SECRET STITCHES AND AN aLiEn EMBELLISHED CLUTCH 👽 FOR THE BERNINA CHALLENGE

Shhh!!! Lots of secret stitching going on here.  I'm making my niece's wedding quilt which means that I can't show any of my work on here until I gift it to her.  Hint: Lots of tiny hand sewn stitches, gorgeous lawn and linen fabrics, appliquéd blooms of every color and me just hoping I can do the free motion quilting that it deserves.  Fingers crossed ...

So, what to blog about while I'm sitting here secretly stitching away, hmmmm ... well let's see ... I'm entering a BERNINA contest!  

The contest is in celebration of the brand new BERNINA 435 sewing machine which will be arriving in stores soon.  The best part?  They are giving away one of the new machines in this contest!  (Have I mentioned that my sewing machine is a 46 year old Elna?)  All you have to do to win the new BERNINA 435 is to sew a creative, embellished clutch using Tiffany Pratt's pattern.  Tiffany Pratt is a whimsical MAKER associated with BERNINA. You can check out her Instagram at "TheTiffanyPratt" to see what I mean.  With her crazy cool kind of creativity in mind I challenged myself to step outside the box, or in this case, hop, skip and jump right over it to make something that screamed WHIMSY. 

The new BERNINA 435 sewing machine

We have an aLiEn thing in our family (Trust me, that's a whole 'nother blog.) so I decided to take one of my aLiEn designs which I created from scratch using the graphics program in Adobe Photo Shop and put it on some fabric from Spoonflower!  The only drawback?  It takes forever to get the fabric so I had to pay $15.00 in shipping to get it by May 26, leaving me only five days to enter the contest.  Here's hoping it comes on time!

The fabric arrived early!

The fabric arrived today!  I put it on the longarm and quilted the back panel in crosshatching with Superior Threads Nitelite Extraglow Pastel Green thread. It glows in the dark!  I'm trying to layer the WHIMSY on here!  

Quilting the back panel on my longarm.

I embellished the front fabric panel with some glow in the dark Night Glow Star Beads!  Yet another layer of WHIMSY! Then I constructed the bag on my 46 year old Elna sewing machine.  I could really use this new BERNINA 435.  Just saying!  

Glow in the Dark Star Beads!

My 46 year old Elna sewing machine.

All that was left was to figure out what I was going to do for the fringe. I grabbed a handful of little aLiEnS (These things are all over our house.) (I swear they multiply.) (I don't know how they do it ... I've tried to catch them in the act but those little guys are sneaky.) and asked my husband to drill holes through their teeny tiny little aLiEn heads. Once the screaming stopped he gave them back to me.  I strung them on some thread along with a row of jet black seed beads to give them some swing and some bling and used these little outer space wonders for some whimsical fringe.  

The aLiEn troops!

Did I mention that the aLiEnS also glow in the dark.  Remember, I'm going for that WHIMSY here!  

Hard to capture the GLOW on camera.

The good news is that I finished it by the deadline.  Now, let's just see what the judges think! Okay, so it's not your everyday clutch.  Maybe not even your little black dress clutch.  But you have to admit it's pretty whimsical.  I'm thinking I'll carry it to church.  Yep.  I think every life should have a bit of WHIMSY in it.  Let's hope the judges think so too!

Remember to pick up a needle and thread and stitch some love (and whimsy) into your world❣️

BLUEBERRY FEATHERS QUILT 🍃

Finally ... I made a quilt just for me! I've been busy making quilts for my family but I've wanted to make this quilt for a long time now and so this one is just for me!

I first discovered this Blueberry Feathers quilt by Kristy on her website quietplaydesigns.com but it was some time after that before she published the quilt pattern and teamed up with Karen of karenlewistextiles.com based in Leeds, England for the fabric for the kit.  Karen does screen printed fabrics by hand.  I absolutely love, love, love her screen printed fabric! 

Isn't this fabric gorgeous?

These gorgeous little feathers are all paper pieced.  There are 28 feathers in the quilt and each feather is made up of 28 small pieces of fabric which are sewn onto a paper pattern from the back.  The paper is then ripped away and you're left with a beautiful little feather.  Sounds easy, but I probably only made 2 - 3 feathers a day.  Here's all the steps that go into making just one feather ...

While paper-piecing this quilt I decided to treat myself to a new ironing board cover! I hate when they get all stained so it was time for a new one.  

This was my second time doing paper-piecing for a quilt.  There are different ways to paper-piece.  I used the method where you use the Add A Quarter ruler.  I find this method much easier than the traditional way.

For this quilt I used Micro Quilter thread on the top and at first I used So Fine in the bobbin but it wasn't running well so I switched to Isacord and all went well from there.  This was also my first time straight stitching a quilt on my longarm.  That was easier than I thought it would be.  I used my channel locks and it was a breeze.  And since this is a relatively small quilt I floated it on the longarm using my Grace Company pink quilt clips for tension.

I also did something different with this quilt that I've never done before. I didn't bind it.  I faced it.  There are several tutorials out there describing this process.  I chose to do it this way because I'm going to be floating this from a modern quilt hanger above my desk in our computer/longarm room and I thought that facing it would give it a cleaner look and it would lay flatter.  

I enjoyed paper-piecing this quilt.  This is the 13'th quilt that I've done on my new longarm.  I'm having fun!  And here is my Blueberry Feathers Quilt  all hung up and floating from it's new quilt hanger! 

Remember to pick up a needle and thread and stitch some love into your world❣️

FACETS AND FRACTURES PINEAPPLE QUILT 🍍

The Facets and Fractures Quilt is a traditional pineapple block quilt designed by Robert Kaufman Fabrics.  It has somewhat of a contemporary twist because it uses pearlescent fabrics from the Shimmer On line.  I know about the shimmering fabrics now but I did not know about the oh so shiny fabrics when I ordered it. When I first saw a picture of this quilt online it did not look shimmery nor was it mentioned in the teaser that I read.  It does not look shimmery in my photos either, but trust me, it is.
  

On Black Friday last year I bought some quilt kits on sale.  My specific guidelines for purchasing any quilt kit was that it had to be  at least 60% off and (very important) it had to be a quilt that I liked enough to have purchased it at full price.  There was only one quilt that I was on the fence with using those guidelines and that was this quilt. It just really wasn't a quilt that I would have made for myself.  I was, however, looking for something to make for my baby brother's 60'th birthday and I know his tastes are traditional, so I was on the look out for something with "boy colors" using a traditional pattern.  This quilt was mentioned in a blog as a perfect quilt for guys. It has blues, browns and silvers in it along with some plaids.  I eventually bought the kit and when it arrived I tucked it away because I was working on other quilts and was busy with all things Christmas.  I opened it up last month and found myself disappointed.  Most of the fabrics were shiny with a pearly gloss to them and the plaid fabrics had metallic threads running throughout. This was not the traditional boy quilt I wanted to make.  Don't get me wrong, the fabrics are gorgeous, just not the "boy" look I wanted.

Binding wrapped onto the Binding Baby

In my disappointed state, however, I remembered back to when I opened up the fabric for my sister's birthday quilt and really disliked a few of the fabrics included in the selection.  They were floral fabrics that I would never have chosen myself, yet the finished quilt was beautiful and you really didn't notice those few fabrics that I disliked so much once they were cut up into little pieces.  Soooo, maybe if I made this quilt with its shiny fabric it would look okay in the end???  Not so much. It was still pretty shiny.  Beautifully shiny, actually, just not what I wanted for my brother.

On the longarm

This is the first pineapple block quilt that I've made.  It has over 550 pieces. I think because I wasn't happy with the fabric in the  beginning I just didn't do my best work.  In the back of my mind I was already thinking of it as a "quilt to donate" instead of the gift I had intended it to be.  I actually made a mistake in quilting it on the longarm and didn't even pull it out, something I would always normally fix.   

The secondary pattern 

The quilt itself went together rather quickly. I used the Windham Fabrics, "Uncorked Fabric" in Teal for the backing.  This looks like cork with flecks of gold in it.  Might as well match that shiny front, right?  I also used it for the binding instead of the black plaid fabric that came with the kit.  

I used Quilter's Dream Orient batting so the quilt would be snuggly. And I used MicroQuilter thread top and bottom, hoping the thread would not show up so much on that dark backing. Once on the longarm I did mostly stitch in the ditch work with rulers and some designs with rulers in the medallions.

This quilt was intended for my brother's birthday.  He turns 60 this year!  This quilt will go to a good home but I'm on the lookout for something else for my brother.  I'm thinking something with Giucy Giuce Quantum fabric! Or his new "Declassified" line which comes out in October. 

Remember to pick up a needle and thread and stitch some love into your world❣️ 

Les Amis Quilt 🇫🇷

This "Les Amis Quilt" is the Craftsy 2018 BOM Quilt of the Year.  If you're reading this and you're not a quilter BOM means Block of the Month and it's where you're sent out a different block each month of the year and have a whole year to complete a quilt.  This particular quilt went on sale on Black Friday of 2018 and I was able to get the whole entire kit at once AND at a huge discount.  This kit is now back to regular price ... and what a lesson learned.  Now whenever I see a quilt kit that I really want I'll wait till next Black Friday to see if it gets marked down. Quilt kits are très cher (very expensive) and this french named quilt was no different; so, any amount you can save is a good thing.

My husband, the master quilt holder!

This quilt is technically one of the harder quilts I have pieced together. It comes in just under a thousand pieces and you have to cut the pieces out precisely and then piece them together precisely so that all the points and seams match.  It took me two days to cut all the fabric out.

998 Pieces

It then took thirteen days to piece all 998 pieces together ... with a little bit of life intruding along the way.  I ended up cutting the border smaller as I didn't like how wide they had it in the pattern but otherwise I left the pattern as is and it went together well. 

Moroccan Star Block

This quilt is more traditional than what I've done in the past but oh those colors!  It's made up of Moroccan Star, Flower Star and Flying Geese blocks joined together by sashing blocks that make the quilt appear to have been pieced on point.  

Once this quilt was pieced I looked at it long and hard to decide how to quilt it on the longarm.  I wanted to do something special but after auditioning all sorts of free motion quilting designs it occurred to me that the piecing is so intricate and beautiful, in and of itself, that the piecing should be the star, not the quilting. 

So, instead, I did a lot of stitch in the ditch and some simple ruler work designs allowing the eye to see the piecing first, which allows that to shine while the quilting takes a back seat.

For this quilt I used Quilter's Dream Orient batting because it drapes so beautifully and it's softer than a cotton or polyester batting. For the thread I used Micro Quilter by Superior Threads in #7007 - Silver for most of the top and Bottom Line Silver for the bobbin.  I also used Isacord #3355 - Dark Indigo for the border and some darker blue thread that I had here on hand for the darkest blue in the Flower Star block because the Micro Quilter thread showed up too much on that block.  

I am finding more and more that although I love to piece a quilt I can't wait until that part is over so that I can quilt it on the longarm. That is and will probably always be my favorite part.  It's so easy to want to "overquilt" a quilt because it's so much fun.  And it's very hard to step back sometimes and let the piecing shine like I did on this one. 

This quilt was made for my sister.  Les Amis is french for "the friends" and I can't think of a better friend than my big sister! In January of this year she turned a "special" age that I won't put into print.  (You're welcome, sis❣️)  (She doesn't look that old, anyway!)  When I saw this quilt it reminded me of her so I decided to make it for her birthday.  My sister is eight years older than I am and when I was a little girl back in the sixties my younger brother and I would lay on the floor of the bathroom door, chins in hand, and watch as my big sister teased her hair over and over to get it really high into a bouffant and then used half a can of hair spray on it to fix it into place. As a kid it was really fun to watch, but then all those sixties styles were something else! Growing up, I always envied my sister, she was a beauty and I always wanted to be just like her. She's still beautiful today and I wanted to make her something special for her birthday. I wish her many more birthdays. She is the bestest sister ever and I love her very much❣️

Remember, to pick up a needle and thread and stitch some love into your world!

MISSION TO MARS QUILT 🚀

The "Mission to Mars Quilt" is a whimsical space quilt that I chose to make for my great-nephew whose name is Marshall and whose nickname is Mars! How could I resist making a quilt that shared his name!

This quilt is made up of a delightful line of fabric from Lily and Loom called "Space Camp".  The entire center of the quilt is paper-pieced. This is the first quilt that I've done with paper piecing and it went really well. Paper piecing is actually quite fun.  It's more like doing an art project than sewing.

Paper Pieced Star Block

Making the Sputnik Block

On the Longarm

This quilt is made up of blocks, each with a different name.  I really got a kick out of the one called the Sputnik Block because the Sputnik was launched by the Russians into Outer Space in 1957, the same year that I was born.  It was the first Earth satellite. My Mom told me that I used to scoot around the house like crazy in a round contraption, similar to the baby walkers of today, that was shaped like the Sputnik and because of this my nickname growing up was Little Sputnik.  In a recent conversation with my oldest brother, however, he said that he gave me the nickname because I was completely bald and resembled the pictures of the Sputnik that they saw on the TV.  This means that this quilt has both my nickname and Marshall's nickname in it along with a little bit of space history in-between.

The Sputnik Block

The rest of the quilt surrounding the paper-pieced center blocks is made up of borders and traditionally pieced blocks.  I had fun putting it all together while my husband and son went off to Daytona for the big race, leaving me with five days all to myself.  Once pieced I put it on the longarm.  On this quilt I used mostly ruler work, stitch in the ditch and some stippling. 

I used Glitter thread throughout the entire quilt.  Working with Glitter Thread by Superior Threads was a joy! It wasn't fussy like metallic thread.  It just required a low tension setting, a slower speed and a 90/14 Topstitch needle.  The Glitter Thread is a hologram thread and it sPaRkLeS! 

I couldn't get the glitter thread to show up in the pictures the way it does in person.  Trust me, it's really shiny!  

Silver Glitter Thread

Peacock and Gucci Gold Glitter Thread

Glitter Thread

This quilt finishes at 68" X 80" ... which means with the side leaders on it JUST fit on my nine foot longarm.  I'm so glad that I didn't get the twelve foot longarm.  I haven't made a quilt yet that hasn't fit the nine foot and getting the shorter longarm meant I didn't have to take part of a wall down to fit it into the room.

I love this little whimsical space quilt and I had fun watching it all come together.  I hope Mars enjoys his quilt 🚀

Remember to pick up a needle and thread and stitch some love into your world ❣️

Happy Holly Quilt 🎄

From disaster comes a tinier quilt than intended❣️ ️ 

I'm usually very careful with my rotary cutter. I also measure twice before cutting, especially when working with quilt kits because they typically give you just enough fabric for piecing with no room for mistakes.  

With this quilt, however, I had a "slight" problem.  You see, I sew in a closet.  When I lived in Florida I sewed in half of a closet. Here in North Carolina I actually upgraded to a full size closet for my sewing machine, that is, until we built my longarm in front of that closet, leaving it unusable.  So, now I sew in the guest bedroom closet which is rather large and has its very own tiny window looking out onto the guest bedroom balcony.  The day I was cutting out the fabric for this quilt I had several layers of fabric on my cutting board ready to cut across all at once when there was a sudden CRASH on the balcony behind me.  I still have no idea what crashed, I only know that I jumped causing the rotary cutter to cut through my stack of fabric at such an angle that it was rendered useless. I guess I should be happy it was the fabric and not my fingers that got cut but at the time I was just angry that it had happened at all.

A search of the internet showed that they no longer made this fabric and no one on Etsy or EBay had it.  Sooooooooo, I took the damaged fabric and cut it into much smaller triangles than the pattern called for and then took the fabric pieces that I had already cut out and re-cut those into pieces of proportionate size.  This meant I could make my quilt ... just a much tinier version of it.  

I was making this quilt for my brother but since it was so small, I decided to use it instead as a sample quilt and test out metallic thread on it.  Metallic thread is one of the fussiest threads to work with on a longarm and I have never used it before. This was the perfect opportunity to test it out.  Superior Threads metallic thread had been recommended to me but when I went on their website  their metallic thread was out of stock.  I searched around the internet and found some YLI metallic thread. This thread said that it was made especially for the longarm and it was a 50 weight thread. This was thinner than the Superior Threads metallic making it even easier to use ... or so I thought.

Who knew this beautiful thread could cause so much trouble?

I started off by doing everything possible to make this a smooth procedure. I put the thread net on the thread cone.  I put two drops of thread conditioner on the thread pad.  (Two drops, instead of one, since I had never used it before.)  I set my stitch length to 8, my machine speed to 200, and my tension to 1.0.  I also used Bottom Line in the bobbin set to a 200 tension.  UGH!  This thread, no matter the settings, no matter the pleading, no matter what, hung up in the tension discs and would not pull through. Each and every time that I took my first stitch it would eat the thread up into the machine with a huge jerk, leaving me with an empty needle.  It was impossible to work with. Make no mistake, this thread is bright and shiny but it's also thick and coarse and does not run well at all.  I went back to the Superior Threads website and their metallic thread was back in stock, so, I ordered that. When it finally came I held a strand of both threads in my hand.  The YLI Longarm Metallic stood out straight and stiff.  The Superior Metallic fell gracefully down like any other thread, YET, it was the heavier weight of the two. Go figure!  

The  Superior Metallic thread was SO much easier to work with.  It was like night and day compared to the YLI thread.  It didn't hang up in the tension discs at all and that first stitch was just a normal stitch.  I paired it with So Fine thread in the bobbin and used a 90/14 Topstitch needle. Quite honestly, I had no problem with the tension. My only problem was that any time I stitched from left to right in an upward angle I got skipped stitches.  I checked my top and it wasn't rolled too tight.  I rethreaded, changed tension settings but only stitching very slow helped and not always then.  

Cocoa Bear enjoying the quilt!

I had intended on making this Christmas quilt for my brother, who is a retired teacher, and lives with his wife and dog on top of Beech Mountain and decorates for Christmas year round.  After this quilt became a test quilt I decided not to send it to my brother but then I decided to send it to him anyway ... but since it was so tiny I sent it for his dog, Buddy to lay on!  Even puppies should have a bit of Christmas in their lives 🎄

Remember, to pick up your needle and thread (even if it is metallic) and stitch some love into your world❣️