Silent Sunday

Silent Sunday... Or should I say Wednesday ?!

This was supposed to post on Sunday but for some reasons the auto post didn't ever show up!

Silent Sunday

Grandmother's Diamond Ring

A few months back i decided to "weed out" some of my unused quilting books and magazines. Giving them to a dear friend Mary that teaches quilting classes, i knew it would be a great way to get them off my shelves, where they had been collecting dust for years, and into the hands of others that might actually use them! When looking over all the books i came across "The Creative Pattern Book" by Judy Martin. I had made a quilt from the book years ago for a cousin's wedding. The marriage didn't last but from what i have been told the quilt is still around. The quilt was called Grandmothers Diamond RIng and i remember how complicated the finished quilt looked but how easily, if you followed the cutting directions, the quilt was to piece. I did not do much custom quilting back then, matter of fact i am pretty sure i probably quilted it with a pantograph pattern. A quick look at the chapter on the Diamond Ring quilt and i knew instantly that i could do so much more quilting wise with it now than i did back then. i also knew exactly which one of my customers i would be able to con... i mean talk into making it!

Remember Mary? The one that teaches the quilting classes and was also gifted all the books from my shelves that i no longer wanted? Mary is an amazing quilter, no really she is. Her quilts are almost always perfectly pieced, almost never have a wavy border and if her points are even a 1/16" off she will take the block apart and fix them. I have only ever quilted a couple of her quilts that had problem, and she warned me before she even gave them to me that they had issues. Now remember my hatred of irish Chains? Mary would be slightly responsible for that too! She teaches beginning quilting to a lot of people and the first quilt she has them make you ask? Yap, The Double Irish Chain. I have to agree with her that the Irish chain is a great first quilt but i also have to admit i get a bit tired look at them.

Getting back to the Diamond Ring quilt, I KNEW that this was a perfect quilt for Mary, now to just convince her to make it. Well it wasn't all that hard to do really i just had to say Scrappy, Reproduction prints, quilt show quilt , and BINGO she was buying fabrics before i even loaned her my book! Mary LOVES scrappy quilts and reproduction fabrics! I had warned her that the pattern was a bit different from her favorite pattern designer Eleanor Burns books, but if she would follow the cutting directions and didn't rush that when it came to piecing the little bits together they would line up perfectly.  it didn't take mary Long to finished the quilt and bring it to me to quilt for her but it has taken me a few months to decide exactly how to quilt it! (see my last post on Sketching Out Quilting Design) i had to ask for some help from other machine quilters before i was happy with the finished quilting.

So here it is, Grandmothers Diamond Ring made by Mary H., machine quilting by Elizabeth Karnes

Original pattern from "The Creative Pattern Book" By Judy Martin, published by Crosley-Griffith Publishing Company

Getting there...

For the first time ever I can say that this quilt is taking LESS time than I expected! Should have it finished by the end of the day!

Sketching out quilting design

One question i am often asked is how do i decide how to quit a quilt. Well some quilts just speak and speak loudly about how they "want" to be quilted, some speak but with a softer voice, others however think they are in a library! Some quilts just scream "Custom", others scream "Simple" others yell "modern", others bellow loudly "HELP ME I'm crooked, I have pleated seams, i have wavy borders!"

[caption id="attachment_97" align="aligncenter" width="224"] Grandmothers Diamond Ring, pattern designed by Judy Martin and from her book titled "The Creative Pattern Book" published by Crosley-Griffith Publishing Company[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_94" align="aligncenter" width="300"] This is the photo i used for sketching out the quilting design[/caption]

One of the first things i do when a quilt comes in for quilting is to lay the quilt out so i can take a good look at it then take a couple of photos with my iPad, one of the full quilt and one more close up. That way at night when i am watching tv in my big comfy chair i get to work. I use a app called Concepts (from TopHatch, LLC) to sketch directly the closeup photo. The app is free to download but to be able to import a photo you have to buy the pro package for $2.99 and it was very well worth it! There are other apps out there that will do the same thing but i really enjoy the Concepts app the most (no affiliation i promise!!!) Basicly i import the photo as a Background then sketch using a stylus directly onto the photo. I like to use multiple colors when i sketch, it helps me to see the design better, and the Concepts app has tons Copic Colors to select from. I also like how easy it is to enlarge and shrink the photo so i can easily sketch more detail. I do best when using a stylus, however that is optional. I like the stylus because i can see things  a bit better than when trying to just draw with my finger! I have seen the photos and the video so i know if you're a artist you can do amazing things with this app, i however am a lowly quilter and can only draw quilting designs but hey i still love the app!  Once i am happy with a sketch i send it to my iPad camera roll for safe keeping then if i want i can erase the sketching from the photo and start all over again or leave it and start on a new sketch, simple as that!

The first sketch is always full of different designs and nine chances out of ten only one of the first choices ever makes it to the quilt! The customer who made the current quilt gave me permission to go all out but i wasn't 100% positive about what i thought the quilt needed. My customer loves feather quilting, but other than that i was at a loss. So i posted my first sketch of designs to a favorite online quilting forum Machine Quilters Resources asking for suggestions and advice.  One thing i love about the group of quilters at MQR is they are never shy to tell you if you are not headed in the right direction! Good honest advice and suggestions is just what i need on this quilt. The quilt when finished will ultimately be entered into my guild's quilt show in September and the customer has won multiple times at the show in the past so i knew the quilting had to be spot on.

[caption id="attachment_89" align="aligncenter" width="300"] First Sketch of possible quilting designs[/caption]

Some of the members of the group said the drawing was great just pick and go with it, others thought i was headed in the right directions but that it just wasn't Showy enough. So i took the suggestions, went back to the iPad and sketched up a new option.

[caption id="attachment_96" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Removed the U Turns and added some pebbles[/caption]

From that sketch came more suggestions and finally what i thought would be the final sketch. I sent this sketch to the customer and she loved it.

[caption id="attachment_98" align="aligncenter" width="300"] I thought this would be the final quilting design but....[/caption]

So first thing Sunday morning (ok so it was more like 12:00!) i got to work. I had just quilted the second feather design when the phone rang. It was the customer saying she had thought about it overnight and had decided that she would prefer feathers without the pebble quilting in  the stem. So i went to work frogging the stitching on the two feathers that took less than ten minutes to quilt but took nearly a hour and a half to take out!

[caption id="attachment_102" align="aligncenter" width="300"] But this ended up being the FINAL design![/caption]

Now i have finally called a end to any more changes, i refuse to take out any more quilting unless i goof something up! I haven't gotten far along on the quilting but so far so good. Keep your fingers crossed for another win at the quilt show in September!

[caption id="attachment_101" align="aligncenter" width="224"] Getting started on the quilting[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_100" align="aligncenter" width="224"] More Quilting[/caption]

Silent Saturday