THE QUILTED MERMAID 🧜‍♀️

I am in love!   I am in love with a 68" mermaid!  Who knew quilting could be this fun! 

When I purchased my longarm it was with the intent that I would probably do only ruler work on my quilts.  I had seen all the free motion quilters on the internet and thought I'd never be able to do that. It really is an art form in itself. But after doing my first three quilts on the longarm using rulers I thought to myself, "Why not give free motion quilting a try? Worst case ... it'll look awful and I'll never do it again." So, I ordered a mermaid panel with lots of negative space in it to quilt in.  I got the panel from Hawthorne Supply Company. This is now my favorite place to shop for material. They sell their material in cotton, poplin, knits, jersey and rayon.  Want to quilt a mermaid? They've got quilting cotton.  Want to make a dress to match the quilt? They've got matching material for dress making.  And you can even order knit fabric and make matching mermaid leggings.  See why I love this place! 
Also, they do digital printing.  My little mermaid and her backing fabric were digitally printed.  How cool is that?  They never run out of fabric because they don't buy it by the bolt, they just print it themselves using a digital pattern.  Digital panels are the wave of the future.  And speaking of waves let's get back to this gorgeous little mermaid ....

The Quilted Mermaid 🧜‍♀️

The backing fabric

Every kind of stitching in this quilt, except for the stippling was a first for me.  Doing outlining, pebbles, matchstick quilting, feathers, flowers, free form stitching and concentric circles were all something I hadn't tried yet on a quilt.  So, basically, this entire quilt was a new experience for me.

Stippling the Octopus

The VERY first thing I stitched I hated and ripped out.  It took forever.  I finally rolled it to the back of the take up bar and ripped it from the back using a magnifying glass and a bright light.  Ripping things out on the longarm is a whole different level of rippppping!  Yikes! So, I had a serious conversation with myself.  (S'kay, I talk to myself all the time.) Basically, I gave myself permission to let go of "perfect mode" and just do my best.  This actually made the process really fun.

Ripping out stitches

The mermaid on the longarm

First I outlined everything with monofilament thread. Working with monofilament is such a treat. Not. It looks and feels a lot like fishing line and quite often I'd pick it up only to realize it was a strand of my hair that had fallen on the quilt top and not the thread. That's how thin it is. So, I loosened my tension, used a smaller needle, bigger stitches and half way through the outlining it occurred to me that I could slow down the stitching on the longarm. I hadn't used this function yet. You have to concentrate like mad to stay on the lines to do the outlining and the slower speed really seemed to help with that.  I also used the monofilament for her tail and hair.  It took me ten hours just to do the outlining and the mermaid. As I progressed down the quilt to do the outlining I added lines of basting at intervals because I had left so much open space unstitched that would later be free motion quilted and I wasn't sure how it would do with all the rolling back and forth.

The Mermaid's hair is my favorite part!

Once I started doing the free motion quilting I decided I wanted to try concentric circles around the mermaid's hands and tail to create movement in the quilt.  I was nervous about doing the concentric circles for the first time and getting them round so I zipped off the quilt and put on a piece of fabric. I'm glad I did.  My concentric circles were at first concentric squares and then concentric oblongs and finally concentric wobbles.  When the wobbles started getting a wee bit better I put the quilt back on.

Concentric circles 

Panic time!  I had outlined the quilt from top to bottom so the quilt would no longer zip back on to all three rails.  I had a moment or two, okay, maybe three or more, of complete panic.  Then I remembered the quilt clips I had bought at the BERNINA Creative Center when I went up there for their longarm class.  These are used when you float a quilt, which I've never done yet. I clamped them onto the backing rail but I wasn't sure if I was supposed to roll the quilt onto the bottom rail or just let it hang.  I ended up letting it hang.  (If there is a correct way I'd love for you to leave a comment letting me know how you do it.) And that's where I'm glad that I did all of that basting along the way because everything stayed in place and came out square despite not being rolled onto the rails.  

The Mermaid's tail

This is my fourth quilt on my new longarm and this was the first time that I timed myself.  I ended up at a little over 30 hours from loading until binding.  (I left out the ripping time.)

I put "Mermaid Seaweed" in all four corners.

I really had fun doing the free motion quilting!  It was like doodling on fabric. The hard part is that you don't see the whole panel while you're stitching, only the 24 inches that is currently rolled up in front of you, so you have to plan ahead. I've already ordered another panel to make a mermaid for myself. The one I just made went to a friend of mine with two little girls. I quilted their names onto the quilt. I hope they enjoy it!  

It's not easy to get a photo of the entire quilt that shows the quilting, so I took a video to better see it.  I took the video with the lights dimmed but the quilting showed up that way ...

So, did my FMQ come out perfect? No way!  But, guess what?  I'm gonna get better each and every time!  My Face Book page says that I'm a "Longarm Quilt Artist Wannabe".  Maybe some day I can drop the "wannabe" and realize my dream!  I hope you enjoyed my quilted mermaid 🧜‍♀️  Make sure to pick up a needle and thread and stitch some love into your world today!

 

ONE QUILT, TWO QUILT, RED QUILT, BLUE QUILT❣️

Would you, could you quilt in the rain?  Would you, could you quilt on a train?  Because, Theodor Giesel and I would love to know!

Theodor, or Ted as his friends called him, was the famous Dr. Seuss who wrote over sixty children's books. He wrote most of his books in a poetic meter known as anapestic tetrameter. This pleasing meter is said to be the reason his books were so well loved.  I imagine his whimsical characters played a big part in that too!

The other day I came across some Dr. Seuss fabric and I knew right away that I had to make a traditional Dr. Seuss quilt ... "traditional" meaning wild and wonky, of course!  And I knew exactly who I was going to give this quilt to.  My niece, Emily, is teaching for the first time this year.  Our family has a history of teachers in it, so I'm very proud of her for carrying on that tradition.   She teaches second grade and her classroom came with its very own reading couch!  I thought a quilt for that couch would be the perfect gift for her and her students.

Having purchased the fabric I had no idea what pattern to use to make this quilt with.  I had seen a Seuss quilt a long time ago made into offset squares within a square.  That seemed like something I could do on my own without a pattern to follow and it worked out just fine. Here's what I did if you want to make this 60 X 60 inch quilt.

MATERIALS THAT YOU WILL NEED 

* Robert Kaufman's DR. SEUSS FAVORITES RETURNS Precut       6.5" - 30 Quilting Squares Charm Pack Assortment.  I used 25 of the 30 charms for this pattern.

* Six different half yard cuts of Robert Kaufman's DR. SEUSS    FAVORTIES fabric.  I cut each of these into 8 - 13.5" X 4" strips and 8 - 6.5" X 4" strips.

* You'll also need fabric for backing, binding and also sashing if you choose to sash it.

DIRECTIONS FOR PIECING

Sew a 6.5" strip onto the top and bottom of each of the 25 charms. Then sew the 13.5" strips onto the sides.  Trim these at an angle into 10.5" squares. Sew five rows of five squares together using sashing in between if you like. That's it ...  easy peesy ... even THING ONE & THING TWO could do it!

Here's a tip for getting those inset squares both centered and perfectly angled.  Cut out two 10.5" square sheets of freezer paper and one 6" square piece.  Place the 6" square on top of  one of the 10.5" squares and tilt it at a slight angle.  Center it at a tilt so that each corner is the same distance from the edge of the larger piece beneath it.  Mine was 1 3/4" away from each edge. Trace around the 6" square and then cut along that line to make a hole.  Do this with the second 10.5" square, only this time, tilt the 6" square in the other direction.  Once you've assembled your sewn blocks you can center these freezer paper templates over the inset squares, press them on,  and then trim away the excess fabric using the edge of the paper as your guide.  I did half of my squares going in one direction and the other half in the other direction.

Cut carefully along the freezer 
paper to make your angled square.

These fabrics are visually wild when assembled all together, so, I tried to tone done the overall effect by using a black sashing in between the blocks.  And to keep it "Seuss-like" I used black fabric with random polka dots.  I didn't add an outside border because I didn't want to add to all that craziness.  Instead I used a black and white striped fabric and made it into an extra wide binding.  I thought the binding fabric popped next to the black sashing and also made a nice frame for all those splashes of color in the quilt top. The large quilt squares are meant to be randomly placed but I prefer "controlled randomness", so,  I made sure that the copies of the bolder fabric squares ended up in different quadrants of the quilt top.



AND THEN COMES THE  FUN PART ... QUILTING IT ON THE LONGARM

With all those happy colors jumping out at you I didn't want to "overquilt" this.  Instead I kept the quilting simple to keep the focus on the blocks.

I stitched in the ditch around the inset squares and the larger squares. I quilted in 3/4" lines in the background and I used my BERNINA circle rulers and quilted a double circle in the middle of each square.  To make these squares pop further I quilted down the sashing in short piano keys.  I used Quilter's Dream polyester batting and Aurifil Monofilament thread for the top and an Auriful 50 weight gray thread for the bobbin.

HOW TO MAKE A QUILT BY AUNTIE MEL

Since this quilt is going to a second grade classroom I wanted to make it a teaching opportunity as well as a gift, so, I made them a book.

The book follows the quilting process from picking out the fabric and cutting it up to sewing it together and loading it onto the longarm.  I thought they would enjoy seeing how a quilt is made. Here are a few pages from the book ...

And here are some pictures of the quilt and the book in the classroom! My niece did such an awesome job of decorating her room for her kids!    

WOULD YOU, COULD YOU QUILT IN THE RAIN? WOULD YOU, COULD YOU QUILT ON A TRAIN?

I hope so.  Pick up some fun fabric today and quilt some happiness into someone's life that you love!

How To Quilt A Dinosaur AND Make It Glow 🦖

I’m a kid at heart, aren’t we all?  So, when I saw some Glow In The Dark Dinosaur fabric at my local quilt shop I took a quick look around to make sure no one was watching; then I sneaked a couple of bolts into the bathroom, closed the door tight, and watched it glow!

Of course, I had to buy some of the fabric and make a quilt.  I have to tell you, though, this is not one of the more beautiful quilts that I’ve ever made.  I probably should have gone with less fabric choices, BUT, and this is a big BUT, it doesn’t matter … because it GLOWS!!!  And believe me, I snuck every last bolt of fabric into that quilt shop bathroom when no one was looking so that I could pick out the ones that glowed the brightest.

Dino Glow Fabric by Benartex

While making the quilt at home I kept taking it into our bathroom to watch its glowing progress.  Hey, don’t judge me … I bet you’d do the same!  I tried to take pictures of it in the dark to show how it glows but all I would get each time was a dark screen on my phone.  Call me frustrated.  So, off I went to the app store because there’s an app for everything, right?  Honestly, I think there IS an app for everything.  The app I found was actually for photographing glowing objects in the dark.  Perfect right?  Except it hadn’t been updated for iOS11 so I settled on a Night Camera app and good ‘ol Photo Shop. 

Glowing Dinosaur!

The quilt itself is an orange peel pattern.  I love making those!  Instead of using the traditional method where you hand appliqué the petals onto the fabric I used a stencil, freezer paper and some fabric glue and had myself some fun putting it all together.  There’s just something about a glue stick that screams … FUN!  OR … maybe, that’s just me 😜 

This stencil is available at plumeasypatterns.com

Then came my favorite part … quilting it on my new longarm!  Since the quilt top colors that I chose don't have the contrast that I like I wanted to try and make the quilted petals pop instead.  To do this, I quilted around the petals and then quilted down the area in the middle of each circle. I also used Quilter’s Dream Puff Batting to poof those little petals up.  I used glowing fabric for the backing and binding and all I have to do now is send it off to the two little boys that I made it for.  I’ll let them test it out in that way that little boys do best ... by making tents, parachutes and playing tug of war. 

I have to say it’s definitely weird when you walk into the room at night because you’re not expecting that GLOW to jump out at you.  It’s like the aLiEnS 👽 have landed or something!

Here it is at night ... GLOWING!

Now I’m back to piecing the quilt that I was working on before I had “dinosaur interruptus”.  This one doesn’t glow but you'll see it in a future blog.  In the meantime, go and pick up some glowing fabric and stitch some love into a little one’s life! 

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The Simple Scrappy Circle ⭕️ Quilt - An Easy First Quilt To Practice Your Ruler Work On!

This is an easy to make ... and easy to quilt reverse circle quilt.  It's easy because I've used the rulers from the BERNINA Ruler Kit for the Frame to both construct the pieced top and then quilt it on the long arm, giving those rulers double duty!  Using the rulers to construct your quilt makes that process easy and precise.  And I'm going to be using these rulers every step of the way.

To complete this 54" X 54" quilt you will need the following ...

Sixteen 10 1/2" squares of fabric for the background.
Twenty 9 1/2" squares of the same fabric, also for the background.   
Sixteen 8" squares of fabric for the inset circles.
Backing fabric that is at least four inches wider on all sides than the quilt top.
Binding fabric
Freezer paper
Fabric markers
And, of course, the BERNINA Ruler Kit for the Frame Models.

To quilt the top I also used the BERNINA ruler that comes with your BERNINA Ruler Work Kit and the BERNINA Echo Quilting Clips.

For my quilt I used some scraps that I had left over from an assortment of the Raining Cats and Dogs fabric by David Walker for Free Spirit Fabrics for the inset circles and the binding.  For the background fabric I used Hue-Tossed Paws White on White by Timeless Treasures. This quilt will be going to my son and his wife for their three little dachshund puppies and their two rescue kittens. I think "Raining Cats and Dogs" is the perfect fabric choice, don't you?

Cutting Out Your Fabric

1.  Cut your background fabric into sixteen 10 1/2" squares, these will later be trimmed to 
9 1/2".  Cut twenty more squares of the same fabric into 9 1/2" squares.

2.  Take your 6.5  BERNINA circle ruler (this is the largest one in the nest of circles) and put it on top of an 8" square piece of paper.  Place the circle ruler in the middle and trace around the inside of the ruler to make a circle.  Cut out this circle using scissors.  Now take your various fabrics for the inset circles and use this template as a preview window to audition your fabrics. When you find a section of the fabric showing through the circle that you like just trace around the 8" template and cut this fabric out.  Do this for all sixteen inset circles.  If you have a fabric with an all over pattern then you can skip this step and just cut out sixteen 8" squares from your fabrics.  A scrappy circle quilt just begs for a whimsical design though, don't you think?  So, keep that in mind when choosing your fabric.

Auditioning the fabric. 

Making The Template For Your Inset Circles

1. Using a piece of 10 1/2" freezer paper (you can iron two together to get a firmer template) take your 6.5 BERNINA circle ruler and center it on the paper.  To center the circle draw a line from the top and from the side that intersect in the middle of the paper.  Lay your circle ruler on these lines and line up all four sides using the marks on your ruler.  This will perfectly center your inset circle. See how wonderfully these rulers work during construction of your quilt?

2.  Cut the circle out of the template.  Take your time and be precise in your cutting as this is the shape that will be on your quilt and you don't want any wonky edges.

I used a Star Wars pen to trace onto my paper
because I'm a #nerdmom, but you can use
any kind of marking pencil to trace with.

Constructing The Inset Circles

1.  Take one of your 10 1/2" squares of background fabric and place it RIGHT side down onto your ironing surface.  Place your freezer paper template over it.  Square up your edges making sure the shiny side of the template is down.  That's the side that will adhere to the fabric.  Press the template with your iron set to dry heat.

2.  Pop your BERNINA 5.5 circle ruler on top of the inset circle and trace around it using a fabric  marker.  This will give you a cutting line that is 1/2" out from the circle.  Cut out the circle.  Then cut notches along this line right up to the edge of the template to form tabs.  


3.  Draw a line of fabric glue around the circle and carefully fold back all of the tabs and press them into the glue using your fingers.  

4.  Place some more glue on top of each of those glued down tabs and place your 8" square of fabric onto the glue.  Make sure to center the motif you chose into the middle of the circle.  Give it a few moments for the glue to set and then you can carefully peel off the freezer paper template from between the fabrics.  You can reuse this template a few times before having to make another one.

5.  Take this to your sewing machine and stitch a 1/8" seam around the circle. Trim the excess fabric off the back. Because I have a white background with colorful circles I wanted this trim line to be even as it will show through.  To make a quick even line I simply popped my BERNINA 6.5 circle ruler down on top of the back seam and traced a line around it.  This gave me a nice cutting line to follow.  See how handy these rulers come in?  

6. Press your fabric and trim it to 9 1/2" making sure the circle is centered.  I didn't have a 9 1/2" square ruler handy to do this, so, I just popped the BERNINA 6.5 circle ruler on top of a 9 1/2" square piece of freezer paper, centering it with the lines and cut out the circle.  Then I pressed it over my squares laying the opening right on top of that inset circle.  Then I trimmed it to 9 1/2" giving me a perfectly centered middle.

NOTE: If you'd rather not do the glue method you can simply turn under your circle tabs and press them over the freezer paper template.  Remove the freezer paper.  Then pin the bottom fabric square into place, centering the motif, and stitch around it.


Assembling The Quilt

Stitch your squares together as shown in the diagram below.  The turquoise squares are your squares with inset circles sewn in.  The white squares are the rest of your 9 1/2" squares of background fabric.

Now Comes The Fun Part - Quilting It On The Longarm!

Load your backing, pieced top and batting onto your longarm.  Oil your machine, thread it and test your thread tension on a piece of fabric laid out on the exposed batting.  Then set up your machine for doing ruler work.  Here's a little tip ... whenever I use rulers I use this mnemonic to help me remember everything I need to do so that I don't forget something and accidentally come crashing down on a ruler with my foot.  

Whenever I pick up a ruler in one hand I hold my other hand up in the STOP position and count off these five steps on each of my fingers before I take even one stitch!

1.  Ruler Base On
2.  Ruler Foot On
3.  BSR 2
4.  Needle Down
5.  Foot Down

Once you've got all five of these things done you're ready to safely start quilting on your longarm!  And, remember, you can lift and lock your non-dominant handle up and out of the way making it easier to use your rulers.


How I Quilted My Top

I've placed plain fabric squares around the edges of the quilt in order to create some negative space. In each of these squares I've quilted a circle in the center by stitching around the BERNINA 4.5 circle ruler with the smallest BERNINA Echo Quilting Clip slipped onto my ruler foot.  This made the circle the same size as the inset circles on the rest of the quilt. These are handy little rulers to have! Then I quilted these squares in the same manner as I did my colorful inset circles giving a nice echo effect to the quilt. 

There's just something about a quilt all tucked in on a
longarm.  I always think they look so pretty at that stage.

Next I stitched in the ditch of the inset circles by using the edge of a circle ruler to keep me on task. Then I used the round top of the ruler that comes with your BERNINA Ruler Work Kit to make petals around these circles.  On the inside of each circle I used the BERNINA S-Shaped ruler included in the BERNINA Ruler Kit for Frame Models to stitch in a fun wavy crosshatch instead of a traditional one since this is a fun puppy/kitty quilt.  Remember, the point is to try out your new rulers so have fun with your choices.  And last, but not least, I stippled around all the circles.  

I kinda like my wonky little flowers.

I marked my quilt before I loaded it on the longarm.  In the past when I used to quilt by hand this was the task I didn't care for.  I have to say though that using the BERNINA rulers to mark with made this a breeze!

If you would like other ideas for circle designs I highly recommend looking through Amanda Murphy's Rulerwork Quilting Idea Book.  This book will give you all the tips and tricks that you need to be confident in working with your rulers and she has tons of designs for you to choose from.  

Using the BERNINA rulers in both constructing your pieced top and then in quilting it on the longarm makes the quilting process easy and enjoyable.  


And Now I'll Share A Little Secret With You ...

This quilt was the very first quilt that I made on my new longarm. I just finished it the other day.  I did a "Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy, I Did My First Quilt On My Longarm Dance" in the middle of the room! Yep, I even twirled! Did I make mistakes? You bet!  Do I think the puppies and kittens will lay around on the quilt all day pointing out the mistakes to each other? Probably not, well maybe Tesla 🐶 The troublesome part of the quilt for me was that I'd never stitched in the ditch before and the insides of those circles were difficult for me.  I used the edge of the circle ruler and that helped. Also, I had only tried out stippling once before so I practiced it a bit first out on the batting with some extra fabric then took my time and I was happy with it. I took these pictures throughout the process to share with you, hoping it would inspire you to pick up your rulers and try them out!  I'm looking forward to quilting my next quilt.  Oh, and by the way, the puppies and kittens love their new quilt!  Here they are in order of appearance ... Odin, Tiberius, Tesla Firefly, Tribble and Teek❣️

I hope you enjoyed this article.  I invite you to follow along during the ups and downs and all arounds of my new longarm journey by following my new blog.  I will be learning as I go and I would enjoy reading your comments.  If you're a new longarmer we can learn together and if you've been doing this for awhile you can give us newbies your tips and tricks in the comments. 

So, go grab some rulers and quilt some love into your world!