The importance of triming your threads

Trimming your threads when you piece your quilt top is a big deal, a VERY big deal. I have heard it all "of its ok, a few threads are  not going to cause a problem." "what's the big deal its just a thread its inside the quilt its not going to get in your way."  Well no its not going to get in my way but they can shadow through the fabric causing it to look like a pencil mark on your quilt.  Even more important it annoys the heck out of judges at quilt shows! Take the time to trim your threads before you bring it to your quilt for quilting.  and why your trimming your threads make sure you don't have any "short seams" that are going to pull apart at the slightest tug.!

Sometimes, even for the ever persistent thread trimming quilting, sometimes a stray thread sneaks into your quilt without anyone seeing it until its "Too Late". Yap, from time to time even i don't see a thread that needs trimming until i have already quilted over it and it is now shadowing through the light color fabric standing out like a sore thumb.  But never fear, it can be fixed!

Take a look at this photo, do you see that dark brown thread shadowing a line in the creamy fabric? Go ahead, look closer, you'll see it...



Now take a look at the tools i am going to use to "fix" that stray thread. My handy dandy thread snips, and a teeny tiny size 13 crochet hook. Word to the wise, that crochet hook is easily broken if you drop it and it lands hook first on a concrete floor. Don't ask me how i know, lets just trust me on that one k?



First thing you need to do is to decide if the thread is actually attached to the quilt top and its not just a stray tread you picked up off your clothes or the floor.  If it is attached to the quilt at a seam or to some machine applique stitching here is what you need to do. #1, take the crochet hook and as close to the seam (or applique stitching line) as possible stick the hook into the fabric. I know, i know, in the photo the hook isn't that close to the seam line. I couldn't get a good photo if i got the hook right on the seam so lets just pretend that its much closer than it really is ok?



#2 CAREFULLY wiggle the hook around until you catch the thread



#3 SLOWLY pull the thread back out of the same spot that you inserted the crochet hook being VERY careful to not grab any of the woven threads of the fabrics itself. If there is quilting stitches OVER the thread it can be a bit more difficult to remove. (see the end of this post for more info it the thread has quilting over it!)



#4 give the thread a very slight tug and then cut it as close to the fabric as possible



#5 run the blunt (non hook end) of the crochet hook over the spot and any small amount of thread (& any batting that just happened to pop up!) will pop back into the fabric and disappear!



See all gone!



If the thread is lose and not attached to a seam then you don't have to worry about bring it out near a seam, just use the hook to grab it near the middle if possible.

If there is quilting stitches OVER the thread i can be a bit trickier to remove. You might have to take it out in small sections instead of one long thread. Do the same steps as above EXCEPT insert the crochet hook into the fabric of the quilt top near the row of quilting stitches and pull the thread out a bit at a time, cutting it when needed and moving towards the seam were the thread is attached. If you have lots of quilting over the thread it may, and will take a lot of work to make this work so try to do it before you do any tiny background fillers like pebbles or McTavishing!

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

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]

Ask Your Machine Quilter

Well sort of a night out with the girls! Recently I was in charge of my quilt guilds monthly program and go figure, I talked about machine quilting! After a few questions to some of the guild members I decided it was past time to have "The Talk" with the ladies in the group. You know the "Why we ask for the things we ask for" and the "Let me try to explain WHY I need your backings to be larger than your quilt tops" kind of talk.

At first I thought this was going to be the easiest program I have ever done, then I sat down and started listing everything I wanted to talk about. It didn't take more than five minutes to discover "easy" wasn't the best word to describe the program! What to do before you bring your quilt for quilting, batting, threads, pressing, backing, borders, ruler work, and lets not forget marking tools. So I set down and got to work on typing up everything that I could think of. Typing by the way is not a strong point for me, and being dyslexic tends to get in the way especially when I want something to turn out perfect so not to embarrass myself too much. I typed up the book over five times before I was satisfied that the last edition wasn't too terribly bad to try to fix! Thank goodness I have a good proof reader in the house!

By the time I was near the end I had a  little mini book to hand out to the guild members So I thought I might as well add a few questions and answers to the back of the book for easy reference.  I quickly realized however that, #1 I wanted questions from people who weren't me and #2 I had no clue where to get those questions! So what's a Bad Ass Quilter to do when stuck with a tough task? As other Bad Ass Quilters of course!

Luckily for me I am a member of The Bad Ass Quilters Society so I hit up the group's Facebook page for a little help! I wasn't expecting so many questions but when Bad Ass Founder Maddie Kertay posted the questions to the big wall I was bombarded! I want to say a big old THANK YOU to Maddie and the rest of the Bad Ass Quilters that helped me out with questions! If you all hadn't helped me out I'm not sure what I would have finished up the mini book with!

[caption id="attachment_75" align="aligncenter" width="300"] My Quilting Machine, a Gammill Optimum Pro[/caption]

I had tons of samples and tools to bring along and show, photos, longarm rulers, samples of quilting, threads, batting types, and a number of quilts to show. My friend and fellow machine quilter Sharon S. brought in samples of her quilting to share and talk about as well another machine quilting friend Karie W. who gratefully played the part of Vanna White for me! (Thanks Girls!)

[caption id="attachment_78" align="aligncenter" width="300"] A selection of my favorite rulers, most from Jamie Wallen and Dusty Farrell[/caption]

The group had a lot of questions on threads so it helped to have the samples to show what a thick thread looked like compared to a thin thread. To show them all i picked a filigree feather design and quilted it out in every thickness of thread that i had available to me. Different fiber types, cotton, polyester, and rayon samples also helped to show some of the thread choices available. I also want to say Thank You to  Joy V. (Custom Quilts of Joy)for the help with some extra threads to quilt up some samples with!

[caption id="attachment_77" align="aligncenter" width="300"] A few of the samples i brought to share[/caption]

Batting was the next up, why pick puffy poly, why pick a flat batt, what was my favorite and what would I prefer to never have to use were some of the questions that came up. In my business I will pretty much quilt with any batting that the customers what to bring me but I do have favorite and not so favorite batting, I don't really know a quilter that doesn't. For me, if I have /need to use a Puffy Polyester batting I LOVE the brand Quilt King. It comes out of the plastic bag with nearly no wrinkles so I can start using it right away and even if I quilt closely together it doesn't get too stiff from all the quilting. I also love pretty much anything from the Quilters Dream Batting Company, especially the Dream Poly and Dream Puff. For my least liked favorite I would have to pick Hobbs Polly Down. It is stuffed so tightly into the plastic bag that it is almost always badly wrinkled to the point where I have to let it rest for a few days or stuff it in the dryer to get the wrinkles out before I can use it.

[caption id="attachment_76" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Setting up the quilt for quilting[/caption]

All in all I think it was a pretty good night, even if for some reason I forgot to print the one page that was the most important for the mini book, forgot to show Sharon's sample of her Block Work, forgot to get ANY photos of the program stuff once I had it all setup, and lets not forget that the program went a "bit" longer than it normally does. I have received a number of thank you's from the guild members as well as feedback on the different things we talked about.

If you would like to see the mini book I handed out you can view, download, and/or print it here: Ask Your Machine Quilter (including the forgotten page!)

But please remember that the info provided is MY OPINION and thoughts, and I am 100% positive that not all machine quilters feel the same way, think the same way, or want the same things that I want. So PLEASE be sure to "Ask Your OWN Machine Quilter" before believing anything that I have in my handout as being written in stone!

Dresden Plate Love!

Dresden Plate Quilts, i Love them as much as i hate Irish Chains!

When growing up I had a Dresden plate quilt that was made by my Grammy, at least i think she made it. It had a red background with little tiny white flowers and the plates were all made from what i always assumed was scraps. I LOVED that quilt, matter of fact i loved it to death! I finally had to let it go when it started to look more like  high class Swiss cheese than it did a quilt.

I have made a few Dresden plate quilts myself, and i love each and every one of them. i have also quilted a lot of them for others. I think i have seen  pretty much every combo of fabrics out there today, solids,  neon prints, novelties, reproduction fabrics, and of course batiks. i have yet to see or quilt a Dresden plate that i dislike.

This week i was lucky enough to quilt a very pretty batik Dresden plate that was made by a friend and customer Bev E. that i thought i would share with you all. Bev picked Quilters Dream Poly Batting and i picked two different color threads to blend in with the fabrics that she used to make the top.









Pretty isn't it?!

The Dreaded Double Irish Chain

Hello, my name is Elizabeth and i HATE Double Irish Chains.

There i said it, it's OK the world didn't explode and life will go on!

Don't tell anyone i ever said this but i would rather quilt a Double Wedding Ring made by a first time quilt maker!

What brings this up you ask? Well today i finished quilting yet another Double Irish Chain quilt. It has gotten to the point when i get a message on my phone asking me if i will quit a DIC (Double Irish Chain for short i swear!) I wish i could just forget to call the person back. But in the end when the quilt walks in the door i smile take the customers info and add it to the closet full of work to be done. Then when the customer leaves, the smile goes away and a few "French" four letter words are spoken (sometimes yelled).

Maybe i should start at the beginning, you see a number of years ago before i started quilting for others i felt completely different about the pattern. I wanted to make a Double Irish Chain quilt  i even had all my fabrics picked out ready to go and the pattern purchased. But then i quilted the first Double  Irish Chain customer quilt, then i  quilted the second, the third and the thirtieth. In the years that followed i have quilted more Double Irish Chain quilts than all the other quilts combined.

No honestly i have,  last year alone i quilted of 50 of them! 14 of them were made by the SAME customer! I could give you a exact number but i would have to drag out my books and they are  downstairs and i am upstairs.. and  yes i am that lazy!

Now were was I?

Right Double Irish Chains, a traditional classic quilt. Beautiful (to everyone but me) in pretty much any color combination. As simple as a two color quilt to a scrappy quilt that looks great in any room. Bright  colors, country colors, and even pastels they all look great. There are also many ways to quilt them, from simple to fancy. Straight lines, crosshatching, feathers, pantographs and so on.

I know that they can be beautiful quilts, i personally just don't care for them and that is OK!

Is there a quilt pattern (classic or modern) that you don't like?

2013 Crossroads Quilters Guild Raffle Quilt

Another year, another quilt show, another raffle quilt!

Once again i quilted the Crossroads Quilters Guild  of Effingham IL. Raffle quilt that will be raffled off on the last day of the 2013 September quilt show.

This year the Raffle Committee  picked a free pattern titled Summer In The Park, if you Google it you will find tons (and i mean TONS!) of free tutorials on how to make the quilt! The raffle committee picked a range of autumn color batik fabrics to go with our fall quilt show.  The guild decided to title their quilt Autumn In The Park, to go with the quilts colors!

When Sue W. (raffle quilt committee chairman) handed over the quilt the first thing i thought of was Modern quilting. But i wasn't all that sure that modern machine quilting designs would work all that well with the fabrics nor was i confident that modern quilting would go over well in our area. You see the Modern Quilting movement still has not made it to this part of Southern Illinois! Go figure!  In the end i had to ask some friends and fellow machine quilters for some help with ideals for quilting. I ended up blending a couple of different suggestions together and then changing them up just a  it to make it work for me.

Here is a photo of the quilt once i had the quilting finished up:

I had some issues getting the quilting to show up in the photos!

This one shows the quilting pretty good. I went with two colors of thread, Natural for the lighter areas with some double ribbon swirl quilting. Then for the darker areas i used a solid brown Espresso color thread with a slightly modern U-Turn quilting design. I used Essential Pro thread from Connectingthreads.com and the Raffle Committee picked Quilters Dream Polly batting. If you look you can see that the seams of the blocks didn't always match up perfectly so i tried to do quilting that would not draw to much attention to the seams. All the blocks are cut on the bias so the edges would stretch easily when sewing them together

The quilting took some time, lots and lots of stops and starts that had to be finished off. The thread color changes went very smoothly, i was able to quilt all the Natural thread areas then go back a second time and quilt the Espresso color thread areas. Raffle tickets went on sale this past weekend at the Effingham Artisan Fair and will continue to be available until just before the winning ticket is picked!