Tag: Quilting

Quilt 2024 – virtual quilt camp this week

July 18, 2024

If you have some free time this week, head over to the Quilt2024 site and register for a free, 5 day virtual summer camp for quilters that starts Wednesday, July 17th. There are six sessions that go live every day at 11 AM EST and remain available for 24 hours. Should you need more time to watch the replays or want to view everything on the first day, you can sign up for a paid registration. Free is fine for me!

I watched a little bit from each of today’s sessions, then went back and watched the replays that interested me. Yes, there’s a bit of a sales pitch involved, but the two sessions that I went back and watched were well worth my time. I made sure to download any free patterns and tutorials that were available. I was very pleased to discover that my local library system actually has multiple copies of Carolina Moore’s bag making book. I quickly placed a hold on that one!

Five additional sessions are on my watch list for Thursday and Friday. Hopefully, they’ll be as informative as the two sessions today were. Some of the instructors participating in this event also teach similar, more in-depth classes at regional and national quilting events. Watching them in action here helps me decide if I want to take a F2F class with them in the future.

As much as I like in-person classes, I find myself attending “YouTube University” more often these days. It’s convenient. Replays allow me to pause and review the instruction as needed. It’s also more cost effective. Unless the class is local, I have to factor in travel costs. I usually opt to stay home and make certain projects along with the corresponding YouTube video(s). I’ll sew along with a friend or join a group sponsored by a local quilt shop. Lately, all of the classes I’ve wanted to take are in Utah and Idaho. Can’t justify the cost of the retreat nor the travel costs in this instance.

Improving my FMQ skills

July 15, 2024
Quilt sample showing spiral meander pattern
Improving my spiral meander FMQ with each section I quilt

This is my second quilt using the spiral meander FMQ design. (My first attempt actually turned out fine – especially after the quilt was laundered.) The stitches here are more consistent, as are the size and spacing of the spirals. I also switched back to using Glide thread – which my machine really seems to prefer.

While sewing down the binding, I experienced a mishap with my machine, which I thought was going to require a visit to see Mr. Marc. I managed to get the machine to sew again, but a series of broken needles had already wreaked havoc on the bobbin case (my own fault for not remembering to change the needle plate). See the white “knots” in the picture? A new bobbin case and switching to purple tip needles took care of those.

Sadie and I had a therapy dog visit on Saturday at Gigi’s Playhouse in Roswell. Afterwards, Sadie & I paid a visit to the new Sew Sew Studio Duluth location. These folks are also a Janome dealer and I spent my birthday money on the specialty ruler work foot (offers greater visibility), a replacement FMQ bobbin case plus some accessories for my Elnita EC that my local dealer said weren’t available.

I have been happily stitching away this hot, steamy Sunday afternoon. I can’t wait to share the finished trio of quilts in a few days!

A picture of a sewing machine set up for machine quilting.
My set-up for free motion quilting

Time to get busy quilting

July 7, 2024
Quilting a quilt using a sewing machine.
Machine quilting my jelly roll race quilt in using an elongated wavy stitch pattern.

It’s hot outside. I can’t think of a better way to keep cool than to spend afternoons in my basement sewing space diligently chipping away at the pile of tops needing to be quilted. The pictured quilt is a version of the Jelly Roll Race 2 quilt using one of three Liberty of London jelly rolls I purchased from Mostly Mutts Marketplace back in April. I have two more tops to quilt made from the remaining jelly rolls. Each quilt top is a different design, but all three will share the same backing and binding fabrics. This one was quilted using my walking foot and the long, curvy stitch 99 on my Janome 8900. The other two will provide me with some much needed FMQ practice. All will be donated to my guild’s community service partners.

At the last community service sew day, one of my bee group members presented me with a floral charm pack and challenged me to see what I could do with it without spending any money. My personal challenge has been to make donation quilts using existing stash, fabrics procured from the free table or given by friends as much as possible. Here’s a disappearing 4 patch based off something I saw on Pinterest. It uses the floral charm pack, along with some batiks and white background from my stash. It’s now also ready for quilting. I didn’t spent any money on the top, but I did buy backing fabric on sale at Hobby Lobby.

Quilt top in a disappearing four patch design
Disappearing four patch quilt design inspired by a photo found on Pinterest!

Personally, I’m on a mission to complete the half-done quilt tops and get the stack of completed tops quilted ASAP. Larger quilt tops will be sent to a long armer and I’ll do the rest myself (practicing various FMQ motifs learned in class). At the moment, I have no plans to replace my Janome 8900, as my system of piecing on a FW or small Elna and reserving the 8900 for borders and machine quilting seems to be working well.