So, the first thing I did was draw my plans. These were drawn on plain white flipchart paper. I did not freehand draw them. They're traced from a variety of things. The ornaments and the trees are traced from pictures in a children's coloring book. The string of lights is from the outside of a gift bag that my mentor gave me a couple of years ago. The packages were drawn with a quilting ruler to mark the angles.
I'm a bit worried about the packages. I haven't been able to put my finger on what's wrong with them until this morning. I don't think there's enough negative space in the plan. I'm worried that they'll quilt as a bunch of lines and won't look like I want them to. I may redraw them over the weekend...in my "free" time. Hahahahahahahahahahaha!
I've learned to never use my original on my quilt as a template. Two reasons. Reason 1, the graphite from the pencil will stain the thread and it never comes out, no matter how much oxyclean and spray'n wash you scrub into it with a toothbrush. Trust me on this. I have one quilt with thread that is gray and off white variegated, but was supposed to be all off-white and a second quilt that needs all the quilting pulled out and redone. The thread was supposed to be yellow and it's a dark grayish green/yellow baby-poop color...and it's 80% quilted.
Reason 2, I will make a mistake and will need the original to make a second copy of some part of the design. It happens every time I use the last copy as a quilting template. EVERY time.
This morning, I un-threaded my singer 15-91, with the bobbin case that will hold a class 15J bobbin, and I pinned a piece of golden threads paper to it and sewed along all the major lines in the ornament template. That gave me a needle pierced copy, so no worry about ink or graphite getting on the thread. I still have my master copy to look at to help me figure out the quilting plan. And, if I turn that golden threads copy upside down, the bumps made by the needle as it pierced the paper will create shadows, making the lines easier to follow.
Brilliant. I just wish I could remember who thought of it so I could give them credit.
This was also a good chance to give that 15-91 a free-motion test drive. The harp on the machine is plenty big enough for a quilt to fit in it and the feed dogs drop. The foot pedal is not sensitive enough for my "fancy" quilting, tho. I had a bit of trouble hitting that perfect speed. But, it will be a great second machine for things like Linus quilts. I hope to be able to set up my Bernina to work on this holiday quilt and then set up the 15-91 so I can move forward on the two Linus quilts I pieced in March.
Okay, that's it for me today. Be suspicious of everything. It is April Fool's day after all.
Lane
3 comments:
That's going to be so pretty! Hope you make good progress! Our biggest April Fools' joke is that it is supposed to be Spring.....and we have 3+ inches of snow this morning! You might wake up one morning and find a pitiful waif from W. Va. sitting on your porch in a highly needed quest to find some warm weather and sun! Don't be frightened....it's just me!
Lane,
In looking at the Gifts... It's kind of hard to see them, to know specifically, but maybe if you reduced the number of gifts to half of what is there, and make each remaining gift larger (to insure you have enough quilting) maybe that would separate them enough to eliminate the appearance of a bunch of straight lines in your quilt...
Another thing to consider... Are you going to use a bright gold or some other bright thread that will make the quilting obvious? Or are you going to use a green that will blend well with the quilt? Or, you could do both... Use a bright on the lights and ornaments to accentuate the curves in the quilting, and use a green on the trees and packages. You could set them in opposing quadrants with gold on the left and right, green on the top and bottom, or you could quilt on point and have gold in upper left and bottom right and green in upper right and bottom left.
Just a few ideas. You could also simply make the bows on the gifts much larger and make it more about the bows and less about the gifts...
No matter what you do, it looks great so far, so I am sure it will look great when you are done!
Paul
I keep waiting for someone to yell April Fools today! My dryer stopped working for no good reason this morning, and my featherweight sparked at the foot peddle and won't stop running.....lucky my son is on the way up here, I have a list...and no foolin' it is a lot! Have a great weekend.
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