Saturday, November 30, 2013

BFF Month 2.2 Stitching

Here, finally, is the next instalment of the Month 2 stitching on Best Friends Forever:


I did a lot of experimenting on the big hearts here before I hit upon a stitch that looked the way I wanted it to. I wanted a lot of texture so the hearts would stand out even though I was using a light colour.

When I'm "shopping" for a new stitch, I always come back to Country Bumpkin's A - Z of Embroidery Stitches, vols. 1 & 2:


These are probably the most used books on my bookshelf. They are spiral bound inside the cover, so they lie flat, and the detailed photographs are excellent.

Twisted chain stitch turned out to be perfect for this design. It works up quickly, and I found it to be very forgiving -- it creates a fairly straight line even when your stitches aren't! It's worked on both sides of the line...


...and can also be used for applique.

For the flowers I stuck with the stitches I've been using since Month 1:


The petals and leaves are done in back stitch with four strands of floss, the flower centres are tiny chain stitch, and the stems are stem stitch, naturally!

Regular readers may be wondering what happened to the apple tree from Month 2? After much procrastination it is now well under way! Here's another preview:


In the long run I think the padded satin stitch will prove to be a bad choice here, because I'm sure it will catch on something. But I'm committed now! Hopefully the whole tree will be done soon. ;)

In the mean time, happy stitching!


Saturday, November 23, 2013

Finished!!!

I have been writing this post in my head for two years, but now that it is finally time to write it for real I've forgotten what I meant to say! In any case, it is two years since I started this blog, almost two years since I started this quilt, and well over 30 years since I started starting quilts, and this is the first one to make it all the way to the end. 100% finished!

Nine Patch Jubilee, 54" x 66"

The sun was not co-operating today, but it was too cold to stand out there for long! I made one attempt to style the quilt before I hurried back inside:


Yes, that is a small dusting of snow around the garden pagoda.

I named the quilt Nine Patch Jubilee because the filler squares and the backing are from the Jubilee Garden collection by Connecting Threads, which they had a couple of years ago. And it seemed right to celebrate my first finished quilt.

With the red and white colour scheme, it felt appropriate to do the label in redwork too:


The quilt is machine quilted (yes, by me) in channels the length of the quilt, 1/4" on either side of each square in the nine patch block, and carried through the solid squares. The binding is machine sewn to the front and hand stitched down on the back. I miscalculated the width of the binding, so it is a little wide on the back, but I think that's fine.

I also tried out a sewn mitre technique for the corners of the binding that I saw Ricky Tims demonstrate on The Quilt Show. It uses this tool from Animas Quilts:


There is a video demonstration of how to use it here. Two of my corners came out perfectly...


...and two did not, lol. But the problem was that I had miscalculated the width of the binding, so the corner didn't hit in the right place. Those corners are a little wrinkly, but again, everything can't be perfect on the first quilt. I have concluded that I do like the tool, and I will continue to use it on large projects. The big advantage for me is that you only have to sew the binding on one edge at a time, so each length of binding is more manageable, and I can take a break after each long seam.

So, yay! And, whew!
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