December 8, 2013

OK, so I didn't get to practice with rulers today. I worked on the house and laundry some then spent a little time at the sewing machine making a couple 'oven door' dresses.

I use these towels all the time. I just love having them hanging on the oven door. They are so convenient to have close to dry your hands on while working around the kitchen.

I did take pictures of the quilt that I am practicing on. I have been free motion quilting for a long time. I don't remember when I started but I just went edge to edge, loop d loop, stipple or meander. I never even thought about custom quilting each block and certainly never ever thought about trying longarm quilting rulers. I thought custom quilting with rulers were only for longarmers.

I took a few pictures today of a Christmas quilt I made in the early  90's. I fussy cut squares, then finished out the block with 2 rounds of log cabins. I used red with gold pin dots and green with gold pin dots to make the logs. When I completed the quilt I tacked it rather than quilting. That was before I started machine quilting. The colors from the camera does not do the quilt justice. It is really a pretty quilt. I have washed it every year since I made it so the fabric has shrunk and the batting has thick and thin places in it but I am still going to use this to practice feathers, paisleys, spirals and any thing else I can think of.

That ugly print at the top edge there is a strip of fabric I added all the way around it so I could have something to hold on to while I 'practice' making feathers in the outer borders. I have have to froggy stitch them when I finish quilting it.

Here is a close up of one of the feathers. It looks really pretty on the green, but brother when it goes into the red you can see all my mistakes since I am using green thread.

You can see how full the quilt is in the inner border. I haven't figured out what I am going to do in that border yet. I am thinking that is where I am going to use my new Fine Line rulers.

Here is a close up of one of the spirals I put in each block. The blocks really do look nice. I wish you could see it in person. 

As you can see the blocks lay really flat now, hopefully they will stay that way as I get further into quilting.

Here is a block that i stitched paisley designs around. I tried to mimic Leah Day, not sure how well that worked! It looks good tho, I will just keep plugging along.

Now on this next block I practiced feathers again, only much smaller in size. The logs around the block are only about 3 inches each color. I think the green looks really good, again the red yo can see my every little wiggle. 

That is enough for tonight. I have just about shown you all I have done. I probably won't get a chance to work on this until next week. I will keep you posted on the progress.

Until next time.