Basting & Quilting : Across the Sea QAL

I hope your quilts are coming along nicely at this stage. We're in the final stages now and I'm really looking forward to seeing your finished quilts appearing in the Flickr group. Today myself and Jennifer both are giving a little advice on basting and quilting. I don't have too many pics or a proper tutorial today - I baste in my playroom which is the only room I have enough floor space in to baste, so I can only do it in the evenings when the kids are in bed. Hence, no decent photos! Sorry :-)

First things first - you need to figure out how your quilts line up. The front and back are designed so that the crosses on the back mirror the cross blocks on the front and should line up pretty perfectly.  So before you do anything else, lay your back down on the floor, right side down, and then lay your quilt top on top of it, right side up. Figure out which of your blocks in the quilt front have blocks lined up on the back, and mark them with a pin.

 

Now you are ready to start basting your quilt. I learned to baste using Elizabeth Hartman's great basting tutorial over on Oh, Fransson! and I don't believe in reinventing the wheel, so if this is your first quilt, head over there, read up on it and get basting. This method works perfectly for lining up your crosses. (Links to other tutorials also available here)

Once you know which crosses you need to match, front and back, lay out your batting on the floor and smooth your quilt top over it. Place a pin in each corner of the blocks you are matching up.

 

When you are placing your pins, be as accurate as you can be, taking a tiny amount of fabric. 

Once you have each corner marked and your quilt top smoothed out on your batting, roll it up and then place your quilt back right side down on the floor. I use masking tape to hold it in place. This is the stage I hate - I don't have a huge amount of space, so I have to crawl around trying to get it all even and taut! Once you have that stage done, roll your quilt top and batting out over it. Starting with the top or bottom row (whichever you prefer) start matching the points you marked with your pins with the correct block corners in your quilt back.

 

They should match up easily. If not, unless you had been planning to do some outline handquilting of your crosses, don't worry about it! Sorry, is that quilting heresy? I'm not sure! I just know that for me, quilting is supposed to be fun so I try not to get bogged down in points being totally precise unless its absolutely necessary. There are lots of different reasons your back and front might not match completely accurately- I had some problems myself when basting, even though I checked the match when I made them and it was perfect. But I put down my problems to some over-enthusiastic steam ironing (bad me!) before basting which I think distorted some of my seams.

Once you have the blocks matched, proceed to baste the rest of your quilt sandwich. I use curved safety pins for this and pin every few inches - probably about every 3-4". I always start from the middle and work out. Curved safety pins are miles better than the regular sort and worth paying an extra little bit for.  Basting is pretty hard on the back and knees so don't hang around - get it done and finished asap! You can also spray baste your quilt - Jennifer has more info about this process over on her post today!

Now your quilt sandwich is basted, you're ready to quilt! How you quilt is obviously a personal choice. I am going to free motion quilt this baby quilt and can't wait to get started now! I think it would also lend itself to straightline quilting, or some simple lines outlining each block. If you haven't quilted before, check out the links to tutorials over on the Flickr group. You could also have a look at my post about my first attempt at free motion quilting if you want a giggle!

Ok, that's all for today folks. If you have questions just let me know!

WIP Wednesday

I decided to take part in the weekly work in progress report over on Freshly Pieced as I thought it would be a good way for me to keep track of everything. At the moment, everything seems very close to running away from me altogether, I'm so busy with all sorts of stuff. Not least how to do a birthday party next week for a little girl who does NOT want to be three and definitely doesn't want to blow out any candles....but who will turn around on the day and throw the mother and father of all tantrums if there is no party. Yay for irrational almost-threenagers. ;-)

So here goes:

Completed this week:


"Sophie's Dreams" quilt which I am super proud of and totally love :-)

Super fabric & general supplies top up!

It's been a pretty good week here, productivity wise! I'm really pleased with all that.

Work in Progress:

My "PictureBox" quilt is now basted and ready for quilting. Should have this finished by the weekend, hooray!

Stuff I'll be starting (and finishing) in next week or so:


My pincushion for my Flickr Scrappy Pincushion swap - lots of ideas, just need to nail one down. This is a fun one, am looking forward to it :-)


Stuff I wish I had more progress on but seem to be on hold:


My curtains - my beautiful duck egg and champagne curtains for my own room - are STILL sitting half done in my sewing basket. Must get done by month end.

Handbags for 2 of my friends - girls, I will get them done in the next few weeks I promise!


Grand Plans!


Kate Conklin's Charm Bracelet quilt for my own room using a Kate Spain "Fandango" charm pack.

A quilt - still thinking about what - with my Origins layer cake

A baby quilt design for which I have a clear picture in my head but need to figure out how to make it a reality!



So that's me - any wonder things are running away from me??!!!! That's not including the full time day job or the husband and 2 kids to look after..... but what do you do when you have a (crafting) addiction? Just go with the flow I say! I'd love to hear what you're working on this week if you have a few minutes to leave a comment .... just so I know I'm not the only insane person out there!

Quilting crazy - Sneak Peak of Sophie's quilt

It's no secret that I am relatively new to crafting, and really very new to quilting. I'm in the middle of making two quilts at the moment and I think I can officially declare that I am a total convert to this fabulous and wonderful new world.

I spent Sunday evening crawling around my playroom floor basting this quilt and went to bed stiff and sore after it. Undeterred, I sat down this evening in front of the machine and spent about 2 and a half hours quilting. Now my neck is sore, my eyes are tired and my shoulders ache from pulling the quilt around and around all evening. But I am so so SO happy!!! I just can't wait to get home from work tomorrow night and quilt some more :-) I got well over half of it quilted tonight so hopefully another evening will finish it. Everyone who told me quilting was addictive was so right :-)

I love the process and end result of quilting more than I ever could have imagined. And I've found coming up with my own quilt designs (however simple) & choosing my fabrics to make the design work completely inspirational - I have about a hundred ideas lined up in my head waiting to be made up in new quilts!

This is my "Sophie's Dreams" quilt, made for a little girl called Sophie. Its filled with flowers, animals, birds, dolls, bright colours, stripes, dots, beautiful patterns and lots of inspiration for a little lady. It's not a princess-y pink kind of quilt (though I'm partial to those too!) but is still beautiully girlie. Sizewise, its somewhere between a cot size and a twin bed size, so its the biggest thing I've made so far. It's made up of large 7.5" squares, randomly placed and after considering lots and lots of quilting methods, I finally decided to quilt it in slightly wonky straight lines. I like the imperfectness of the wonky lines - totally straight would not fit with the character of the quilt. They're quilting up very nicely indeed  and I'm glad I spent the time and effort basting it very carefully and closely because its paying off now in terms of ease of quilting.  I'm using an ivory cream natural cotton thread and love the effect. I'm also loving my quilting extension table which arrived a few weeks ago, it makes the whole process so much easier!

The back is a cream floral cotton print that I found in my local fabric store and works well on the back of this busy quilt. I have appliqued Sophie's name in the centre of the quilt back, using Bondaweb and then stitching around the edges for security. This will give the edges a slightly frayed effect as it is washed and used which is intentional and again, fits with the character of the quilt.

 

I'm looking forward to getting this quilt finished in the coming days. For the moment, I'll keep dreaming up ideas for the next quilt I'm going to do!

Progress Report! And opinions please!

I've been quiet on the blogging front this week - for 2 reasons. I have lost my good camera. Disaster! And I've been really busy working on 3 quilts. I finished the quilt top for the little girl's one tonight. (Sorry the pics aren't better, luckily I was too lazy to Freecycle my old camera before Chrismas so at least I could get some!)

I used 7.5 inch squares for most of it, with a small number of squares pieced from smaller squares. The dominant colours are shades of red and green (although some of the cooler green shades are coming up with a blue tone in this photo), but I used a range of bright, cheerful colours and prints to give it a vibrant, colourful look. The quilt top needs borders and I hope to baste it tomorrow/Wednesday and get it quilted by the weekend. I'm going to quilt it lengthwise in wide, wavy lines in keeping with the modern, contemporary look. I can't wait to see how it looks when its finished, there is such a difference between mid project and the finished object!

It took quite a long time to get the squares laid out in an arrangement that I was happy with, balancing colours, sizes of prints and dark/light shades. I really missed my camera here, I usually take pics of various layouts and then look at them on screen which I find very helpful. But I think I managed ok! I pieced the 8 rows yesterday and then this evening, pieced all the rows together. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. I'll use a solid colour to bind it as the top is so busy.

 I've used a very eclectic combination of fabrics for this quilt. There are lots of Ann Kelle prints - the bright butterflies, stripes, the owls, the argyle print. Also some of the Bliss collection by Bonnie and Camille. Some lovely Michael Miller Ta-Dot and Daisy prints, Amy Schimler cat and owl prints, Riley Blake's Love Birds, Summer Song & Rainy Days collections and even a lovely Kokka Russian Doll print. Plus a few others too!

More detail here:

 I love this arrangement of the owls and the hedgehogs:

So I am pleased to be making progress. I need to measure it again tomorrow night and decide on whether to add sashing or not, if I do it will be solid white. I'm thinking either a solid red or a solid green for the binding - I'd love to hear your opinions! So please leave a comment if you would have a preference. I know what red I would use - one similar to the red dots in the photo just above, but if I go with a green I could use either a lime green shade, or a grass green. I think the darker shade would probably be better but still thinking about it. I'm veering towards the darker green if I'm honest as there's a lot of red in the quilt top, and also to bring out the green tones more.

I'm cutting the pieces for the boys quilt this week too. I'm using a different design for that one which I'm not going to attempt to explain at this time of night!

Finally, in my little report, remember this Bliss charm pack which I picked up at the Knitting and Stitching show?

It's now looking like this:

As you can see, I'm still in the middle of quilting it and there are pins everywhere! I couldn't get a decent picture of the whole thing due to the light/camera issue (plus the fact that Himself was watching something very important and not as willing to come out and hold it up for photos as he was for the other quilt). I am using Kristie's McKinley quilt pattern with some adjustments to make it slightly bigger and really enjoying it. I picked up the sashing fabric at the Knitting and Stitching show too and wasn't sure how it would work but its actually really nice against the Bliss squares - a picture in daylight would show the effect much better than the above pic - its not as mottled as it looks here. It's quilted on the edges of the square and the sashing in straight lines, quite close together. I have the horizontal quilting lines almost done and need to do the vertical ones next. Then just bind it and its done! Yippee, it will be lovely on our sofa as a throw and will fit in perfectly in our room. I found the basting a little tricky because the backing fabric was pieced with some stripes but got there eventually.

Ok, so that's my report. I'd love to hear your thoughts on the binding for the first quilt and keep your fingers and toes crossed my camera turns up!