11/3/14

Blowing it up

No, not with dynamite.

We’ve been batting around ideas for quilting this year’s holiday quilt.  I found a drawing of some snowflakes, which we agreed were appropriate.  We wanted the snowflakes to be really big so they would lay over and disappear into the piecing of the quilt.  But, if you look for them, you’ll be able to see them. 

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I found the drawing on someone’s pinterest, then I traced it onto a transparency.  I put it on the overhead and blew it way up and traced it again.  But, that was pretty inexact and the lines were curvy.  So, I spent a few hours in the floor with a ruler and a sharpie cleaning that up. 

It’s big enough that six repeats will fill the center of the quilt, so I layered six pieces of tissue paper behind it, and using my machine and a needle without thread, I needle punched the design into the tissue paper.  Now, I’m ready to pin the tissue on top of the quilt and quilt through it, into the quilt.  But, before I do that, I need to get some of the safety pins out of the quilt and that means putting in some ditch work for stability.

At least it’s started and started is halfway there most of the time.

Everybody have a great Monday.  Lane

7 comments:

Kathy in FL said...

I love this idea! I'm going to use it to quilt my "Winter Wonderland" quilt. But I probably won't be ambitious enough to get it done for this Christmas....

Rebecca Grace said...

How cool, Lane! I love your giant snowflake idea. I have a process question, though. When you're doing the ditch quilting, will those quilting lines intersect with and possibly detract from the snowflakes or make it harder to notice them? Do you use a lighter weight thread for the ditch quilting to prevent that, or are you able to place the snowflakes in such a way that they don't cross ditch quilting lines? I read about someone ditch quilting with water soluble thread to stabilize before doing their "real" quilting that crossed seamlines, but I can't remember who that was or where I read it. Last time I tried water soluble thread it kept breaking on me and driving me nuts so I haven't tried it for temporarily stabilizing a quilt.

Anonymous said...

You have the patience of your Dad. Never could I spend that much time on anything. Today is your baby Sister's b'day. She is the big 39 for the first time. That sure makes me OLD. Take care and give everyone our love. lum

lw said...

Funny-- I would never have thought of this, but now that you say it, it's the perfect idea for that Christmas quilt. Deciding on quilting designs is where I'm weakest as a quilter.

It wouldn't have occurred to me that ditch work might interfere with the shape or clarity of the snowflakes, but now that I'm thinking about it, I can't wait to see what happens when you try it.

Kath said...

you pay so much attention to the detail, i bet this is going to be just wonderful.

Becky said...

this is gonna be another winner!!

Elizabeth said...

Where did you find an overhead? I tried to find one a while back, with no luck.

Beautiful design. As always, you are amazing with the quilting.

xo -E