Quilt Rescue

Have you ever had a quilt which when finished was not quite what you wanted or up to your standards?  And your standards do change over time and with experience. 

Well I had such a quilt.  I was a relatively new quilter and I led a group to make a strip quilt.  I did not really like the particular strips but it was all that was available at the time.  But I loved the back fabric; an expensive batik.  At that time it was over $15.00 a meter which was expensive then but not now.  And I was new at long arm, actually a mid arm at that time, and the design was not good especially by my current standards.  It left too many sections without some quilting.  I subscribe to Angela Walters philosophy of quilting it to death, at least on my own quilts.

The quilt has been used to make cats happy and is in a post ' Dull and grey but' on this blog from a while ago. It nagged at me to do something to rescue the batik in particular.  And I LOVE red.  Well rescue came in the form of a show on The Quilt Show with Katie Fowler a couple of years ago when an existing quilt was cut up on the show.  Finally, and I am sure the quilt is grateful, it got its rescue a week ago. 

I cut the quilt into 3" squares and put them back together by butting them up against each other and stitching with invisible thread.  I learned a lot as I went but it was in the end pretty simple.  And I think it turned out well.  Even the ugly strips which form the back look better.  The back is really crazy as the original quilt front was 4 patches using the strips.  And as a bonus I found a roll of binding, cut pressed and not used that just went right.

Pictures tell the story better so here is the front and now the crazy back.

I can say I now really like the quilt.  I learned a lot putting it together about butting up quilted vs. non quilted sections.  But a project is best when there is learning.  It took only a relatively short time to make the change in the quilt.  Would I do it again?  Yes if I disliked the quilt enough.  Katie Fowler believes in 'What if?' and it is fun to say that and then try it.  Nothing to lose.

The quilt is bright; I get my lovely red and it is not in the landfill.

Interesting Times

When I started this blog, it was to laugh at myself while I learned to do long arm quilting.  Well, I do still laugh at myself but not as much.  I have learned so much.  Thanks to the internet, pictures on Pinterest and videos on You Tube I have had a huge classroom.  And most of all I have had people have confidence that I will do a good job on their very precious quilt.

This does not mean that I have stopped learning.  Learning is a life time objective  but I have come a long way.  I do my quilting hand guided with a stitch regulator.   I have a robot but prefer the more organic way things turn out. Excuse the organic.  It is a bit overused but it fits the bill.  I do use the robot for complex designs or designs I have created myself but I do not use it for overall quilting.  Also, I do not use it for appliqued quilts.  The computerized designs are beautiful but when you see quilt after quilt with exactly the same pattern perfect to a tee it gets a bit boring.  A squiggle here and there and a motif not absolutely positively in scale to the last one adds a human touch.  And I fully subscribe to Angela Walters philosophy.  If you are just starting out to do long arm quilting or quilting on a domestic machine, look up her YouTube Videos, subscribe to her blog posts.

I had the honour to quilt this quilt.  The owner has worked on the applique for 3 years.  Talk about the shakes starting on this one.  But it came alive as I worked.  The borders around each block were like picture frames.  All was helped by a second batting of wool.  It truly makes applique pop.  Here is the quilt.  Each applique block was quilted differently after the applique was outlined.

The owner kindly allowed me to post the picture.  I also took a picture while working on the quilt which shows the lovely detail of the applique. The fabric of the background was ideal for quilting around the blue to make the clouds puff out and look like a snowy day with patches of blue.

Isn't the applique gorgeous?.  Every block was beautiful.  

Quilting for others can be scary.  But it can be so rewarding when you a see the smile of pleasure you have wrought.

Other sources of designs, techniques is to go to Trunk Shows and Quilt Shows.  In the past 10 days I attended a Trunk Show by Karen Neary who is a Nova Scotia treasure who is well known across the North American continent and in Europe.  In a small village hall, she showed off beautiful quilts, talked about their creation and provided itineraries of where they had traveled to after being finished and before returning home.  It was a wonderful show. 

The week before I had seen a Trunk Show by Celeste Thibodeay Stacey a well known Art Quilter.  She too is from Nova Scotia.  There were gasps from the audience at the creativity displayed and the detail of her quilts.  Lucky me.  I have been a pupil on a couple of occasions.  

Then today I escaped to a Quilt Show in a little town called Centerville in Nova Scotia.  There were gorgeous quilts.  This show is put on by a group of women who meet regularly in a hall.  They are not a formal guild but they put on a beautiful show every year.  This year there were quilts that took your breath away.  And I came away with ideas of all kinds.  

All of this inspiration was seen within a 1.5 hour drive from my home.  Any surprise I took up quilting when I moved here.  

If you are not inclined to quilt just enjoy the many artists who do.  And in Nova Scotia we have a wealth of them.  We have those who design and create quilts; those who are artists at quilting them and true art quilters all of whom bring and share pleasure.  We are a little province, hanging into the Atlantic ocean but we are mighty quilters.

Making fabric

This is taken from a demo by Victoria Findlay Wolfe http://vfwquilts.com/.  I saw it a couple of years ago and used it but this time I used much smaller pieces of leftover fabric.  I really like how it makes the 'made' fabric stand out.  In some cases I reused the pieces I cut from the 'made' fabric in another block.  Tiny pieces but quite easy to work with.  I have a previous post called an Orphan Block where I used larger pieces.

Copied Angela Walters http://www.quiltingismytherapy.com/ hint of taking pictures of what you have quilted to copy again within the quilt or the border.  Watching Angela is like a safety blanket.  She admits to errors and how she deals with them;  with aplomb.   In this case you can see I started before the corner of the diamond and marked the mistake with a pin to remove the wrong stitches after it was off the frame.  The room where I took the pictures was quite bright; sun which we have wanted so badly.  It has been a grey winter in more ways than one.  Oh to see my garden looking all green and pink like this table runner.