The guest instructor for this month's
Free Motion Quilting Challenge (from Sew Cal Gal) is Paula Reid. She has been machine quilting on her domestic machine since the mid 1990s. Since that time she has quilted 1400 quilts, three quarters of them queen or king size. Her website and business is
BattsintheAttic.com Some of her tips were to get straight stitches she likes using a straight stitch throat plate and a strong, sharp needle, specifically a Schmetz 12 denim needle. When she is machine quilting for her customers she sets a timer to take a break every 90 minutes from her quilting. She generally quilts four to five 90 minute sessions a day. Her tutorial includes a video on her "Fluff and Stuff Method" and this demonstrates how she handles queen and king size quilts on her domestic machine.
So after reading thru her tutorial and watching the video I set up my machine with a Schmetz size 12 denim needle, this was new for me, I have not ever used a denim needle for quilting. I have also been reading about quilting with 2 batts,
Hobbs 80/20 on the bottom and a wool on the top for extra "poof" in the quilting, so I wanted to experiment with this also. Paula provided an 8 inch feathered wreath block from the Stencil Company in her tutorial for practice. The
Stencil Company sells this stencil in 11 and 13 inch size. They also have given a coupon code for 20% off purchases for the month of September, the coupon code is: SewCalTwenty. I decided to transfer the stencil on a newsprint and then quilt thru it.
This is a very nice feather design for a block and I will use it again. After I had quilted the design I crinkled up the quilt to start removing the paper (much like you do for paper piecing)
and then I continued on with some background fill practice. I really could not tell any difference quilting with the denim needle, I usually use a 10 or 12 sharp for machine quilting. I all am not sure that I really got that much more "poof" by using both batts, it looks about the same as when I use a wool batt.
This was a fun practice piece and as always there were lots of good tips.
Happy Stitching,
Cheri
It's a beautiful feather design. The paper looks so cool after you've crumpled it :0) It was interesting that you tried 2 batts. I find a wool batt to be plenty puffy for my taste. I need to practice like this...
ReplyDeleteNice job, Cheri. I have still never tried quilting through paper, but your method makes it look easy to remove. I'll have to try it.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful stitching. Thanks for the tips.
ReplyDeleteIt's beautiful. Thanks for the link to the tutorial. I'm going to check it out.
ReplyDeleteYour sample looks great - and I like the way you have done the fillers around the outer. I love the paper look!!
ReplyDelete