Quick DIY Apple Pencil Holder + Progress on 1984 Sampler Custom Quilting

 Oh my gosh, you guys!  I completed a whole sewing project from start to finish last night in under an hour!  This is what it must feel like to own a sewing machine but NOT be a quilter!!  

A Sewing Project Completed Start to Finish in Under an Hour!

This is something I’ve been “fixing to do” for a couple of years now, just “waiting to get a round tuit” that never arrived…  No pattern; just eyeballed an old, stretched out elastic contraption that needed replacing and replicated it with some purple elastic from my garment supply stash and a little piece of jacquard ribbon to make it pretty.  This elastic strap slips on and off over my iPad case quickly and easily and has a channel stitched to securely hold my Apple Pencil.

I even used one of the high tech gizmos on the new B 990 sewing machine.  When top stitching my ribbon in place with Edgestitch Foot #10D, I turned on the laser that shows exactly where my needle is positioned to stitch on my project; see that red dot below on the black ribbon?

B 990 Laser Helps Position Edge Stitching

On previous machines, I would have tried out different out of center needle positions one click at a time, lowering the needle to see how far I was about to stitch from the edge, but it was faster (and more fun) to just turn on the red laser dot.  One, two clicks to the left, looks perfect, GO!  I only turned the laser on to select my needle position; did not leave it on for sewing.  I used two different utility stitches, the three step zigzag stitch to overcast the raw cut edges of my elastic to prevent fraying with use, and the triple straight stitch around my ribbon flower and along the edges of the long, skinny pocket for holding the Apple Pencil.  I used Mettler Metrosene all-purpose polyester thread and a Schmetz Stretch needle in size 90.  I wish I had a closer thread color match to the color of my elastic, but I wanted a strong poly thread for durability and I don’t have anywhere near the stash of colors in all purpose poly that I have for quilting, appliqué, embroidery etc.  This was an impulse project chosen primarily so I could procrastinate packing for my trip.  

Maybe I should do more projects that don’t take 6 years to finish?  

Speaking of projects that take years to finish…  I did get a bit more quilting done on Marybeth’s 1984 WIP sampler quilt this week.  I added some hand guided ruler work quilting to the three blocks that I quilted with computerized designs the last time I posted about this project:

Continuous Curves Ruler Quilting Added Around Digital Block Design

My hand guided quilting is nowhere near as nice as the computerized design but the block looked unfinished to me before.  I’m doing the best I can but it’s a learning process and if I keeping stopping to rip out quilting and redo it, I’ll never get the quilt back to Marybeth!  

Using Stencils to Develop Muscle Memory for Long Arm Quilting, Part One

My DIY Stencils, from Designs in Judi Madsen's book

No quilting to show you yet, but I've been planning and experimenting this week with stencils for my Spirit Song quilt, and I think this is going to work.  Woo hoo!  

Both of the designs on these DIY stencils shown above were resized and traced from quilting designs that were on the CD that came with Judi Madsen's Quilting Wide Open Spaces book, available on Amazon here.  

My Spirit Song Quilt, Waiting Patiently on the Frame

I know that some of you will look at this quilt and say that I should have just gone with an allover pantograph and moved on, so I should probably explain that Spirit Song is a practice quilt that I'm making specifically for developing my long arm quilting skills.  I got lots of SID (Stitch in the Ditch) practice with all of these seams, and I can tell you that my SID was a lot better by the time I got to the bottom edge of the quilt than it was when I started at the top.  Now I'm looking at how I can complete this quilt with ruler work and very basic free motion motifs.  

Muscle Memory: How Using Stencils Can Speed Up Learning for Free Motion Quilting

Some people advocate that the best way to learn to quilt smooth, even free motion motifs is to just "go for it" and try your best, covering a dozen -- or a hundred -- quilts with lumpy, wobbly quilting that will gradually improve from one quilt to the next if you just keep at it.  But this doesn't make sense to me, from an education theory perspective.  The more time I spend quilting misshapen ogre toe feathers on my quilts, the more I am ingraining the muscle memory for ogre toe feathers and the more difficult I am making it to unlearn and correct bad habits.  Wouldn't it be better to practice quilting smooth, evenly spaced, nicely rounded loops and feathers from the very beginning?  Consider how penmanship and figure skating have been taught for hundreds of years:

Remember How We Learned Cursive?

Remember these worksheets from elementary school?  Our teachers had us trace over perfectly formed cursive letters so that we could develop the muscle memory we would need to recreate these shapes on our own.  Penmanship practice develops muscle memory using our fine motor skills, but operating a long arm quilting machine requires a similar level of control using the larger muscle groups in our upper arms and shoulders... That's why I can draw beautiful loops and feathers on my iPad or on paper that I am not able to recreate with my long arm machine.  I'm using totally different muscles, gross motor skills involving coordination of my shoulders, torso, and upper arms rather than fine motor skills of just my hand.  Which reminds me of how figure skaters learn to precisely and exquisitely control and coordinate large muscle groups for compulsory figures.  Check out the surface of the ice after a figure skating competition -- if I had that level of control with my quilting machine, I could free motion quilt ANYTHING!

Skating Rink After Compulsory Figures Competition

Figure skaters learn by first etching circles, figure eights, and other patterns onto the ice using a scribe (like a giant compass) and then they practice skating over the etched lines again and again as they developed the gross motor muscle memory for skating these shapes in competition.

Free motion quilting with a long arm machine on a frame has got to be somewhere in between learning to write in cursive and learning figure skating, don't you think?  That's why I'm exploring options for marking some basic free motion designs onto the surface of my quilt.  The idea is that, if I mark and "trace" these designs all over my quilt today, I will develop the muscle memory faster for quilting these shapes in the future without having to mark them at all.

Both of the designs on these DIY stencils shown above were resized and traced from quilting designs that were on the CD that came with Judi Madsen's Quilting Wide Open Spaces book, available on Amazon here.  

The first design I've selected for my Spirit Song quilt is the one that Judi quilted in the white squares below on her Crossroads quilt, the featherlike swirls that radiate around those blocks:

Quilting Detail of Crossroads, by Judi Madsen

I enlarged that design to fit the space on my quilt, and just traced one line for each curl.  Now, this might seem like a silly design to need to mark before quilting, but marking this will help me get consistent spacing and angles for the feather curls as I travel around the block, quilting the design in four different directions, and it should help build muscle memory for all sorts of different feathers in the future.  Training wheels, baby!  By the way, if I was not using a stencil for this design but was nervous about stitching it freehand, I could also draw the feather curl guidelines freehand with a purple or blue erasable fabric marker.  Transferring the lines with a stencil is much faster and will ensure that the feather curls at the bottom of the quilt are consistent with the curls I was making at the top of the quilt.

Enlarged to Fit Here On My Spirit Song Quilt

When I quilt this design, I'll be traveling up each curved line to the swirled tip on one side of the marked line, and then quilting back down on the other side of the line.  After printing the design on my computer at the correct size for my block, I used an ultra fine point Sharpie marker to trace the swirls (along with registration marks) onto translucent 24# vellum that I found squirreled away in my office supplies.  Then I S-L-O-W-L-Y stitched along the lines I'd drawn using an old needle and no thread in my sewing machine.  This is one of those times when speed kills, because the lines that get marked on the quilt are only going to be as accurate as the holes created by your sewing machine needle!  Going around that inner curl was one stitch, pivot, another stitch, pivot, repeat FOREVER...

Making My Vellum Quilting Stencil

So, although I'm happy with my stencil and I think it will work great for me, it is definitely worth shelling out a couple of dollars for a premade stencil if you can find one in the right design and the correct size for your project.  It could take hours to make your own stencil for a really elaborate design.  To make my stencil, I'm using a size 75/11 needle with stitch length 1.5, and I did have to turn off the upper thread break indicator on my Bernina since I'm running the machine without any thread.  (With my first try, I had a beefy size 90/14 jeans needle, but found that to result in a chalk line on my quilt that was thicker than necessary).

Finished!

What's nice about the 24 lb. vellum for making stencils is that it's light enough to stitch through easily, yet sturdy and rigid enough that the holes don't close up as easily as paper when you rub over the stencil with your pounce chalk, and it's not going to tear easily.  And I love that I can see through it, which is crucial for aligning motifs precisely where you want them on your quilt.

Auditioning Quilting Ideas on my iPad

Not sure how well you can see the quilting doodles on the image above.  The blocks with red X's on them are ideas I was trying out that I've decided against, and the blocks outlined in bright yellow are the ideas I'm feeling good about at the moment.  

Can You See It Better Here?

My idea for quilting this is that I want to create the illusion that my quilt is comprised of two alternating blocks set on the diagonal rather than one straight set block, emphasizing the secondary design created where the blocks meet up at the corners.  

This is the 16 inch Block in My Quilt, Made From Four Birds In the Air Blocks

I have a combination of  straight line ruler work and freehand curvy designs in each quilting design, and I've tried to keep the quilting density fairly constant.  The off-white fabrics will be quilted more densely than the blue and peach/pink/corals, making those areas recede visually.  Now, I know I'd get better dimension in the less-quilted areas if I was using a wool or double batting for this piece, but since it's just for practice and I already have enough variables in play, I'm just going with a single layer of Quilter's Dream Cotton Select.  As of right now, I'm planning to use pale peach Superior So Fine 50 weight thread in the needle with 60 weight Bottom Line in the bobbin for all of the peach/pink/coral fabrics, and then switch to an off-white thread for the background fills.  Those little blue triangles are a bit problematic, because they would be easier to quilt without a gazillion thread breaks if I quilted them at the same time as the pink/peach/corals, or at the same time as the off-white background fills.  So, we'll see what happens when I start quilting!

Anyway, today's post about why I'm using stencils and how I made my own is Part One.  In a day or two, I'm hoping to share with you my experiments with using different brands of chalk powder to transfer the DIY stencils to my quilt, a few different kinds of commercially made stencil options, and how to keep the design from smudging or bouncing off the quilt surface before stitching is complete.  That will be Part Two.

I'm linking today's post up with the following linky parties:

·       Needle and Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation  

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

To-Do Tuesday: Spirit Song Top Nearing Completion and a NEW Ruler Work Linky Party!

You guys, I am so excited about a NEW linky party just for ruler work quilting!  Karin is hosting it on her blog The Quilt Yarn, every other Tuesday -- and the link up is active for a full week starting TODAY!  The linky party is open to anyone who is quilting with rulers, on any make/model machine whether it's a domestic machine, a sit-down longarm or a longarm on a frame.  I'm ridiculously excited about this because there is nothing better than a community of quilters who are all exploring the same techniques, working on the same skills, motivating and encouraging one another.  Those of you who have been with me for awhile know that I've had a bumpy start with my longarm machine, which sapped a lot of my enthusiasm for learning.  Over the past year, I've made some investments in education -- including ruler work classes with both Judi Madsen and Lisa Calle -- as well as investments in a small arsenal of quilting rulers.  This new linky party is exactly what I need to help me put those rulers to use in my quilting.  If any of you have a recent or not-so-recent post about quilting with rulers, I encourage you to link those up with us right now, right here, in this week's party.  The more, the merrier -- and I am so looking forward to seeing everyone's ruler work tips, tricks, trials and triumphs gathered together in one place.

48 x 64 Spirit Song Top Assembled, Ready For Borders

Meanwhile, I got my Spirit Song quilt top completely assembled (finally!).  It measures exactly 64" at the left edge, vertically through the center, and at the right edge.  The width is exactly 48" at the top and bottom, and it's 48 1/4" through the center -- that's a tolerance I can live with and "quilt out," as they say.  

Since I used a lot of unwashed precuts in addition to scraps for this quilt top, I think I'm better off NOT washing my border and backing fabrics, either.  The prewashed scraps in the quilt top might end up with a bit more crinkly texture after washing, but at least the unwashed patches won't risk shrinking to the point that they rip right out of the quilt, right?  

I showed you my border and backing fabrics in my last post, but here they are again in case you missed it:

Border, Binding and Backing Fabric Selections

This quilt has no intended recipient, no deadline, and no rush, so it's perfect for practicing ruler skills, don't you think?  As usual, I was quilt-doodling during the sermon on Sunday from the choir, exploring some of the possibilities for this quilt.  

Doodling Quilting Possibilities on my iPad

I was using a photo that was taken before all of the Birds In the Air blocks had been sewn together, using the Notes Plus app on my iPad Pro with the Apple Pencil Bluetooth stylus.

I really like the secondary pattern that forms at the corners of my straight set blocks, and I want to emphasize that somehow.  There will definitely be stitching in the ditch, because I worked hard to match all those points -- SID will draw attention to the piecing accuracy.  I know I'll try to mash down the neutral fabrics with dense fills to help the colored triangles pop, and I know I want to emphasize those larger diamond shapes with some straight lines, but a lot of the particulars are still up in the air.  I have to keep reminding myself that just because I can draw something on my iPad doesn't necessarily mean I can quilt it with my longarm machine -- at least, not yet!

And so, seeing as it's To-Do Tuesday, and there's a whole lot of NUTHIN' on our agenda for the foreseeable future thanks to COVID-19, here's what I'll be doing with my Social Distancing free time over the next week or so:

Tuesday's To-Do List for March 17-24

1. Add borders to Spirit Song to complete quilt top.
2. Piece Spirit Song backing
3. Make Spirit Song binding and set aside
4. Paper piece next block for Anders' Beware the Ishmaelites sampler quilt
5. Load SOMETHING on my frame -- either a practice piece, a charity top, or the Spirit Song quilt -- and START QUILTING!

Next Block for Anders' Beware the Ishmaelites Quilt, Ready to FPP

...And a Special Invitation for My Christian Friends Whose Church Services Have Been Canceled:

By the way -- with so many churches having to cancel worship services during this frightening time when we need more than ever to be reminded that God is still seated on His throne, I want to invite my Christian friends and family -- and anyone else who could use an infusion of hope in these troubled times -- to join me and my church family at Christ Lutheran as we gather for worship online.  I know that many churches are not set up with the technology to live-stream worship services as our church does each week.  This past Sunday, our pastors and music volunteers (that's where I come in) gathered in an empty sanctuary, since worship had been closed to the public in accordance with our governor's ban on large gatherings.  We sang and preached to an empty room, reminding one another that God is the audience for worship -- and later realized that over 5,500 people had been worshipping with us online that morning!  

Christ Lutheran will continue to live stream worship over the Internet throughout this pandemic, with a Traditional service at 8:45 AM (EST) and a Contemporary service at 11: 00 AM (EST).  

You have two ways to join us: You can find the live video on our church web site here, or via Facebook Live on the Christ Lutheran Facebook page.  If you had to miss church last Sunday and you need a dose of hope to cancel out the fear coming at us through the media right now, you can watch a recording of Sunday's Contemporary service right here (I'm the dorky girl in the glasses, singing at Communion).

Stay safe, everyone, and happy stitching!

I'm linking up today's post with:

·       Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts  

·       Monday Making at Love Laugh Quilt

·       BOMs Away Katie Mae Quilts  

·       Colour and Inspiration Tuesday at Clever Chameleon

·       To-Do Tuesday at Home Sewn By Us

·       Midweek Makers at Quilt Fabrication

·       Wednesday Wait Loss at The Inquiring Quilter

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·       Needle and Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation  

Jingle Status Update: Designing, Planning, and Online Shopping

This needs to be short and sweet today, as I have about a bazillion errands to run before choir rehearsal tonight and if I even stop to blink, my clock will spin from 10 AM to 5 PM while I'm not looking!

Current Favorite Quilting Plan for Jingle, iPad Sketch Detail

I haven't had a chance to get this quilt loaded yet, or even spent any time at all in my studio since I last posted about it, but my iPad is with me everywhere I go so I've continued to experiment with sketching different quilting ideas on top of a photo of the quilt top in my Notes Plus app.  I'm currently leaning towards doing the feathery thing on the red and green inner setting triangles, along with the two different geometric ruler work designs on the outer setting triangles, all of the red triangles in one style and all of the green ones in the other style.  Then each of the pieced blocks will get some kind of custom quilting and the applique blocks will be quilted in the ditch and then the backgrounds will be quilted down with different fill designs, cross hatching, etc.

iPad Sketch & Notes, Zoomed Out

At first I was drawing the feathers in ALL of the setting triangles, and I decided that was boring so then I started changing up the outer setting triangles.  I'm liking the idea of alternating between the two designs for the outer setting triangles but keeping those feathery things on all of the inner triangles at the moment -- provided I can actually QUILT those feather designs.  Just because I can draw something on my iPad does NOT automatically mean I can quilt it with my longarm machine!  I think I'm going to have to mark them somehow and/or use a template for that center pointy petal shape in the middle of each feather.  I'm remembering how Judi Madsen uses tagboard templates for curvy shapes that she uses in her quilting; need to find her Quilting Wide Open Spaces book and review her method.

Threads for this quilt will be Superior's invisible monofilament Monopoly for all stitching in the ditch, both pieced blocks and appliqué, because it's so forgiving of the oopses and wobbles, paired with Bottom Line 60 weight polyester in the bobbin.

Then I've got some lovely Antique Gold Metallic from Superior planned for the feathers and ruler work in my red and green setting triangles.  Yippee!!  I ordered a Medium Brown Bottom Line thread to use in the bobbin with my Antique Gold Metallic thread.  If the metallic thread behaves nicely, I might use it in the pieced blocks as well.  

Detail of Irish Lass by Judi Madsen, photographed at APQS Quilt Week in April 2019

As some of you remember, I traveled to Paducah, Kentucky to take LOTS of longarm quilting workshops with Judi Madsen and Lisa Calle back in April.  There was a special exhibit of Judi Madsen's quilts at the show and it was wonderful to be able to go and look at them between classes, with all of that fresh, front-of-mind information about how and why she quilted them the way she did.  I was surprised to discover that Madsen's Irish Lass quilt, from her Quilting Wide Open Spaces book (detail pictured above) used Superior's Antique Gold thread over all of the non-white fabrics, with white thread against the white backgrounds.  That's what inspired me to buy a giant cone of the Antique Gold Metallic thread from Superior's booth in the vendor mall.  This is also the quilt that Judi refers to in her book when she talks about making templates to mark shapes on her quilt, such as the dragonflies and some of the larger swirly hook shapes.

Finally, my off white appliqué backgrounds will get quilted with an off-white thread, probably So Fine since I have the right color on hand already, and then I'll likely add some details to the larger appliqué shapes in matching threads.

In addition to the bobbin thread that I'm waiting on, I also ordered LOTS of Quilter's Groove longarm quilting rulers from Lisa Calle's web site.  I purchased a 5" Pro Circle template and a Pro Echo 11 arc template from her when I took her Rulers for Rookies class and I really like all of the markings on her rulers that some of the others don't have.  So I've ordered all of the remaining sizes of Pro Circles and Pro Echo arcs to have a complete set of options for curved crosshatching and all sorts of block designs.  When they get here I'll be able to pick out a few options to use on Jingle and then I'll let Santa wrap up the rest for Christmas.

 

One more goodie on the way is this adjustable height saddle stool so I can sit at the longarm when I'm working on the detail quilting around all of that appliqué.  I'm looking forward to seeing whether I have better control for detail work when I'm seated at the machine as well as whether I can quilt comfortably for longer if I can switch between sitting and standing.  This particular stool had quite a few positive reviews from customers who mentioned using it with their longarm quilting machines, so I'm hopeful that it will work well for me.

Meanwhile, the "quick blog post" has taken nearly an hour to write, as usual.  Gotta get out the door and get busy on those errands!  Have a wonderful week, everyone.

I'm linking up today's post with:

WEDNESDAY

·       Midweek Makers at Quilt Fabrication

·       “WOW” WIPs on Wednesday at Esther's Blog

THURSDAY

·       Needle and Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation  

FRIDAY

·       Whoop Whoop Fridays at Confessions of a Fabric Addict

·       Beauty Pageant at From Bolt to Beauty

·       Finished Or Not Friday at Busy Hands Quilts

Tentative Quilting Plan for Jingle and More Spirit Song Birds In the Air

Alright, you guys -- my #1 priority quilting goal for the month of December is to get as much of this Christmas themed Jingle project quilted as I can.  It's not loaded on my frame yet, but here's what I've accomplished since I posted about it a few days ago:

• Located a package of Hobbs 80/20 Cotton/Poly batting in my stash that can be cut down for this quilt
• Ordered and received a package of Quilter's Dream Wool batting to layer over the 80/20
• Located the 108" wide backing fabric and prewashed it in HOT water to shrink it as much as possible (all of the blocks in this quilt had to be soaked repeatedly in boiling hot water with Dawn dish detergent due to a dye bleed, so I'm certain that most of their shrinkage has already taken place)
• Reviewed my notes from the longarm quilting workshops I took with both Lisa Calle and Judi Madsen during Spring Quilt Week in Paducah earlier this year
• Ordered and received a new ruler gadget from Lisa Calle's online shop to assist with stitching in the ditch around all of this applique
• Started a tentative custom quilting plan on my iPad in the Notes Plus app -- I just import the photo to the app from my iCloud photos, stretch it to fill the page, and then I can sketch quilting designs directly on the photo as you see below:

Tentative Quilting Plan for Jingle Quilt

Cool, huh?  I know quilters have a lot of different ways they try out quilting motifs on a quilt, like dry erase markers on vinyl, etc., but doing it on my iPad means I can doodle through a gazillion options whenever I have some down time.  What do you think so far?  I like those ruler work designs that I put on the inner setting triangles and I know that if I mark them carefully, I should have no trouble executing them on the longarm.  The feathers in the outer setting triangles I'm not so sure of.  I think I'd have to mark them all ahead of time and follow the marked lines to avoid the dreaded String of Ogre Toes look, but if I can do that successfully on a practice piece, I might give it a go on the real quilt.  Otherwise/instead, I'll do one of those piano key things where every other stripe is filled in (I tested that idea out on some of the red setting triangles near the top).  I don't know how well the yellow "ink" shows up on your screen, but all I did for the center medallion is come up with reference points to make a giant X behind the applique, so I can break that area up and do one fill inside the X and a different fill design in the V-shaped areas outside of the X.  Not sure what either of those fills might be, but I'll definitely have to mark the big X prior to loading the quilt.

I picked the doodling "inks" based on what would show up on the photo, but I'm actually planning to use Superior's Antique Gold Metallic thread on those red and green setting triangles if all goes well.  I'll use monofilament for all of the stitch in the ditch between borders, blocks, and around the applique, and an off-white shade of So Fine for the background fills behind the applique.  I think I want to get some lighter weight Bottom Line thread to put in the bobbin with my metallic and monofilament threads, and I don't have any of that on hand, so that's on my To Do list for this week:

1. Locate my Superior Bottom Line thread color chart and select bobbin colors to coordinate with quilt backing (for monofilament), metallic threads, and possibly for background fills as well.  Order cones of thread from Superior.
2. See whether I already have an arc template for the spine of those triangle feathers.  If not, figure out what size I need and order it.
3. Test out feather design on sample quilt
4. Mark medallion X and feather spines on quilt top
5. Load the Jingle quilt on the frame!

Meanwhile, I spent some time sewing up some more Birds In the Air blocks for my Spirit Song Dress Code quilt today:

121 Blocks Complete out of 192 Needed; 71 Blocks to Go

This one is also reminding me of pink lemonade.  I know it's obnoxiously bright, and I don't care.  If I can just finish the blocks, I can clean up the giant fabric mess and refocus my attention on the longarm machine.  I keep telling myself that, and then I say I'll just sew a couple more of these HSTs and then I'll stop...

Well, I've got church in the morning and then we'll spend the entirety of Sunday afternoon returning Son the Elder to his college campus.  It was a very low-key but restful Thanksgiving holiday at our house -- just what the doctor ordered!

I'm linking today's post with:

SATURDAY·       UFO Busting at Tish in Wonderland

SUNDAY·

       One Monthly Goal at Elm Street Quilts: http://www.elmstreetquilts.com/  

·       Oh Scrap! at Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework http://quiltingismorefunthanhousework.blogspot.com

MONDAY

·       Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts  

·       Monday Making at Love Laugh Quilt

·       Moving it Forward at Em's Scrap Bag

·       BOMs Away Katie Mae Quilts  

TUESDAY

·       Colour and Inspiration Tuesday at Clever Chameleon

·       To-Do Tuesday at Home Sewn By Us