Blogger's Quilt Festival Spring 2014-Original Design

I was so excited to see the Original Design category in this year's Blogger's Quilt Festival. A couple years ago my quilt guild had a workshop on the drunkard's path. I wanted a quilt for my bed that would make me happy whenever I saw it. I've always loved penguins and with a little bit of playing I figured out how to make a penguin with the drunkard's path block. My first drawing felt very busy so I alternated some setting squares and added some fish for variety. The result was a quilt that made me very happy. 

The women in my guild loved my penguins and encouraged me to write the pattern. (The link is available on my sidebar.) I figured most people probably wouldn't want a bed covered in penguins so after finishing the queen sized quilt I made this lap version that finishes 60"x60". Oddly enough I'm still not tired of the drunkard's path and used it for my Bloomin' Onion quilt this year. I know that curved seams aren't for everyone so I'm working at adding instructions to the pattern so that the blocks can be made with applique.

The pebble quilting reminded me of bubbles so I chose to do that around all of the penguins and fish. I love how it really makes the penguins pop.

Penguin Progress

I've been struggling with this post most of the week. I have no idea why it's okay to write 8 posts on a shawl, but I'm feeling guilty about sharing progress on my Penguin Quilt  for the third week in a row. It both astonishes and confounds me how I can have such completely opposite approaches when it comes to knitting and quilting. With knitting I can only have one project at a time that I'm working on. (I've tried many times to have multiple projects going so that I have knitting no matter what mood I'm in, but it just doesn't work.) The closest I've come to writing my own knitting pattern is vanilla socks where I just check stitch counts for the heel. It's easy to show progress from one week to the next so I almost always have something to write about.

With quilting I can't even count how many quilts I have in the works right now. Since I have self-set deadlines and am working through how I'll finish them I'm calling them WIPs and not UFOs. I usually don't use a pattern, and if I do I alter it so much that it has very little resemblance to the quilt that inspired it. Progress however is very hard to show on a large quilt. I don't have a good way to hang a quilt in progress so all I can share is close-ups of the blocks. (When the blocks are 14" though it makes it hard to even get a decent shot of that.)

I've been busy working on quilting Penguins this week. I'm hoping to photograph it early next week so I've been pushing to finish it in time. This is only my second time doing free motion quilting and I wasn't prepared for how much thread it would take. Thankfully the Fat Quarter Shop has really fast shipping and I had a new spool of thread 3 days after ordering.

I have one large grey block, one fish, and two penguins left to quilt, and the binding so I should make my goal of finishing this weekend. I'm loving how the bubble quilting is looking. It really makes this quilt.

Penguins and New Sewing Machine

 This week I've started quilting the penguin quilt. I'm very new at free motion quilting so it's hard to really say how it's going. It's not perfect which is a bit disappointing, but it's good enough to keep. I did in the ditch quilting around the fish and penguins. Since the penguins are so big I also stitched around their bellies and beaks. In the grey blocks I've decided to do bubble quilting. I'm not sure if I'm going to do bubbles on the blue too or if I'll just keep it on the plain blocks.

On Wednesday I mentioned that I bought a new sewing machine cabinet last weekend. Since there were several requests for pictures and more details here's the cabinet as it currently sits. It turns makes an excellent computer desk when it's all folded up.

Check out that large space for quilting! I haven't had a chance to really look at the machine so I'm afraid I can't give you any details yet. I am planning on refinishing this soon. Currently I'm leaning towards painting it some shade of blue and recovering the chair with a soft cream colored fabric. I'll be sure to share pictures as soon as it's finished.

Penguin Quilt

My brilliant plan of sharing Writer's Block on the blog in order to focus on it more has failed miserably. This week I've gotten distracted by efforts to get my Penguin Quilt pattern finished by the end of September. I'm debating whether I should leave the corners angled or if I should make the quilt square all the way around.

I'm also struggling to come up with a name for this pattern. I want something a little more unique than "Penguin Quilt" but the name still needs to attract attention (and hopefully sales.) The finished pattern will include directions for the 60" square throw and a table runner featuring two of the penguins. Currently I plan to publish this pattern with Craftsy, and I'm looking for other sites to publish with.

It's crazy that in the middle of a major heat wave there is still enough wind to keep me from hanging the quilt on the line. This shot doesn't really show off the quilt, but it makes the penguins look like they're flying! Too cute not to share.

SPQG 2013 Quilt Show Part 1

Last weekend was the Sioux Prairie Quilt Guild's annual quilt show. I'm always in awe of what these ladies can do. I try to remember that they've been at this for longer than me and that my quilts are getting better, but there are days I feel like a fraud being in the same guild as these amazing women. They are very encouraging and remind me that before you can be an expert you have to be a beginner.

I'm very grateful that they let me take pictures to share here. (They actually laughed when I asked if it was okay, but I know some shows are more picky about those things.) I apologize for the picture heavy post, but it was extremely hard to choose which quilts to share.

First up is the finished Penguin Quilt top. Our backdrops our limited in height so the large quilts have to have their tops folded over. I think this is still one of the better pictures I'm going to get of this quilt.

Feeding Time by Kymberly Pease

Barn quilts are becoming very popular in our area. I love the idea of a quilt filled with barns with barn quilts on them.

Barn Quilt by Phyllis Van Peursem

I don't have a picture of it, but she used the extra blocks to make a cute chevron on the back.

Bright Zig Zag by Carolyn Elder

This one might look familiar. I thought I'd show everyone what Coffee Lover's Delight looks like when it isn't being blown about by wind or struggling to fit it all in the frame.

Coffee Lover's Delight by Kymberly Pease

My guild is lucky to have several hand-quilters. This quilt is by one of the women who inspires me to master this art form.  Right now the thought of hand-quilting a bed-sized quilt is daunting. Not only did she make this quilt, but she had several other large quilts in the show.

Lone Star by Mary Ellen Winter

A close up of the hand quilting.

 This quilt has 50 different shades of red in it! I can't imagine how long that search must have taken.

Red and White Pineapple by Mary Ellen Winter

Last week I shared my submission into last year's challenge to literally interpret a quilt block. This is the winning quilt.

Pineapple Quilt by Barb Tazelaar

Penguin and Fish eyes

I'm not sure why this step gave me so many problems. Okay that's a lie. This step gave me lots of problems because I've never done applique and for my first time doing it I decided to do pieces the size of buttons on the cuffs of dress shirts. I had originally planned to do a satin stitch around the edge of the eyes, but I discovered that of the many stitches my new sewing machine does a plain ordinary satin stitch is not one of them. Then I tried using a blanket stitch, but it didn't work with those stupid tiny pieces with my limited experience. Finally while watching Fons and Porter they did an episode with applique using a darning foot and a simple straight stitch.

After a month trying to figure out how to do the eyes it took about an hour to do the stitching on all of my eyes. I prefer working with smaller pieces so I added the eyes before assembling the blocks. It takes a little more attention when completing the blocks, but only one fish was mutated in the process.

 It is optional to do the eyes before or after assembling the blocks. The penguin beaks however are pieced and need to be added prior to sewing up the penguin blocks. I cut small squares, drew a line down the middle, and  sewed to the shallow side of the line. I struggled to get my beaks to line up when folded so I nudged the edge a bit over the side of the penguin blocks and then trimmed the excess.

I've known all along that my drunkard's path blocks would produce penguins and fish, but there's a certain level of excitement that comes from seeing the finished blocks and knowing that my plan actually worked.

Some of the ladies in my quilt guild are encouraging me to write up this pattern. I think once the quilt is finished I'll work to create a pattern for a baby quilt. It probably won't be ready in time for the May quilt show, but when I have it finished I'll be sure to share it here.

Linking up here:

Drunkard's Path Sewing Guide part 2

Last week I showed how to make the 7.5" drunkard's path blocks for my penguin quilt. This week I'm going to show you how to make the 3.5" block. (Please note that the block I showed you last week uses the same techniques you'll use for the larger blocks, but was for a separate quilt. In the penguin quilt the 7.5" blocks are penguins and the 3.5" blocks are fish.)

The technique for the smaller block is fairly similar to the ones used for the larger block, but there are a few differences. Since the block is so small there's no need to pin at the middle. The horseshoe piece goes on bottom and the pie piece goes on top. Begin by matching up the starting ends and doing a few stitches.

 Just like with the larger block, straighten out the block as you sew so that when the seam passes under the needle it's a straight line. You'll tug the top piece a little to make this happen, but be careful about tugging too much. Because the curve is cut on the bias it has a lot of stretch and your ends won't match if you tug too much.

Because of the size of these blocks getting the two pieces lined up was a challenge at the end. I found a pair of tweezers were great for finishing out the seams. (Some of the ladies at the workshop used tweezers on the bigger blocks too, but I didn't find that to be necessary.)

Alternate the direction you press so that your seams will nest. (I pressed the tail and head towards the white and the back and belly towards the blue.) This block hasn't been stitched but it gives you an idea of how the fish will look.

Since I neglected to share my penguins last week here's one of them. Four fish blocks equal one penguin.

Drunkard's Path Sewing Guide part 1

The technique for sewing the 7.5" blocks and 3.5" blocks are slightly different. At the workshop our teacher began with the larger block so I'm going to start with that one. There is a little bit of a learning curve with sewing curves, but just go slow and the method will click pretty quickly. Unfortunately I was too caught up in figuring out what I was doing to remember to take pictures. Luckily one of the guys I work for celebrated his 60th birthday over the weekend and he just happens to love fish. I decided to make him a wall hanging featuring the drunkard's path fish. 

The first step is to fold the pie piece and horse shoe piece in half and finger press a small crease at the top.

Match up the two creases and pin.

Our quilt teacher taught us that we only need the one pin in the middle that moves to the end half way through sewing. I found it easier to have both pins in place right from the start. (I've seen tutorials online that use a lot more pins than this, but it's really not necessary.)

One of the major secrets of sewing the drunkard's path block is having the horseshoe side down. (I think of it as iron horseshoes weigh more than a piece of pie so they sink to the bottom. Please note that from this point on the horse shoe is in the red fabric and the pie is blue.)

When sewing this block, pull the seam so that it's straight when it's fed through the needle. You will pull the top piece a little to make sure that they match up in the middle. Make sure that the fabric going under the needle is flat and smooth. Puckers will keep your seam from laying flat and won't look good in the finished quilt. (It's a good idea to cut a few extra pieces. This is a more challenging block and you're going to mess up the seam allowance and sew puckers. A seam ripper is good for the first mistake, but the third time ripping out the seam it's easier to just start over.) 

I found that these blocks come out much more wrinkled than when I sew squares or triangles, but ironing will fix everything.

Ironing rules are the basic quilting ones. Alternate pressing seams towards the pie or towards the horseshoe, going towards the dark when possible. Ordinarily when I iron I don't use anything special, but for this block I found best press makes a huge difference in how these blocks look.

I added half square triangles to make this wall hanging size (it finishes 20"x20".) My machine has a cool stitch that looks like waves and was perfect for quilting. On the penguin quilt I did applique eyes, but since there's only one fish and this isn't going on a bed I used a button for the eye. 

I've named this quilt "The Big One."

Drunkard's Path Cutting Guide

Cutting out the Drunkard's Path block is really pretty simple. There are two tools that will save you much frustration. I strongly encourage investing in a rotating cutting mat and a 28mm rotary cutter. (I used a 45mm cutter to do the 7.5" blocks, but it was impossible to do the horseshoe bits on the 3.5" blocks. I almost kissed one of the ladies when she lent me her cutter.) My rotary cutting skills are not always accurate so I cut my strips of fabric half an inch wider than my templates and then trimmed them to size. Due to the layout of this quilt I didn't need horseshoe and pie pieces that were the same color. This layout does waste a bit of fabric, but with some careful cutting the waste is very minimal.

To cut the horseshoe shapes I folded my fabric to fit two horseshoes nestled together. (Ended up being 12" strips for the 7.5" horseshoe piece.) There's a little bit of extra space so don't worry too much about cutting an inch or so past the edges of the templates.

With a sharp blade I found that I could easily do four layers of fabric at a time. It worked best to cut the flat sides first and then anchor the template by holding a finger on each side of the square. (It's not as complicated as it sounds, but since I'm not an octopus I wasn't able to get a picture of me doing this.) The picture below shows how the two pieces nestle together once the extra fabric is removed.

To cut my pie shaped pieces I cut squares half an inch larger than my pie piece. (For the 7.5" templates the edge of the pie is 6" and my square was 6.5") When I did my 3.5" pie pieces I cut straight from the strips. The curve makes it impossible to nest these pieces the way I did for the horseshoe so I just kept the straight edge facing the same direction across the strip. 

Your horseshoes and pie pieces won't line up perfectly. It's okay. The magic of sewing curved seams will fix this in the next step.

Penguin Quilt

This year my quilt guild's winter workshop featured the Drunkard's Path block. I think the reason it's called the Drunkard's Path is because who ever came up with this block was very familiar with that particular path, if you catch my meaning. (I think it also helps the quilter if she's a little familiar with that path, or at least the bottle at the start of that path.) Once I figured out what I was doing it did start to get fun. I'm getting ahead of myself though, so lets back up and start at the beginning.

Here are my fabric choices for the quilt. As the name suggests the black and white fabrics will become penguins on the dark blue. The orange will be used as beaks and binding. The dark blue will also be used to make fish which will be on the white. All of these blocks will be on point alternating with solid, light blue squares.

 I forgot to take a picture of the black before I cut into it which is why it looks like there's so much less of it. You might be wondering why there's so much black fabric left if I've already cut all of my blocks. In December my husband gave me EQ7 (computer software for designing quilts.) I had several mock-ups of my penguin quilt before deciding on the final layout. One of the nice aspects of the software is that it gives you a yardage estimate for the quilt. I've never made a queen size quilt and I know that the Drunkard's Path block wastes a bit of fabric so I decided to trust the software when it told me to buy 18 yards of fabric. (Yes, I thought this may be a bit much but I frequently regret it when I don't trust the pattern so I did.) After cutting out all of my blocks I realized that I'd only used half of my fabric. Turns out that if you have two quilt tops in your project file EQ7 assumes you want to make both quilt tops. I think I'm going to figure out a way to use the extra fabric for the backing of this quilt.

I think rather than calling this quilt Penguin quilt (which is a working title, when it's finished it will be named Feeding Time) I should call it Comedy of Errors. So far I've had at least one problem in every step. At the workshop was the worst. My machine started growling at me at about 10 am and when I got back to lunch it began clunking and then stopping. I frequently have conversations with Jenny (my sewing machine) about proper behavior. I give her regular brushings and make sure all of her parts are in order, but lately she's been complaining more and more. Because of where I live, my work hours, and the hours of the shops around here it will mean sacrificing two entire Saturdays to take Jenny to the repair man and get her back. I am making plans for this trip, but my husband and I have been contemplating getting a second machine for several months now. Yesterday I decided it was time for Jenny to meet her new little Brother, Samuel, Sammy for short. 

Sammy comes equipped with multiple feet for quilting, an extension table for quilting, and over 100 different stitches, including a basic alphabet that I suspect will come in useful when I make quilt labels. I plan on playing sewing with this machine a lot in the next few weeks as I work on the penguin quilt. When I finish the  quilt top I'll do a proper review of Sammy.