LAL#11: The Season Finale

 Hello, machine quilting friends, and welcome to what I've decided will be the last Long Arm Learning linky party.  I have so appreciated those of you who've been linking up with me here for the past 11 weeks, and I've learned a lot from all of your posts.  However:

• I enjoy lots of other aspects of quilting besides the actual machine quilting part.  Even though that's my strongest focus these days, I'm finding that I struggle to come up with a long arm quilting themed post every single week.  Some weeks I've been exploring English paper piecing or quilt design or hand stitching and would rather write about that.  So the linky party focus is feeling constraining to me as the host.
• I enjoy visiting and being inspired by a wide, varied range of quilters, whether they are hand quilters, machine quilters, or masterful appliqué artists who "quilt by check."  If I'm going to host a linky party, I'd rather cast a wider net and include EVERYONE in the party rather than just those who've written about machine quilting in a particular week.
• Finally, I'm noticing that a lot of us -- myself included -- are linking up the same posts in several different linky parties that we all participate in.  It's like we're all on the same linky party bus doing a bar crawl together!  So I'm wondering whether there is actually a need for me to be hosting yet another linky party here on my blog at all?

Where Can We Link Up Together Going Forward?

These are the linky parties where I currently enjoy linking up on a weekly or monthly basis, where I see a lot of you linking up as well:

SATURDAY

·       UFO Busting at Tish in Wonderland

SUNDAY

·       Frédérique at Quilting Patchwork Appliqué

·       Oh Scrap! at Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework

·       Slow Stitching Sunday at Kathy's Quilts

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

THURSDAY

·       Needle and Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation  

·       Free Motion Mavericks with Muv and Andree

·       Sew and Tell Thursday (on BerninaLand Groups.io)

FRIDAY

·       Whoop Whoop Fridays at Confessions of a Fabric Addict

·       Peacock Party at Wendy’s Quilts and More

·       Finished Or Not Friday at Alycia Quilts

·       Off the Wall Friday at Nina Marie Sayre

·       TGIFF Thank Goodness It’s Finished Friday, rotates, schedule found here: http://tgiffriday.blogspot.ca/p/hosting-tgiff.html

 

MONTHLY:

·       One Monthly Goal at Elm Street Quilts. Link up your goal at the start of each month and link up your finish during the last 6 days of the month 

·       Tips and Tutorials on the 22^nd, open 22^nd through end of each month: Kathleen McMusing

The easiest linky parties for me to participate in are the ones that are pretty open-ended, where I can link up any kind of quilting project, in any stage of completion.  The goal setting linkies are helpful as well (Roseanne's To-Do Tuesday and Elm Street Quilts' One Monthly Goal) although I don't always get my goal post written up in time and I'm not great about finishing the goals by the end of the week or month.  The "finished" linky parties are ones I enjoy visiting to see what others have made, but I don't crank out finishes fast enough to have one to share at the end of every week.

I'm not opposed to continuing to host a linky party, now that I've set up the account with InLinkz and figured out how to do it.  But if I start up a new party, it would need to be open to all stages and techniques of quilt making, all styles, so that I'm not stressing out about needing to come up with a post each week on a specific topic even if I'm in a different place creatively that week.  And when I look at my roster of other bloggers' linky parties, I see that there are already so many great linky parties like that going strong.  Go ahead and share your feedback and opinions in the comments, but right now my inclination is to call it a wrap and let other bloggers be the Hostesses With the Mostesses.  If anyone is disappointed that my machine quilting themed linky party is ending, I want to encourage you to check out Free Motion Mavericks, cohosted by Muv and Andree on Thursdays.  Whether you're on a domestic machine or a long arm, quilting with rulers or working on freehand designs, all of that is welcome at Free Motion Mavericks.  I'll be linking up with them there when I do have machine quilting to share!

And now, without further ado, here's your LAST CHANCE to link up with Long Arm Learning!  I can't wait to see what you've all been up to this week!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

One Monthly Goal for August, 2020: K.I.S.S.!

Good morning, and happy AUGUST!  Y'all, I'm still riding high on the euphoria from actually FINISHING my July OMG goals by the end of last month, the first time that has ever happened in however many months of linking up.  I even finished with a couple days to spare, giving me time to write and link up at the end of the month.  Is THIS what life feels like to people who don't bite off more than they can chew and then waste their time procrastinating?!!  Despite how eager I am to move Spirit Song from a work in progress to a completely finished quilt, I need to clear off my cutting table first before I can trim the excess batting and backing from Spirit Song and move on to cut my binding fabric.  

OMG: Spirit Song Quilting Completed + Linky Party Launching August 4th

OMG indeed, you guys!  I think this might be the very first time that I've been able to link up at the END of the month for the One Monthly Goal linky party, because this July is the first time I've actually completed the goals I set for myself by the end of the month.  I had set two goals for July, one of them a quilting goal and the other a blogging goal.

✅ My July Quilting Goal: Finish Quilting Spirit Song

Finish quilting borders and blue HSTs with blue thread.

Rethread with off white thread, either So Fine #50 weight or Bottom Line top and bottom (haven't decided yet)

Finalize which background fill designs I want to quilt in which areas

Quilt fairly dense background fills in all of the white/cream/neutral patches

I did end up sticking with So Fine thread in the needle and Bottom Line in the bobbin for the background quilting.  It's so exciting to finally unpin a finished quilt from the frame and flip it over to finally get a good look at the quilting design from the backing side.  I can see now why Judi Madsen prefers to use solid backing fabrics to show off her quilting!  

I'm Thinking About Launching a NEW Long Arm Linky Party! Would YOU Participate?

Good morning, my lovelies!  Before I share my custom quilting progress on my Spirit Song project, I'd love it if you'd take a second to give me feedback on an idea I've been kicking around for a new linky party.

When I tried to link up my last quilting post with Karin's Ruler Work linky at The Quilt Yarn, I was disappointed to read that she has decided to discontinue hosting her link-up due to low participation levels.  Like many of you, I already participate in quite a few linky parties (One Monthly Goal, Design Wall Monday, To Do Tuesday, to name a few).  I love that these parties attract a wide variety of participants, from hand quilters to longarm quilters, modern to traditional, appliqué, paper piecing, and everything in between.  I have discovered lots of creative quilt bloggers and inspiration through these link-ups.  

However, right now I'm making a concerted effort to develop my long arm quilting skills, and it would be really helpful to connect with a community of other machine quilters who are working through similar challenges.  I'm always so excited when I stumble across another long arm quilter's blog, whether it's a seasoned professional quilter, a teacher, or a hobby quilter like me.        I want to see and read about the different rulers, notions, and gadgets other quilters are experimenting with and finding useful for machine quilting, which threads and battings they are using and how they like them, and the challenges they are encountering and overcoming as they become more proficient with their machines, where they are finding the best online or in-person classes and workshops, etc.  Also, although I'm quilting with a long arm machine mounted to a frame, I realize that there is a lot of crossover between machine quilting on a frame, sit down long arm machines like the Sweet 16 or the Q20, and quilting with a domestic sewing machine.  This would be an all-inclusive linky party, open to anyone who wants to share their machine quilting, regardless of what kind of machine they're using.

I understand that hosting a linky party is a big ongoing commitment, with even more time required in the beginning to get the word out to other quilters.  I am willing to take this on, as long as there is interest out there from other quilters -- so please answer my poll (above) to let me know how YOU feel about it.  Feel free to share any other suggestions about the linky party in the comments section, like if there's a particular day of the week you prefer, how long you think the link party should be open, etc.  Thank you!

...And Now, Back to the Quilt On My Frame:

Meanwhile, custom quilting on Spirit Song is progressing, slowly but surely.  I've been pretty consistent about getting in an hour or two of quilting time most days.  I finished the first long border a few days ago (my quilt is loaded on my frame sideways, so the "top" is really one of the long sides of the quilt).  

I know it's hard to see my quilting design against the large-scale floral print, so youmight think of all this time I'm spending quilting the borders with rulers as a wasted effort.  But it's really good practice, and it's nice to know that if I DO get a minor bobble or "whoopsie!" here or there, it's not going to jump out at anyone because it's camouflaged by the fabric print.

Chalk Stencil Marking for String of Pearls Border

Since I opted to use blue quilting thread in my wide outer border, I moved right into the skinny blue inner border after that.  And I'm being BRAVE -- I'm trying to quilt a "String of Pearls" in this border -- half inch circles!  In order to bolster my courage, I am marking the circles with a Full Line stencil and Quilt Pounce Stencil Chalk as a guide to help me quilt pearls that are somewhat round, consistent in size, evenly spaced, and to ensure that I end with a full circle when I come to the corner.  Interestingly (and thankfully!), the pounce chalk powder markings are lasting longer with this border design than the exact same chalk powder did for the swirly free motion designs that I was marking in the interior of the quilt.  Several possiblilities for why that might be:

• I'm using a commercially made Full Line stencil for my String of Pearls border rather than a DIY vellum paper stencil perforated with a sewing machine needle.  This stencil has a very fine mesh with very tiny holes that allow the chalk through the stencil in more controlled amounts.
• The pieced blocks in the interior of my quilt got a shot of starch after each and every seam was pieced and pressed open, and again as the blocks were joined together into a quilt top, whereas the blue border was only starched once after the border was attached to the quilt.  The interior of the quilt, where the starch was applied in many layers, may have filled in the nooks and crannies of the fabric weave and created a Teflon-like nonstick finish that the chalk can't settle into as well as it does with the only slightly starched border fabric.
• I am quilting my pearl circles pretty slowly in an attempt to keep them round, and I feel like my quilting machine creates less vibration and bounce to the quilt top at this slower speed, and that may be contributing to the longevity of the chalked markings as well.

For whatever reason, I'm very much relieved that I was able to mark the entire length of this pearl border first and then quilt it in one pass, from corner to corner, and still have clear, distinct circle marks to follow when I reached the end.  

Experimenting With a Smaller Needle

One more thing I changed last night: I put in a new needle -- again! -- and this time, I went with a size 3.5 Groz Beckert industrial needle rather than the 4.0 needle I had been using previously with my So Fine #50 in the needle and Bottom Line #60 in the bobbin combination.  Superior Threads has a handy reference chart on their web site that suggests optimal needle sizes for each of their threads, and size 4.0 is what they recommend for So Fine #50, but size 3.0 is recommended for the 60 weight Bottom Line thread that I'm using in the bottom, so I wanted to see what would happen if I split the difference and went down to a 3.5 needle.  It's a subtle difference, but especially when I'm checking stitch quality on the back of my quilt, the stitches do look better to me when that tiny little Bottom Line bobbin thread isn't swimming in a gigantic hole from a size 4.0 needle.  And I'm not seeing any shredding or thread breaks to my So Fine top thread, so the 3.5 needle eye seems to be plenty big enough for the So Fine thread diameter.

Here's what my inner border of pearls looked like once I'd finished the quilting and wiped away the white chalk markings.  Disappointing, right?!  I was really nervous about trying to quilt half inch circles on a real quilt for the first time, and I thought a blending blue thread color would be my safest option.  But now that I've quilted it and it didn't come out nearly as terrible as I thought it would, I'm bummed that I can't SEE the pearls I quilted!  I wish I'd quilted them in silver metallic instead!  Ah, well -- Live and learn!  Perhaps the quilting texture will be more apparent after I wash the finished quilt.  Next time, I'll make bolder thread choices where I want my quilting to be noticed!

I've also started quilting the two different motifs that I selected for my blue half square triangles throughout the interior of my quilt, since I'm already threaded up with blue.  One of the design is a free motion "lollipop flower" with swirly leaves (at least that's what I'm envisioning as I'm quilting it), and the other one is a simple straight line motif that has me reaching for a ruler once again.

When I tried to quilt this little motif totally freehand, the results were not pretty.  If I was a seasoned pro, any straight line ruler would have worked fine.  I quickly realized that, as a newbie, I needed help gauging where my needle would end up in relation to the angle of my ruler edge, especially since I'm quilting lines that angle away from my seam lines.  My HandiQuilter Versa Tool came to the rescue!  This ruler has little quarter inch extension notches at either end of the straight edge, etched with a faint marking to indicate where the needle will end up if your hopping foot stitches along the straight edge of the ruler.  I've added little pieces of pink OmniGrid Glow Line Tape to the back side of those ruler extensions for even greater visibility.

The long strip of wide, clear tape that you see along the straight edge of my ruler is super cheap, but super effective, NexCare Clear First Aid Tape that reduces unwanted slipping and sliding when I'm quilting with rulers.  You can find that at your local pharmacy, or order it on Amazon here.  

Well, that's all I have for you today.  My To-Do for Tuesday goal is to keep plugging away at the borders and blue HSTs on my Spirit Song quilt, and hopefully progress to the final quilting stage of the off-white background fills.  I'll wrap this up with a photo of a lovely gardenia in my front yard.  I love how, when I take a picture of an all-white blossom and then blow it up BIG on my computer screen, I see so many different colors in the petals, from shades of white, cream, and gray, to ivories and butter yellows.  It reminds me of Georgia O'Keefe's flower paintings!  

Please remember to vote in my linky party poll if you haven't already done so, and share any other thoughts you have about that in the blog comments.  Have a great day, and I hope you get to do some quilting!  I'm linking today's post up with my favorite linky parties:

FRIDAY

·       Whoop Whoop Fridays at Confessions of a Fabric Addict

·       Finished Or Not Friday at Alycia Quilts

·       Off the Wall Friday at Nina Marie Sayre

 

·       Tips and Tutorials on the 22^nd at: Kathleen McMusing

SATURDAY

·       UFO Busting at Tish in Wonderland

SUNDAY

·       Oh Scrap! at Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework

MONDAY

·       Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts  

·       Monday Making at Love Laugh Quilt

·       BOMs Away Katie Mae Quilts  

TUESDAY

·       Colour and Inspiration Tuesday at Clever Chameleon

·       To-Do Tuesday at Home Sewn By Us

WEDNESDAY

·       Midweek Makers at Quilt Fabrication

·       Wednesday Wait Loss at The Inquiring Quilter

THURSDAY

·       Needle and Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation  

·       Free Motion Mavericks at Quilting & Learning Combo OR at Lizzie Lenard Vintage Sewing

HEY, YOU GUYS! I Am Hosting the TGIFF Linky Party This Friday! Finish Up So You Can Link Up!

So are we all familiar with the TGIFF -- "Thank Goodness It's Finished Friday" -- Linky Party?  It's a floating linky party that is hosted by different bloggers each week, and I get a chance to be the Hostess With the Mostest right here at Cheeky Cognoscenti this coming Friday, March 30th!  Woo hoo!!  


I am so excited, I just might vomit.  You see, the TGIFF Linky Hostess has to write a post about his or her OWN finish to kick off the party, and as my longtime readers can attest, I am so much better at starting than I am at finishing...  There is nothing like a looming deadline to light a fire under the hostess's tushy, don't you agree?  

Tabby Mountain is OFF My Wall and ON My Frame, FINALLY!

Naturally, I'm hoping that my Friday finish will be my February March OMG, my Tabby Mountain quilt that you see in the photo above.  After much deliberation, research, and extensive Internet forum consultations, I loaded Tabby Mountain on my APQS Millenium frame as a full float and then proceeded to baste the WHOLE thing, top to bottom, just the outer edges of the quilt and the horizontal seam lines between rows.  Then I rolled the quilt back to the beginning, with all three basted layers wrapped around the backing roller and nothing hanging down in front of my frame.  Why did I decide to do it this way?

• The quilt top is very straight and square to begin with, so no need for the additional control and fudgeability of a partial float to ease out fullness
• My first step in quilting is going to be SID (stitching in the ditch), but only the bias diagonal seams of the triangles -- not the horizontal seams.  I wanted to ensure that those seams remained straight throughout quilting, and basting them straight up front seemed like a good way to do that
• When I SID, I'm going to use Mono Poly invisible monofilament thread to blend with all of these different fabric and to hide any little oopsies since this is, after all, my first attempt at SID on a long arm quilting machine.  Invisible thread requires major tension adjustments, so I want to complete all of the SID with that thread at once rather than change threads two or three times with every advance of the quilt top.
• Although there are nearly as many different "right" ways to load and quilt as there are quilters, several people recommended a video tutorial demonstrating "Loading Lori's Way," and Lori bastes the entire quilt first before doing any other quilting.  That gave me the confidence boost I needed to get started -- knowing that someone else who knows what she's doing has done it this way with success!

GIANT Tacking Basting Stitch, Using Horizontal Channel Lock

I basted those horizontal seams using my horizontal channel lock and BIG tacking stitches that will be easy to remove, as you can see in the above photo.  You can also see that I'm overdue for a manicure but that's not happening until these kitties have been quilted!

Painter's Tape Reference Keeps the Sides Straight Throughout the Basting Process

I used strips of painter's tape on my quilt top roller as reference points to make sure the sides of my quilt were perfectly straight from top to bottom.  That was another great tip I gleaned from the Internet from longarm quilters who prefer to fully float their quilt tops.

Nice, Straight Sides, All the Way to the Bottom

One more thing I want to show -- and remind myself of for next time, if I ever decide to baste the whole quilt first again:

See the Bulging Wrinkle at Each Basted Seam?  Lori Says That's Normal!

That bulge of fabric above the basting line as I'm rolling up the basted quilt would totally freak me out if I hadn't watched Lori's loading tutorial.  She says that's totally normal, no cause for alarm, and the layers will all lay nice and flat when you roll it back down to do the real quilting.  So I'm going to trust Lori, whomever this Lori may be, and just go with it.  This project is all about trying new things and learning what works for me and what doesn't, after all.  I'm trying it Lori's way this time.  

All Basting Completed, Rolled Back to the Top and Ready for Quilting!

...And see?  Here's what my quilt looks like this morning, with all the basting completed, excess batting trimmed away from the bottom edge of the quilt, and the whole thing -- all 3 layers -- rolled back onto the backing roller so I can start my ditch stitching at the top of the quilt.  I must say, one fringe benefit of Lori's baste-it-all-first method is that I no longer have ANYTHING hanging down at the front of my frame.  When you have two big black dogs and even if you've just vacuumed your own CLOTHING is covered with dog fur, this is a good way of limiting opportunities for pet fur to get stuck to the batting, to the quilt top, or inside the layers of the quilt.  So it might be a good way to do my upcoming Paint Me a Story quilt, since it would be a major bummer to have little black dog hairs showing through the white background fabric.  We'll see how this one goes.

Today I'm hoping to get all of the SID completed and at least make a start on the ruler work that I've planned.  You probably won't be seeing other posts from me this week, as I'll be frantically quilting away every chance I get in order to have a finish to show for myself on Friday.  

But in order to be the Hostess With the Mostest (the mostest posts linked up to my party), I need all of YOU to finish something this week, too, so you can link up with me here on Friday.  Pretty please, come to my linky party!  (Does that sound too needy??)

Here's the deal:

If you have a finished project to share by the end of the week, link up and pop a TGIFF button on your blog. Your finish can be anything you've made out of fabric and thread, as long as you've finished it within the past week.  Quilts, dolls, costumes, clothing, pot holders...  Anything goes!  Even if you don't have a finish of your own to show off, please plan to sip your coffee on Friday morning while admiring and commenting on the fabulous finishes of others. I'll be posting the TGIFF linky right here on my blog by 6 PM EST on Thursday, March 29th, to ensure that it's live by the time Friday morning arrives in other parts of the world.  

Meanwhile, today I'm linking up with:

• ·       Main Crush Monday at Cooking Up Quilts http://www.cookingupquilts.com/
• ·       Monday Making at Love Laugh Quilt http://lovelaughquilt.blogspot.com/

Have a fabulous week, everyone -- see you Friday!