More Blanket Stitch Applique Tips

I am working on one of the borders of Ladies of the Sea (pattern by Sue Garman). I am using a machine blanket stitch to appliqué this quilt. The blocks were fairly easy to manipulate under the machine, but this large border (10 X 59 inches) has been a challenge. One of my most read posts has been “pitfalls and pearls of blanket stitch appliqué” (June 10, 2010) and working on this border has brought to mind a few more tips for me to share from my trials and errors.

 *I am trying to keep the border pinned and folded to a smaller size to just have a small portion showing to work on. I would like to do all of the red flowers, then blue, purple, etc but all the manipulation has made the appliqué pieces fall off, so to protect them and make the border more manageable I keep most of the border folded and pinned.

*I bring my thread to the back and thread them in a needle to stitch the loose beginning and ending threads under a few stitches. When working on small circles and appliqué pieces where I start and end at the same spot I need to pull the start thread to the back before I stitch over it when I come back around. With the extra bulk of the folded borders this has been really hard.

After a few very difficult berries I realized I needed to always start stitching an appliqué near an edge of the border (the spot I am pointing at with the seam ripper) so I did not have to reach under as much folded fabric to pull that start thread to the back.

It has also helped because I always know where I started stitching, especially on the small circles.

*Check your stitch recipe to your sample through out making the quilt. I have a certain blanket stitch setting that I choose and keep a sample of (minus 3 stitch length and minus 4 stitch width) for each quilt I machine appliqué. I always set my blanket stitch to this setting when I start working on the quilt. The first thing I had appliquéd on this quilt many months ago was the red half square triangles on the borders, then I worked on the center 16 blocks, now that I am back in the border I realized that my machine has drifted over the months and this stitch recipe has gotten a little smaller blanket stitch, enough so that it is noticeable when I started stitching the flowers in the border and now that I compare some of my first completed blocks to the last couple completed blocks.

*Pointy Points - there is a sharp pointed star every 5 inches in this border and these points are hard to hit.

Just to review as you are coming up to the point I skip the last blanket stitch

and switch my machine to 1 straight stitch, then I switch back to blanket stitch for the stich right on the point but I increase 2 to 3 on the stitch width to take a larger bite into the point

 and then pivot down the opposite side of the star point (or leaf point) and again skip that first blanket stitch and stitch 1 straight stitch and then continue the blanket stitching - remember to decrease the stitch width by the 2 to 3 again.

 So slowly but surely I am getting this first border finished, there are LOTS of berries and grapes and star points for me to practice on.  Although there is a lot of starts and stops and thread changes, the rhythmic blanket stitching is soothing and relaxing to me.
Happy Stitching All,
Cheri

Ladies of the Sea #15 & #16

I have finished the last of the center ship blocks on Ladies of the Sea.  The last two blocks were the Chinese Pirate Junk, 1807 and the French ship the Le Coureur, 1778. 

Sue Garman's patterns and instructions for this quilt have been so enjoyable and well written.  The blocks have come together beautifully and the instructions have always included the history of the ship and "smooth sailing" tips to make the blocks a little easier if needed.  The floral wreaths surrounding each ship always have a tie to the country of origin of each ships.  The pattern was originally designed as a block of the month and each pattern ended with a  bit of sailing trivia for the month.

I have posted about it before, but as much as I enjoy needle turn hand applique I decided to do this quilt with machine applique.   The background is a Kona cotton and all of the appliques came out of my batik scraps.  I used King Tut variegated threads for the blanket stitch applique which blended in well with the batik fabrics. 

 I like to keep things neat and would always bring my threads to the back of the block and then pull them thru a few stitches on the back. I have about 15 hours in each block.

The flowers in each ship's wreath are echoed in the borders. They are full of applique, the first border is all prepped and I have begun working on it.   

 I like to visit Judi Madsen's blog Green Fairy Quilts.  She is a sensational long arm machine quilter and last month she was quilting a completed Ladies of the Sea, it is just gorgeous!  Very inspirational and motivational to keep me working on mine. (sensational, motivational, inspirational ---I guess you could say I like her work)   I love the pebbling she did in the borders because it reminds me of bubbles and seems water like. So I am starting to think about how I am going to quilt my quilt as I am getting closer and closer to completion. 

 Happy Stitching All,

Cheri 

                                                                                                

Scrappy Stars and Jester's Hats

I can not believe we are already to the August free motion quilt challenge from SewCalGirl already.  The August instructor is Wendy Sheppard.  She gave instructions for a quilting motif she named Jester's Hats.  This motif could be used for a background fill, border, or even all over quilt design.  It gives nice texture as an all over pattern.    I wanted to give it a try as a border pattern and as a smaller background fill so I divided my little sample into a center square and a border.

  I had a hard time thinking "Pointy" (I really wanted to round those points) and ended up putting the pictures of jester hats right by my sewing machine so I could keep looking at it.  Wendy has a wonderful blog called Ivory Spring with lots of tutorials and great information and posts.

I made a few scrappy stars blocks and put them into a little table topper quilt that measures about 23 inches. 

 Happy stitching all!

Cheri

July Free Motion Quilt Challange and Album Applique Updates

 

The July Free Motion Quilt Challenge (Sew Cal Gal blog) instructor is Angela Walters. She is a long arm quilter but her background fill design called Tiles translates to the home sewing machine very nicely.  This is a great little blank space fill design that can still be used with simple stippling or other background fill designs.  It shows better on a plain fabric and is much more difficult to see on a printed fabric but that is the case with many quilting designs. The tile effect can be done with box type tiling or with angled lines giving a more jagged appearance (see the right upper corner of my sample)  There is a picture of a quilt quilted with the angled line tiles on the tutorial, it looks very good with modern fabrics.

In between other summer activities I have continued working on my two album quilts.  Two more Ladies of the Sea (pattern by Sue Garman) completed, the USS Constitution, aka "old ironsides".   The second is a viking ship, the Osberg, circa 875, a long ship moved by oarsman

                                         

The block count on Ladies of the Sea is 14, only 2 more ships to go and I am on the borders!

I also have finished four more blocks for the red and green applique album.

  I had originally planned to do 42  blocks and have an applique border, but I am leaning toward adding blocks -maybe 63 - a 7 X 9 set- and then the sashing around each block and no border.  

 I keep looking at the picture of the antique quilt I saw at the International Quilt Study Center & Museum in Lincoln, NE. that inspired this quilt and I like its simplicity of just applique blocks and sashing. 

I am getting the patterns for the red and green block from all my favorite applique books.  These last four blocks were from the Kay MacKenzie book Inspired By Tradition. There are a couple more in that book I really like and I need to spend some time today prepping some more blocks to work on.  I enjoy the Olympics and I know it will be a great opportunity to get a lot of  hand work completed while watching television.

Happy Stitching All,

Cheri

Triplets!

Meet Teagyn, Raelynn, and Korryn.  They are the 12 week old triplets of a friend of my daughter.  I do not usually do to much garment sewing, but it was my absolute pleasure to alter their little baptism dresses to fit these little 8 pounders.

 I was thrilled they brought the girls over for a little visit along with their 10 week old cousin Carson whose mom is another friend of my daughter.

  Four little babies under 3 months old, there was lots of "rock a byeing" and catching up with my daughter's friends, a perfect afternoon.

Quilt Magazines on Ipad/Iphone

I have found a few quilt magazines starting to be available on my Ipad and Iphone.  Lori over at HumbleQuilts had a huge discussion back in early June asking the question how many quilters were still subscribing to quilt magazines. I let my subscriptions go a couple years ago.  Last week I was looking for something quick to read in the newsstand section of the Ibook store and came across these quilt magazines.  The apps for the different magazines are free and there usually  is one older issue of the magazine available for a free download to see how you like reading on your Ipad or Iphone.

 You can preview the first 10 or so pages of the latest magazines (which includes the contents page) and then download the magazine for $1.99.  You can get single issues or have a recurring subscription.

 The pattern pull out pages were converted  to  8 1/2 X 11 inch pages so you can send them to your printer in the Quiltmaker issue I previewed.  

I still occasionally pick up a quilt magazine at the store and really like this option of getting to preview the table of contents and then decide if I want  to read it on my Ipad, and the discounted price for the online versions is nice. 

Just thought I would share,  Happy Stitching,
Cheri

Sunbonnet Sue Revisited.

She is one of the most recognized quilt blocks in the world. she has a love/hate relationship with quilters (google "the demise of Sunbonnet Sue), and she was the first quilt my mother made.

  This is a true 1960's quilt, my mom hand appliqued - with a black embroidery floss running stitch - and hand quilted this quilt in about 1967-68.  This was the first quilt in a series of four that my mom did for her daughters.  I am the oldest and this quilt became mine.

  I remember my mom coming in the house one spring afternoon and enlisting my help for a project.  She had spotted a Sunbonnet Sue quilt hanging on an elderly neighbor's cloths line.  We went with a sheet of notebook paper, pencil, and clipboard and while I held the clipboard behind the quilt she traced this Sunbonnet Sue pattern while the quilt was hanging on the clothesline. 
Mom only purchased the white fabric for the backgrounds and the light blue for the borders.  With four daughters she sewed most of our clothing and these Sue's were made out of the scraps from our sundresses, shorts, and shirts.

 It is interesting to me because looking closely at the fabrics some of the them look very current with today's fabrics.

 I can not remember any of us girls wearing the leopard print, but it was the 60s :)


I was taking a closer look at this quilt because I recently made a  little Sunbonnet Sue quilt for a friend.  She wanted a dolly blanket/quilt for her granddaughter.

 These little Sues are 5 inch blocks and made with Aunt Gracie reproduction fabrics.  I machine appliqued the blocks with a black blanket stitch.  The back is minkie fabric, I did very little quilting on it and  did not use any batting so it is nice and "drapey" and hug able.  Easy to wrap a baby doll in.  

Happy Stitching!
Cheri