Christa’s Soapbox – Faster Doesn’t Always Mean Better

March 4, 2013March 19, 201328 Comments

Since attending QuiltCon last month, I’ve been giving a lot of thought to quality versus quantity. As a shop owner, I feel a certain drive to sell as much fabric as possible, as quickly as possible, to support my family.

Busy Hands Quilting

This means attendingallthestradehows and makingallthequiltkits and meetingnewdesigners and findingasmanyfunnewpatterns as I can.

This can lead to quite a hectic life at a frenetic pace, with not as much time for personal fulfillment.

My hands are so busy with so many things, that, as a quilter, there’s a part of me that needs to slow…..things….. down!

I have been contemplating what I feel is turning into the fast-food-ization of quilting. We all love to sew and complete a project, but how much of the creative process is being lost in the rush to get things finished?

Yes, I know there’s a time and a place for the last minute baby shower quilt or Christmas present.

But the rest of the year, why don’t we focus on making quality quilts, whether or not they can be completed in a day?

The workmanship at QuiltCon, Road to California, and other top-notch shows inspires me to make good quality work and to hopefully share more of that with you.

Hugs ‘N Kisses

If you have followed along with any of my Quilt Alongs from the beginning, you will notice that I have started adding more tutorials over a longer period of time.

This is a project I have committed to doing on a long-term basis so that I can inspire you to make a quilt from start to finish. My joy is full when I see more of you completing your own quilts!

Although I will still be offering quilt kits for many of them as a convenience, starting this week you will begin to notice more customization and tips on how to truly make it your own.

Going forward, Jason and I have big plans to not only expand our store, but to get back to the roots of what attracted me to quilting in the first place: making a unique hand-crafted work of art!

Christa Quilts!

The Finished Quilt That Wasn’t

January 14, 2013March 19, 201317 Comments

I really thought this quilt was finished. But then I realized it wasn’t. So now it qualifies as my latest UFO. I enjoyed making this quilt and I like the quilting on it, but I don’t love it – it’s just not enough. After the last project I quilted the heck out of, I am starting to find my personal quilting style. It’s one that requires a lot of quilting. And I mean A LOT.

So I will add many more lines of quilting to this quilt. The original pass of straight line quilting only took about 2 hours to do and I was so happy to finish it so quickly. But now that it’s been sitting around for awhile it’s calling to me for more. So I will add more.

I decided to fill in the lines of quilting with more lines. I marked all of the original lines about 2 inches apart so I could quilt them neatly with my walking foot. Fortunately the “filler” lines do not need to be marked; I simply used the edge of my walking foot as a guide and can fit exactly 3 more rows of quilting in between each original line of stitching.

After about 2 more hours of quilting I’m about halfway done and I think it’s looking much better. FYI, I used Superior King Tut cotton thread in a variegated blue (in top and bobbin – my stitches seem to balance out better when using the same weight on both sides).

And now for the soapbox part of this post – it’s ok to make a quilt just because you want to. I have no idea what I will eventually do with this quilt. I may give it away. I may keep it as a teaching sample. I may turn it into a pattern. I originally made it as a tutorial and still have a few kits left with the same fabrics.

It was really nice to not have to rush off and send this quilt off somewhere as soon as (I thought) it was done. So that’s why I can “finish” it now – because there are no deadlines and it needs more quilting.

What I enjoy most about this quilt is that quilting it makes me happy. There are lots more quilts out there that I have to make, just because I want to – with no end purpose in mind. And that’s OK. Really it is. How liberating!

Here is the same Baby Bricks quilt design a pink version. And yes, I think it needs more quilting, too…. Any suggestions??

Sew and Tell and Giveaway Winners!

November 26, 2012December 1, 2012121 Comments

I quilted all weekend on my Charming Chevrons quilt and am really pleased with the progress so far. It was pure bliss to sew for hours on end while my hubby entertained the kiddos with movies and games. But more about that later. Here’s a sneak peek, and I’ll post more pictures on this week’s Do-It-Yourself Quilt Along.

Diana, AKA Quilting Grandma sent me a picture of her version of Charming Chevrons, made from Berenstain Bears Charm Packs. Aren’t the colors just wonderful?? I love how she added the extra borders, and her choice of solid green for the background is just awesome!

And I couldn’t resist sharing this picture of Martha from Illinois, modeling her Machingers Quilting Gloves on her new Tiara machine. I have to say I’m a little bit jealous of all that quilting space under the machine!

That got me to thinking, wouldn’t it be fun to win some of my favorite gadgets and quilting tools I talk about? Since I just reviewed Machingers Gloves last week, I’m going to give two lucky readers each a pair of gloves to try out.

It’s easy to enter, simply post a comment (any comment) and you’ll be entered to win. I’ll randomly select 2 winners and post their names here on the blog. I’ll also notify them via email. Contest ends this Friday, November 30th at 9PM Pacific Time (Midnight Eastern).

Good luck!

Updated November 30th, 9:30 PM

Thank you all for participating. This was a fun contest to run and all of the comments were much appreciated! We now have our winners!

The first winner, drawn at random is:

Judith:

November 26, 2012 at 10:53 pm

Right now, I’m using a pair of slightly textured gardening gloves. The disadvantage is that they’re fairly bulky and not particularly grippy. The advantage is that I can blame any quilting gaffes on the gloves ;-) Thanks for the great giveaway opportunity.

The second winner, also drawn at random is

Evelyn H:

November 28, 2012 at 1:16 am

I haven’t done your Chevron quilt, but I made the Jolly Jelly Roll. I love that pattern. I would love a pair of the quilting gloves, which are on my Christmas wish list! Thanks for doing this and for your fun tutorials.

Congratulations, ladies! I will be emailing you shortly with your winning prize!

Christa’s Quilt Along 1.5 – Machine Quilting

August 15, 2012August 15, 201323 Comments

This week’s post is the one I’ve been waiting for. I think machine quilting is the best part of making a quilt, so I couldn’t wait to get my Vintage Modern jelly roll quilt top finished and basted so I could start the fun! I quilted it using a serpentine stitch with my walking foot.

Before I started quilting, I tried out a few of my machine’s decorative stitches to see how they would look. All of these can be done using a walking foot with the feed dogs engaged.

I used a 40 weight high-sheen polyester thread with a size 90 needle and used the same thread for both the top and bobbin.

This gives better results than using different colored threads.

Step 1 – Decorative Ditch Quilting

Be sure your needle plate has a wide enough opening to accommodate your decorative stitch and test it out first so you avoid broken needles.

Quilt along the seam lines in one direction in between your blocks, about 4 inches apart. The first pass took me 30 minutes.

This will secure the quilt and you can remove the pins as you go.

Next, make second pass in between each line of quilting. Now your quilting is about 2 inches apart and the quilt is starting to get some texture! I quilted parallel lines across the quilt. I did not mark any of these lines – I just used the seams as a guide and eyeballed it across the fabric where there was no seam to guide me. This is both liberating and fun!

This second pass took another 30 minutes so I’m just at 1 hour total quilting time. Not bad! At this point, this is enough quilting to hold your quilt together. However, I want more…

Step 2 – Adding More Quilting

My motto is that you can never add too much quilting to a quilt!

So I added another line of quilting in between each of the rows above. This was my 3rd pass and now the quilting lines are about 1 inch apart.

This took only another 30 minutes and I can’t believe how fast this is going!

There is still enough room to add another row of quilting and do a fourth pass, so I decided, what the heck?

The fourth pass took 1 1/2 hours because I had now doubled the amount of quilting on the quilt, but I loved every minute of it!

I ended up with quilting lines about 1/2 inch apart over the surface of the quilt. Total quilting time was 3 hours and I used up a full 500 yard spool of Superior Highlights thread.

I love all the texture on the back!

So next week, we will finish our quilts, can you believe it? We will trim them up and bind to finish. I really can’t wait to see how everyone’s quilting turns out. Be sure to email me pictures of your progress, no matter where you are, so I can share with everyone else.

Here is the complete Jolly Jelly Roll Quilt-Along Schedule:

Week 1 – Supply List

Week 2 – Sewing the Blocks

Week 3 – Completing the Top

Week 4 – Backing and Basting

Week 5 – Machine Quilting

Week 6 – Machine Binding to Finish

Favorite Tools #6 – Needles

August 14, 2012March 19, 20133 Comments

Since we will be quilting our Jolly Jelly Roll quilts this week, I thought it was an appropriate time to talk about sewing machine needles. Needles are often the least expensive but one of the most important components of making a successful quilt!

If your needle is old, bent, or flawed, it will make quilting much more difficult. Often times when you think thread or tension is the problem, it may actually be your needle!

My favorite needles to use for both piecing and quilting are Superior’s Titanium Coated needles. They come in a variety of sizes and work wonderfully. There are a lot of different types of needles out there – really more than you need.

The titanium needles are perfect for sewing, piecing, machine applique, and machine quilting. They work well with metallic threads, too. So forget about having different needles for different purposes, ie: universal, ball point, sharp, or metallica needles. Just stick with the titanium topstitch needles for everything and all you have to think about is which size to use. They last much longer than most of the other brands, too.

So how do you know which sized needle to use? It depends on your thread. The titanium needles come in 4 sizes – 70/10; 80/12; 90/14; 100/16. They have a much larger eye which allows the thread to pass through with less tension and therefore fewer thread breaks.

Size 70 needles are for very fine threads such as 60 weight cotton or polyester, monofilament, #100 and silk threads. I use these with silk thread for machine applique that blends into my quilts.

Size 80 needles are for for fine threads such as 50 weight cotton or polyester. I use these for piecing quilts together and sometimes for allover stippling with cotton thread that blends into the top.

Size 90 needles are for medium threads such as 40 weight cotton or polyester. This is the also the needle I use for decorative threads and metallics. The thread does not shred!!

Size 100 needles are for heavier weight cotton or polyester threads. I’ve only used these needles once so far when I quilted with a 30 weight variegated thread. It worked like a charm with no thread breaks or skipped stitches!

I use the 80’s & 90’s most often in my everyday piecing and quilting. Since these needles last for a long time I can usually piece and quilt a medium throw sized quilt with just one needle.

I’m still not convinced that Superior Threads offers my favorite thread, however. You can read my opinion about the company here on my soapbox, but I do love their needles!

Favorite Tools #5 – Batting

August 7, 2012March 19, 20134 Comments

Later this week during my do it yourself quilt-along, we are going to be basting our Jolly Jelly Roll quilts so I thought it would be an appropriate time to talk a little bit about batting.

From my experience, the type of batting you choose can really make a difference in creating a well-done quilt. Since all of my quilts are machine quilted, I need to use battings that are easy to quilt through and are not so bulky that they won’t fit under my machine.

So far, my two favorite battings are Warm-N-Natural 100% cotton, and Pellon Legacy Wool. (Unfortunately I don’t carry these in my shop because they are too bulky to ship!)

I like Warm-N-Natural because it’s very flat and relatively inexpensive. I can actually buy it buy the bolt with a discount coupon from Joanne’s for about the same price that I can get it wholesale. It does shrink up a bit, but it gives that nice antique wrinkly look when washed. Here are some machine quilting closeups using Warm-N-Natural.

These were both densely quilted with an allover free-motion quilting design.

If I want my quilting to really pop, or if I am doing intricate quilting like feathers, wreaths or focus designs, I will use Legacy Wool batting. It’s a little more expensive but it’s very clean and white so it’s a perfect choice for quilts with lots of white backgrounds like in my Bungle Jungle quilt below. It also allows me to achieve a “faux” trapunto look if I densely quilt the background areas. The pictures below show quilts using Legacy Wool.

The little hands really pop! Wool has a nice loft but the background squishes down nicely when you quilt the heck out of it!

As far as polyester battings go, I’m not too fond of them as they are usually too lofty for me. I haven’t tried any of the newer blends out there like bamboo or silk yet. One batting that is next on my list to try is Quilter’s Dream Cotton.

If any of you out there have favorite battings that you like, please add your comments!

Christa’s Soapbox – Blogging About Blogging #1

August 4, 20122 Comments

I’m relatively new to the whole blogging concept. I’ve had my blog up and running for almost 2 years now but it’s really just been in the last 4-5 months or so that I’ve branched out and have started following other people’s blogs. Not only does this give me interesting content to read, it helps me to improve my own writing and blog format.

Today I wanted to share links to some of the quilting blogs I’m following. My favorites are those that post new topics nearly every day. It’s fun to start off my day with a quick browsing of my favorite blogs – it makes me feel like part of a larger community!

First I’ll start off with Angela Walters’ Quilting is my Therapy. I first discovered Angela through her book, Free Motion Quilting with Angela Walters. It was such an inspiration to read! She’s way into machine quilting like I am. Even though she quilts on a long arm, her style is very adaptable to domestic machine quilting which is my first love. 🙂

Next, I found Alyssa Lichner’s Pile O’Fabric blog almost by accident. I was browsing through a bunch of links, following one after another (a sort of virtual blog tour), and was blown away by the colorful content of her blog. No wonder – she’s a graphic designer and it shows. I liked her blog so much I decided to become one of her sponsors! She offers giveaways, a beginners Quilting Series tutorial, and has teamed up with Emily Cier of Carolina Patchworks to start a Totally Groovy Quilt Along. I just may have to join that one!

I also am drawn to Jacquie Gering’s Tallgrass Prairie Studio blog. She’s another author and designer (along with Katie Pedersen) whose book, Quilting Modern, I just fell in love with! I find myself being pulled into the Modern Quilt movement because of the clean lines design aesthetic, improvisational piecing, and lots of open “negative spaces” for quilting.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg. There are so many that I may take another Saturday post next week to tell you about more. Happy blog surfing and please add your comments if you’ve run across any fun blogs you think I should check out!

Bungle Jungle Charm Quilt Week 4 – Ditch Quilting

July 18, 2012March 19, 20131 Comment

I didn’t make a ton of progress on my Bungle Jungle modern quilt this week, mostly because I was packing up to go on our family vacation and getting all my ducks in a row ahead of time.

(They are quacking nicely now!)

But, I did get all of my stitch in the ditch quilting done so I’m ready for the best part, the free motion quilting next week!

I think my plan will be to quilt a different motif in each charm square, to practice a bunch of free-motion quilting designs.

I want to add tons more quilting. By pressing the seams open, stitching in the ditch in between the charm squares was a breeze. It created a grid over the surface of the quilt which you can see on the back side of the quilt. Click for closeups.