Just A Few of My Favorite Things

Here is a list of a few new quilting favorites!

1. Deep Wave ruler from Off the Edge Quilting my hubby gave me for my birthday!  Look how nice and even these waves are in the border!

2.  1 1/2 inch by 2 inch wave ruler by the Westalee system with Quilter's Rule.  This is the perfect ruler for smaller waves.

3.  I always seem to use my circle templates!

4.  Using my laser pointer to trace little cute elements and place them with perfect positioning on the quilt top.  Here I traced over lines from a free coloring book page from the Internet (and modify it for correct thread paths) using the laser pointer and quilted it to the top.  Genius!  I admit it wasn't my idea...it was from my quilt club at Floyd & Lizzie's quilt shop c/o B. Bell.

5.  When they don't make the shape of template you want and you really really want that cute figure in a specific spot and don't trust your tracing abilities...spend an extra 10 to 20 cents on...yeah...a child's wood cut out from your local craft store!  No, serious--another genius idea shared at my quilt club and Floyd and Lizzie's also c/o B. Bell.  Now, you have to be careful when using wooden templates.  Quilting machine manufacturers recommend a thickness of at least 1/4 inch of templates for safety reasons--I've found templates can slip a little.  So...I have woodworking connections and get these cut out of a thicker wood.  The only draw-back is that they are not see-through (like the "professional" snowflake in the photo next to the wood templates).

6. My favorite customer's quilt in April: the stork by J. McArthur.  She chose long-arm feathers driven off the curved seam lines to wrap around the storks.  It has Minkee backing which helped the quilt puff up and 80/20 quilter's batting by Fairfield.  I want to share this photo (with her permission) because it turned out beautifully.  The variegated thread makes the whole quilt sparkle.

7. Minkee fabric for the backing.  At first, I really dreaded using Minkee, it seemed like no matter what I would encounter thread breaks and tension headaches.  Well, after playing around and adjusting my settings (and writing them down) I no longer have troubles with it.  Look how beautifully the stitch detail shows up on this backing--and it is so soft an warm!

My Daughter's Birthday Quilt

Several years ago, a friend of mine gave me her leftover 1 1/2 inch strips that she used to create a 1930's log cabin quilt.  After playing around with them, I created this quilt for my daughter's birthday.  It is an original pattern and I hope you like the pictures!  Perhaps when I get some time, I'll post the pattern here for you!  Let me know if this interests any of my readers.

 For many years, I have admired quilts where simple quilted background designs appear in the muslin or not-pieced areas (I call these the negative space areas).  Although the piecing is the focal point of the quilt, extra effort in the non-focal point areas always added value to the quilt.

At the time, I was new to machine quilting and did not possess the skill to trace a negative space design in the muslin areas, but I knew I could do small scale back-ground fillers around it.  To quilt this project, I first marked the area for the flower negative space design.  I then loaded it on the frame and did loop-the-loops with hearts in the pink borders and patchwork areas and did a small scale stipple in the muslin.  Because I had learned to quilt first using a domestic sewing machine, I took the quilt off the frame.  Then, after changing my domestic sewing machine to it's walking foot, slowly went around the drawn on negative space design.  I was pleased how well it turned out.  The design was able to be followed with perfect accuracy.