Quilting stuff
I was using Bizhosting for this, but they have now phased out all the free
services I originally chose them for. So I'll be gradually shifting
my little fat quarter business here. I still gladly take checks or credit
cards through Paypal
. Click here
to see whatever is left on the Bizhosting site!
Challenge quilt 2003 progress report
Barely started designing it! And it's on hold until I finish the
2002 quilt. Updates here won't be nearly as frequent as the 2002 challenge
since I have until July 2003 to finish it!
Challenge quilt 2002 progress report
Final comment: I won second prize in the "novice" category and
I'm thrilled! The red ribbon will probably be a permanent addition
to the piece when I hang it as a curtain. The theme is "Gardens of
My Mind." Deadline is July 15.
I titled this Hope of Spring. The four challenge fabrics are the
green "Through the Garden Gate" which I bought extra of to use as my primary
"view" fabric, as well as the blue fabric with flowers on it, the red fabric
which I used as a bridge, and the medium-dark blue fabric which I used as
water. In Simply Quilts episode 503, the guest showed Quilts with a View,
a technique for using those fabrics that are so gorgeous you just can't
bear to cut them up for traditional piecing. You basically take a piece
of fabric and cut a hole in it, either a traditional shape such as rectangle,
oval, or heart, or a rougher shape that follows items in the front fabric
(which is what I did -- I cut around birdhouses, gates, and flowers to try
to make it more like the viewer is really looking "through" the garden fabric
to the "view" behind it). The demonstrator used a pretty hand-dyed fabric
for the "view" and placed it behind the front fabric, then appliqued the
edges of the front fabric. I modified this a little, since this quilt is
for a challenge and I had four fabrics I had to use pieces of. I cut two
"view" holes in the front fabric, and put a red bridge over blue water in
front of flowers and blue sky in one hole, and just sky and water in the
other hole. Then I used that whole fabric-and-view combination as the "view"
for a second layer, with a wintry blue fabric as the new front fabric. The
impression I'm trying for is looking through winter's rage to the "Hope of
Spring." I received the extra fabric I needed and started stitching
6/29 . As of 7/2 , I had the top inside
close to done
, but I was unhappy with the way the blue flower fabric disappeared
into the green garden fabric. Frog-stitch time! I added some sky on top
of the blue flower fabric and it didn't disappear so badly. I
finished the inside 7/4
and cut the frame
. These photos will only give the roughest idea of what the finished
top will look like, as I'm cutting around the wind and snow print to give
an uneven frame. That blue fabric was part of a Christmas line at JoAnn's
a couple years ago, and I liked it so much I bought more whenever it was
on sale. I probably have 6-8 yards of it left and none of it is for sale
on my web page! This has really been a learning experience for me. I matched
thread to the fabric pretty regardless of what type of thread, and one
of the threads is rayon. The shiny silkiness of it complements the "winter"
theme nicely, but it's a pain to do applique stitch with. I think the
curls of winter wind
look great against the garden green. See my
tiny stitches
? And I've added closeups of the top
and bottom
"views" so you can see some detail. Isn't that garden fabric charming?
The red blob in the "bottom" view is supposed to be a bridge.
7/6 : My first big mistake! I've been cutting along the border
edge just before I sew, to follow some curve in the pattern. I cut too
deeply right where there isn't much green fabric border, and I cut past the
selvedge. It wasn't a catastrophe, since I could just stitch more green
fabric onto the exposed edge, but it took precious time just when I was trying
to rush to finish the frame tonight. (Gee, I wonder if there is a connection
...) I'm thinking of quilting brick lines with heavy white thread to make
it look more like a bridge, but would welcome other ideas. I pin-basted
the sandwich at Sunday School 7/7, when I had a big table
to use. I finished stitching the frame late that day -- here's a photo of
the completely pin-basted sandwich
. I cleared a path to the sewing machine and started quilting my challenge
quilt 7/9. Problems, argh! First, I'm just
not that good a machine quilter, and I'm trying to quilt along some of the
fabric designs, like the garden gate and the tree leaves. Second,
the green thread matches the fabric TOO well; where I'm trying to stipple
(which I'm ordinarily fairly good at), I'm going over some of my own lines
because I can't see where I already quilted! Third, and I'm sure this
complicates the other two problems, I haven't used machine quilting muscles
in a LLLOOONNNGGG time, and they are protesting already, and I haven't even
finished the center green "bar." I don't want to think what I'm going
to be like by the time I'm even half done. I'm not really looking for
solutions -- practice will improve my MQing and the muscles will just have
to survive. 7/11 : I'm a quarter done with the inside
"framed" section, but it's still going very slowly. I quilted waves
into the water and "wind waves" into the sky
that I think look kind of neat. I'm stitching around the larger leaves
and flowers, doing a sawgrass pattern wherever appropriate (there's a lot
of something that looks like sawgrass in the green fabric), : Half done with quilting the inside! 7/13: I
didn't finish the inside quilting, although I got all but about 36 sq inches
done. I found a decorative thread that has just a hint of sparkle and
tried it around the flowers on the dark blue fabric. I liked the result
so much I used it to quilt "bricks" onto the red bridge
. 7/14 : Finished quilting the inside and started on the border.
I'm quilting in swirls in that white thread with just a hint of sparkle,
and it looks great! There probably won't be any more photos until
the quilting is complete. 7/15: Deadline day, and guess
what I was doing all day? It's complete
other than a little bit of binding I still need to sew down, and that I
didn't get to do as much quilting on the wintry blue as I wanted to.
Artist's Statement: "Hope of Spring" Winters here in Wyoming are long
and cold. I used the wintry blue fabric to frame my garden, as winter's
inevitability reminds us to savor the glories of spring and summer while
they last. If nothing else, this is probably the quickest quilt, as I didn't
decide to participate until June 29th! After the quilt show, this will be
hung in my living room as a curtain, to let the flowers ease my heart when
winter has gone on too long. The technique is a variation of Broderie Perse
called "Quilt With a View." Hand stitched, machine quilted. All the quilting
was freehand, I didn't mark anything -- which is not necessarily a recommendation!
Quilting Files
Collected messages
about printing photos onto fabric
Many people Emailed me about the scrap block I mentioned on rec.crafts.textiles.quilting.
First of all, I didn't create it, I saw it on a Simply Quilts episode
(don't remember which one) and realized it would be perfect for using up
scraps! I've put it and some quilt designs using this patern into an EQ4
file, click here
to download it.
Electric Quilt 4 files
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Copyright © 2002 by Peter and Sylvia Steiger
Last revised: 10/25/2002