My Sewing and Quilting Adventures

This was an interesting challenge and in hand with what we are currently working on with Leah Day's Quilt Along. Seems like its wholecloth quit season. This month tutorial is my Don Linn. His work is really inspiring. I'm kind of a person who likes to experiment with designs and find new ones. So, this perfectly falls on my ally. So, I slightly modified the design by removing the leaf motif from the same place Don had removed the petal and inserted the tip of a feather. Looks like I can't stop my love for feathers ;). Here is my new design. I had do play with the scale little bit since I want to make the sampler quilt and SewCal Gal suggested that we make a 8x8 square for this project. So, Don's original design has reduced by 80% and then modified. Modified Design Traced the template using black sharpie pen Template create on tulle fabric Quilted template with flash...I used Aqua color thread Picture without flash to see the quilting Micro...

I can't believe its week 14 already. I started to follow Leah's quilt along starting week 4 and it has been a amazing journey so far. I just learned FMQ starting of this year and happy with my progress so far. This week was really fun for me. I didn't have any completed top. So, I worked on a new quilt and then got side tracked ;). Hmmm....What's new, right ;)? Okay here is the deal, the quilt pattern I'm working on is X's and O's. If you like this check out this wonderful tutorial from Jenny@missouriquiltco.com : X's and O's Quilt . I'm totally in love with my new Singer Quantum Stylist 9960 sewing machines. It pieces amazing and the the quilting is awesome too. I can see a huge improvement from my old Brother XL2600i machine. This is my first quilt pieced and quilted on the new sewing machine. I can only imagine how the "Janome" machine would be. But can't afford those for now. Here is a picture of my blocks: Go back...

This weeks we're finishing up our wholecloth quilt. The task was to soak the quilt, block it and then trim & bind. First, I was thinking of skipping the soaking and boxing step. Personally being a novice quilter I was happy with my wholecloth quilt as is. So, thought why not just trim and bind. I had sparingly used homemade starch and the disappearing ink pen. So, didn't feel that I wanted to do these steps and left a message at Leah's blog for her input. Since, I didn't get a feedback and didn't want to be rebel and followed those two steps too :-). I used the same fabric for my binding. I usually cut my binding strips at 2.5inches and did the same for this project too. Again, the fabric I used was "Pearl Pink Kona Solid". Here is a picture of my blocking the quilt: Blocking the Wholecloth Quilt Here is the picture of the quilt after I trimmed it and machine stitched the binding from the back: Binding - before joining the ends  I use...

This week's task was micro-stippling around the heart and feather motifs. I have to say micro-stippling was really fun. I actually started by working on a practice sandwich before doing my "Heart & Feather" wholecloth quilt. The practice quilt I started by outlining the motif in the center and then quilted in circles instead of rows and followed the same for each flower as I got closer to it. This was just a practice one so I goofed a little around the flower ;). Here are pictures of my practice quilt: Practice quilt Front Practice quilt back Last week Danielle had suggested that I try hair-dryer to get the markings out of my quilt. I did try this method and I had to setup my dryer at hot with medium speed. The markings did go away but some of the lines then came back after it  cooled off. So, I went back to those lines with tip of my iron. So, I am thinking that not just the heat but little bit friction is also required for the markings to disappear f...