Machine Quilting

Last day of the stay-cation.  Decided that since there was nothing interesting on TV, it was time to slave away on some machine quilting.

Have been outlining the pickle dish piecing in black and adding some feathery things on the joining squares.  Here's a look from the back.  Clearly I cannot FMQ in a straight line.  I thought I was all done until I flipped this over for the photo.  Missed a section of "eyelashes".  Dang.

While it is hard to see red on red, I am pretty proud of this feathery bit.  They actually look pretty darn good, smooth, and the way feathers are supposed to look.  (Weird. )  I finished off the centers with some pebbling so those joining bits wouldn't stick out and wear down sooner.  

I was about to launch the next round of feathery fill, but decided that my wrists were feeling pretty sore and it might be better to pace this for another day.

My goal is to get this done in the next couple weeks.  More updates on the horizon.

Go Fish

I am in my happy place.  Applique.  Batik.  My favorite colors.  Fun design.

To be honest, math has never been my strong point.  Somehow in enlarging the pattern, the fish ended up a couple inches bigger than they should have been.

Teal Cat is getting salmon instead of sardines.

For anyone who has not yet grasped the scale of this project,  here's the real cat sitting on the project cat's head pattern.

Because of the scale and simple shapes, I'm doing a different technique from usual.  I made a poster-board template of the fish shapes and marked the FRONT side of the fish in pencil.  I cut an approximate 1/4" seam allowance.  But now the pencil line is my fold line and my trimming didn't need to be exact.

I used 3 medium length pins to hold each body shape in place, then added applique pins just to the fish I'm sewing at the time.

This is saving a ton of time.

No basting!!!! The extra pins assure the piece doesn't shift while sewing.

I cranked out 50" worth of stitching in about 30 minutes.


Now back to the football game and more fish.

Cat pattern

The paper pattern is made.  Cat is 53" x 92" before ears.
That's a lot of cat.

Addendum:  I think I'll spread the fish out more than the original art-work. (The original had 4 fish this size along this panel.) That'll show off the batik background more and save some time as well as pink fabric.

Big Ass Cat #2

APPARENTLY, one Big Ass cat is not enough for me.

I bought a "Mid-Century Modern Animals" coloring book by Jenn Ski on my Portland trip, and I have been obsessed with making this image into a quilt.

I've planned a couple llama quilts for Baby Girl since she claimed that she wanted to be Llama Hearder when she grew up, but I was never able to sort out the details for a llama quilt that I loved.

Now she wants to be The Crazy Cat Lady.

So much easier.

Today we went to Stitch N Snip in Crouch since they have the best batik selection in the region.

A split background of dark and light purple.  The salmony pink will be all the background fish. These pinks are from my stash.

I need about 50 fish.  God Bless the stash.

I'm not kidding when I say "Big Ass Cat".  Those blue body sections are over 50" wide. Finished quilt will be about 108x80.

 These are the cat body teals.

Lime green eyes and collar.


The geometric details either dark blue or pale blue.



And for my "non-quilty" friends.... This is over $300 worth of gorgeous fabric in these pics.  And I haven't added the batting or backing.

Ukranian Quilters

My blog statistics suggest that I had more Ukrainians view my blog this week than people from the US.   I have 3 theories.  ( If you are a quilter and live in the Ukraine, please leave any comment so I know you really exist.)
1) Я Української Квілтер.
2) Misha Sakaashvili has a secret crush on me so he and his people keep checking out my blog.
3) Ukranian Spammers visit my site but can't figure out an angle to get me to pay them.

Distractions

I've been working on another version of the motorcycle club logo.

I am finding those fussy little ovals pretty annoying.  They are 3/8" x 3/4".  And I keep considering altering the logo to leave out some details that no one realizes are there anyway.

My mind started to wander and I started thinking about making a pillow for someone in Arizona.  So I spent some time perusing images of Tohono O'odham baskets and fell in love with this one.

I borrowed the 5 section repeat idea and made a paper piecing pattern that I thought would translate well to fabric.

I learned that curved lines do not work very well with this technique.

After a glass or 2 of wine, I may try to tackle the other 4 outer rings

Scrappy Big Thread Finish

At long last I have this quilt finished.   At 6 stitches per inch, I wouldn't really call it "big stitch" but I did use big thread.  I am totally over the need to ever do that again.

With the cotton batting and many of the fabrics not being pre-washed, I got the lovely crinkly look I was going for.  I washed it with 2 Color Catchers and they were both dark pink with dye.

Maybe sometime before spring we will have a nice and sunny day, but for now this is as good of a view as I can do for this quilt that finished around 72" square.

Now I can get back to more enjoyable handwork.

Progress

I continue to make slow but steady progress on the big stitch quilt. A few more rows to  finish the body of the quilt, then about 4 rows around the outside

I find that the big needle and thread take so much more pressure to push stitches through the fabric that my hands get very tired very fast.    The rows are 1/2 to 1" apart.

This morning I managed to get the pickle dish quilt sandwiched and started with some machine stitching around the rings with the walking foot.  Then I'll go back with the free motion foot and quilt the "eyelashes" pieces of the arcs and decide on some FMQ fill for the red sections.

It's nice to be back in "Quilting Season"!