site:

http://www.fabric-online.co.uk/ They have a great selection of colours and patterns. I ordered one day, they processed the order the next and I received the fleece in the post the day after that. I call that quick efficient service. The quality of fleece was fantastic too.

So if you've been wanting to use fleece but having trouble finding it here in the UK. give fabric-online a try. I've put a link on the side to make it easy.

Ways and Means

As a last post about this project, I wanted to talk about ways and means. There are several ways to go about creating this sashiko design. I'll describe the way that worked for me.

Many of us are familiar with the marvelous machine quilting of Diane Gaudinski. She creates this look with a continuous line which undulates above and below the intersection going in one direction and then fills the gaps going back the other way.

Diane uses this pattern to great effect as a background filler on unpieced fabric. She creates the intersections by drawing a grid. I find her continuous line method works for me on smaller scale grids but I struggle to maintain a continuous line when the scale gets bigger.

So for this project I tried a hopping scallop instead. At each intersection I would hop up, catching the intersection of the X and curve back down. Then comes the best part, I pause. This gives me time to catch my breath, steady my nerves and take aim for the next leap. My progress across the top would look something like this.

No matter how small the neck on my machine, I'm always going to have room for this maneuver. I began going in the direction on the diagram; left to right. But because I'm working from the back of the machine, I had trouble seeing what I was doing. So I swapped sides and came right to left, this gave me much better visibility. It took my kids ages to make this diagram so I'm just going to let you imagine the change of direction.

On the way back, I did a quarter hop, paused and then continued the half circle hop to the end of the row. The blue line in the diagram below shows this process. This staggered scallop reminds me of cake decorating.

I worked my way through the top; scalloping over, coming back under. Then scalloping under and coming back over. Ironically, it's taken much longer to write about the quilting than to do it. By clicking on any of the photos, you'll get a good close up view of the stitching.

Bold Colours Simple Design

This quilt began as a spin off from curtains for the playroom which in turn was a spin off of this wonderful bright stripy IKEA rug.

I'd been keeping this rug safely rolled up waiting to re-do the playroom properly. But we got it out for a party and everyone loved it and wanted to keep it out. So I decided to make bright and cheery playroom curtains to go with it.

I delved into my fabric stash and pulled out all my brights and themed kiddie prints. These I interspersed with batiks and stripes and spots.

The curtains were a big hit and there were lots of squares left over. So I decided to go ahead and make a quilt for Peter. I'd just got a Janome 6600 which I use for piecing and Peter, who is 9, loved all the gadgets on it. So it became a mother son project. I guided the fabric and he operated the foot pedal and pushed the thread cutter button. Very soon we had this great 'favourite things' quilt all pieced. I backed it in a cuddly blue fleece and quilted it with loops and hearts.

I needed just the right thread for the project and found a King Tut that was perfect. Cleopatra #921 was a variegated machine quilting thread that had all the colours of the quilt in a precise one-inch colour change.

Against the bright background of these saturated colours, this bright thread acts as a 'neutral' - it blends into the pieced squares creating texture without calling attention to itself.

This variegated King Tut thread reads as a neutral against the brightly coloured pieced top

I found that the bold colours and simple design worked well together. The piecing and quilting designs were so simple. The bold bright fabrics combined with the bold and bright lines of stitching worked together to make this quilt something special - Peter loves it!