Thread Tails

New Blog

2009-01-09T15:20:00.000-08:00

I've moved ThreadTails toWordpress - I find it a little easier to use and upload pictures to. I will not be adding any more to this blog. Everything that was here has been uploaded over there so nothing will be missing. Please check out www.threadtails.wordpress.com!

Irish Chain Loaded and Ready

2009-01-05T21:20:00.000-08:00

After that on-line class I was anxious to get started on the Double Irish Chain. I loaded it last night. This quilt is 81" x 110" and it was about the time I was pressing the backing and top that I was wishing I had a 4' x 8' ironing board!

Here is the quilt loaded onto the frame. I just wanted to show how I float the top by basting the batting and then bringing the top up to the basting line and basting again through all 3 layers. Clear as mud I'm sure!

Here you can see that I do roll the quilt onto the bar but the upper edge is not attached to the take-up roller. I find that I have more control over the top this way and it is much quicker too. I will have a video of how I load my quilts on my website hopefully in the next week or so, it depends on how long it will take me to finish the Double Irish Chain and get another ready to load!

The border fabric had me stumped for awhile as to what sort of quilting I should do. The pattern of the fabric is quite bold so I felt that anything obvious would be just that - too obvious. I decided to use the pattern of the fabric as a guide and chose to quilt a meandering ribbon. Because there was going to be quite a bit of back-track quilting in the pattern I didn't want to stress out that my quilting lines were going to be perfect so that is why the ribbon

style - the lines are supposed to cross!

Here are a couple pictures of the back of the quilt so far. I'm using simple muslin for backing and King Tut #951 Brooklet on the front and Bottom Line #652 Statue in the bobbin.

Tomorrow I will start to quilt the centers of the chain :)

Mystery Quilt complete

2009-01-02T15:02:00.001-08:00

What fun! I'd never done anything like this before but it was well worth it. I started fairly early in the morning pressing everything and loading the quilt. By the time I was done the instructions for quilting were posted. They came on video's so we were able to watch as she laid out the quilting sections. We were shown a different way of doing feathers and you can see in my quilt that I could do with more ppp (practice, practice, practice) but in the quilting business that goes without saying:) It's all finished but for hand sewing down the binding. I would have had it completed in one day but after starting the feathers in a star block I decided to change the thread to a darker one so that the quilting would stand out. My back let me know that it didn't appreciate my being bent over the frame that long ripping out 1/2 a star block so I left it and finished it this morning.

It is all complete but hand sewing down the binding. It is about 54" square.

The quilting designs are quite basic but still look good. The background fillers are just a simple zig-zag line and winding ribbon.

Time to tidy up the studio again and get ready to quilt the Irish Chain. That one will take me a couple days to complete I'm sure!

Mystery Quilt 2009

2008-12-31T17:17:00.000-08:00

I've got the top all done! It is a pretty basic pattern because the focus is going to be on the machine quilting that we do tomorrow. Here are the fabric choices I made. Being a mystery we were only told the different values and amount that we needed. I joined the group the day before it started so I just used what fabric I had in my stash. I wouldn't necessarily choose these fabrics to go together normally but for this fun, learning quilt they will work just fine.

I took a number of breaks during the day including one to finish quilting the charity quilt that was already on the frame so I didn't finish up the top until around 3:30 this afternoon. Only a couple of mistakes, including putting the setting corners onto all the flying geese instead just half of them like the directions said to. My only excuse is my sons gave me all (all) the Beatles CD's for Christmas and I had them cranked up and was probably just having a little too much fun be-bopping along :)

Anyways , I did get it done and here it is. Lots and lots of open spaces to to some fancy quilting in!

What a year!

2008-12-31T09:09:00.000-08:00

It has been so long since I've caught up with my blog I can't believe it. We've been extremely busy moving into our house and doing all the reno's. My sweetheart of a husband started work on my quilting studio the first day taking down a wall to expand the room enough for the quilting frame to be set up. To make a very hectic, busy and exhausting story short we're all moved in, reno's are 90% done, I absolutely love my new quilting studio and house. Yep - in that order - a quilters gotta have her priorities!

I did finish the Irish chain before we started the reno's. It's all ready for quilting but I'm going to be doing a number of charity quilts to get back into the swing of things. I'm on my second on now - wow, it was almost like starting over but I'm kind of back into it already. I'll post some pictures of the Irish Chain before and after quilting as well as my studio.

I've started an on-line mystery quilt today. It's made for stand-up machine quilters. We received the piecing instructions this morning and I've just finished cutting. Today we piece and load the quilt on the frame and tomorrow - New Year's day - we quilt! There's on-line videos that we'll be receiving an lots of instructional stuff. It's put on by LongArm University www.LongarmUniversity.com and so far it's been pretty fun. Never done anything like this before but I figured it would be a good way to get back into free-hand quilting and learn some techniques.

So - I'll end the year quilting and start off the new year quilting - what more could one ask for!

The luck of the Irish

2008-09-30T05:41:00.000-07:00

It's done!! OK, well sort of ;)

I believe that we should try and learn something new all the time, learning is a good thing. I not only learned something new while making this quilt top I re-learned a few as well.

1. Re-learned - always double check your math when you've manipulated a pattern. I thought I was done last week and was proudly showing it off when I realized it was going to be too short to fit the clients bed. I needed to add another row to give her the pillow tuck she wanted.

2. Re-learned - when I shut my sewing machine off the settings for the needle adjustment are lost. Oh yah - right. Rippit, rippit...

3. Learned - Starch. Plain and simple. I'd read and read how so many quilters use starch when they are piecing and how it helps keep things aligned, sews better and on and on. Well - I'm a firm believer now. I had sometimes lightly starched curved pieces before but I inherited a can of 'double strength' starch from cleaning out my in-law's place and decided to try that. It was amazing. It helped lining up the fabric for cutting so my strips were more accurate. Once the strips where sewn together I starched again and the sub-cutting went like a dream. The finished blocks were much more square. The best was that once you've starched the seams they will lay flat when you're sewing the sub-cuts together and you don't have the underside seam flipping over on you when it goes under the presser foot. I'll definitely be buying and using starch much more.

I decided on the border fabric yesterday and worked out my cut lengths and got started. Took a break after I got one of the borders on and when I went back I had no power to the machine or the computer. The radio was still on so I figured a breaker had blown. I went to find my DH to flip the breaker as it's in an rather awkward location and when we entered the room where the panel was we could smell an awful burning smell of hot plastic or oil. He checked the electrical stuff and I went around trying to locate the smell. Turns out that the old florescent light had fried and the oil, PCB"s or tar or whatever it is in the ballast had leaked out and was hotter than heck. My DH quickly unhooked the light and we called the rental manager and she got an electrician out. He's checked everything out and had to re-wire a few things that were definitely not only not to code but extremely unsafe. Turns out here was no ground on the light and we could easily of had a fire. The fact that my sewing machine lost power was just a coincidence. Those wires were loose in the panel and had come off. If they hadn't we might not have caught the problem with the light until it was too late. Anyway - once the smell had cleared out I finished up the borders late last night and proudly spread it out on the bed.

OK - this morning I spread it out on the floor to get a good picture to post. Looked at the picture and something didn't look right. Looked at the top on the floor and it looked fine. Looked at it through the camera again and something definitely was wrong with one of the 'x's. Looked the quilt over again and sure enough I've got one of the 'x' blocks wrong. Good thing is it is in the last row so not too much froging required. Sigh.

I'm not sure when I'll be finishing it now. We got the keys to our new place last evening so it's off to the paint store today and the reno begins! Hopefully I will be able to do a little bit in the evenings if I'm not too tired and I can pack it away for the move.

Back in the Saddle

2008-09-17T16:06:00.000-07:00

I have been asked to make a Double Irish Chain for a friend in a bedspread size for a twin bed. Between our move, helping my in-laws settle into the extended care home and waiting for possession of the house we bought (2 weeks and counting before we start with painting, flooring and designing my new quilting studio!!) I haven’t done much of any quilting at all. I decided it was time to get off my butt and get busy.

I was to match an old satin wall paper in soft blue stripped roses with just a touch of pink. She wanted to match the blues - no pink at all. The problem was these blues were from 10 years ago or more and it was tricky trying to find the same blue in fabric today. I lucked out and came up with these three.

This is the third Double Irish Chain that I’ve made. I use Eleanor Burn’s strip piecing method, or maybe it’s just my version of hers :) I find it so much quicker sewing the strip sets together and then sub-cutting them. Truth is I’ve never made one cutting all the squares out first and sewing them together - it just seemed too much trouble!

I’ve got almost half of the blocks made now. The finished quilt will be 90” x 106” or there abouts. Another couple days worth of sewing and I should be ready to add the borders. I’m really hoping to get this top completed or at least ready for the borders before I start the painting at the new house October 1.

Life is what happens

2008-08-18T07:29:00.000-07:00

Isn't that what they say? Life is what happens while we're busy making plans? Something like that anyways.

I was so looking forward to our local Blackberry Festival - a week long celebration of this tasty little berry - and planned out a few things to go see. A quick trip to the island on Thursday, back on Friday no problem. Wednesday morning we got the call we had been waiting on for many months. My in-laws were accepted into an extended care facility and we finally had the date - August 22. Wow - we really had to move fast. Our trip lasted a few days longer while we started to sort through their apartment. Over 60 years together and almost nothing thrown away. My mother in-law had even kept a receipt for a dress she had bought in 1994! So far the oldest we've found is the paperwork for a house sale in 1973. We're back over next weekend to help settle them in to their new home and sort some more, and probably back a few times over the next month to clean out the apartment. I can only imagine how hard it is on them to have to part with so many treasures. They spent 16 years in Inuvik back in the 60's and have many, many wonderful carvings and artifacts made for them by their native friends. Amazing. Although a little apprehensive they are both looking forward to the move which is good.

I have been updating my store as well so I've been kept pretty busy with things other than quilting. I am going to set aside a couple hours today to sew just to get life back into perspective!

Thanks for the welcome :)

2008-08-10T13:52:00.000-07:00

Hi Alice and Nina, thank you for your welcome to Powell River :)

We are settling in quite nicely - and looking forward to the upcoming blackberry festival, at least I am! My sewing room is set up but the HQ16, table and frame are not. Once we have some of the reno's done on the new (to us) home we'll be setting up the whole system but that probably won't be until late fall.

Anyone interested in learning more about the HQ16 are welcome to email me at baileysquiltinghq@shaw.ca and I'd be happy to answer what questions I can. It's a great machine even though I've nick-named him Harry due to the many harried moments on the learning curve!

We've moved

2008-08-07T08:16:00.000-07:00

After almost 12 years of living in the bustling, hectic, crazy busy lower mainland of BC we had the chance to move to to a much smaller town and we jumped at the chance. It's been in the works for a couple of months and now we're here in beautiful Powell River and loving the much slower pace, gorgeous scenery and friendly people. We've bought a house and will have possession of it in a few weeks so although my sewing room is up my quilting machine is not and won't be until renovations are done to build the quilting studio in our new home. We're renting a home on the beach for the summer and even though I do have some work I must (bad word) get busy doing learning to relax, walk on the beach and enjoy the sunsets has been our priority!

these are taken right from our front yard - that's Vancouver Island in the distance.

More quilty things to come. I have been feeling the urge to quilt these past few days and I want to share something called 'Kilometer Krazy' or 'Mile o' Minute' for those of us State side. It's a way to reduce your scraps - honest!!

What I've been up to

2008-05-27T07:36:00.000-07:00

As you can see I'm a bit behind in my posting :) I've been kept rather busy over the last few months though. My machine quilting is coming along nicely and I even give lessons and rent out time on the machine. I have almost as much fun watching others quilting up a storm and seeing their "wow - I did that" look on their face when they take their quilts of the frame :)

Our guild also had their quilt show the first part of May and I had a few entries to put in. We always have a challenge and this years was the best in my opinion. They gathered up paint chip samples from the paint store and divided them into groups of three - primary, black-white, monochromatic etc. and put them into envelopes. Anyone that was interested in doing the challenge picked an envelope and then had to make a quilt, maximum 100" total circumference, using only those 3 colours. You could add embellishments of any colour but the fabric could only be of those three colours. Quite a challenge. My envelope contained the three primaries - red, yellow and blue. As usual, I first went way overboard. "What is primary" I asked myself. Hmmm - basic, something that can't be broken down any further...ahaa! DNA. What could be more primary than DNA? I googled like crazy and started designing a wall hanging of DNA. I must be getting better because it only took a couple of weeks before I realized that was just silly - I'd never get anything like that done in time and what the heck would I do with something like that when I was done, it wouldn't exactly fit into my decor! I settled on the colour wheel. I've never done any thread painting before so I tried my hand with that and added the secondary colours as embellishment. A little machine embroidery and I was done in a matter of a couple days. A couple weeks before the project was due I might add :) Pretty basic but it works.

Click on the link if you'd like to check out the Langley Quilter's Guild and you can also see an album of the quilts put together by the presidents husband (thanks once again Dave) that were displayed at the show. The beginning of the album shows some of the challenges that were done - absolutely amazing. Maybe I should have tried for the DNA thing!

1..2..3.. JUMP!

2008-01-13T08:41:00.000-08:00

Well, I took a deep breath and (after some more practice muslins and a few charity quilts) a loaded up the 4Q Round Robin and went to town. I've discovered that I''m not too fond of pantographs. I really enjoy free-hand work. It let's me be more creative. Of course it also lets me make a lot of mistakes too :) I wanted feathers and pebbles and line dancing and all of the nifty things I'd been reading about and seeing on the different forums.

I had started taking my own advice, namely accepting that it's not going to look like I've been machine quilting for 20 years. And you know - I'm darn proud of the finished product mistakes and all. I feel more relaxed now about machine quilting.

Here is the finished quilt. Thank you Leslie, Lynda and Linda for such a beautiful quilt top. This will always hang in a prominent spot in my home. Every time I look at it I am reminded that we should not let our fears or insecurities get in the way.

My first attempts at line dancing

Practice, Practice, Practice

2007-11-25T18:24:00.000-08:00

They say practice makes perfect - not so sure about that!

I can't believe how intimidated I've been by this machine ;) I've been practicing on muslin, old fabric, you name it. I know that I'm getting better but boy, what a long way to go yet! Here's a few things I've learned so far.

1. Breath.

Sounds silly but you'll find that you may hold your breath. I always stretch my shoulders and take a deep breath before I start.

2. Patience

. You will NOT be perfect. Expect to make mistakes and learn from them. Don't be surprised if you make the same mistake more than once, this is a big learning curve.

3. Relax

. Before you've gone half way across the first pass you'll find that you're shoulders are tense and you're holding your breath!

4. Acceptance.

I find that I am being much too hard on myself. I don't want to show any of my friends what I've done because I don't think it is good enough. I'm slowly getting away from these thoughts and I'm finding that I am getting somewhat better.

5. Practice.

And then practice some more and then practice again. It is so true. Using a quilting machine means re-training your eye-hand co-ordination and using muscles in your shoulders and arms that you may not be used to using.

I belong to a small quilting group called the 4Q's (four quilters) and we did a round robin. All tops were absolutely stunning when they were completed. My centre block was an appliqued pansy in burn oranges on a muslin background. I had originally said that I wanted it to be a wall hanging for my kitchen. When it came back it was almost 48" square! Well, it's been waiting to be quilted for many months now. I think I owe it to these gals to finish it.

Am I good enough? Not sure. We'll find out.

Setting up my HQ16

2007-08-04T19:58:00.000-07:00

My new sewing studio was finished and now had 5 large boxes full of my brand new quilting machine. This machine was developed for home users and came with a video and instruction books on how to set it up. Word of advise for anyone setting up this system - the video is packed with the machine! We went through every box trying to find it.

TABLE: I had read that banquet tables could be used for the frame so we had decided not to purchase the table from

Handiquilter

. Probably a mistake as we've spent almost as much trying to make something work. I had a cabinet shop make me 2 tops - 96" x 30" x 1.25" and 48" x 30" x 1.25" - made to be doweled together on site as 96" was the largest size we could get around the corners to get into the room. Unfortunately, the largest top was bowed and the shorter piece was cupped so it didn't fit together to well. We re-cut the shorter piece to 36" and my husband re-doweled it so they would line up properly. We bought 4 adjustable heavy duty table legs at $60 a pair and attached them to the underside of the tops. That helped straighten out the bowed top but not enough. We ended up putting long metal 'L' bracketing underneath and that seemed to do the trick.

SIZE: We went back and forth deciding if we should go ahead and set it up as wide as we could (120") or use the 96" top and just add the smaller table and move the frame whenever I had a wider top to do. We decided on the full size and I'm so thankful that we did. Although this system is designed to be taken down and moved it isn't something I want to be doing very often! I usually only made lap sized quilts because they were easier to quilt on a domestic machine but now I'm finding my quilts are increasing in size!!

TRACK: The system comes with sticky tabs to hold down the one track. We used them but once I started quilting I found that I seemed to be going over hills and valleys and no matter how often I practiced I couldn't make even circles or even straight lines because the machine seemed to get away from me. I thought that perhaps the table wasn't level so I was continually having my husband adjust the legs while I moved the machine around. I finally realized that these hills and valleys were where the tapes were so we tried adding more tabs but it didn't work. Off came the frame again and we removed all the tabs, scrubbed the residue off and put down a full length of 3m double sided tape. 100% improvement!

BARS: There has been some talk about the bars with the Handiquilter frame being flimsy. The only concern I had was that the idler bar rubbed the machine when it was at the centre point of the frame. I posted my concern on the HQ16 yahoo group and had many responses from changing out the bars to raising the bar to it doesn't matter if it rubs! I wrote to HandiQuilter and they also said that the idler bar being low is not as important because once you load the quilt the tension of the sandwich being pulled up to the take-up bar lifts it up. Still, I didn't like the idea of it rubbing so my husband took the bar apart at the centre and put some duct tape around it and put it back together. Simple fix and no more rubbing!

LEADERS: There has also been much discussion about HQ's leaders. Truthfully I find them a bit flimsy. They are a light-weight muslin with one side of 1/2" Velcro attached. You are supplied with the other side of the 1/2" Velcro that you must attach to the bars. While easy enough to do you must be very, very careful to put it on straight. They tell you to follow the machining lines on the bars but some are very hard to spot. The adhesive on the Velcro has only a short time before it sticks permanently so you must take your time to put it on right the first time! Personally, I think HandiQuilter should but the Velcro on the polls at the factory to ensure straightness. If the Velcro is not straight your leader won't be straight (at least not without some adjusting

while loading and 1/2" isn't very much to play with) and your top and backing will not load straight.

I found that pinning the sections onto the leaders very hard on my back so I purchased zippers that are made for long arms where half of the zipper is sewn onto the leaders. I tried basting the sections onto the other half of the zippers with Vanish Extra (water soluble thread) but I found that my domestic machine doesn't feed even enough and ends up stretching the top or backing while it sews it down. Don't have that problem any other time but it doesn't like the zipper tape I guess. So, I pin the zipper onto the top and back but at least I can sit down to do it and my back thanks me. After that they just 'zip' right onto the bars and makes unloading so much easier.

TIPS: Here are a few tips I learned from the various yahoo groups. Thanks to those that shared - I'm sorry I don't remember who you are!

Pant hangers

- those old style pant hangers are great if you want a bit

more side-to-side stability or don't like the single clamps that come with the machine. Attach the pant hanger to your backing and the clamp onto the curved part of the hanger and adjust.

Hair clips

- This tip was a great one. I use them to attach my practice sandwich, keep the leaders

tidy if I'm doing a small project - clip them around the poll and the leaders wont tangle up on you, and they even keep the latches up and out of the way when I'm trying to roll the quilt.

Lint Rollers

- This tip came from my friend Deb that had come to quilt a large top she had finished. Her cat had left a few stray hairs behind so she had brought along a lint roller to brush the top before loading it onto the frame. It was soon realized that it was a very handy thing to have around to pick up any loose threads or anything else you would rather not quilt down!

Why I Quilt

2007-08-01T17:55:00.000-07:00

About 7 years ago I decided that I wanted a homemade quilt for my bed. During a trip to Nova Scotia I visited a number of quilt shops and saw such beautiful works of art that I decided that I had to have one. Then I saw the price tags! I was floored by the costs - $750, $900, $1500... of course now that I've started to quilt myself and know how much time, material, expertise and love go into these projects I think that many of them were priced a little low.
Anyway, at the time I decided that I could make a quilt myself. After all, I'd been sewing clothes and drapery for years - how difficult could it be? Famous last words. I started out pretty easy with a simple 4" patch in a lap quilt size. That was my first introduction into the cost of making a quilt. Material alone was close to $200!

When I finished this quilt I stood back and said 'wow - I made this. All by myself - me.' I've made draperies and valances with all t

he bells and whistles, tailered a winter coat, made jeans for my children and husband that you couldn't tell from designer and yet from this simple litt

le checker board lap-quilt I gained a sense of pride and accomplishment I'd not felt before. Amazing.

I've knitted, crocheted, scrapbooked and many other crafty things but I'v

e very few finished projects to show for it. I would get bored and put it away and start something else. Although I may have a few UFO's in my cupboard I have finished almost every one of my quilts!

My second project was a little gutsier - a queen size bedspread in a triple Irish Chain pattern. Purples and soft white and greens. This was going to be the homemade bedspread that I wanted a few years back. Why I didn't just choose another lap quilt or wall hanging to do to learn more skills I don't know but I jumped in head first. Even the girls at the quilt store suggested that

perhaps I should try something a little smaller but no - after all - I'd been sewing for years, I've made one quilt - how hard could it be? (Will I never learn?!) The daunting thing about making this quilt top was all the cutting. I didn't think I'd ever finish cutting all tho

se 2.5" strips! Layering everything together was interesting too. I moved all the furniture out of the way, invited a girlfriend over and started to pin...and pin...and pin some more. Finally it w

as finished and I hauled it over to my sewing machine and just stared at it. Now what do I do. It was too big to do much more than straight lines on

the diagonal and even then I couldn't quilt for more than 30 minutes or so before my back and shoulders would give out. It took me a few weeks to finish quilting it. That was really when I started looking at the quilting machines and dreaming that maybe someday I would have one.

Here are a few of the first quilts that I've done.

A small Ohio Star for my mother-in-law. Pretty basic with straight line machine quilting on the diagonal. Even with this smaller quilt I wasn't able to sit and machine quilt for any length of time. I knew that there was so much more that could be done bu

t I was hesitant to try free motion quilting. I was getting pretty good at using my walking foot though!

I made this dragon quilt for my oldest son. He is/was heavy into dragons and I had this vision in my head

of what I wanted to do. I couldn't find a pattern anywhere. I Googled dragon images and came up with some pretty good ideas. I drafted up a sketch of what I wanted, enlarged it and made copies. I cut apart the pieces and used them as the pattern for the fabrics. I used Steam a Seam to adhere them to the background and then zig-zagged them down. I learned a number of things while making this wall hanging,

Trim the Steam a Seam under large pieces so only a 1/2" or so of the border of the fabric is covered otherwise it ends up much too stiff.
Black shows everything!
Test drive your batting first
. I used a polyester batting and it bearded through the black so much that it almost looks hazy. Live and learn.

I look back at these projects and think 'oh - what I could do with them now! I did try a bit of free motion quilting on the dragon but if I'd had my HQ16 back then I'd have used metallics and thread painted flames, outlined the scales and meandered some wizardly things into the background - I'll just have to make another one!

Look Ma, I'm blogging!

2007-07-31T19:41:00.000-07:00

ell, I decided it was time to join the crowd and develop a blog. I will be focusing on quilting - the actual joining of 2 pieces of fabric together with a batting in between - as opposed to the piecing of a quilt top.

I'm a recent owner of a mid-arm quilting machine and have been having an absolute blast! Although I haven't been able to spend as much time on it as I would like I have watched my friends use it to complete their projects and have learned and enjoyed watching them travel the learning curve of machine quilting on a frame.

So, this blog will be mainly about machine quilting! I hope machine and hand quilters alike will enjoy and maybe learn something as I share my experiences learning to be a professional quilter!