Tuesday's To-Do List: Still Slogging Along With Butterflies and Clam Shells

 Might as well just get to the meat and potatoes this week!  Last week's goals turned out to be overly ambitious:

✅ finish quilting Modern Baby Clam Shells, AND 

✅ get it labeled and   

❌ bound, AND  

❌ get my Letter Home baby quilt top and ready to load on my frame.  

After quilting the pantograph design over most of my Modern Baby Clam Shells quilt and stitching in the ditch around my butterfly appliqués  a quilter who was more goal oriented and focused than I am would have finished up the quilting with some monofilament or color matched thread to machine quilt along the butterfly veins.  I decided to haul out all of my yummy hand stitching threads instead.  I ended up quilting my butterfly veins with Perle Cotton #5, which would probably have looked better with a longer stitch length, but I like it anyway:

Perle Cotton no. 5 for Hand Quilted Butterfly Veins

I like the idea of combining machine quilting with hand stitched details, and think I might explore more of that in future.  

Best of all, since my butterflies are turned edge appliqué with the backing trimmed away behind them and no fusible web or anything like that to add stiffness, they are super soft and smooshable and were very easy to needle for the hand quilting.

The purple butterflies got green stitching.  It's subtle, but I love the vintage hand stitched vibe it gives my butterflies.

All Quilting Completed, Ready to Trim

You know, I was really tempted to custom quilt this one, if I hadn't been up against a time crunch to get it finished.  But I have to say, the less densely quilted pantograph design makes this baby quilt SO soft and cuddly!  Custom quilting might have made for a stiffer quilt, and if I'd gotten too carried away with it, the baby's mom might have felt like the quilt was "too fancy" for everyday use and stuck it in a closet.  😱😱😱. Heaven forbid!  So all's well that ends well!

Attaching the Machine Embroidered Label

My bee group that used to meet in person Pre-Plague has been meeting on Zoom instead on Monday afternoons, and I used that time today to get this quilt trimmed and to attach the machine embroidered label I'd digitized and stitched out on Sunday.  I tried something new this time, using Aurifil 50/2 Cotton threads in the needle and also in the bobbin to embroider my quilt label.  I am really happy with how it came out!  That extra thickness to the thread (compared to regular embroidery thread and bobbin thread) gave the stitching more prominence, yet I had zero issues with puckering or thread breaks.  And although I love the sheen of trilobal polyester or rayon embroidery threads for other projects, I liked the matte lustre of the 100% cotton thread for this quilt.  I used one layer of water soluble topping, one layer of tearaway stabilizer in the hoop, with a second layer of tearaway stabilizer floated beneath the hoop.  I used my built-in basting stitch around the perimeter of the design as well, both to reduce the tendency of the embroidery to draw up and pucker, but also because the basting stitches form a nice, straight rectangle around the label design that I can use to trim the excess fabric and turn the two edges of the label that won't be caught in the binding.

My local chapter of the Modern Quilt Guild will be doing its first in-person stitch-together next Saturday, in the parking lot of the church where we usually meet, with masks and social distancing in place.  I'm planning to get the binding machine stitched to my clam shell quilt tomorrow and then set it aside to be finished with hand stitching at my guild's outdoor gathering. I sure hope the weather cooperates!

And then I can turn my attention back to the baby brother's quilt, based on the AQS Letter Home QAL.  So, that's what I'll be up to for the rest of this week!

Rebecca's To-Do List for This Week:

1. Attach binding to clam shell quilt by machine
2. Finish piecing Letter Home blocks
3. Assemble Letter Home quilt top
4. Piece Letter Home backing
5. Load Letter Home on the long arm frame

I'm tempted to put more on that list, but there's so much SHAME when I have to put red X's next to everything at the end of the week!  😉. Best to quit while I'm ahead!  I'm linking up today's post with the following linky parties:

MONDAY

·       Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts  

·       Monday Making at Love Laugh Quilt

TUESDAY

·       To-Do Tuesday at Home Sewn By Us

WEDNESDAY

·       Midweek Makers at Quilt Fabrication

·       Wednesday Wait Loss at The Inquiring Quilter

Happy Fall, Y'All: Bernie's Sugar Shack Leaves Quilt circa 2004-2006

I know you're all tired of my snail's pace updates on my current projects, and Val's Archives Linky for this week is Fall Themed Projects, so I thought I'd share the Vermont-inspired Sugar Shack Leaves quilt that I made for my husband Bernie back in 2004-2006.  That was before I even knew what a blog was, so I haven't written about this one here before.

"Sugar Shack Leaves," 51" x 51", completed in 2006

The pattern for the leaf blocks came from Quilter's Newsletter Magazine Issue 357, "Shelly's Swirling Leaves, but I changed the borders.  I wanted to evoke the feeling of laying on our backs on that Vermont mountainside outside the sugar shack, surrounded by the forest at peak foliage season, with those brightly colored leaves floating down from a clear blue sky.  My version of the quilt was published in the Quilting Bee section of QN Issue 397, November 2007.

This was my third completed quilt, my first attempt at hand stitched applique (for the leaf stems), and my first and only hand quilted quilt.  It's only a throw sized quilt, but my boys were little at that time and I was only able to work on it in small snatches of time here and there so it took me about two years from start to finish.  Here you can see a much younger, exhausted version of myself working on the hand quilting back in 2005:

Hand Quilting In Progress, back in December 2005

How time flies!  That photo was taken in my in-laws' motor coach after we had spent the entire day in Disney World with toddlers.  Hence the dark circles under my eyes, general exhaustion, and "Really?  You need to take my picture NOW?!" look on my face.  But it's kind of neat now to have an "in progress" shot to share.  I'm using my square Grace lap hoop and my Roxanne thimble.

Hand Quilting Detail

This quilt wasn't really the best choice for showing off hand quilting.  You can't even see it unless you look up close, and my little random leaves quilted in the background look pretty lame to me now.  But it was relaxing hand work and I did enjoy it.  Maybe if I ever get around to setting my Jingle applique blocks, that one might be a good candidate for some hand quilting.

One more shot to share -- the machine embroidered quilt label:

That's it for today.  I'm linking up with Val's Tuesday Archives linky.  Have a great day!

Hand-Stitched Favorites from the 2013 North Carolina Quilt Symposium

Detail of a Quilt by Anne Francis

Anne Francis had some beautiful work in the North Carolina Quilt Symposium show, last weekend in Fayetteville,  including the penguin quilt shown here.  This quilt is covered with hundreds and hundreds of hand stitched French knot "snowflakes" that also secure the three layers of the quilt in lieu of traditional quilting stitches.    Spectacular!  I'm afraid I could not find a label near this one, so I don't know the title.


Another of Anne Francis's quilts that I enjoyed was A Harry Potter Story, made with the author's permission.  I made sure to get lots of pictures of this one for my Harry Potter aficionado sons. 


A Harry Potter Story, by Anne Francis

Look at the detail on Harry, with his embroidered lightning bolt scar, "Nimbus 2000" inscribed on his broomstick, and the fancifully hand embroidered Golden Snitch!

Detail of A Harry Potter Story, Entirely Handmade by Anne Francis

Harry Potter, Voldemort, Dumbledore, Hagrid, and the Hogwarts Castle were all carefully rendered by hand in applique and embroidery on this hand-pieced quilt.  Not a single machine stitch in the entire quilt. 

Dumbledore Detail from A Harry Potter Story, by Anne Francis

Isn't that amazing?  I was surprised to see so much hand work in this show, since most of the classes offered at this year's Symposium were geared toward machine quilting.  On the show floor, I saw quilt after quilt that had been hand pieced, appliqued, and hand quilted, in every style from traditional to contemporary to whimsical.  It's so interesting to see how artists working in the same medium (textiles and thread) and using the same techniques can create such completely different quilts.  I suppose I was mostly drawn to the appliqued quilts this time around since I'm immersed in my own first applique project. 



Detail of Papa's Album, by Sandra Russell

Look at the detail of hand applique with hand embroidered details and thousands of tiny, perfect hand quilting stitches in the Baltimore Album quilt pictured at left, which won first place for Best Hand Quilting.  Just marking the straight, parallel lines for the diagonal grid quilting would have been a challenge for me!

Papa's Album, by Sandra Russell

There were some beautiful machine quilts as well, and I'll show those to you tomorrow.  Or the next day.  Or when I get around to it...  ;-)

Only SEVEN more days of school before summer vacation!



I'm in Quilting Gallery's "Fall's Glory" Themed Quilt Contest This Week! Please Vote!

My Sugar Shack Leaves Quilt, 51" x 51"

Happy Fall Friday, everyone!  I know Fall officially kicks off tomorrow, but voting for the Quilting Gallery's weekly themed quilt contest begins today.  I thought my Sugar Shack Leaves quilt, completed in 2006, was perfect for this week's "Fall's Glory" theme so I entered it in the contest. 

When I selected fabrics for this quilt, I deliberately incorporated some deeper reds and jewel tones to get away from the brown-on-brown effect of so many autumn themed quilts.  I chose a variety of light blue background fabrics to create the effect of fall leaves swirling around against a blue sky, and I'm really happy with the contrast and energy that resulted.  This is also the first and only piece that I've quilted by hand.


Hand Quilting Detail

Machine Embroidered Quilt Label

Please click here to pop over to the Quilting Gallery blog where you can see all of the beautiful entries and cast votes for your favorites.  Voting is open now through the weekend, with one vote allowed per IP address, and the winners will be announced Monday morning.  Of course I'd appreciate it if you felt inclined to vote for me.  ;-)  Thank you!