Machine-Quilting Done

I decided to go ahead and try machine-quilting my latest project on my domestic sewing machine, a Janome 6600.  I really had not done much quilting on it except for postcards and bookmarks.  Because everything bigger than that, I just put it on my Gammill.  But since it is on loan to someone who is storing it for me at their house...

I decided to spray baste the batting and backing...but must have packed my basting spray into the POD during my massive reorganization.  No problem...I'll use safety pins.

Same problem...packed the safety pins, too!

I found some fusible batting, and ironed it to the quilt top.  Then, I pinned the top two layers to the backing with regular quilting pins.  Not the best solution, but it got me going.  It's hard not to run over them when you're quilting.

Had to get out the Janome manual to figure out the settings for free-motion quilting.

It went pretty well.  I decided to use the swirls of steam from the coffee as my quilting motif.

 

I used black thread for the whole thing.  I went around the outline of the cups.  I just had to add a little humor.  Since the quilt will be named Picasso's Coffee Cups, I put his first name on the brown coffee cup!

 

 

I picked a beautiful hand-dyed fabric for the back.

 

 

I have a few places of visible starts and stops, which I am working on tonight.  Everything went pretty well, except I got some of the extra backing fabric caught up in the quilting stitches.

 

 

The needle did not want to go through the heavily painted text areas.  Note:  next time I will use inks or fabric paint, not acrylic, if I plan to quilt it.

 

In Pamela Allen's method of art quilt-making, the next step after quilting is embellishing.  She has been know to sew or attach all kinds of objects to her quilts.  I thought about sewing on a Spork to stir the coffee, but don't think that would really add anything!  I might get a little paint and go over the name quilted into the mug so it shows up better.

 

Just a little left to go on this project.  Binding, sleeve, and label.  Then done!

 

 

 

 

 

Ready to Quilt

It has been a busy few days.  Our son Bryson and his wife Melissa came up on Thursday, and we went to Durham to a concert by legendary country singer Don Williams.  It was fabulous!  Don sits on his stool, says, "I don't talk much," and then launches into a program of all his most adored hits from the past four decades or so.  No stories, just an evening of wonderful mellow music.

On Saturday we went to see the movie Lincoln, which we enjoyed tremendously.  It is the only one of the Academy Award nominees that we have seen.  I also want to see Life of Pi, which I have read, and Charlie wants to see Zero Dark Thirty.

It snowed and iced off and on this weekend, but we still had a showing on our house on Sunday.  Cleaning up and having the house ready to show is time-consuming...and then you have to clear out for awhile.  So far we have not had any offers, but the showings have picked up.

I have been doing some handwork off and on.  I have an art quilt top that is hand-stitched and ready to quilt.  It is from one of my five or six online workshops with Pamela Allen.  I think this one was from About Style.  It was meant to be in the style of  Cubism...think Picasso and his idea of breaking down objects into shapes and seeing multiple views of the object in space at the same time.  Pamela said the Cubists would often use fractured, positive and negative shapes, collage, and text.  Voila:  I give you Picasso's Coffee Cups.

I used stick-on scrapbook letters on cloth, then painted over them and removed them to make the text.  The letters will be the color of the back ground fabric.  The large brownish fabric behind the orange negative cup was hand-dyed, then stamped with black acrylic paint.  I have had a fat quarter set of the coffee bean fabric for many years, having won it as a door prize at Capital Quilters' Guild.  

Each shape is arranged and glue-basted, then stitched with either embroidery floss or Perle Cotton thread.  Next step is to machine quilt.  I can't decide whether to try this on my Janome, or wait until I visit my Gammill's foster mother next week and quilt it on the frame.  The whole thing is only about 16" x 18".

I have enough of these Pamela Allen UFO's to stitch that it could take me the rest of my life!  I will probably start hand-stitching another one tonight.