The Vintage Tablecloth seen as a Wholecloth

Textiles of all kinds are seen as quilting potential.  And, as my seasoned readers know, I'm taken by the thrift, cheer and symmetry of '30's linens that I see as UFOs.  Taking center stage today is a tea cloth, embroidered in flowers, leaves and baskets brimming with all the above.  

What a great summer project!

Any quilt top or linen receives scrutiny when laid on the quilting table like this.  The light bar reveals not only color but patterns in the piecing and open spaces where quilting can go.  The fabrics dictate what type of quilting or pattern is asking to be sewn.  Fabric speaks.  I listen.

What I'm going to demonstrate today is the quilting of this lovely project, step-by-step.

The tablecloth is loaded with backing and batting, just like a quilt top.  This one was a bit squirrelly because it was made with tablecloth fabric (go figure) with a more open weave.  The embroidery designs weren't placed before stitching with perfect symmetry.  Hence, there lies the challenge to square it up and quilt it to look like it was symmetrical.  And I love this kind of challenge.  

Before loading a wholecloth project, I fold it horizontally and vertically to find dead center and mark it with a water-soluble pen made for fabric.  This is my guide for all quilting.  But like mentioned before, the designs were off a bit, so I had to measure in-between them and find a doable center.  Below you can see my mark.  On your mark, get set, go...

 I've chosen my quilting patterns and am ready to quilt.  With most projects, I use a combination of freehand and digitized methods.  It gives more options.  Mostly it's more fun.  Below, I've chosen the medallion design on my computer screen.  Medallions generally are stitched at the center of wholecloth quilts.  I've chosen this basket of flowers pattern purposely, which mirrors the baskets embroidered on each corner of the tablecloth.

The machine is stitching exactly what is on the screen exactly where I told it to stitch.

 Now that the center has been stitched, I want a circle to define the medallion, as well as serve as a spine for feathers I'll fill in freehanded.  However, a circle, as simple as it appears, is a challenge to quilt in one line.  But remember: I love challenges!  The challenge is that this particular circle is too large to be stitched within my throat depth, or what my machine can reach without turning the quilt.  No problem: design a half circle, place it exactly where you want it, the machine quilts it, advance the quilt, invert the half circle, again place it exactly where you want it, and the machine finishes quilting the circle.  Now I'm ready for feather placement...

 ...I've placed blue dots with my water-soluble pen above and below the quilted spine to corral those feathers.

 Below: the finished feather medallion around my basket of flowers.  Couldn't I find a digitized feather wreath?  Sure.  There are tons out there to purchase.  Remember what I said about the aspect of fun?  I love quilting feathers by hand.  It makes me feel I've touched the piece with my personal stamp.

 With the feather medallion done, I'm ready to move on to corner detailing.  I haven't planned this yet.  So I sit back and doodle on paper a bit.  Ah hah!  True to my inner self, I always try to balance each quilted piece.  In this project, my inner self reminded me since feathers are in the center, they need to repeat somewhere else.  You can see my hand-drawn spine design below.

The freehand quilted result.

 I want radiating rays from the center outward, so I quilt these.  Pictured is how blacklighting the area serves best to see where I'm going.  With each ray I'm adding 'sunshine and shadow': a technique used to give a wholecloth design depth.  It's more than echoing.  Here I'm using micro-stippling.  When finished, it lets the light dance on designs, making them pop.  An ergonomic tip:  proper posture is a must with micro-stippling, and at the end of the day I use a heating pad on my shoulders and back.  Before and after micro-stippling I stretch these muscles.  If this isn't done, a project like this will not get finished.

 The top half is done!

 Now to roll to the bottom half.  My happy bubble just burst.

 Here you can see the process of stitching rays as drawn and micro-stippling as you go.

The quilting of my project is complete. Now to audition for a proper hanging sleeve and label for this vintage quilt.  For the hanging sleeve, I used a strip of fabric from an embroidered vintage summer coverlet.  I stripped the rest of the coverlet into binding strips to finish this project as well as others.

The reveal will come in a future post!  No suspense intended: I'm in the final stage of binding and adding the label and hanging sleeve.

Know for now that it will be raffled in my booth at the Northwest Quilting Expo next month!  My husband doesn't want me to let it go - it's become one of his favorites! But there are dozens of vintage tablecloths ready for design implementation, hanging in my studio.

Stay tuned...

Harness your creativity! (And not just for quilting)...

Do you have vacation souvenirs? If you're like me, you do. And they're in closets, just like your quilt tops, awaiting fame. This post is to encourage you to bring all your creative skills (yes, you have them) to light. Get your shells, your vintage thread spools, your driftwood, your thimbles, your spoons and anything else you collect and fashion them into a wreath.

When we lived in California I started a grassroots dried floral business from home. I would wrap the florals into picks and simply stick them into a wreath made of moss or hay. Today I'm going to show you how to make a wreath of shells.

Start with a hay wreath. Purchase excelsior or moss in either natural color or green. Other supplies are a glue gun and plenty of glue sticks, greening pins, scissors, and of course, shells. Optional are fish-netting, floral wire and a small wire cutter.

Cover the table with paper and begin your project.

First, glue a greening pin into the BACK of the wreath for hanging purposes (see below). Then, with a moderate amount of glue, start gluing the moss or excelsior to the front side. You can see in the picture, below, that I've already started the process.

 I've used a full bag of moss on my 12" wreath, below. Warning: it's a messy process!

 The picture is a bit fuzzy, but I wanted to show you the fishnet I'm applying next, as shown below.

 I begin wrapping the fishnet around the wreath, securing with greening pins as I go. Surprisingly, a little of netting goes a long way.

 Flipping over to the backside, I'm showing how I've made sure the back remains flat so it can hang against the wall when my project is finished. Use your greening pins to tuck the fishnet over the moss, keeping it at bay.

 Continue to secure the fishnet...

 ...until all moss is contained and the wreath is uniformly covered.

 If you haven't done so, clean your shells of salt and sand. Allow them to dry before attaching to your  wreath.

 Audition the larger pieces for use as focal 'weights'. They will balance your wreath no matter what varieties of shells you put in-between them. You can see I've used large sand dollars, a large piece of driftwood and a good-sized star fish as my 'weights', and I'm starting to fill in with smaller shells. All I am using is glue, even though I suggested wire.  If I had a very big, heavy shell, I probably would have wired it. Glue seemed to work fine here. Gravity over time may loosen some pieces, but get the glue gun out and make some minor repairs.

 Voila! Your wreath is done. The best part is your memories aren't just in your mind or in a box in your closet. They're out on a table or hung in a special place, giving cheer and cause to remember...often.

I hope you exercise the creative skills I know you quilters have, and make a wreath of your memories soon!

Hibiscus I, II & III comparison shots! Vote on your favorite by leaving a comment!

Amazing how news travels.

One of you already asked to see 

comparison shots of the Hibiscus quilts, 

so here you go!  Enjoy!!

Hibiscus I, from Kauai:

Hibiscus II with local batiks:

Hibiscus III (featured in an earlier post today) with Maui fabrics:

Which one do you like?!  They're all pretty much the same, but with slight differences.  Can you find them?  Hibiscus I doesn't have as much contrast going on in the border fabric, something I like but couldn't find on Maui or home when I wanted to make the quilts.  It's a very simple pattern made of half-square triangles, but it has impact especially if the fabrics chosen have a translucent effect, such as can be found with Hibiscus I and II, not so much with Hibiscus III.  These fabrics translate a solid, brick wall effect instead of a 'balloon-behind-a-balloon' type of feel found in I & II.  It's a great lesson in contrasting fabrics, not so much the piecing.

Aloha, and thank you for reading!

A Hawaiian needle-turned pillow - another restoration

 Welcome back!

It took me three months (though there certainly wasn't a rush) to get this beauty done.

Needle-turn is supposed to be entirely enjoyable and not rushed.  Earlier this spring my husband and I went to Maui for our 40th wedding anniversary.

While there I picked up another Hawaiian pillow kit, a refresher course on traditional Hawaiian needle-turning, and BOOM! I was relaxing to the sound of surf months after we returned home via quilting this project.

There is quilting in the ditch of the appliquéd design, around it, in it, and echoing it several times.  Lovely pastime!  My only complaint was in their not using colorfast red material for the floral design.  When I tried to spritz the water-removeable pen marks used for stitching lines, it bled.

No bueno.

I plan on buying a Shiva ink pen to permanently cover this faux pas.  I sincerely hope this works.  But I'm still thrilled with how it came out and plan on doing another two - but with fabric I have purchased and KNOW is colorfast.

Until we meet again, aloha from the Pacific to you!

 

Hibiscus II - A Restoration

As promised, a couple of *restored projects are featured in this and in an upcoming post (*items I used to have but were consumed in the Black Forest Fire 6/11/13).

It is no coincidence that Hibiscus III is pictured in our new forest on the Pacific coast.

Restoration is, after all, what this post is all about.

Did I say Hibiscus III?  Wasn't this supposed to be about Hibiscus II?  Well, I was so excited to find the pattern of my original Hibiscus quilt we lost that I made two.  This one is a duplicate of the restored one hanging in our home.  I prefer the one hanging.  I was too lazy to get it down, so Hibiscus III gets all the fame.  Come on over sometime to see Hibiscus II!

Here's a closeup of McTavishing background fill around the needle-turn appliquéd hibiscus. You can also see ferns quilted in the light blue triangles.  As I've said, even though I have a Statler computer-guided machine now, I drop the belts for hand-guided custom work simply because I love doing it.

 I caught the sun behind this quilt in the next two shots.  Very illuminating...

A bit more hand-guided detail in the borders.  I used King Tut variegated threads.

 Usually, I match or near-match threads to the fabric, like the center of this quilt.  But I wanted them to pop out in the border.

From the Pacific coast to you:

see you next time with another restored project!

Needle-turn and Double Appliqué

Three things I'm restoring to my new home that were lost; 

two needle-turn appliqué pillows and this Hibiscus Quilt.

Why?

Because I forgot to take them with me when evacuating.  Join me as I reconstruct the Hibiscus Quilt first - only because the needle-turn pillows are taking a lot of time, go figure. I will update you with the progress of the pillows and quilt in future posts.

The appliqué technique of the center of the original Hibiscus quilt was raw-edge machine appliqué.  Not the new one...

It's emerging using two techniques: traditional Hawaiian needle-turn (the leaves) and double appliqué with the hibiscus petals and centers.  Why?  Traditional Hawaiian appliqué isn't done in layers.  I felt a different method was in store after finishing the leaves - a method I'd never tried: double appliqué.  You can see a partially finished petal attached to the center block, above, and zoomed in, below.

The right side of the fabric is sewn on the line as traced around the pattern to lightweight, non-woven, non-fusible interfacing.  The interfacing is trimmed and curves clipped close to the sewn edge.

Slit the interfacing to turn the piece, and iron - rolling the interfacing under.

 Tah dah!  You're ready to machine or hand appliqué.  I chose to continue to hand appliqué since I'd already started needle-turning.  

When I walked into the Maui Quilt Shop (www.mauiquiltshop.com) to peruse and relax after snorkeling, swimming and sunbathing, I saw a few patterns I'd lost, and completely unaware, I began to weep.  Turning away from shoppers to compose myself, I then saw the exact fabric of a Hawaiian dress I also lost which didn't help the eye-watering situation. Turning another way, I saw needle-turn pillow kits (to purchase and use with their classes offered on Fridays, which I'd taken years before) and I was absolutely a goner. Noticing I was the only patron in their tiny but cozy shop, I approached two employees, asked for a tissue, got in control, and explained the situation.  Big breath.  There, I can shop now. Of course I bought patterns, dress material, fabric to make pillows, and signed up for a needle-turn appliqué refresher course that very Friday.  I was in heaven!

I have the series of half-square triangles all cut and sewn together, since this quilt is primarily made of them.  It's a very simple but stunning study of contrasts, illusion and transparency.  I purchased some fabrics on the island  at another very nice quilt shop (www.sewspecialmaui.net) but they had a flat effect.  So I came to the mainland and found these at Fiddlesticks here in town (www.fiddlesticksquiltshop.com), and will keep you entirely in suspense until I finish the quilt! I was a bit disappointed that the exact fabrics weren't available anymore, but what quilt fabric lines stay around for long?!?  BTW, Fiddlesticks was one of the shops that garnered the 2015 APQ Shop Hop award!  You can purchase the Spring/Summer issue right now.

I am swimming in batiks but not drowning!  Stay in tune for the reveals!