Quilting Petals

I thought I was going the minimalist route on this piece... ie minimum thread on the petals but changed my mind for a couple reasons.... First... this piece unlike my own versions of this magnolia blossom is a friend's personal piece....completely unlike my samples on which I purposely minimize quilting as mine are 'painting' samples. I can use a bit more thread work but I'll try not to quilt the heck out of it. Secondly... the owner of this piece intends to mat it, frame it... and a bit more quilting will show better behind glass. By the way... if you ever frame one of your quilts, IF you can afford it and want the stitching to be viewable, purchase museum glass in the framing process.
So here we go... first simple neutrals (tan,white)

I stalled doing this til the very end of quilting... but kept thinking all along I'd like to add a bit of pastel pink/coral for warmth. I auditioned the thread ... then quilted.

A little was all that was needed.

Must I change that needle???

I am admittedly hopping back and forth on projects depending on which house I am at. I'm prepping a quilting for hire piece at my mountain home. It's a small piece and can easily be done there... So I have a painted by a student piece to quilt with the eventual plan of it being framed for hanging. There is a bit of 'light value work here that I don't want thread to again take center stage so monofilament on top will be my choice to secure all the outer edges of petals of this flower.

BUT... I just finished quilting a piece (using a 70 sharp needle) on the machine to be used here.... so I planned to change the needle to a NEW 70 sharp so little to no evidence of needle holes are noticeable. I thought this would be an opportunity to show the difference of used vs. new... so note that the following pic is a bit larger than life.

It may seem like overkill if one were quilting with 40wt thread or heavier.... but for this effort on a delicate flower... it's definitely worth it.
A few notes about monofilament as top thread..
1. Use a 60 or 70 sharp needle ( 60 is even better/smaller)
2. Lower top tension ( when I have mono in the bobbin too.. my top tension is near ZERO on my Bernina)
as bobbin thread
3. Wind bobbin slower than normal to avoid stretching which can cause breakage when quilting.
4. Don't bother to fill the bobbin 100% full. It's harder to get a full monofilament bobbin in the bobbin case. Besides you have plenty of bobbin thread even when it's half to 2/3 full.
Good Luck.

When You Don't Want Thread Center Stage

I was hopeing I might get to leave the sock monkeys without much more than the securing stitches around the edges, but I should have known better, This first pic. is how the sock monkey's looked when I took the quilt off the long arm where ofcourse the monkeys were perfectly flat and looked great.

A bit of foreshortening here based on the camera angle.

I never wanted thread to compete with the sock monkey material which represents a knitted sock texture. So monofilament will help here.... by using simple wavy lines following the "knitting" pattern.

I think this will do the trick.

Mar 26.. A Day of Final Rest

Today..Monday Mar 26th, my hubby's Mom will be laid to rest. After a long life and the last few years of physical hardship, Earline Hughes passed away last Tuesday.

Seen above in better times, Earline leaves 2 grown sons. My hubby Ray , the eldest, has been a loyal and loving son managing her care, spirit, and finances for years. Every mother should be so lucky to have a son like Ray.

"For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time has come for my departure. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, and I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award me on that day--and not only me, but also to all those who have longed for his appearing." 2 Timothy 4 6-8

I'm a Monkey Quilting Fool!!!

Sometimes we just get too many things on our plates. I showed my (to be gifted) sock monkey 'top' just finished a couple weeks back. Now it also needs quilting. I got it loaded on my longarm before I left for The Beaumont Texas Guild I just returned from.... now to get with it. I need to get this DONE so am not spending tons of time coming up with wholly creative quilting patterns. I plan to fill the open space within the 9 different sock monkey blocks with a whimsical leaf and meandered circle fill.

I must admit I love this little monkey dude.

I will use hanging leaf /vine strands in sashing and in border. Since I'm not stenciling... I first doodle the leafy plans on paper to get the feel of the pattern. If I can easily do it on paper, I can do it on fabric. By the way... I lay this paper pattern on the quilt top for quick reference /reminders as I work. Sometimes I space out and need a reminder of the plan. The ONLY marking I did on this piece is a straight line ( an air disappearing purple marker) right down the middle of sashing and border. Helps keep things.. STRAIGHT!!!!!!

Binding with a Tucked in Message

After an evening and morning, "The Wild Life" panel is all quilted Yeah. I had a graphic fabric with every color in the world in my stash and it made for a colorful binding so thanks to some TV time last night... the binding is done with a little extra something sewn in the binding seam. A friend (Wendy Price) has a small business selling binding tags with all kinds of special messages. In this quilt, I added a tag on the back in the backside binding seam... 'sayin Sweet Dreams"

There are many choices... some shown here..click on photo for a closeup. Our philanthropy friends group is ordering a bunch of "Somebody Cares" tags for veteran quilts.

I often see little packets of these tags at quilt shop checkout counters. Click here to go to www.tagitons.com
All done but the Baby's arrival!!

Oh..Baby Baby "The Wild Life" by Hoffman of California

Here's the story... You're in a shop, see a really cute panel and think, I could quilt that up in no time. So home from a Montana trip I came with this piece perfect for a gift. What I didn't consider when purchasing is that every single image is so different and unless I was just doing a stitch in the ditch look, I had some mental and physical quilting time ahead of me. But this was fun.... I did chose a variegated cool medium to light blue thread for the center of the quilt.

I purposely stayed off the printed black lines that outline every image. It dispersed the quilting a bit within each block too.

There are too many cute images to show.I liked this zebra.

I switched to a smoke monofilament for the all around alphabet border. I just didn't want to see any thread here.

I photographed this with the selvage still on in case this looked like something you'd like. The panel came from The Quilting Hen... a full service web store in Carter, Montana. Click here to go to www.quiltinghen.com
Now to bind!!!!