The Great Canadian Maple Leaf Quilting Adventure

I'm actually calling this the Vintage Maple Leaf Quilt because it's from a "vintage" pattern, but it has been quite the adventure. This is definitely a quilt of firsts:

• first applique quilt (yes, I've done applique blocks, but never a whole quilt)
• first quilt with wool batting
• first quilt with double batting (one layer cotton, one layer wool)
• first quilt completed with rulers (I did do those fabric Valentines for my grandson with a ruler, but that was less than a metre of fabric)
• first quilt that I've taken off the frame and reloaded it sideways
• first quilt I've had to do three passes over - one for the horizontal borders and sashing plus the leaves, one for the vertical borders and sashing and one to quilt the white background in the blocks
• first quilt I've used 2 different colours of thread to quilt (an army green for the borders, sashing and leaves and white for the block backgrounds)
• first time I've completed a quilt from a pattern that I've had for over 43 years (while I may have some books that are older than that, I don't think I have owned any of them for that length of time)

My goal was actually to complete this quilt for my daughter for Christmas. The label on the back says 2020, but that is not entirely accurate. I was alternating rows of blocks between this one and the Stitch Pink quilt, which I was making for my oldest niece. I was able to finish that one before Christmas, and the quilt top was finished for this one. But then the (mis)adventures began. When I unfolded the backing fabric, I disovered that somehow I had miscalculated the amount required and I didn't have enough. Thank the Lord, I was off work, the quilt shop was open and they still had some of the fabric left. That was the 23rd of December and they were closed December 24th and wouldn't reopen until the 4th of January. I wouldn't have been able to do any work on this quilt over the holidays if I hadn't gone in that day. Or I would have had to make a mad dash to another community with a quilt shop open and probably had to purchase the entire amount required for backing since the likelihood of matching this fabric was slim. 

Nearly perfect backing fabric for this quilt. My LQS actually had one that I liked better. It was the same design, but some of the leaves were fall colours. Unfortunately, they didn't have enough of that one. And I almost didn't have enough of this one. 😌 

The next issue was trying to get my longarm into ClearView load position. 

Since I would be using rulers, this keeps the top bar out of the way of the rulers and my arms. I watched the video and it looked pretty simple to lift and drop the bar assembly and then it would just be a matter of turning around one of the leaders to use it in this position. However, no matter how much I manhandled it (even lifting the entire frame off the floor), I could barely get it to budge. I finally called my vendor and was told to loosen a couple of the screws on each end (which is what I had thought of trying, but didn't want to try it without their go ahead), and success! Though the left end still gave me some trouble. 

Before I loaded the quilt, I also had to trim both battings so that I wouldn't have a lot hanging over the side. I trimmed them to what I thought was a generous allowance - about 8" wider than the quilt top. Apparently, wool batting scrunches itself back up somehow and once I loaded it, I discovered that I barely had enough and had to keep tugging on it to make sure it extended past the edges of the quilt top. Then, to load. As the clamps would be in the way of the ruler base, I had to have something to which the clamps could attach and then pin the other ends to the backing. Some binding remnants served the purpose. 

These are the rulers I purchased for this quilt: Wiggle Wave, Versa Tool and Straight Edge.

I bought the Versa Tool because it's supposed to be good for applique and stitch-in-the-ditch. I didn't find it really improved my accuracy for applique, and I only did enough stitch-in-the-ditch to get from one diagonal line to the next in the block backgrounds, so that would have required a quick switch back and forth from the Straight Edge to the Versa Tool and back again - not worth the effort, in my opinion. 

I finally started the quilting, but, oh my, what a lot of work quilting with rulers is! I don't know why people like it. It's tedious and time-consuming.

And my free motion quilting on the leaves was terrible. I couldn't stay on the edge of the leaves. And when I did the veins and had to travel back over my quilting, I often ended up with loops instead of my stitching going over the previous path. And what a hassle to switch between colours frequently! I was up late that first night and went to bed discouraged, and could hardly sleep because I was trying to figure out how to get this quilting done. I had pretty much made up my mind to remove it from the frame, rip out all of my stitching and just use a pantograph. I do have two different maple leaf pantographs, after all. And that was what I had originally planned on doing. But I also knew that an allover pantograph just wouldn't do this quilt justice. Those leaves needed to pop, which is what I wanted to accomplish with ruler quilting. 

In the morning, I decided not to let this defeat me and came up with a better plan of attack. I had originally planned on doing the whole quilt with one pass, completing each section as I advanced the quilt. I now recognized that that was not the best way to get this quilt quilted. Trying to do vertical as well as horizontal lines, plus changing thread colours repeatedly wasn't going to cut it. So, I now planned to quilt it in three stages: 

1. Quilt the horizontal borders and sashing, plus the leaves.
2. Reload the quilt sideways to quilt the vertical borders and sashing.
3. Switch to white thread and quilt the block backgrounds. 

I found stage 2 the easiest and stage 3 the most tedious. Stage 3 would have been much quicker and easier if I could have just quilted right over the leaves instead of having to go around them. 

Because each leaf had to be quilted individually, with the veins quilted separately from the outline, I managed to produce a large pile of thread ends. 

Some time during my quilting - I'm not sure what I did: held my finger too long on the up/down button maybe? - but suddenly my needle was stopping so low that it dragged on the quilt top a couple of times. I managed to get it up high enough to clear the quilt top, but still wasn't happy with where it was stopping - too low for my comfort. 

I asked advice in the Handi Quilter group on Facebook and finally contacted the repairman at my vendor. Ultimately, I will have to take it in for adjustment, but it was working well enough for me to comfortably finish the quilt. 

Meanwhile, I was finding that, with the ClearView load, and double batting, it was very difficult to adjust the batting to keep the wrinkles out. So there are a few places where I've got batting ridges in the quilt. I also neglected to trim all of the thread ends, and there are some places where dark threads show through the white fabric. 😖 Live and learn!

I was finding Stage 3 very tedious, and considering just finishing one block at a time, but these blocks are too wide for the throat space, so that would necessitate rolling it back and forth for each block. So I would do approximately half of each block in one row, advance the quilt and then quilt the other halves of the blocks.

Finally, the quilting was done and I took it off the frame and put it on the double bed in the basement bedroom to have a good look. 

My goal with the quilting was to make the leaves "pop." Mystery (my cat) confirmed the success of my goal when he jumped on the bed and promptly tried to play with the leaves.

Now for the binding, which is my least favourite part of any quilt. But especially when it's a bulky, heavy, double-bed sized quilt. And, with two battings, this one is heavy. And stiff because of the fairly dense quilting. I had planned on using this fabric 

It's fall colours, but that black background made me hesitate. There is no other black in this quilt. So, I decided to see if I could find something else. I was planning on going into the quilt shop when I had the chance, but then I found this fabric in my stash. 

Perfect colours, perfect theme. And today, because we had two severe weather warnings in effect (freezing rain and high winds), and I have a 45-minute commute to work, I opted to take one of the Personal Leave days that my employer allows, and got the binding done. Currently, it's snowing horizontally.

And so, nearly 44 years after this pattern was published, I've completed my version of it. 

Original Pattern: Maple Leaf Quilt from Scraps, published in Family Circle magazine in March 1977

(My changes from the original pattern included raw edge appliqué using fusible web, rather than needle turn applique, widening the outside borders to 5", and, of course, longarm quilting rather than hand quilting). 

Too Many Projects on the Go

While working on Practice Makes Perfect, I decided to see if I had sufficient fabric left over to make the practice quilts for the two Angela Walters classes I own. One is Quilting With Rulers: Free Motion Made Simple, which I own online (hopefully, the new Craftsy will get our pre-owned classes sorted out soon). And the other is Help! How Do I Quilt It?: A Machine-Quilting Manual, which I own on DVD. Like the previous class, these are both taught mostly on a domestic machine, so I will have to be creative to make them work on my longarm. But, after all of the time and effort I invested in Practice Makes Perfect, I really am not in a hurry to do another quilt using free motion or rulers. I just wanted to get the quilt tops done so that they'd be ready when I am. And I can put the remnants of the fabric in the scrap bin. 

This is the quilt top for ruler practice, which I will call Practice Makes Perfect 2. But I had gotten sidetracked while working on Practice Makes Perfect, and started on something more interesting. 

I think I will call this Fall Frolic. It's made from the Jordan Fabrics pattern, Teatime, and it gave me the opportunity to use my Strip Tube ruler for the first time. I am actually farther along than this picture shows, needing only one more border and then it will be ready for the longarm. It will be for my nephew, Andrew. 

Back to making practice quilt tops, I got this far on Practice Makes Perfect 3 (pattern from the "Help!" class) and discovered that my HST border was too long. I've been revising the instructions as I saw fit and even though I starched the fabric before cutting HSTs, the bias still stretched. A LOT! I have some ideas for how I'm going to remedy this, but I wanted to work on something more fun for awhile. (I also made templates for the paper-piecing part - those diamonds in the centre - because I realized that I would run out of fabric if I did it all with paper-piecing). 

I had seen this video and thought that those quilts would work for baby quilts. Not that I have run out of ideas for using HSTs in baby quilts. But I certainly am not opposed to finding and trying new ideas. My local quilt shop sells precut metres of fabric for $7/metre and I resolved to give this a try. So I picked up 3 coordinating fabrics the next time I was in the shop. 

And this is what I tried next. 

This one is the Jigsaw quilt, demonstrated by Misty starting at 17:29 in the video. Full cutting directions are not provided, because, of course, they want to sell the book, which you can find here:

(And if you purchase through this link, I'll actually earn a small pittance. I have no idea how much because it's never happened so far). 

I'm going to keep this author's books in mind because I really like the idea of a 3-yard quilt and they will be great alternates for HST baby quilts. Unfortunately, I don't currently have backing fabric for this one, but that's not a big problem since I also don't have a recipient in mind. 

Meanwhile, I did a little doodling. 

This is one of the quilting designs (or at least my version of it) in the "Help!" Not bad for a non-doodler, eh? But I don't think I will ever master the serpentine lines!

October started with daily emails of quilt block designs from Moda arriving in my inbox. These are part of the #ModaStitchPink project for Breast Cancer Awareness month. I don't usually join Quilt Alongs, since I already have more than enough projects to work on. However, my oldest niece, Julie, celebrated her 50th birthday on October 11th. And her favourite colour is pink. Plus I have a sister who is a breast cancer survivor and an aunt who died at 95, who was a breast cancer survivor as well. So, I thought, "Why not?" Especially since I like trying new quilt blocks. I picked up several pink fabrics at the quilt shop, including a very pale pink solid that I'm using as the background. And I added some pink fabrics from my stash, and started making blocks. 

I think I need to move purchasing a new camera higher on my priority list. My cell phone camera just doesn't capture colours very well. 

I've only got the first two blocks done so far. As usual, I don't always follow directions exactly if I know a method that I think works better. In the above block, I used the no-waste method for making flying geese. 

I hate wasting fabric, or trying to figure out what to do with triangles that I've had to cut off corners. So, this method works really well for me. 

I told my niece that it would be a combined birthday and Christmas present and she'd probably get it closer to Christmas, but I didn't tell her that it's a quilt. I suspect that she'll probably guess. 

Well, back to the studio. In addition to these project, I've also got some more masks to make. 

The 'Gladys Over' Quilt

I remember a story one of my favourite pastors told. It was about a pastor who had preached his first sermon in a new church. As he was greeting the members of the congregation after the service was over, one lady said to him, "I'm glad it's over." He was rather taken aback and wondered what he had possibly said to offend this women that she was glad his sermon was over. That is, until he was brought to the realization that she was introducing herself, "I'm Gladys Over." So, now that this quilt is finished, I am glad it's over, and think that maybe I should have called it the 'Gladys Over' quilt, instead of 'Practice Makes Perfect.' 

My Free Motion Quilting Journey

Many years ago, I would occasionally assist some of the ladies at my church with quilting quilts. These were generally made of polyester double knit and we "quilted" them with ties of yarn. That was my first experience with "quilting." When I made my very first quilt, which you can see in my post, "My Quilting Journey", I quilted it on my sewing machine. I had never even heard of a walking foot, let alone a free motion quilting foot, and was just "stitching in the ditch" before that was even a term. I think I had read somewhere about quilting by machine and so I tried it, especially since I'm just not into hand stitching if I can avoid it. As I really didn't know what I was doing, my stitching was much too far apart, but that quilt is still together. The cat quilt I made for my baby daughter (now aged 30) was quilted the same way. And it's still around as well.

Then I discovered the walking foot and I continued with stitch in the ditch, only making my stitching lines closer together. I had a sewing machine with a darning foot and an embroidery foot, but when I attempted free motion quilting, I just wasn't getting it. Even though I'd enrolled in an online course, I couldn't do it. I couldn't get the tension right - I was getting "eyelashes" on the back, and my stitches were always too small or too big. I was never much of a doodler and having to move the "paper" (the quilt sandwich) instead of the "pen" (the sewing machine) wasn't working for me. I just couldn't get it. I was told to try using an embroidery hoop and keep practicing. But wasting all of that time and fabric wasn't really something I was prepared to do. 

Then I gave longarm quilting a try, using a pantograph, renting in a longarm studio. And I was hooked. Having stitch regulation, being able to move the machine rather than the quilt, and following a pantograph with a laser light worked so well for me. And I could finish a quilt in hours, rather than days or longer. And there are thousands of pantographs available, so I didn't need to limit myself to just a few designs. 

But I still thought about that free motion quilting (fmq) thing. And, not yet being able to purchase my own longarm, I still wanted to be able to finish quilts on my domestic machine. So, I took a night class at a sewing/quilting/fabric store. And I learned a lot. I learned that there are sewing machine snobs. I overheard a couple of the ladies in the class talking and agreeing that you can't get a decent sewing machine for less than a few thousand dollars. I don't remember the exact figure - $2000? $3000$ - but it was much more than I was thinking about paying for a sewing machine. And I was the only one in the class with an older machine. My Janome MC 8000 was probably over 20 years old at the time, although it had been a topnotch machine when it was made. And still was for that matter. And even though it was made for embroidery, not quilting, the ladies with their fancy new machines didn't really do any better with the practice exercises than I did. And we practiced with the walking foot, with stencils, with Pounce, with marking pens, with Golden Threads quilting paper. I bought an open toe quilting foot for my machine, and I gained sufficient skill that I decided to attempt quilting a throw-sized quilt (Unbroken, 60" square) on my domestic machine. It was disastrous, and I ended up picking out some very tiny stitches. Since then, I have only quilted very small projects (wallhangings, hot pot holders) on my sewing machine. That particular quilt is the only quilt on which I have ever used computerized quilting, as I rented one of the longarms at my local quilt shop. The owner set up the program for me, and I just had to press the button and cut off the thread at the end of each motif. 

I continued to finish my quilts on the longarm using pantographs, eventually purchasing my Amara. I was not going to practice fmq when I was renting longarms. At an hourly rate, it would have been just too expensive. However, the same shop owner that set me up on her computerized machine also taught me a basic loop-de-loop and I finished one quilt, Sweet Dreams, using this technique  And now that I owned my own longarm, I felt that I should at least give fmq a try. I took one course in longarm fmq in a quilt shop, in March of 2019. And actually, I didn't do too badly. But I was still reluctant to ruin a perfectly good quilt by practicing on it. Or waste good - and expensive - fabric. However, Quilt Canada was coming to Edmonton this year. And I enrolled in some fmq classes. Well, we all know what happened with the pandemic, so that never happened. Finally, on Bluprint's final day of sales, I purchased some classes on DVD, one of which was Christina Cameli's Free-Motion Quilting Essentials. Now I was comitted to giving it a bigger try, on my own machine, in my own home, without the time (and space) constraints imposed by in-class learning.

The problem with this course is that it is taught on a domestic sewing machine. And the instructor uses 10" blocks - not exactly a size that's workable on a longarm without being made into a quilt. The instructions called for 5 each of 3 different blocks. And I tried to figure out how to make 15 - 10" blocks into a workable quilt. Even though this was just a practice quilt, I still wanted it to be useful. I finally decided to add 10 of my own blocks (5 each of 2 different blocks) with 2" sashing and came up with a 62" square quilt. 

Next, I had to decide on fabric. I'm not a big fan of solids. As a matter of fact, I don't even always use solids for my background fabrics. So, initially, I was thinking of textures/tonals. But then I decided that, as I was practicing free motion quilting, I really wanted to be able to see the quilting. And that is done best on solids. I still have quite a few blues and greys left over from the Bluenose II Pixel quilt, plus some greens, and a little red. Hmm, not exactly what made for an exciting quilt. While I was very happy with the results of the blue-grey combination in A-Maze-Ing, that was not all solids. And then I remembered the Dahlia quilt kit. I had purchased it at the same time as Queen Guinevere's Tiles, and it has remained in my stash since. Here's the pattern: 

And here's the fabric that came with the kit:

Nothing against this pattern, but if I am going to go to all the trouble of stitching all of those curved seams, I am certainly not going to waste my efforts on such an uninspiring colour combination, and likely not solids either. Grey is one of my least favourite colours in a quilt, and not a colour that you would find in beautiful dahlia flowers. So, I have considered different options for this quilt kit. At one time, I considered using it as a signature quilt. Done completely in solids, there is plenty of space for notes from friends. But I also thought that if I ever need solids in those colours, I could use the fabrics from this kit. Well, now was the time. However, I needed 5 different fabrics for the blocks, and I didn't really want to use the greys or the cream. From my stash, I pulled a purple-y blue and a funky colour combination was born. 

Then I had to choose the two extra blocks I was going to use. As these were 10" blocks, I had to choose a 5-patch pattern to keep it simple. I also like to try new block patterns, so didn't want to repeat ones I'd used before. The first I chose was the Cake Stand block. 

And I decided that I really do like this funky colour combination. Searching for a second block, I found some really interesting 5-patch patterns, but some of the piecing would end up quite small in a 10" block. And I really didn't want to tackle that in a quilt that was essentially just a vehicle for practicing free motion quilting. I found the Crow's Nest block on Jinny Beyer's site and found that the blocks went together very well using her templates. 

My goal was to use all 5 colours in all 25 blocks, with each colour in a different postion in each block. And I achieved that goal. 

After finishing the blocks, I auditioned them with the remaining fabrics from the kit to determine which one would make the best sashing:

the light grey,

the medium grey,

or the cream.

I actually asked my friends on Facebook for their opinions. While most people chose the cream, I was leaning more towards the medium grey. In spite of my dislike for grey in quilts, I just felt that this was the best colour to make these blocks "shine." I even tried putting different blocks on my design wall with the two favourite colours. 

This

and this.

Ultimately, I chose the medium grey and then a darker grey for cornerstones. 

And I was quite happy with the results.

Finally, I got the quilt on the longarm, and it was time to begin trying my hand at free motion quilting. 

The first lesson was on Wiggles and Loops. And I used the lazy 8s in the quilt border.

For the most part, I just quilted what was in the illustrations in the book. But the challenge was deciding what to put int the blocks that were not part of the class, plus the sashing and cornerstones. 

I wasn't getting the ribbon candy thing, and my lazy eights degenerated into something trying to look like a cursive upper-case 'G'. 

Feathers weren't actually part of this lesson, but I decided to try them anyway and really like the look of them in this block. 

The problem I find with stippling is that I find that I get myself into a corner and can't figure out how to get out. End of row 1.

The next lesson was Spirals and Sharp Points. I chose spirals for the horizontal sashing.

I'm actuallly reasonably pleased with how this block turned out. 

I forgot to turn the corner with my square spirals, but I wasn't much good at turning corners anyway. 

Really not bad for a beginner. 

Once again, drawing feathers and pebbles from lessons I hadn't actually taken yet. That's the end of row 2. 

The third lesson was on circles and travelling (which means going back over the same stitches) - and actually learning feathers and leaves. As you've probably noticed, I chose to use feathers in the vertical sashing.

Another challenging thing about this quilt was that while doing the fmq on a domestic machine, the block could be turned in any direction, while on a longarm, the quilt was stationary and I had to learn how to do the motifs from whatever direction the blocks were on the quilt. 

Some of my motifs, like the feather in the light blue, look pretty amateurish.But then, I am an amateur. 

After two rows of doing feathers in the large centre triangles in the Cake Stand block, I decided to try something different, and I like how it turned out.

And that's the end of row 3. 

The nest lesson was on radiant designs, S-curves and arcs. Those 'S' curves just aren't working for me. 

Though I haven't focused on them in thes pictures, you may have noticed that I keep trying different motifs in the dark grey cornerstones. I never did really settle on one that I liked.

Those flowers aren't cutting it either. LOL! 

I was almost finished this block, when I decided to change the position of my handles. I had been operating the machine with them in the micro-quitling position, but I moved them back up to the regular position and was actually happier with that. 

I managed this flower much better, with the handles in the up position than I did the one in the second block with them in the down position. End of row 4.

The final practice lesson was on adding emphasis and mashups. 

I think mashups is a good name for my free motion quilting. 

The square in the middle of this block was supposed to have an unquilted star in the middle. Unfortunately, I did not have a star shape handy and drew it freehand, so it was pretty wonky. Also, I used a white pencil, so it wasn't easy to see against this colour. After making quite a mess of it, I decided to just fill it all in with pebbles. I should have tried having the handlebars in the down position as these are pretty tiny pebbles. That square is only 4". 

My final cake stand block and I went back to feathers, only I tried to echo them. Can you tell I'm getting tired of fmq? Some awful looking quilting on those feathers. 

Worst S-curves! Most definitely getting tired of this by this point. Last block - yay!

Conclusions Regarding Free Motion Quilting

I didn't particularly enjoy this experience. While I don't think I did terribly (especially not for a beginner), and I do believe that I would improve with practice, I don't really enjoy it enough to want to practice. 

• It takes a lot of effort to keep my size, shape and spacing consistent. With a pantograph, I'm following lines, so everything is going to stay reasonably consistent. 
• With free motion quilting, unless I'm doing an edge to edge or allover design, I have to decide what to do with each indivdual piece of fabric. When I use a pantograph, I just have to choose the pantograph and get quilting. 
• This type of fmq is too dense for me and I think the focus becomes the quilting rather than the quilt. I don't like that. The instructor said that if you want to de-emphasize part of the quilt or block, you should quilt more densely on that part. I find the opposite true - that I notice the more densely quilted parts more. 
• This is definitely more intense quilting than pantographs. It takes more time, concentration and effort. 
• There are thousands of pantograph designs available. I can quilt designs, like dinosaurs or cats - that I would probably never be able to accomplish with free motion quilting. 

In special situations, I may decide to use these skills again. And while I completed the Sweet Dreams quilt with an allover fmq design and could easily do that again, I'm still a little disappointed that I didn't use the Sweetness pantograph that I had originally intended for it. So, I am, and shall remain, a comitted pantograph quilter. 

One final thought: I have come to the conclusion that, unless the recipient is a fellow quilter, the average person will not even notice the design used to quilt a quilt. Sure, they know that it's stitched together, but unless the quilting is really obvious, like contrasting or heavy thread, or it's pointed out to them, are they going to notice that I used candy canes to quilt it? Not likely. I could probably quilt all of my quilts with Bumpity and the majority of recipients wouldn't know any different. So, in my opinion, the quilting is really for the satisfaction of the quilter. 

As far as the course itself is concerned, I can recommend it. Christina's a good teacher and the course gives a good foundation for learning free motion quilting. 

But I'm not quite finished practicing yet. A few years ago, when Sew Sisters was having a Stuff Your Stocking event, I foolishly purchased a bunch of machine quilting rulers. Why foolish? Because I think that quilting with rulers is going to be as much work, if not more, than free motion quilting. And I don't think I will enjoy it any more. And I had to buy a ruler base for my machine in order to use them. And then I enrolled in a Quilting with Rulers course in order to learn how. So, in order to justify my investment, I have to at least give quilting with rulers a try. And who knows? I might actually like it more than fmq since it's at least got to be more precise. 

And then there's that other free motion quilting class I purchased...

One more thing: I almost forgot to show you the fun backing fabric I used on this quilt. 

Isn't it awesome? Since it was a practice quilt, I determined to only use fabric from my stash in its construction. I had purchased this a few years back to use as backing for baby/children's quilts, but somehow it hadn't yet found its way into one. So, I decided this would be my fun and funky backing for my fun and funky quilt.