Wavering

Picking up where I left off on the newest landscape project last week, there was just enough Mistyfuse in the drawer for the sky fabric. So it's now fused to the muslin base. I love Mistyfuse; it doesn't seem to gum up the sewing machine needle at all.

(Click on photos to enlarge)

For anyone who hasn't pieced a landscape quilt, notice the extra sky fabric below the treetop line. That's the overlap (I think I called it a 'seam allowance' last week, which comes from a garment-sewing background). This overlap ensures a gap-free join of the sky and tree fabrics.

But now the overlap covers the treetop line on the muslin (as well as the birdhouse top)...which is why it's important to have the vinyl overlay.

You might ask, why bother with drawing lines on the muslin if you're just going to cover them up as you work your way down? Well, if you need to remove the vinyl and take the quilt top to the ironing board to do any fusing, like I did the sky fabric, you'll have to re-clip the vinyl afterward--and it needs to be in the very same position as before. Without those lines on the muslin, you'll have nothing to go by. If the sky overlap was an exact measurement all the way across (it isn't) you could sort of wing it and guess where the lines should be. But I guarantee you, after doing that with a few more sections or pieces, your landscape would start looking pretty wonky.

The next section was designed offsite--seperately, off the quilt top.
This is the hill beyond the river bend. The outline of that whole section plus overlap was traced onto freezer paper from the lines on the vinyl overlay. The freezer paper piece was ironed onto a mottled gray fabric and then was cut out. Why gray? In the photo, that section is distant enough to actually look gray in places, and an even further set of gray-looking hills shows faintly above it.

Compare with the previous photo: the colors are softer.
A tear-away stabilizer was used beneath the base fabric.

Then, little snippets of color were glued to the gray fabric to represent groups of trees on the hill. The colors were a bit too vivid to be in the distance (the further away, the more muted the colors should be), so a layer of white tulle was laid over the section and basted, free motion, around the edges (after the glue dried). The difference in appearance is subtle but will add to the illusion of depth.

Then the whole section was glued with a glue stick, edges only, but heavily (ran out of fusible), onto the quilt top, using the vinyl overlay as a placement guide. So this section now overlaps the sky, as it should.

Note: the vinyl didn't need to be un-clipped for this step, but of course it needed to be laid back out of the way. Remember though, vinyl sticks to itself. If your table isn't bigger than mine and you can't lay the vinyl back flat, just lay a piece of paper over the vinyl (the liner paper that comes with purchased vinyl is perfect) and roll it all back neatly on a mailing tube. When you unroll it over the quilt top again, the vinyl will be smooth and straight, and still perfectly aligned if your clips are good and tight.

Needed a light box to see the waves through my pattern piece

Next up was the river piece. Same procedure: trace the outline of the river section plus the overlap at side and bottom, then iron the freezer paper pattern to my fabric.

But hold it! There was a challenge here: the fabric has water-wave lines. They need to be horizontal, of course--not even the least bit cockeyed. If I don't get that right, the whole quilt is going to look really strange.




What I needed was a true horizontal line--or a true vertical line--from something in the original tracing of my landscape. Then I would be able to draw that line on my vinyl overlay, and use it to find the true horizontal or vertical of my river pattern piece.

However, there is not a single true horizontal line in this scene. So a vertical line, then.

The obvious one would be the birdhouse pole, right? Nope. Some quick ruler work shows that the pole is stuck in the ground crooked!

Which leaves only one true vertical line (if the builder did his job well): the left wall of the cabin. And, probably, the corner post of the deck railing next to it.


Trouble is, that line is all of 3/4 of an inch long in the enlarged drawing and is teeny-tiny in the photo. Warily, I lined the ruler up with it the best I could and drew a parallel center line down the entire vinyl overlay. It looked about right. From there I came up with a corresponding vertical line for the river pattern piece, positioned it perpendicular to the waves in the fabric, and cut it out.

water going slightly uphill, left to right

Time to test-fit the river piece on the quilt top.

After going back and forth repeatedly, this was the closest I got before time to stop for the day. To the naked eye, both these positions looked about right. But the camera saw it differently. And the piece cannot be glued down until it's just right--somewhere in between these two positions--and there's only about a quarter-inch difference between them.

water going slightly downhill, left to right

So, rather than continue this argument between my eyes and the camera, I've decided to go ahead and construct the cabin section, then test-fit it along with the river piece before gluing it down. It should be a lot easier to tell at that point whether the waves are truly horizontal, with the vertical cabin wall so nearby.





Didn't mean to be so lengthy here, but this is a good example of the challenges that can come up in the landscape quilting process. I rarely find them discouraging, though. There is always a solution, and it's fun trying to find it if you're not under a deadline.

Linking up here with Whoop Whoop Friday (hey, I started this post yesterday!), WIPs Be Gone, and Free Motion Mavericks (this will be a free-motion quilt). Please check out these wonderful blogs if you haven't already; their reader linkups, too. Tons of inspiration!

Have a great week!

Linda

Traces of Progress

Other than the two days a week that I'm happily watching my sweet baby granddaughter, studio time has been in fairly full swing. Today the two donation quilts were delivered to the Center for Women and Families here in Louisville.

These were number 3 and 4 of the twin-sized quilts made mostly from that huge stash of lightweight upholstery fabrics I spent weeks tearing out of sample books last year and then washed and cut. Last week I turned the remainder of that fabric (hundreds of 11-inch squares and 2- to 3-inch strips) over to someone in our local FreeCycle internet group (a Yahoo group) to use for other projects. That's because these quilts are very much on the heavy side and I'm done with wrestling them through the machine. If they hadn't been QAYG quilts, it would have been impossible.

Anyway, here are some shots of them. Some closeup photos of these rather eclectic blocks are in a previous blog post titled Knights, Castles and Princesses.

Front and back of the quilt done in blues. Had to augment the backing squares with some batiks from my stash.

Front and back of the quilt done in greens. (Thanks to VVHH for being the official quilt holder-upper.)

Here's the blue one on the extra-long twin bed:

Okay! Time to start a new landscape quilt...that's my thing, after all.

Pulled this photo from the archives, a shot we took outside The Overlook Restaurant in Leavenworth, IN. There's a glorious mess of overgrown meadow in it, so some of that will have to be omitted, but I like the birdhouse and the bend of the Ohio River down by that cabin.

Printed a good-quality 4 x 6 color photo for color reference and a black-and-white photo to better see the color values. Then traced the main outlines onto tracing paper with a black marker.

Enlarged the tracing by scanning and printing it out in 3 x 3 page poster format, then taped the 9 pages together to make an actual-size tracing for a roughly 25 x 28-inch quilt.

Ironed a piece of muslin, taped it over the large tracing, and traced again, this time in light pencil. This muslin will be the base of the quilt top and I don't want dark lines showing through any of the raw applique that will come later.

Fused Pellon Featherweight Fusible interfacing to the back of the traced muslin. Took my time and got no bubbles or wrinkles. Yay!

Clipped and taped the interfaced muslin tracing to a drawing board (for easy portability), then cut a piece of upholstery vinyl a bit larger than the pencil boundaries and clipped/taped it over the muslin...

...and traced again. Then I marked areas in red, blue and aqua for offsite (separate) construction. It is much easier to assemble a landscape quilt top in separate units if you have a lot of small pieces in one or more areas.

These are Sharpie permanent markers, so if I mess up or change my mind about line placement on the vinyl overlay, these little guys on the right are my rescuers (a faint trace of the original lines will remain, but not enough to distract me). They also clean my ruler edges after drawing straight lines with a Sharpie--just don't get the alcohol on the ruler markings! It actually smeared some of the white lines and numbers on one of my Creative Grid rulers.

All set to go! The drawing board is now off the cutting table until I'm ready to start gluing and fusing. Meanwhile the cutting table is free for other things.

This is a nice size by the way, since as mentioned already it fits nicely on the drawing board for portability, but also because it's a manageable size for free-motion quilting on a home sewing machine. (Remember, larger landscape quilts can be not only stiff but quite heavy after all the layering and fusing. They can't be bunched up like bed quilts, and they don't move easily without help from the feed dogs--which are not engaged for free motion. That said, if you use built-in stitches and feed dogs for your landscapes instead of free motion, weight is not as much of an issue.)

Next time on the blog, I'll be fusing the sky fabric and constructing units offsite.

Off subject, two more recent photos (see the captions):

Zoe watching helplessly as her nemesis chills out in the flower urn.

Zoe's turn to chill. She's in the chair, Lucy's on the floor and Mokie's on the couch.
Grandma should have been napping, too, instead of snapping (photos).

Back on subject: linking up with Whoop Whoop Fridays, Free Motion Mavericks (the landscape quilt will be free-motion quilted, so hoping Muv will give me a pass :) and WIPs Be Gone. Have fun checking them out and their reader linkups, too.

Have a great weekend!

Linda

A Mother's Day Chuckle

This week involved no free-motion quilting, I'm sorry to say. However, things moved along swiftly for the two donation quilts, headed for the Center for Women and Families.

The quilt-as-you-go blocks are joined in rows; all that's left is topstitching the front joining strips (I'm out of matching thread, otherwise that would be done), then squaring and joining rows and, finally, squaring and binding the quilt.

While waiting a day to purchase the thread, another "Lucy project" (for my baby granddaughter) was pulled from the drawer for some further work. (If knitting isn't your thing, just skip the next paragraph and move on to the funny Mother's day card.)

Using all six strands of embroidery floss instead of regular sewing thread. Faster and more secure.

The buttonhole band is being joined to the sweater at the same time the buttons are being sewn on to the button band. It's the only way I could think of to align the buttons and the holes properly, as the bands are, per directions, knitted slightly shorter than the sweater edges (to keep the front edges from stretching with wear), and--big mistake--instead of calculating the percentage of the button-band length to the sweater-front length and sewing it up with a precise stitch count, I eyeballed it. Not good! After that I couldn't just sew the second band (the buttonhole band) to the sweater in the same manner and expect the buttonholes to be spaced exactly like the buttons. So instead I measured the overall button spacing on the button band and marked it with safety pins, sewed the first button on, and then stitched the buttonhole band as far as the first hole, making sure the hole landed directly opposite the button. Then I buttoned it and began the same process for the next button. This should work as long as I don't get cross-eyed in the process...but it's still eyeballing. Lesson learned. Next time I'll do some counting and get out the calculator. Or better yet, come up with a standard percentage for band length vs. sweater-front length. Someone's probably already done that. I should Google it.

Moving on. With Mother's Day on the horizon, I wanted to share one of my cards from last year. This came from my older son and his wife (Lucy's parents) and still cracks me up.

All year long, I've kept that card on my bookshelf. Notice what's sitting in front of it....

...'nuff said. (I think the painted one is a dinosaur.) Actually, the piece on the left was made by him; the one on the right was made by my other son.

Here they are, by the way, our two wonderful, grown-up boys, each pictured holding Lucy: Papa Alex on the left and Uncle Aaron on the right.

And here's Lucy and her Mama, our awesome daughter-in-law, Shannon.

Happy Mother's day, beautiful lady. Thank you and Alex for your incredible gift, to this family and to the world.

Lucy Maeve, 7 weeks old

Linking up here with some other moms and their quilting blogs:
Confessions of a Fabric Addict's Whoop Whoop Friday
Lizzie Lenard's Vintage Sewing's Free Motion Mavericks
A Quilting Reader's Garden's WIPs Be Gone

Happy Mother's Day to them and to all who are mothers or who have ever nurtured another human being or animal. We need lots more of you on this planet.

Linda

Knights, Castles and Princesses

It's been a productive but poignant two weeks around here.

First, finished another 'ghost quilt':

(here's a shot with more obvious texture):

Had to clip it to a drawing board and move it near a window for the right light.

Second, finished 48 blocks (24 each) for two donation quilts. As with the previous two donation quilts, these were made mostly from what I cut out of upholstery sample books last year, so again, there are some rather eclectic center motifs. I especially like the Medieval ones. Here are a few of the blocks (click to enlarge):

Third, one of the highlights of our week: VVHH (very versatile handy husband) surrounded by all 5 Kentucky Derby princesses:

In all of my 60 years of living in Louisville, I'd never been anywhere near a Derby princess until yesterday. One of them lives across the street and they all came there to change into their ballgowns for the Derby Parade. You just never know what your day is going to bring!

And fourth, but not last by a long shot, the poignant aspect I mentioned: our family had to say goodbye to an altogether different princess...our sweet, wonderful cat, Morticia, who has been with us for 23 years. We are grieving, but also very aware of how lucky we are to have been blessed with her gentle, loving company for all this time. Never let anyone tell you black cats are bad luck.

Morticia / Mort / Morty, c. 2007

Hooking up with Confessions of a Fabric Addict's Whoop Whoop Friday post, Lizzie Lenard Vintage Sewing's Free Motion Mavericks post, and A Quilting Reader's Garden's WIPs Be Gone post. Don't miss these blogs OR their reader hookups. I'll be checking them out this weekend.

On that note, have a great weekend. If you're betting on a horse at the Kentucky Derby, best of luck!

Linda