Longarm practice

I've been quilting another guild mystery quilt and am generally happy with the results so far.  

I'm just a beginner with the longarm and I'm not very smooth yet, but every stitch I make gives me experience.  I'm trying a few new things on this one, including creating the loopy figure eight filled quilted inner border.  Getting evenly spaced lines is a challenge, but I'm really trying to focus on the gaining experience part. I'm still surprised that getting consistent curves can be difficult...seeing around the hopper foot and the tendency for the machine (it's got to be the machine and not the operator, right???) to mysteriously go straight when my mind says to curve...and then don't talk to me about stitching a straight line when I want them.  My acrylic ruler has become my best friend.

I bought a Juki longarm in October last year.  I'd been looking longingly at different models at shows but they were all so large and so expensive it was easy to talk myself out to the impulse to buy.  However, I went to the Pomona craft and sew festival at the LA County fairgrounds one Saturday and passed by the Moore's Sewing booth where they had two of the Juki's on a single frame (one with the computer module on it and one without).  I stopped to look and play and George Moore started talking to me and telling me the price and offering several incentives to purchase one of the floor models.  I have a Juki 2010Q and love the quality of the machine and the stitch even more.  When I found out that I it came standard with 5ft and 10ft options and that I could add a 2ft extension to make it 7ft or 12ft, it became a real possibility.  I left the booth with a written quote and called my husband to discuss.

I made the purchase and after waiting a little bit of time for the 2ft extension to arrive, the unit was delivered and setup in the 7ft width in my rather small (probably 10ft wide) former guest room now sewing aka "did a bomb go off in here" room.  Since then, I've been learning to use the machine and I've been surprised at how different it really is to use the longarm vs. a domestic machine.

Quilt on the frame is a mystery quilt I did with my guild: that's the only excuse I have for those colors and patterns. It was a good top to practice on.  If I hadn't used it for practice, it probably would have been stuck into a dark corner of a closet.

My working space is extremely limited and I have to laugh every time I try to get to my closet to access my stash on one end of the frame and the open shelving with boxes of my thread and various other supplies at the other end.  I also have to remind myself that I did this to myself.  So far I'm having fun, but my skill level on this is way behind where I am with my domestic machines.  I'm confident that I'll get there someday.

I keep meaning to post here, but things come up or I don't have photos loaded to the machine I'm working on and then time just passes so quickly...

I finished my inked quilt, "Missy," back in May or June and I was so pleased with how it turned out that I decided to try to get it accepted at Road to California and I didn't want to jinx anything by publishing a photo of it.  Anyway, it was accepted at Road and was displayed in the show last month.

Missy (c)

Missy came to us as a stray.  She was a muted, "heathery" calico.  She was vey sweet when she got used to us, but we think that she had been abused because was always wary of men, even my husband  who became fond of cats through interaction with Missy.  She passed away a few years ago and this portrait is one of my ways to keep her in my memory.

Closeup of Missy (c)

I didn't really realize that the quilt was relatively small (although much larger than the actual cat) until it was hung next to a David Taylor quilt at Road.  I have to say that it was quite an honor to share a rod with one of his pieces.  His birds are giants compared to my kitty!

Inking Weekend

I spent the weekend at a retreat hosted by Patt Blair in Temecula.  Patt's a wonderful artist and a terrific host.  This was my second retreat and fourth class with her and she never disappoints. Most of the retreat attendees were like me and had taken her classes previously, but there one, Lynita, who was a first timer who was doing amazing work.

I was able to mostly finish a piece that I started last year of a Parisian street performer...I may do some additional inking on this and then I'll quilt it.  I'll be excited to get this one finished: I took the original picture when I took my first trip to Paris in 2009 and have wanted to make a quilt of it ever since.

Then I inked this gull based on a picture I took in Oregon a couple of years ago.  I made a little more progress on the background color after I took the picture.  I think it's looking pretty good. 

More CutUps Blocks

I didn't get a shot of the block I completed for Laurie in October, but I have the last two.  Nancy asked for "cowboy" blocks in any size and Joanne wanted Amish style. I had a lot of ideas for Nancy's block and finally settled on a cowboy hat.  I found a sample somewhere and then came up with a pattern on my own.  I left a lot of space around it so that Nancy could trim it to a size that will fit in with the other blocks she received.  Nancy received all of her blocks at our December meeting and she has a challenge to get them together as the styles of each maker was very different from my cartoony hat to a sophisticated silhouette of a cowboy on his horse.

Next was Joanne's Amish style block.  I found this Twin Star block in my EQ5 program (...one of these days I'll upgrade to the current version).  This was actually my second pattern and attempt.  I don't actually like traditional pieced blocks because they require precision: my first block was supposed to be 9-1/2" unfinished, but it was closer to 9".  I'm not sure if it came out that size because I miscalculated on the size of the pieces I cut or what, but my second attempt using the EQ5 measurements instead of my own calculations turned out much better.  I like the results and the pieces came together ok.  Joanne didn't make it to our December meeting so she'll get her block at our next meeting.

Leaves & Shadows

 
Later this week my friendship group meets and a project block is due.  This year we're making birthday blocks for each member who has given a theme, color preference and/or block size to work with.  We have nine members and I think this is the sixth one due for the year.

Cristy specified autumn (not to be confused with Halloween...that's what Laurie wants) and asked for a dusty purple and allowed each of us to choose the block size.  I procrastinated as usual and was struggling with what to do...pumpkins, a cornucopia,  a scarecrow, sunflowers...what?  I had rejected leaves because that seemed obvious, but late yesterday I suddenly remembered Colleen Wise's method of discharging with a bleach and water solution sprayed around a mask to make shadows.  I had to find appropriate leaves and the background fabric first and ran a couple of tests last night and settled on what I've used before: black.  The black I chose turns a lovely orange when hit with the bleach solution.

This morning I took photocopies of several leaves and using a light box drew the outlines onto fusible web backing, fused it to several batik fabrics and then cut them out.  I saved the backing paper.  Then downstairs to setup a bucket of clean water, one of a bleach-stop solution, a spray bottle of 50/50 bleach water solution and newspapers on a table outside. I took a roughly 15" square of the black fabric, laid the backing papers on it in a pattern I liked and held them down with small stones - making sure that the papers were the correct side up to match how the fused batik leaves would sit on the top.  I sprayed the bleach solution over the surface (should have worn a mask, but I didn't) and then because the spray pattern was very uniform, I unscrewed the spray mechanism, pulled it off and scattered heavier drops all over.  After letting the moisture absorb a couple of minutes, I pulled off the stones and the paper masks and left it a few more minutes.  When the fabric had discharged enough, I carefully rinsed the fabric in the clear water and then let it sit in the bleach stop solution for about five minutes.  After that another rinse, then I let it dry in the sun and then ironed it.  I positioned the fabric leaves so that the shadows consistently appear to fall below and to the right of the now floating leaves.  Normally I would have waited to sew the leaves down until it was time to quilt, but since this is a block that I'm giving away, I used a monofilament and a small zigzag to stitch it down. After a final press, I trimmed it to 12-1/2" square.
 
I don't think I hit the dusty purple although that blue is more purple in person, but I hope Cristy likes it...I think I'm going to be a little sad to see it go.