Whew!

I believe that I finally have all the quilting finished on my Starburst!! Yay!

I kept taking breaks for life, work, and inspiration. Inspiration came in the form of Angela Walter's Craftsy class "Machine Quilting Negative Space", since this design has such large, beautiful negative spaces that need filling. 

I decided on my favorite motif, Follow Your Dreams (www.quiltstencils.com) in the center of the star, corners, and small corners in between the burst points. Then I used a sweet Passion Flower motif in the triangles around the small Follow Your Dreams. I settled for wavy lines from the center star out through the burst points, to stretch and help the points "burst" outward. My favorite fill from Angela's class was the spirals, and it was pretty easy to pick up after lots of practice sketching on paper with pen. Also, I've done spirals before. 

Then I continued the spiral in continuous lines down the side borders and next to the inside off the top and bottom border. I used my favorite continuous flower in the centers of the top and bottom border. They just don't show up well, since this gorgeous purple orchid print is so busy and shaded.

Now my machine is switched to a piecing foot, the binding strips are cut, but joining the strips and trimming the quilt will have to wait until tomorrow. Goodnight all!

Maltese Dresden with a friend

Look what my friend Terra and I accomplished tonight! I taught her how to make my Maltese Dresden!



Trevor and Terra are on the local fire department and EMS here with my BIL and hubby, and Trevor and Tara got married last year.

Trevor and Terra came over to hang out last week, when they saw my Maltese Dresden and got super excited! They wanted one, and I said I'd show them how to make one--Trevor said his grandma taught him a bit about how quilting.They were so excited, they bought fabric this week.

My hubby went on shift today (Thursday). It was a hard day physically and emotionally for me, so I needed a friend's company. I called Terra and asked them to come over. Trevor got a callback, but Terra came over, and we started with the Dresden center medallion. We decided to set them on point this time, instead of square, like my original.

We talked and chatted, had Mountain Dew and chocolate, and made appliqué. She has done some sewing before, but nothing like her own grandma, who made quilts for Terra's wedding!

One for me, one for her! Set on point, with the corner triangles cut and ready to add.
We got the Dresden quarters cut, pieced, curves trimmed, and fused onto the backgrounds.

Here's my original Maltese Dresden, with a straight set.

I can't wait until next week when we can get together again! Quilting with friends really is so much fun!

Quiltmaker Blog Tour

Hi!
This week has started out so much fun, and promises to finish fun, because it's the week of the blog tour for Quiltmaker Magazine's "100 Blocks" Volume 7. I can't believe we're already on volume 7! That's 700 fun quilt blocks of all types and skill levels. There are so many blocks that I want to try out, and so little time.

http://www.quiltmaker.com/blogs/quiltypleasures/

I'm trying not to spend all my time on the blogs, and get a little done on my own quilts! Have fun seeing all the blocks, meeting designers, hearing their inspiration for their blocks, and getting inspired! Oh, and enter the giveaways for free copies of the magazine and other goodies. I hope I win something!

Finish Friday

My goal for April was to finish binding the fire truck quilts.
Second goal: finish machine quilting the Starburst. I've got a few days left to work on that goal!

Ok, here's a few informal pictures of my little guy's fire truck quilt. It is "To The Rescue" from Quiltmaker Magazine Sept 2009. Two years in the making for both of these little wall quilts! One for him, and one for big brother. This one achieves my goal! I'm still hand-stitching the binding on the other one, as well as hand-embroidering both labels.

Progress

You know you're making quilting progress when your box of basting pins is filling up with pins again--as you remove them from the quilt!

I think I'm liking those straight lines echoing through the burst points. Maybe I will try out the ideas I had last time with filling in between a few of the lines.

Now I'm auditioning more quilting motifs--tracing paper really helps to see the color shapes underneath, to get an idea of what the motifs look like. And pictures help with another perspective!

I'm taking votes--the passion flower, or the loopy hearts?

Sketching and quilting

Happy Sunday night, I think. A little guy is sick, but despite that and cleaning up after the other one's constant messes, I managed to get a few things done.

First, I decided to sketch some ideas for the Starburst quilting, after watching and sketching along with Angela Walters' Craftsy class "...Negative Space". I uploaded my quilt and sketches to the class questions and we'll see what my classmates and Angela think. What do you think?

Then between all the interruptions, and after bedtime routines, I was able to finish all the motifs I had planned and marked. It is called "Follow Your Dreams" by www.quiltingstencils.com . It's one of my favorites! It's continuous, curvy, covers a lot of space, is reminiscent of Arabic/Spanish art and architecture, and can be girly if you make the inside points meet and create flowers within flowers, like I did.

"Follow Your Dreams" is in the center star, the small corners around the center star, and all four corners. The big outer motifs are larger than 11" x 11" and when the arm of my machine is only 7" from needle to machine, it was hard controlling the smoothness and spacing of the lines and the bulk of the quilt itself.

Now I'm at a standstill because I haven't quite decided what to do with the rest. I don't really like all over quilting in one design to cover everything. I like emphasizing the block designs, and I like the quilting to make the design shine. This is a Starburst, so I want the quilting to be a pretty background, and help the burst points explode and expand outward. Hmmmm.
And yet there are such big, beautiful negative spaces in the quilt design, that are begging for something interesting to be quilted there. Swirls, meandering stars like the night sky, or simple wavy lines from the center out?

While I've been at this decision standstill, I was wishing today that I had more than one machine, or a mid-arm machine. Then I could leave my machine set up for quilting (tensions with threads, feet I'm using, etc), and do some regular block piecing on another machine while I'm thinking about design. It's not easy waiting for something you want and need when there's no plan available and no foreseeable timeframe to be able to get it. But I do try to teach myself and use what I've got to the best of my ability. And I guess I do pretty alright.

Practice takes time

Ever noticed that preparation and warmup and practice take longer than the actual task you're going to do? And that it takes you a lot longer than you planned for? And just when you get into a great rhythm on the actual task, you look at the clock and realize it's way too late and you're tired?! Yeah. Happened tonight. Happens all the time.

They tell you to warmup. I couldn't find any sandwiches to practice my motifs on...they were full! I had to make more quilt sandwiches; but I used up some scraps of batting trimmed off other quilts!
Waste not!
Then I spent considerable time looking through my book of "501 Motifs" from Quiltmaker Magazine. (love that book!) and DesignBuilder book, looking for more inspiration.

Finally, I got comfortable with my motif, and moved onto the actual quilt. The center star is a complicated print, so it was hard to see my markings. Add that to the bulk under the little arm of my (beloved) Bernina, and it ended up a bit more wobbly than I wanted.

Then the motif in the smaller square was much more precise, thanks to the smaller area and less big movement. Now I'm excited to do more, But it's late. And I was up way too late last night. (I worked noon to 12:30 am, and got home at 1:00 am, chilling on Facebook to relax before bed when my brother, stationed in Korea in the Air Force, grabbed me for a conversation. Yikes--almost 3 am before I got to bed! So I was groggy most of the day.