Week 4!
It's Easy Week, Choose your Adventure week!
I LOVE seeing your posts! Thanks for sharing, and keep it up! There are still lots of prizes to be had.
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This week's giveaway is an original painting by Caverly. I love Caverly's art! I have a lot of her pieces in my house; mostly oils and a couple watercolours. Everything she paints or sketches is just so happy. She has kindly offered an original watercolour painting to this week's winner. She chose colours for this painting from the Wildwood collection by Rifle Paper Co used in the first Yonder quilt.
To enter this week's giveaway, post a pic of your Yonder whether you've worked on it this week or not, and you'll be entered!
This week's task:
Do as you please.
Easy week is a great opportunity to get ahead, or catch up, or do nothing at all! How will you spend your week?
Thinking of how to quilt your Yonder?
It won’t be long before these quilt tops are done, and we will be thinking about how to quilt them. I thought I would share some thoughts on quilting inspiration.
My experience with free motion quilting is very limited. It's not a talent of mine on a domestic machine. My quilts either get long arm service, or I free motion quilt a design on a long arm by using the rental service at Violet Quilts. Strangely, I'm happy with my FMQ work on a longarm, where I don't have the ability on my domestic. I find it so much easier to be successful quilting on the open space of a long arm frame. Haven't tried it yet? Maybe there's a local quilter that offers rental. It's only a little cheaper than having it quilted, but I really enjoy the process and find it energizing to free motion quilt on a longarm.
I've added
two files to the bonus files page. There's a small Yonder block file for testing out a FMQ design, and a full scale Yonder block file to use for practicing FMQ full scale. Practicing FMQ before you start can start to build muscle memory and get you into a groove before you start on the real quilt.
I'm dividing my go-to quilting favourites into 3 categories:
- Easy ideas for quilting on your domestic (designs I've felt confident doing on my machine, and I bet another beginner would too).
- Advanced free motion quilting on your domestic or a longarm.
- Longarm service pantographs or Edge to Edge (E2E) designs I love.
Easy ideas for quilting on your domestic machine:
The following are techniques I've felt confident doing on my home machine, and though they're basic, I'm really happy with how they turn out.
A walking foot can be very useful for these styles.
Straight lines, different distances apart: Use your walking foot and guide bar. You'll be sewing across bias, so starching your quilt top and spray baste while making your quilt sandwich will be your friends. Since these lines are not all the same distance apart, it takes out the fussing of every line being just so.
Organic wavy lines: Use your walking foot! Consider the height from crest to valley, and how close you want lines to get to each other. Pay attention that these wavy lines end parallel to where they began so that these lines don't start to tilt.
Advanced ways to quilt on your domestic or longarm:
These would be quilted out using any sort of free motion foot on your domestic machine or using a longarm.
For the pattern's cover quilt I wanted a wood grain design, and after looking at the options, I wanted a greater variety in the design than the repeatable pattern of a pantograph was offering. So I chose to rent time on Sheri's longarm and quilted it out myself. I practiced on paper to get an idea of how I wanted it to look, then taped it up so could refer to it as I got started. I was pretty happy with how it turned out, for my first time.
Wood Grain: Some lines will get very close. The few lines before or after a knot are very squished close together near the knot, so plan ahead where you would like to have a knot, and set it up a few lines before you get there. The knot is an elongated swirl, Some people like the knot to have pointy ends, and some like them soft and round. I put little "splinters" in my lines every once in awhile. I make some lines very close together, and some quite far apart, some are wiggly, but most are straight with a little wave.
Elongated Meander: Although a basic stipple seems like it must be a very easy design to quilt out, it actually takes a lot of practice. I feel this is a good first step (I like the look better than stippling, so I may just stay here). It looks like water to me! I love quilting it out. If you're using your domestic, consider pushing and pulling the quilt through to make the long lines, so you would be working from the side of the quilt if you want these lines to be horizontal when the quilt is upright. If you are doing it on a longarm, let your body sway left to right as quilt it horizontally. The lines can be wavy. Remember to add hooks and on their sides Cs, Ns, Es. You can work your way from one side to the other side or pick up and end off on only one side of the quilt at times.
Rainbow Cluster: Start out with a little arc, then echo with a few more arcs. Avoid points if possible. Think in advance where you would like to build your next rainbow, so you know where you're going next. You can even start your next rainbow in the middle of an arc. Ideally you'll have rainbows in every orientation so that the design doesn't have a right side up or right side down.
Longarm service pantographs or Edge to Edge (E2E) designs I'm loving:
I've already mentioned how I quilted Yonder #1 for the pattern cover. #2 and #3 were dropped off for longarm service over a week ago so that I could have them quilted and show you pics during the QAL. Here are the pantos I used, and a few others I'm crushing on.
Yonder #2
I've chosen this
Baptist Fan for my Yonder in Garden Club. I wanted something curvy since the block is linear. I felt it would help to meld the soft florals in the fabric and the bold block. I chose a pistachio thread colour. The blue floral in the corner is the backing.
Yonder #3
For the Yonder in Mazy, I've chosen a
Chicken Wire Edge to Edge, which isn't really a suggestion. I chose it because of the fabric I used. I first fell for Mazy's Garden because I grew up on a little farm, and the colours and artwork reminded me so much of squash blossoms, fresh tomatoes and string beans from the garden. We used Chicken wire to hold up our sweet peas and house the chickens, so to me, it was a perfect fit to the fabric, not necessarily the design of the pattern.
Here are some other pantos I think would be a great fit for Yonder:
This is
Boardwalk. I've used it on my
Starstrung quilt and it gave the quilt an amazing texture, especially since I used Hobbs' new Tuscany Supreme Cotton - a double thick cotton batting. I love how this panto gives texture without drawing attention to itself. It really shows off a quilt well!
Fancy Schmancy. Karlee Porter has some amazing retro-tile-inspired pantos. This has been a favourite.
Here's a
Woodgrain that was a contender for Yonder #1, in case you're hoping for woodgrain too!
Cheerio! By Natalia Bonner. This is on my list to try out sometime. It looks so good quilted out on other quilts, I bet it would look great on Yonder.
Discounted Quilting Services exclusive to our QAL:
Two amazing Longarm quilters are welcoming your quilts for longarm service, and offering special discounts to you.
Sheri of Violet Quilts is located in Fall River NS, and is my local longarmer. She has quilted over half my quilts!
Dara Tomasson is in Nanaimo BC, and is well known for her custom longarm quilting. She's my go-to for custom quilting.
Both quilters are offering 25% off of batting and 10% off of longarm quilting services on all Yonder quilts. It would be a great idea to be in touch and book with them in advance if you're interested.
Here's what's coming up:
Also remember: Every post sharing your progress enters you for giveaways, even if you haven't fully completed the week's task. The only exception is the final giveaway, which will be drawn from the finished quilt top/flimsy posts shared. So there's still prizes to be won as long as you're sharing your progress. To enter the final giveaway, completed quilt top/flimsy will need to be posted by June 9th.
WEEK 5, May 27th
Sew remaining blocks
Bassinet: 2
Throw: 6
Twin: 9
King: 12
WEEK 6, June 3rd
Layout and assemble quilt top. Post your finished quilt top/flimsy by midnight June 9th to be entered in the final giveaway, announced on June 10th.
