Friday, November 29, 2013

Quilter's Show & Tell At The Quilting Gallery

A special welcome to anyone visiting from the Quilting Gallery.  I added my Diamond Stars Quilt to this week's voter feature Star Quilts For Show And Tell.  Stop by and vote for me, if you'd like!  To celebrate, you can down-load the pattern for free on Craftsy.  Just follow the link at the bottom of this post.







Here's a close-up of the quilting.


To view this season's free patterns, visit this link:Here For The Holidays.   Thanks!


Monday, November 25, 2013

KISMIF Tuesday--#2--Easy Bow

I am continuing my weekly machine quilting tutorial update.  The phrase "Tuesday's Tutorial" seem way too boring so I decided to name it in honor of my three sons who are avid Boy Scouts.  I worked doing Cub Scouts for 5 years and now do Young Women's.  My husband now does Cub Scouts and my oldest is now officially a Boy Scout.  When planning the scouting adventures, they always remind the leaders to  KISMIF--which means "keep it simple and make it fun".





 I think the idea applies to machine quilting!  After all, if it's fun, you'll keep doing it and if it's simple and looks fabulous, you'll want to try it again!

 So..for today's KISMIF Machine Quilting thread-path, I would like to share how to machine quilt an Easy Bow.  It is another take-off from the clam-shells taught last week and combines a basic loop-the-loop.  It also sits well with the loop the loop background filler and a ribbon filler when I'll show at the end.

To practice these ideas, get a dry-erase board and a marker.  If you're using a long-arm machine, grab the marker in your fist vertically and repeatedly sketch out the motifs without lifting up the pen or doing starts and stops.  If you're using a domestic machine, have someone else grab that marker and you move the dry-erase board under the pen.  In no time, you'll have it down!

Loop the loops are so simple, they almost defy explanation!  To learn to loop the loop, trace starting at the left hand side of the diagram and go to the right.

This is a photo of a loop the loop filler combined with some leaves and the phrase "Monkey See, Monkey Do!"



I know...you're thiking..wait!  How on earth are those ever going to turn into a bow?

If you look closely, you can see that the center bow loop is the circle from the loop the loop design and the right and left hand side loops of the bow are the clam shell motif.

Here's your thread-path pantograph.  As always, I will show you the enter path using a yellow diamond and exit paths using a green 6-pointed star as well as the starting point on the panto as indicated by the light-blue star.  Note, the diagram is drawn in two sections for clarity so that you can see the right hand detail and left hand detail seprately. The enter and exit lines can also be doubled over as shown in the above diagram for thicker ribbons if desired.


You can even repeat the clam shells around to make a crazy bow for your Christmas presents!

A fun back-ground filler to pair with these bow motifs are a ribbon.  I think most people are aware of how to stipple.  Just meander around making puzzle-piece shapes that interlock into the next row without crossing threads. However, if you double-back over your stippling by simply meandering a second time over your previously stippled thread-path, you get a nice ribbon.






I hope you like this post!

Happy Thanksgiving!  This thanksgiving, I am especially grateful for my husband and four precious children!  They're the light of my life!  Love you kiddos!

And a special thanks to a great friend who had our cowboys over to ride their pony!  Giddy-up!




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