Machine Quilting Class #4 - Final Class

For this class, we were supposed to bring in a project to practice on. While a few of us did bring in projects, none of us were actually brave enough to start quilting on them. We just continued to practice on our muslin samples. Even though I had both a project and some unused practice muslins, I decided to fill in the empty spaces on the ones I had already been working on. 

Remember the hearts I did last week? I finished echoing this one:

I added one echo to this one and then filed it with free motion meandering:

This strawberry was done using tracing paper and a pattern from 

501 Quilting Motifs: Designs for Hand or Machine Quilting :

I'm quite pleased with how the end leaves turned out. The rest of it needs more work. I'm also pleased with the fact that I figured out on my own how to do this motif in continuous line stitching. I like the book this came from, but if you choose to order it, be forewarned that a lot of motifs are not suitable for continuous line machine quilting. They're more for hand quilting.
This following flower was also done with tracing paper. It's from the book Machine Quilting with Alex Anderson: 7 Exercises, Projects & Full-Size Quilting Patterns .

This one was actually quite easy to do in continuous line stitching.

Then I decided to just fill some space with some random meandering:

Really need to work on my meandering skills.

I watched a Leah Day video of a free motion spider web, but when I tried it, it definitely did not resemble the real thing:

However, I am still pleased with the results because I think it's kind of pretty, whatever it is. I finally remembered what it actually looks like: an ammonite fossil! Next time I will try this with a much larger square like Leah did.

After this, I got bored with red and switched to citrus. I also didn't want to do another motif for which I had to use tracing paper. I really hate having to pick all those tiny little bits of paper off. So I bought a couple more stencils. Here's the first:

I like it very much and am not unhappy with my stitching either.

The other stencil (seen partially in the top of the above picture) is actually meant for a 12-inch block, so I only quilted one quarter of it here:

I think I was getting tired by this time and the stitching certainly shows it. This was my last motif of the night. And I'm glad it was the last class. I'm not fond of night driving. I find it rather disorienting. On my way home, my mind kept trying to convince me that I was driving in southwestern Ontario (where I'm from, originally). I kept imagining that I could see the shapes of huge deciduous trees along the roadside, like they grow in Ontario, but definitely not here in Alberta. I was quite tired, so I'm sure fatigue was a factor. Maybe also a dirty windshield.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention something I learned in that class. If you're going to need several of one motif for your quilt, trace it onto one sheet of tracing paper. Cut out enough sheets for the number of motifs required. Stack them all onto a piece of batting with the traced one on top. Machine stitch without thread through all layers. Voila! All of the tracing papers now have the motif marked on them with the stitching. The batting just provides support to the tissue paper. On the other hand you probably only need to stitch one, because you can then use it as a stencil. The instructor demonstrated how to use a Quilt Pounce using one of these. A quilt pounce is a little "whatchamacallit" that you fill with Pounce chalk dust. You just lay the perforated tracing paper (or stencil as the case may be) where you want it on your quilt, rub the Pounce over the pattern and it's transferred to the quilt. I bought a Pounce at the class and plan on using it soon... The white dust can be ironed out, the blue has to be washed. Meanwhile, I also thought that, instead of tracing the pattern, you can just photocopy it, and then perforate the copy paper with your sewing machine.  And fortunately for me, I have a home photocopier.

And more on the subject of marking quilts - If you use one of those blue quilt marking pens, make sure you remove the markings as soon as you no longer need them. I didn't get around to removing the markings from last weeks samples until today and they were much more difficult to remove than the ones from last night's class. If you leave them long enough, do they become permanent? I don't intend to find out.

In my last post on acrylic painting, I also spoke about taking quilt photos. I dragged out the wicker peacock chair and here are the results:

Go Wild! quilt on the chair, Bearly Hockey quilt in the foreground.

Trying a better angle, but still not quite right.

Busted! Yes, I'm taking these pictures in my downstairs bathroom. The previous owners of my house had the shower removed, so there's a fair amount of empty space in there. If I was any good at photoshopping, I would get rid of the toilet. However, if I decide to paint this picture, I can just leave the toilet out. It's not my prop of choice. :-) If I ever get my basement finished, I will set up a corner for quilt photos, so I don't have to use my bathroom.



Acrylic Painting Class #5

For this class, we went out into the street, sketched a scene with pencil, then came back into the classroom to paint it. Here's my painting so far:

This is the county building. The instructor didn't actually want us to do a whole building, just a tree or a corner of a building or something. Not sure I understood what she actually wanted.

While we were working on our paintings, she handed out a line drawing of an apple and had us do this:

First we washed the whole paper in one direction with yellow, then in the other direction with green. Then we put red on the apple, then blue on the edge of the apple. Then we were supposed to wipe it. I forget what this technique was called, something in French, I think. It doesn't really matter because I doubt I will be using this technique again, unless I actually know what I'm doing when I use it. I was feeling rather annoyed to have my main painting interrupted to do this. I just used paint that was already on my pallet as I wasn't about to start mixing paints for 2 separate pictures at the same time. 

The instructor wants us to bring in all of our finished work for next class, our final class, and she is going to pick some for a mini art show. Seriously??? Who wants to see my incompetent art work? Sharing it on my blog is one thing, but putting it out there for public display in the town where I live is quite another. I'll have to think this one over... Meanwhile I need to finish my county building painting. But if I finish it at home, I will have to come up with something to do in class, as she's not going to present any new projects. And here's my idea: I bought this chair at the thrift store:

The price tag is still stuck on it - I have to figure out how to get it off. I bought it primarily as a prop for quilt photos. I wanted a vintage-looking chair for said photos. It was $15, but it was orange tag day at the thrift shop, which meant everything with an orange tag was 50% off, so I got it for $7.50. The seat is covered in plastic, which definitely has to go, and when we tried to load it, we discovered that the screws holding the seat on were loose. That's okay, since I have to take the seat off to remove that plastic. By the time I got it home and unloaded it, I found there was only one screw holding the seat on. Was there ever another screw or did it fall out somewhere between removing it from the upper shelf in the thrift store and getting it home. Oh well, it's still a pretty sturdy chair, and not bad for $7.50. Here it is with my Go Wild quilt:

Yikes! That quilt kind of swallows the chair! And it's not a really big quilt. Maybe I need to try one of my baby quilts for this. Not to mention that the setting isn't quite right. The hot air register on the right and the AV cabinet on the left don't really cut it. 

This is somewhat of an improvement, but I forgot that brand new cotton batting doesn't drape very well until it's washed a few times. So the quilt looks kind of stiff. (The Go Wild quilt has polyester fibrefil batting, so it drapes better).  And the background is boring. I need a little more "something" in this photo.

Yogi, my vintage teddy bear (yes, he's my original teddy bear), joined in, then I added a "milk can" as another prop and took away the mat. Still not quite what I wanted. I'm going to have to set up a proper studio area if I want to do good quilt photos...

But back to my idea - if I can get a quilt photo that I like, I will then paint it. 

Hmm, there's always the wicker peacock chair...

Meatless All Day: Cookbook Review

Disclaimer: I received a free electronic preview copy of this book from Net Galley. I did not receive any compensation for my review.
Please see my page, Cookbook Criteria, for what I look for in a cookbook.
I really wish that carnivores would quit trying to write vegan/vegetarian cookbooks. It seems that, since more and more people are pursuing a plant-based diet, the cookbook authors want to cash in on the trend. And the results are sometimes comical as well as disappointing. This particular cookbook starts off by instructing us how to cook eggs, which is probably an indication that you won't find much vegan fare here. After some other basic cooking information, the author then provides a list of what she refers to as power ingredients that are supposed to add a "meaty" flavour and/or texture to the dishes. Really, what's wrong with the flavour and texture of plant-based food without having to doctor it up with "power ingredients." I have been a vegetarian for over 38 years, mostly vegan for more than 20 of those. About half of the items on this list, I have never or seldom tried. Of the remaining items, I can't say that I used them for the purpose she is listing them here. Dried fruit to provide a meaty taste and texture? Sounds pretty odd to me. And she uses beets to replace meat. I don't particularly care for beets, but even if I did, I could not honestly describe them as "meaty" in taste or texture.
But that is one of the problems with a carnivore writing a vegetarian textbook. They can't wrap their minds around not having some tough gristle to chew on. Nor can most of them imagine how to get enough protein without animal products, since they view legumes and whole grains as side dishes, and so they throw as many eggs and dairy products into these recipes as possible. One quarter of the way into the book, I finally found a vegan recipe: Black Bean Burgers with Grilled Mango-Lime Mayonnaise. The following recipe uses tempeh and then it's back to lacto-ovo for numerous recipes before another vegan recipe again appears. Half-way through the book, I had only found 4 or 5 genuinely vegan recipes, plenty of eggs and dairy and few legumes. I would be interested in seeing a nutrient profile for these recipes, specifically the saturated fat and cholesterol content.
The recipe title, Thai Salad with Crispy Tofu and Peanut Dressing, sounded promising until I looked at the list of ingredients and saw that first on the list is 4 large eggs. The preamble for the recipe says to omit the eggs to make the recipe vegan, so why put them in at all? And that's not the only recipe where she pairs eggs with tofu. Even Fried Eggplant-Hummus Sandwiches contains 8 eggs (though the hummus itself is vegan)! In another recipe preamble, the author states that she uses "just 2 tablespoons of butter to keep the dish healthier." Why not use olive oil, or even water saute, to make the dish healthier? Yet again, she says that a recipe is healthful thanks to 2% milk and whole grain pasta, ignoring the butter and cheese included in the ingredients.
I don't deny that a lot of these recipes sound yummy, but even for a lacto-ovo cookbook, they are very heavy on the eggs and dairy. Not making room on my cookbook shelf for this one.

Law School Quilt

I've been wanting to do the schoolhouse block for some time. I remember a quilt from my childhood that was made of schoolhouse blocks and so it had a sentimental meaning for me. 

When I was pondering what to make for the recipient of this quilt (a lawyer, who has been working on her doctorate so that she can teach law), I decided that: Courthouse Steps + Schoolhouse = Law School. And that gave me the basis for this quilt design. And the purpose for making the schoolhouse blocks. This is not a really easy block, especially with those funky angles. One of these days I'm going to find my protractor and determine exactly what angle this is. I'm assuming 75 degrees. Fortunately, I have the Tri-Recs tools and the Lazy Angle ruler, which all use this angle, so I didn't have much trouble getting the angle correct. And I only used 4 schoolhouse blocks in this quilt.
The courthouse steps block was a little easier as it was all right angles.

I wanted a very bright and cheerful quilt, so chose a batik fat quarter bundle I purchased at last year's Creative Stitches show. I chose muslin for the background and sashing, but after assembling the quilt, found all that neutral rather boring. So I quilted with a very bright multi-coloured thread, which, unfortunately, doesn't show up very well in the picture. And I neglected to take a close-up. 

This is a cropped photo from the main quilt picture, which shows the quilting, but doesn't really show the bright colours of the thread.

The two borders were made of fabric I picked up on sale at my LQS. 

I think that purple border looks almost electric. Here's the backing I chose, again wanting to go with something bright and cheerful (butterflies):

Finally, I picked a bright green batik for the binding.

Machine Quilting Class #3

Admittedly, I will still need lots of practice with machine quilting before I actually become relatively good at it. I don't aspire to greatness, at least not in the field of machine quilting, but I'd like my stitching to be at least passably good. 
The lessons for this class were using freezer paper, stencils and tracing paper.

The large hearts and the rabbits were done by cutting the pattern out of freezer paper, ironing it onto the fabric and then quilting around it. Unfortunately, the white freezer paper did not show up very well on the muslin background, so I ended up tracing around the patterns. The poppies in the upper right and the pumpkin were both made with  stencils. You can still see the residue of my fabric marker that I have yet to remove. The "feather" and the heart circle on the left were made using tracing paper. I filled in the inside of the feather with some rather jerky-looking stippling after removing the tracing paper. But I'm learning. Each of the methods has it's advantages and disadvantages. Our instructor cautioned us about the use of fabric markers. On certain dyes, especially those in the red family, they can interact with the dye and become permanent. Tracing paper can be a bit of a pain to remove, especially if you have to double back over your stitching and don't place the second layer of stitches exactly on top of the first layer and you end up with a tiny "bubble" in between. Getting that tiny piece of tracing paper out of the bubble can be challenging. The instructor is quilting dragons on a quilt for her daughter. She says that she can quilt a dragon in 45 minutes, but it takes her nearly 3 hours (I think that's what she said) to remove all of the tracing paper. Freezer paper is great for shapes that you just want to outline, and then maybe fill with free motion or echoing. As you can see above, I was just beginning to echo the one heart. With stencils as well as with tracing, you have to be able to figure out how the stitching will go for it to be continuous. I got a little mixed up when I was doing the poppies and ended up going where I shouldn't have. But it's all a learning process. Even the instructor showed us a stencil that she'd purchased that she has never been able to figure out how to do continuous line stitching on. I believe free-motion would probably be the best method if I were any good at it. I've never been a doodler, which is what it's compared to, so I don't know if I'll ever get proficient at free-motion. I'd be happier with a pattern marked out for me somehow. That's why, so far, I've stuck with pantographs when I'm longarming a quilt. 

Acrylic Painting Class #4

Finally! I have been able to produce a painting in class that I am reasonably pleased with:

It was a lesson in perspective. And no, it's not perfect, but it is just a lesson. And it actually looks like something. And I think the difference was that she allowed us to use a pencil to sketch it in beforehand. Honestly, who made the rule that you're not allowed to sketch the picture before you paint it? If it makes your painting better, why not? 
Anyway, remember last week's post, when I told about the instructor trying to teach us how to draw cubes using vantage points? Well, we all had to do that first in this class and we all ended up with envelopes. With a strange-looking cube in the middle. I decided this was one painting I was not taking home. My cube looked like Salvador Dali had painted it. I didn't want that stupid thing in my house. However, when I think about how much a Salvador Dali painting is worth, maybe I should have kept it. LOL!
Each week, I debate about whether or not I should go to class. And so far I keep deciding to go back. We'll see what happens next week. Meanwhile, I need to go get my stuff together for tomorrow night's Machine Quilting class.

Wild Mustangs of the Painted Desert

This past week has been a pretty intense week. Sunday, I had great plans for catching up at home. Since I work full-time Monday to Friday and Sabbath (Saturday) is my day of rest, Sunday is my day for everything else. Monday was my scheduled day off and I had booked time at Sparrow Studioz to long arm this quilt. One of the things I had to do on Sunday was get the backing and batting ready as well as iron the quilt top. Once I got started on that, I decided to see if I could try to finish the Law School quilt as well so that I could quilt it on the long arm after the Mustang quilt since I was making the trip into the city anyway. I did manage to finish it, but that took me almost until bedtime. So much for catching up at home. On Monday, I did the two quilts on the long arm, stopped off at Fabricland to pick up some bright green batik for binding the law school quilt and headed home. The evening was spent trimming the excess batting and backing off both quilts. On Tuesday, I realized I was getting desperately low on cat food, so had to stop off at the grocery store to replenish the food supply for the Quilt Inspectors. Got started on the binding on the Mustang quilt and then went to my acrylic painting class. I had to take off work in the middle of the day on Wednesday to take Mystery in to the vet's for his follow-up appointment for the eye infection he was diagnosed with last week. Yippee! No more eye infection, and no more eye drops! I'd been giving him eye drops twice a day for a week and giving him treats after each treatment. Of course, Tinker usually showed up so she'd get treats as well. Which, of course, depleted the treat supply and I had forgotten to buy them Tuesday after work, so had to do it Wednesday. Wednesday evening was the only time I had left to bind both quilts if I wanted to give them to the recipients on Sabbath. The Mustang quilt especially had to be done as the recipients are moving to BC next weekend. So October 4th would be the last time I would see them. Very dear friends who have been like parents to me and it grieves me greatly to have them move away. <sigh> Yes! I was able to finish the binding on both quilts, plus pack up my sewing machine and gather supplies for Thursday's quilting class. On Thursday, I had to leave directly from work to make it to my Machine Quilting class in Edmonton on time. On Friday, I had to leave work early for my last follow up with my hearing aides. I stopped off at Value Village and bought 3 quilting books and at WalMart to buy a salad and a cake for the potluck dinner on Sabbath. Who has time to cook? On Sabbath, I gave this quilt to my friends Bob and Neva. And had a good cry. And gave the Law School quilt to the grandmother of the recipient, but I'll tell you more about that one in a separate post. 
This quilt is based on a free pattern, Wild Horses, available from Quilting Treasures, though only the border print in my quilt is Quilting Treasures Fabric. The remainder is from Windham Fabrics. The horse print is from the Sierra Trail line and the rest of it is from the Painted Desert line. 

My local quilt shop had the Painted Desert fabric on sale. I love the southwest, Navajo style prints and I was looking for a project to use it in. Though I did use the red fabric as backing for the Blue and Cream Pinwheel Quilt, I wanted to be able to showcase it on the front of a quilt. I bought the horse print separately for another project and never ended up using it. Then I found the horse border print. I tried googling all three of these fabrics to see what I could find for a pattern. And that's when I found the Wild Horses pattern and decided that's what I would use the Painted Desert fabric in. Bob and Neva are both horse-lovers, so when I found out they were moving away, I knew this had to be their quilt.

When I use a large print fabric, as I have in this quilt, I like to use large pieces in the quilt so that it can really showcase the fabric. So I modified this pattern and instead of using a lot of HST squares, I opted for parallelograms for the star point sections and full squares for the background. And yes, that meant a LOT of Y-seams, but that's okay. I'm not intimidated by Y-seams any more, though I don't plan on doing another quilt with this many.

I had to make sure that the parallelograms were leaning in opposite directions for the two fabrics (made that mistake before). If you choose to use my method, you need to cut 5-1/2" fabric strips for these pieces. Then cut 45 degree angles 5-7/8" apart. I chose to use a 5" finshed-size square as the basic unit rather than the 4-3/4" square that the pattern calls for. The four larger squares between the points of the centre star are 7-5/8" and for the triangles along each side, I cut 4 squares 7-7/8" and cut them in half on the diagonal. 

I sewed the parallelograms together in pairs. 

Then I realized that four of the pairs needed to be joined differently than the rest, so had to do some seam-ripping. 

I assembled the centre star.

Then attached the background squares. 

Sewed together and attached the side pairs.

Then worked on the corner units.

And attached them.

Finally added the side triangles and borders, quilted, binded and voila!

And here's the backing. 

Every quilt is a learning experience and one thing I learned from this quilt is the importance of value. When I selected the fabric for this quilt, I assumed that there was enough difference between the horse print (mostly browns), the red Painted Dessert print (mostly red) and the background print (mostly beige). However, when I assembled the quilt top, I was disappointed that the pattern didn't stand out as distinctly as I would have liked. And it puzzled me. Then I used my Ruby Beholder to look at the quilt top. Both the horse print and the red print came out as medium, with some dark and light parts. The beige is on the darker end of light. So all three fabrics are relatively close in value, and not enough significant contrast in colour to make it work really well. Although I still think it's an attractive quilt, and I'm sure my friends will really appreciate it, I think it could have been a better quilt with greater contrast in value. 
Oh, and by the way, I really don't know if there are any mustangs in the Painted Desert, but it sounded good. :-)