My Sewing and Quilting Adventures

It was just so exciting to see comments from Leah, Pat & Anee and all! Leah you are my free motion quilting inspiration. Thanks again for all the tutorials. This week I am taking the things Leah taught and apply that to my butterfly quilt. If I have extra time,then I will try to piece up a table runner with saw-tooth-star. Lets see if its possible. Butterfly Quilt: Here are pictures of the butterflies and lady bugs I tried to stipple into, I would call this micro stippling. The butterflies on my quilt are approximately 4x4inches and looks like my stippling scale is probably 1/8th of inch or less. The lady bugs may be 1/16th inch of stippling. So tiny or dense. Micro-stippling on the lady bug with circle motif Another attempt at micro-stippling So far, this is my best quilted butterfly More stippling I am planning to finish my butterfly quilt with pink thread. Since, this is my try out quilt. I wanted to play with the thread colors. I would like to go and f...

Thread Issue: I was using variegated thread for my butterfly quilt and my top threading was very loopy and I was thinking that my thread was an issue. Then last night I felt like changing my needle from 90/14 quilting needle to 100/16 needle. As soon as I did this, my stitches were pretty again. So, looks like the variegated thread needs a heavier needle like 100/16. This morning I was reading SewCalGal's quilting suggestions: http://sewcalgal.blogspot.com/2011/12/suggested-supplies-for-free-motion.html Guess, what here is the what I found, BINGO! "Sewing machine needles :   Topstitch needles 80/12, 90/14.  100/16 topstitch needles for heavy decorative thread and 70/10 for thinner threads, such as silks." At least one problem solved. I'm just thrilled :-).

So, this week I finally got to start working on Quilt Along series with Leah Day. I really love the way she teaches Free motion quilting. I had accidentally stumbled upon her video while searching for Free Motion quilting in YouTube. And I have been hooked ever since. This week is kind of a crash-course for me. Because this week I'm practicing everything starting week 1 through week 4.Not sure how many times I have watched all those videos though :-). So, its totally 4 weeks worth of practice. Actually this week's quilt along really intrigued me to get started and find time in my really really busy schedule. You know its kind of hard to find time when you a 6months old baby, who always wants to be held. But I don't mind it though :-). He is my precious little one. I will be adding the pictures of all the practice I did this week. By the way, some insight into my very basic sewing machine. I'm using brother XL2600i domestic sewing machine. I purchased a very generi...

This is the same quilt sandwich which I showed in week2 progress. Since I got to do all the catch-ups from week1 through week 3 during week4. My orders are all messed up. I hoping that I would be able to continue from now on with missing any week.  See below pictures showing two different scales. I guess 1/2 inch scale comes naturally to me and then I tried the 1/4inch scale. With more practice looks like I might be able to get better at 1/4inch scale. I didn't try the 1inch scale due to two reasons, first wasn't sure with my machine without any special accessories if I will be able to do 1inch stippling. So stayed away from it. Here are the pictures: the full quilt showing 2 different scales of stippling Left 1/4 inch scale; Right 1/2 inch scale

Okay this evening when I got some break. I ran into my sewing room and finished up the week2 and week3 quilt along. I can say that I kind of cheated because its the same quilt sandwich but I tried both the tasks for week2 and week3. Here are some pictures which cover week 2: First two rows seem okay, then not sure what happened :-). It took a life of its own. Top Right was the row I started from the center of the quilt Bottom right was very random. Left side tried to rows but not sure what happened.

So last night finally I got to try the week 1's quilt along. I guess it came out okay. It was easy to do the U shapes but then it got wacky as I went into other shapes. I just tried to finish the quilt sandwich I was working on. I was determined to finish it off no matter what. week1 front of the quilt-1   week1 front of the quilt2  I seemed to have some trouble with the stitches at the back. Not sure, what was up with it: Wondering if too much lint has built-up in my bobbin.