Compass Quilt process

This week I’m working on a compass quilt for a customer and I thought I’d share the process of custom quilting that I do.

This quilt is entirely hand-pieced and absolutely gorgeous.

If you look closely at the corner, you’ll notice a little bit of a wave in the border as it hangs on the hanger.  That little clue told me that the very first thing I had to do with this quilt was to stabilize it.  In stabilizing the quilt, I use SID (stitch in the ditch) and measuring markers to stabilize the quilt square.  The top corner went wonderfully:

The bottom didn’t go quite as well, which is not uncommon to find in quilts with mitered borders and utilitizing a border print.  It’s very tricky to make everything come out matching and perfectly square.

When I first started longarming in 2003, this would have terrified me, but I can now recognize it as manageable, yes manageable.  Notice the pink measuring tape at the bottom edge of the picture?  That’s what I use to make sure everything is advanced square as I stabilize the quilt.

So, how does one control that bit of excess in the background?  Well, after you’ve stabilized the quilt, you’ve got to use some sort of quilting to eat up the excess.  For this quilt I’ve chosen to emphasize the diamond shaping and use a pebble technique to eat up a little bit of that excess:

This isn’t a fast process, but it is an effective process.  I’ll spend most of today finishing the pebbling and the diagonals around the flying geese.  If I get that completed today, it will have been a full day.

Why am I posting this?  Because sometimes as longarmers we are intimidated when a quilt is loaded and presents challenges for us.  AND as a customer, I think it’s important for you to understand the process of quilting on custom quilts.  So follow along with me this week as I quilt this quilt, I promise it will turn out to be gorgeous (I can see the finished product in my mind’s eye!).

This and That

Well, as soon as I got back on schedule, I had to go and get myself sick…(no, not the flue, not h1n1….just a mild case of pneumonia)  Yep, threw the schedule all out the door, but it did give me time to rest and hand turn some bindings, something I had been neglecting.

So, what have I done in the last week?   Almost NOTHING…….only one quilt went out of the studio, a few more blocks got made for my flannel quilt, some bindings got turned, I watched more mindless tv (or slept tv on the couch) than I have in years.  I did manage somehow to make a total chaotic mess of my studio (probably from dropping stuff to do “later” when I had the energy).

But, what I did get done I’m liking.  First the pieced blocks,

I have no pattern for this, just some math measurements that I’m playing with.  No set pattern, no set design, yet.  Mindless (almost) quilting time, a rare pleasure!  Of course, when I do math it always comes out interesting.  I have 58 blocks here, and I either need 56 for a 7×8 set  or I need 64 for an 8×8 set.  Of course what I’d really like for size is to have an 8×9 set, which means I have to do more math to figure out how many more blocks to make.   Hmmmm, maybe this will need some plain blocks for the eye to rest on?  ;>)  That may just be the plan!!!!

I did get one customer quilt done.

The customer wanted to keep the quilting in the lower end of my pricing range, but I didn’t have a pantograph that would suit the quilt.  I knew that to keep the pattern overall, it needed to be simple so as to not detract from her piecing.  What I ended up doing was to use a sashing pattern as an edge to edge.   Once I flipped the 2nd row of the pattern end to end, and then flipped the first row upside down, it became a pretty overall pattern that suited the quilt perfectly.  Just one of the many reasons I love having the computer guided system available to me!!!  It’s so much easier to play with a pattern and get it perfect for the quilt!  A few closeups:

Well, I’m off now to try to reclaim that cutting table in the first photo………try……..that’s all I can do is try………  aw the dream of a big studio with places for everything and clean counters…..  but of course, I’d only mess it up with piles of even more “stuff”.  ;>)

Friday Wrap-up

Well, it’s Friday again, and I’m not entirely sure where the week went this time?  Perhaps it had something to do with getting the new computer, transferring files, loading programs and keeping all the normal stuff on schedule too?  But it’s here, Friday!!!!

This Friday I thought I’d do a quick show of some of the quilts that have left the studio to be returned to customers, and the new painted art quilt I’ve been working on for a class sample.  I’ve had requests from customers to show more of the overall pantograph patterns that I use on quilts.  Up to now the blog has concentrated on my custom work, but I aim to please, so here’s this week’s work.

First off customer quilts.  All the quilts this week were overall designs, and I do use my IQ to set in these designs (it’s so much easier on my neck and knees!)

This customer wanted looser quilting, so we chose an Allover Loose Feather pattern and kept it sized large:

And the back:

The next customer wanted a pattern that had a non-denominational religious theme, so we chose a Cross and Grapes pattern:

And the back:

Finally, for the last quilt done this week, the pattern was a chevron braid and the customer wanted quilting that was wedding appropriate, so we chose a hearts and flowers pantograph:

I don’t have a picture of the back of this one which is a shame as the pattern is so pretty; but the thread color blended so well into the backing that it was impossible to light and see the quilting.

As for the Painted Quilt class, well, I’ll be teaching that on December 12th at Quilters Loft in Mooresville and the class will walk you through how to use Shiva Paintsticks, AND give you a pattern for a small quilt to display using the samples you make in class.  Don’t worry if you’ve never used Shiva’s before, you can do this as we make use of stencils and rubbing plates.  This is the sample, as yet, un-thread painted and un-quilted:

And a detail of one of the small blocks:

Have a great weekend, it’s “race weekend” here and it’s cold this weekend, so I’m going to hibernate in the studio all weekend!