Machine Quilting Tip

The worst of Irma has left us. Yay for that! We had about 4 inches of rain yesterday and lots of wind, but no damage to our home except for a few slipped shingles on the roof. One tree in the backyard looks windblown - we may need to tie it up to straighten it. Lots of trees down in town including a few on houses, roads blocked, and 14,000 were without power around here at the peak. But we never lost our electricity.

I've been meandering around on my Ain't No Sunshine (En Provence) quilt again. This is a big, BIG meander. When I'm doing my own machine quilting, I always want to avoid bulky intersections - you know...those spots where lots of seams meet? But it's the worst thing to do! Avoiding stitching over these bulky spots will make them stick up like sore thumbs!

So my tip is: AIM FOR THE INTERSECTIONS! Above you can see there is one coming up where SEVEN seams meet in one spot! I'm aiming for it!

BOOM! Went right through it! And now it will lay flat.

Here's another - not so bad... only four seams meeting - but still, quilting right through it will tame it nicely.

I'm about 1/4 done with the quilting, just doing a bit every day.

Check out Hexie Love Open Studios on Facebook - I've been playing a bit...

Hurricane Irma Prep

I haven't done much sewing the last couple of days, but I did finish this block (Bring Me Flowers). I also started machine quilting Ain't No Sunshine (En Provence). I've only done a small part and it's not my greatest machine quilting, but it will be done in a week or so.

We've been prepping for Irma - she's headed directly toward us. If you look at the maps they are showing, we live in Alabama very near the Georgia border - right in the path of the hurricane. We'll be under a Tropical Storm Warning all day tomorrow - expecting winds 30-50 mph with gusts up to 70 mph.

We've brought all our outdoor furniture inside or tied down on the carport. All outdoor cushions are now inside. Our bicycles are on the screened porch, along with a fire pit, outdoor heater, and anything else that would fit. Our hanging baskets are down, too. We even filled our cars with outdoor stuff.

We're a bit worried about all the scraps of wood across the street at a construction site - let's hope they don't become airborne.

We have plenty of water and food and a full tank of gas. We are as prepared as we can be.

Lots of Florida residents came here to escape their homes - all hotels here are full and many gas stations have run out of gas.

For now we will hunker down and wait it out.

Marmalade: DONE!

Another finish! A friend quilted this on her longarm and I got it back earlier this week.

When I was finishing Allietare earlier this year I made WAY too much orange binding. Well, it came in handy here. And I still have enough orange binding for another quilt or two.

This is a smaller quilt, but I love it. The backing is Tula Pink. I'm knocking quilts off my list!

We are watching Hurricane Irma. As it finishes with Florida, it will be headed our way. Luckily we are on the 'good' side, but still we're expecting heavy winds - probably Monday night.

Stay safe!

A Binding Tip!

As I promised myself - I finished the charity quilt yesterday! I even put the binding on.

Here's one more shot of the quilting. Hubby said he like the flowers I quilting - I told them I didn't think of them as flowers. I thought of them as saggy boobs and the echo around them is the bra. Lots of saggy boobs in this quilting!

I tried a new binding tip I saw on Craftsy. I've been having issue with bulky, crooked mitered corners.  This is such a simple thing, but made a HUGE difference in my corners.

In the photo above is the top side of the quilt. Notice how the left side of the miter is folded over on top of the right side. Important!

Now when you flip to the back side, make sure the RIGHT side of the miter is the one folded on top. It makes the mitered corners nest together and creates less bulk. I hope you understand what I'm trying to explain. It's such a simple thing and I don't know why I never thought of it before!

Before I hand stitched the binding, I did the folding of all four corners and made sure they are pinned or held with Wonder Clips. Then I did the stitching. FOUR PERFECT CORNERS!

Yippee!

More Quilting...

Boring post...more quilting...and more quilting.... and more quilting.

I'm going to finish this today (for sure!) and get the binding stitched on. Almost done, thank goodness!

I don't know why I don't enjoy machine quilting - I guess it gets mundane and repetitive after a bit. I get bored easily. But it has to be done. And I'm getting much better at it. And so it goes. Maybe if I got more creative with my pattern I'd enjoy it more? My En Provence (Ain't No Sunshine) is up next - I need to research easy free motion patterns that are more fun for me!

Have a good one!

Machine Quilting Charity Quilt

I pulled out my BERNINA Stitch Regulator yesterday and set up my machine for some free motion quilting. My Stitch Regulator is the BOMB! I have improved my free motion quilting by leaps and bounds by using this tool. I don't have to worry about how fast or slow I move my quilt sandwich - the stitches are always the same. One less thing to think about!

In about an hour I had quilted approximately 1/4 of the charity quilt. Yay! At this rate I'll be stitching on the binding by the weekend.

All Craftsy classes were free yesterday. I watched parts of one class that focused on quilt binding. I learned a couple of tricks that should help me in the future. Sometimes my mitered corners are not as good as I'd like them to be...

This morning I want to do more of the machine quilting - ready to get the one DONE!

Hope you have a wonderful day!!!

Doggy Weekend

Daughter 2 and SIL2 and Sammy were here for the weekend. Cooper and Sammy played NONSTOP! Oh, they had fun! We all had a fun weekend.

I didn't sew much, but I did start another Bring Me Flowers block. I've finally learned something important about making these blocks. The instructions call for you to make the three little flower blocks, then the flower pot block, and then add the stems...picking out stitches in each flower for the stems to go under. But that leaves unsecured seams. And duplicate work.

So I'm now leaving a small part of the flowers unstitched where the stem will go. And then after the block is assembled and the stems stitches down I can go back and finish the flower stitching. Make sense?

This week I'd like to cut the strips for the alternating blocks and machine stitch the straight seams, ready to hand stitch the curved pieces. You'll see what I mean soon...

I'd also like to get the quilting done on the charity quilt, or at least get a good start on it. And maybe, just maybe....I'll start a new quilt!

Did you see my Hexie Love Facebook post? I'm thinking about doing another free hexie block-of-the-month project. I need to see if there is interest- would you like this? Let me know! And I need to start designing.

Enjoy your day!