An updated Sewing Room post - and my 2 years new long arm.

I was looking back through my blog posts over the last two years and could not find a picture of  my wonderful HQ Amara.  Well, here she is.

We're coming up on our two year anniversary and the honeymoon has definitely not worn off.  I am still in love and learning more each time I use her.  I added some Command hooks to hang scissors & screw driver for the needle (the idea suggested on an HQ user video).  Also some tattoos just to dress her up a bit (from www.urbanelementz.com)

I had sewn on a pre-owned HQ 16 for several years but had been looking at the new machines at shows lately.  Wow, lots of differences between brands, both machines and tables.  I realized I really love the HQ frames/tables.  The bars can be removed easily, allowing me to use the table as a pressing area - very helpful when making t-shirt quilts (see photo on left). Plus room to put LOTS of storage underneath.  I wasn't willing to give those features up.

I also wasn't sure I wanted to learn how to use a different LA brand either.  Sewing machines (and LA's) are kind of like cars.  Some people are Honda people, others are Ford folks, and others BMW devotees.  You get used to a certain feel and are comfortable with that.  I have been happy with my HQ - it had served me well over the five years (or so) I had owned it.  I just wanted a newer model, hopefully faster and bigger, with some new bells and whistles (sounds a lot like a car, doesn't it).  It was time to trade up.

After all this research (rationalizing) I decided on the HQ Amara 18.  A bit larger than my 16, some really cool features (laser on the needle, low thread warning, infinitely adjustable handles) and a more powerful motor (meaning I could move faster).  The frame is designed similar to my old one, but more stable (still storage room underneath) and with two different sewing positions for the bars.  I was even able to sell my old machine to another quilter who was very excited to have her first long arm.  Wins all around.  Here  you can see how I've adjusted the handles, the right one down low (because I'm short) and the left one up out of the way as I don't use it much.  Those handles and the laser on the needle were big selling points.

As mentioned, I usually have the poles stored when not quilting.  On my old table I could fit them underneath but this table hangs down lower than the old one.  In order to have the machine at the needed height I pulled the storage baskets out enough to put the bars on them.  I can't reach the table as well from this side as work surface, but I typically stand on the other side when sewing anyway.   

I put a wing nut on the arm so that I can lift it up out of the way when the bars are stored to lessen the chance of someone running into it (me).

Here you can see the nifty way HQ designs their frames.  There is a pressure fitting where the bars snap in and out easily.  No disassembly needed - though sometimes an extra set of hands is helpful to get them lined up properly.  So slick.  Much more flexible than any other frames I've seen.  

This next photo shows the bars installed and in one of the two positions possible with this frame - this one is designed for ruler work.  I prefer it because it gets the backing bar out of the way so I can see better (I am short, remember).  This little hallway leads to a bathroom and walk in closet.  I typically put the bars away unless I'm quilting partly because I'm worried about them being damaged. 

For my design wall (on the right of the hallway) I moved the fleece covered boards to the wall next to the LA to make it easier to use and allow me access to all of the wall without having to move any furniture.  More steps to the sewing machine but it's never blocked and I can still see it from my machine.

I put the Horn cabinet under the lighted shelf and have gone back to using that as the cutting table.  I found I rarely walked around to the other side when I had the cutting table on the LA table.  And when I did, I had to lean over to cut - it just wasn't comfortable.  And now with putting the bars next to the LA table I have to lean even more.  Not ideal.  If I am trimming an especially large quilt I'll move the cutting board over there just so I can spread out.  And sometimes I'll roll the Horn table out from the wall and cut from both sides.  But not often.  My cutting surface (and pressing boards - see above) are pieces of 1/2" particle board.  Very easy to move and not too heavy.  When I am using the LA table for quilting, I put the smaller pressing table on top of the cutting table and just use the small cutting board on a folding table next to my machine.  The large pressing board stores behind a door.

Turning to the right from the cutting area is my sewing table.  When I'm working on bindings or joining long rows together, I will turn the table sideways, backed up to my extra folding table.  This provides support behind the machine and gives me more room to maneuver the quilt.









When when piecing I have it facing the wall so I can use the rolling table to hold blocks and supplies on my right. I'd like to have more of a U shape around the sewing table and some sort of extension table on the back but I've not quite figured out how to accomplish it and still keep the area flexible.  So for now I move tables around.  I did find a small stack of storage boxes that fit nicely under the main sewing table.  I can pull it out if needed but I had to remove the rollers to get it to fit.











My sewing room is a lot like a large RV.  I move things around depending on what I need at the time.  Working on binding, move the sewing table to support the back of the quilt.  Use the LA, lower the side arm and install the bars.  Guests coming, put away the extra folding table, move the rocker and pull out the sofa bed (and stash the cushions in the bathtub in the next room).

It would be nice to have enough room to spread out and not have to move things around so much.  But I know I'm incredibly fortunate to have an entire room (and adjacent walk in closet & bathroom) just for my sewing and long arm table all in one room and all inside my heated & air conditioned house.  Lots of folks quilt in stolen corners of kitchens or dining rooms (I've done that too), or hot/cold barns.  I love this room - I call it my happy place.  Thanks for visiting!

A series of Black & White Experiments

Sometimes I have trouble getting inspired (and then no quilts for months).  And then other times one idea leads to another. And another.  And another.  That's what happened last fall. 

I had just finished this rainbow stripes with black sashing for my husband's co-worker.  I've used this pattern before and liked the result.  I was able to use LOTS of novelties including a bunch of browns that had not been used much.

I got to thinking that the same pattern would work well with black and white novelties with bright tone on tone fabrics for the sashing.  And it turned out just as colorful as the first one, even more bright and cheerful.  And I got to use a bunch of those white fabrics that had been in my stash but were rarely used. Which got me to thinking.  What other patterns that I've made before might work well with black & white novelties. 

 How about this Wild Thing pattern that I had gotten from a Fons & Porter magazine  and made so long ago that the original quilt recipient is now in college.  The original I used black & white but only purple for the half square triangles (her favorite color).  This time I did rainbow tone on tones instead.  Wow, it really pops.  And I was able to raid my stash of bright triangles that I had been saving for some day.  I did starch all the HSTs very crisp to minimize the distortion and trim them to size just because I wanted everything to fit together right.  I used black for the large 6.5" squares so I could use a few larger prints.  I was discovering the fun of playing not only with the novelties, but with those bright cheerful solid/tone on tones.

Wild Thing

 

By now the ideas are rolling so I started putting kits together, I was having such fun planning & cutting.  What next? How about the old standby Disappearing 9-patch.  I made sure to use small scatter prints for the black in the center squares so you could still see the novelty.  It worked out well too (and very fast).  This pattern always makes me feel like I'm cheating somehow, it goes together so fast.  Getting the pictures turned the right way took some thought but still quick and easy.

 The last time I made this lattice pattern I alternated red & blue as the lattice colors and used lots of colors in the squares.  It was fun to make but I wasn't all that thrilled with how the colors worked together.  This time with the black & white, I didn't have to worry about novelty colors vs the sashing/lattice.  Piecing the pattern took some serious planning, getting the colors laid out right.  And lots of trips back and forth to the design wall, sewing each block one at time to make sure I got the right colors on the right edges & corners.  And yes I obsessed a bit about getting the colors distributed across the quilt evenly. I could not decide on a border, so ended up carrying the lattice out one more segment so each black square was completely surrounded.  It was on this quilt I realized I had actually used up some bright yellow fabric I had kept for YEARS.  Snd of course I needed one more strip for that last round/border.  After ransacking my sewing room all I was able to find was some bias left from a pieced binding.  So I starched it stiff as paper, basted the edge and used it any way.  How did I not notice I had used the last bit when I was cutting?  I still think I may find a 4" scrap somewhere at some point, probably put away folded up in a piece of red or orange. Or else it's with my silicon pressing mat that disappeared 10 years ago. Sewing gremlins?

The next idea was  to try this pattern called Hugs & Kisses.   I had found it in my Ami Sims Picture Play book, the book that started this whole novelty I spy silliness twenty (?!!?) years ago.  I had made it and swore I never would again.  But hey it's been about 14 years (that child is in high school now), maybe my skills have improved.  I decided to only do the colored squares every alternate intersection, so only half as difficult.  And I was wrong, it still wasn't that fun.  Lots of pins required as well as planning to make sure the checkerboard black & white pattern worked.  And yes I spent way too much time trying to scatter the colored squares evenly.  By the end I gave up; yes there are 3 greens in one diagonal row.

I'm not looking forward to quilting this one - it may hang in the closet for a while.  I think I'll have to do a simple all over meander, avoiding the 3-D squares.  This one is not as colorful as the others despite the colored diamonds.  I fiddled with the sashing for a while then decided since it was already so wild, I'd just run with it.  Hmm, I like the earlier experiments better, but it's still a fun quilt.

One more idea rolling around in my head.  What about Quilter's Cache Frugal Patch.  I've done that one several times using piano key sashing and it always turned out great.  But before I used colored novelties instead of black.  After making the blocks, I put them on the design wall.  But when I added the piano key sashing it was just kind of blah.  No twinkle or shine.  It needed more color somehow.  So I went looking through my binder of previous quilts looking for ideas.  I ran across a pieced sashing with 9 patch corner stones that I had used on a string quilt, using muslin with strings from the quilt.  That might work, but what color?  As I was looking through my baskets of fabrics, I noticed some rainbow striped fabric that I never found the right use.  Aha!  The perfect place and of course it needed black Kona to make it really stand out.  All of a sudden the sashing is the star.  It's very bright and very fun. And it's new owner loves it.

Phew.  My black and white novelty baskets are much empty-er than previous and it was fun trying some new things.  And my tone on tone jewel colors are much depleted as well (need to go shopping for some more orange & red & bright green TOTs).   But I miss the novelty colors.  I think I'll be diving back in the reds, greens & yellow baskets soon.  2018 - 2019 may have started out slow for novelty quilt production, but I made up for it towards the end.  So fun when the ideas start rolling

Discussion about the process

I was recently asked about my favorite part of the quilting process.  Given that I'm in the middle of planning a new quilt, planning was my first response.  The excitement about the plan, how to piece, what fabrics, colors, etc.  The question got me to thinking about the planning process and how I typically go about it, and how the plan grows and changes as the quilt is sewn.  It sounded like a blog post, so here we go.

The initial idea as I've mentioned before can come from almost anywhere.  This particular one came from Facebook, another quilter that I follow named QuiltMama.  She posted this picture of a customer quilt she had finished quilting.  I thought, hmm, that is a possibility for novelty fabrics.

 I recognized the pattern from Scrap Basket Surprise by Kim Bracket.

And gee, didn't this feel familiar.  I pulled out my scrapbook and yes, sure enough I had already done a novelty quilt using this pattern. But I had used Kim Bracket's piecing method, all pieced from 2.5" strips.

I hadn't really been all that pleased with  how it turned out.  I didn't like how chopped up the novelties were with this piecing method even though I had stuck to as many small scale scatter prints as I could.   And the colors seemed a little dull - probably because of those small scale novelties.  It was one of those quilts that just didn't excite me too much when completed.  So I got to thinking how I could modify it.  Definitely using a 4" square would give me a bigger selection of fabrics and help on the colors - look at that big square in the center.  And it's basically a friendship star.  Let's construct it like a normal friendship star with HST.

I then went to my EQ software and drew it up as a friendship star.  And how about using another color  in the little hourglass - Loving the secondary pattern in black & white.  And the background makes a friendship star too.   I have quite a few white novelties, let's try using them rather than a solid or TOT.  The resulting layout is alternating solid 4" squares and 4" square in a square blocks. The black & white hourglass is the center, surrounded by the points of the friendship stars.  I'm not a big fan of square in a square blocks - they tend to get wonky and uneven on me.  I'll just have to be careful when pressing and not stretch those diagonals.

Now I'm getting excited - the FUN part.  Let's play with some fabric.  I needed to make sure the white novelties really read as background and don't fight with the colors.  I want to avoid it getting muddy - I want this one to be sharp & bright.  And with the black & white hourglass, I didn't want to use any of the black novelties - the majority of my stash.  So there were my limitations.  Time to audition fabrics.  The whites were more of a struggle than anticipated.  Many of them had large pictures.  And many of them were decidedly yellow/beige.  I wanted crisp and white.  I also had to make sure I had all the letters of the alphabet- that's those little white tags you can see in the picture below.  Hmmm, the only Q's I have are on black fabric (quarters and question marks).  But I do have some playing cards that could read as white (queen).  It's a bit busy, but the alphabet requirement is more critical than the background requirement.  Let's see what it looks like on the design wall.

Here are the 4.5"squares on the design wall.   Sometimes I see things on the design wall that aren't as obvious looking at the table. The card fabric stands out more than I like, but I'll just put it next to some other saturated fabrics - the contrast will help.  Looking good so far.  Now to add some triangles, make sure I'm still happy with the fabrics.  Is the color mix balanced?  Still liking it.  Time to cut the rest of the triangles.

Sigh.  And here is the part  of quilting I like the least.  Refolding all the fabric.  The down side to fussy cutting and scrappy quilts.  Here is the pile about half way through refolding.

And now back to fun.  Time to sew. My favorite way to make HST is cutting over-sized triangles, then trim to EXACT size.  The down side is lots of trimming.  But it's worth having the HST all the right size.  It's just too easy for them to get too small or too large or distorted while sewing.  Trimming takes some time but I've decided it's better than the frustration when putting everything together.  I splurged on a handy set of rulers call Bloc-Loc - very nice for this process.  They have a diagonal groove to help with the placement of the seam when you cut.  Keeps that seam going right across the middle.  The right tools for the job as my grandpa would say.

 I discovered that I had to be very careful sewing the "square in a square" blocks.  If I didn't place the the corner fabrics exactly right, the stars didn't fit together.  Sewing on the wrong edge makes the star points turn the wrong way, and the rows alternated.  Hmmmm.  Lots of turning around to check the design wall.  Over and over.  Lots of walking over to the design wall to make sure it fits.  And yes a bit of ripping/resewing.  Here you can see the twirled center of those blocks.

And now I discover something about this pattern I don't like.  There isn't a good way to press the seams when sewing the rows together.  No matter what you either have to fold the corners of the hourglass blocks over - and they make a giant bump.  Or else twist the seams.   I ended up just pressing from the front and letting them twist as the wanted.  Not ideal but I didn't like forcing those thick points to fold over either.  Going to have to really steam this well before I quilt it.




I am really liking the secondary pattern of those little black & white triangles.  The rows all sewn and ready to go together.  But about this time I realized a problem.  It's too small!  Only about 36 x 42.  I've been making most of my I spy quilts at least toddler size - I figure babies really aren't going to enjoy them for long - the quilt need to be Nap size for a toddler so the child can enjoy the pictures.  45 x 54 at least.  But how to make it larger?  I can't just add another row/column due to the way the pattern works.  It would have to be 2 rows & 2 columns.  And some of those whites I put on the edge I only had 2.5" wide strips.  And my stash of whites is not as good as I thought - I am going to have to start repeating whites (oh no!  I can't repeat a fabric!)  Problems, problems.  The solution - make the half block around the outside into full blocks.  Seam ripper, let's spend some more time together...

 It was a bit of a struggle.  I had to use a few non-white backgrounds.  A couple of very pale blues and a very light cream.  Ah well.  Here are the additional white blocks all the way around.  But now another problem occurs to me.  How am I going to finish this - what will the border look like?  I didn't want to chop off the points on those last stars - I needed the width.  And it would look weird to just have the outside stars all missing the 4th point.  But what to put between those points?  I thought blue would work well - blue always plays well with novelties.  So I pulled some blue yardage from my blender stash but the only one I really liked I didn't have much of.  What else might work?

I didn't want to start cutting up yardage just to audition fabrics.  Then I remembered a jelly roll of rainbow fabrics in a box of 2.5" strips that I could use without cutting up any more fabric - at least to get idea of colors.  I pulled out the box and look at that, there were some bright strips left from other projects that would be perfect.  Viola!  Let's do Rainbow!    

Here is the border sewn.   And don't those colors make those center stars pop!  This is one of those moments where I just stand and smile at the design wall.  I'd pat myself on the back if I were flexible.  I had no original idea of a pieced border - but in the process of solving a problem (making the quilt larger) it turned out better than the original plan.   Much better than slab o' border.   I'm glad I didn't check the size when I drew it in EQ...serendipity.  I love quilting!

I still think it needs one last border just to finish it off - like a frame.  Should it be more color strips?  This looks kind of nice but somehow doesn't look "finished" to me.  Also it seems to pull some of the attention away from the color stars.

Or the black used in the hourglass blocks?  No, it looks too much like it's floating.

Or something new?

Well after polling my quilting forum friends (and some negotiations) I decided on the black & white check.  Here is a close up.  I really like how the spirit of the hand drawn checker board carries through the fun nature of the novelties.

However as I was pressing the border I discovered one more small problem.  Three of the hourglass blocks are turned 90 degrees, making the stars lopsided.   Sure glad I noticed BEFORE it was quilted.  It's not too late at this point and easy to fix.

A bit more ripping and resewing.  But now we are done!  I'm pleased with the colors and pattern, and love the interesting border with the colors and checkerboard.  A few of the "backgrounds" stand out more than I'd like but they don't detract from the pattern too much.  And 100% came from my stash.  Always some compromises but overall I've enjoyed this process.  I'll have to find someone extra special to "rehome" this quilt.  For now the top goes in the stack of "ready to be quilted".

Thanks to Judy Knox for her editing services!

A few of my favorite things

I've realized over the years that part of why I enjoy quilting so much is it feels like a jigsaw puzzle.  Sorting colors, finding the right pieces, solving a problem.  And when you are done, you don't have to take it apart and put it away in the closet.  I also love mazes. 

Looking at the stack of precuts I've been trying to use up, I noticed how many of them were white or beige.  Not fun colors for an I spy.  What could I do?  Then it hit me, a MAZE!  So I grabbed some graph paper and set to work, laying out a maze that minimized the black spaces while still being a legitimate maze (a few dead ends, etc).  I added a narrow multi-color sashing to emphasis the boundary of the puzzle.  I love how it turned out.  I may take this one to work with me.

And two more - busy busy busy

I think in the last couple of months I have made up for the last two years of limited novelty sewing.  These two tops are numbers 7 & 8 that I have made in the last 2 months.  Not quilted, but I do have a good stash of tops now.  Anyone need some baby shower gifts? 

Star Sashing

 I'm still using up those precuts.  And a stash of little left over triangles and odd scraps.  I saw the idea for this one on-line and thought I'd try it in an eye-spy.  I think I'd put this in the "eh" pile.  The stars in the sashing were sure a lot of work, and you can't really see them too well.  It's one of those times that a single color (TOT) would have worked better than the scrappy.  Ah well, lesson learned.  And those scrappy triangles are all gone now.  I found some new border fabric at Hobby Lobby in the "school teacher" section, I couldn't decide which one I liked better so used both.

X's & O's

 
One of the ladies at work recently showed me a picture of her now 8 year old daughter and the X's & O's quilt I made for her 4 years ago.  She took it to a slumber party and was very proud of it.  That got me to thinking it was a pretty fun pattern so here is another one.  I did have to pull just a few fabrics from my stash to fill out the colors, but most of this is still from those precuts.  There is still a good size stack left but most are now tans & whites which isn't too fun.  I will have to think of something else to do with them.  I spy quilts have to be colorful!

Oh and a confession.  I went to Hobby Lobby looking for border fabric, but of course there was a sale.... and yes I bought 8 other half yard cuts  -  4 great yellows, a couple of greens, some robots on black and look at these wonderful Llamas!  I can't resist llamas - my daughter loves them ever since the movie Emperor's New Groove.  So they came home with me.

I know I've said this before and done this before.  I resolve to use up some of my stash and I sew a bunch.  And then I'm feeling so good about what I've sewn that I then go shopping and restock more than I sewed.  But I've made 8 quilts in the last two months.  With only 4 additional yards of novelty I'm still ahead - or behind, which ever.  Ah well, I'm still having fun.

Time to use up precuts & scraps - or what I did over memorial day

Following my resolution to use more of my stash, I was looking at the box of 4.5" precuts.  Very few of my novelty quilts over the last few years have used these precuts.  I seem to be doing a lot more fussy cutting from my flat folds.  So I decided to see how many quilts I could make just from the box of 4.5" precuts, some of them from swaps year and years ago.

So I dumped out the box that had previously been organized by subject and sorted them instead by color.  Wow, there were A LOT of tans - I guess I haven't been using the tans as they aren't very colorful.  Gotta use some of those!.  I started putting squares on my design wall.  This first one is a Trip Around the World layout.  I haven't made this pattern in over 10 years, it was one of the first ones and one that got me started shopping for novelties by color, realizing how much of my purchases were blue or black.  I now have a very good stash of yellow, red, green, white, etc.  Anyway, in keeping with the desire to use up scraps, I used a piano key boarder made from the remnants of fussy cutting.  And 100% was from precuts, I didn't have to dive into my stash at all, even to get all the alphabet.

Trip Around the World

Gee, the stack was still huge, so let's do another.  This time I laid out the colors in a diagonal.  And the last border seemed a bit busy, so this time I used a stack of 2x2's I had left from another quilt.

Diagonal Scraps

I realized I had enough piano key borders to make a quilt entirely from them only.  I had made this pattern several years ago.  What a great way to use up all those little bits left from fussy cutting.  My friend who loves crumb quilts would love this one.

Some inspiration

The last two years I've gotten interested in projects that have taken all my time (new quilting machine, Empire Place, bags, t-shirt quilts, etc.  The result is I've been neglecting my novelty stash - 2 novelty quilts in 2 years and  of those only needed a border!  I am astounded and kind of ashamed.  One of the side benefits of this blog, I can see just how long it's been since I made the last quilt.  The scary part is it doesn't seem that long.  Time really does start going by faster as you get older.  So now I've resolved to sew up some of my stash.  I want to shared these fabrics, not hoard them in my baskets.  I'm pretty sure I have a SABLE - stash acquired beyond life expectancy.

So once again I went scanning through my old photos from quilt shows, old catalogs, pins on the internet for inspiration.  And here is the result.

This modified Friendship star was challenging.  The inspiration was from a FB post by Quilting Digest.  The piecing is easy, just HST and 4" blocks.  But figuring out how to lay it out was not easy.  I drew it out first on grid paper, to get the basic idea, then just starting putting the pieces on my wall.  I used my felt row/column tags and am proud to say I did not have to rip anything out.  This quilt was made entirely of the precut squares I had been keeping (except for the background).  I've realized I'm really not using the precut squares much any more.  Most of my quilts seem to have different sizes fussy cut from my stash so I'm going to use up those precuts.  These squares are actually 3.5" finished  - I cut the 4.5" diagonally to make the HST, then trimmed the HST down to 4".

Interlocking Friendship star - idea from Quilting Digest

 The inspiration for Radiant came from 2 places.  First the internet, which I then snipped and put in my OneNote idea notebook.  I later took a picture of one at the Dallas Quilt show and put it in my notebook.  I didn't realize I had double marked it until I was looking through my notebook for ideas.  There it was twice - how about that.  So I tried making one and it was pretty fun.  I did not want to use black for the small centers because so much of my novelty stash is dark fabric, so I decided to use yellow.  At first I was using novelty yellows, but that was too busy - the yellow got lost.  So I replaced the novelties with a small dotted yellow.  This block is made with 2 simple blocks which are then cut diagonally and sewn back to the other block - making matching pairs.  I love the optical illusion of the diamond.  I'd definitely be making this one again.

Radiant by Cozy Quilt Designs

This Kaleidoscope quilt is one of those that I give a qualified review.  It honestly would be a much prettier quilt without the novelties - they are distracting.  But it was an enjoyable quilt to make and pretty simple.  I may do another one using "regular" fabrics some time.  I'm also not completely thrilled with the piano key borders but I've discovered I'm running low on border fabrics.

Kaleidoscope by Leila Boutique

My next plan is to dump out all the precut squares and see what I can come up with - there are likely 4 or 5 quilts in that box.  Certainly I can do a few trip around the world quilts, maybe some color diagonals too.  I'll need to add a few just to keep all the ABC's plus some background fabric, but I bet I can whittle it down pretty easily. Stay tuned.