Innova day 2

I heard somewhere that it takes 100 hours to train you first machin and something like 80 to train your second. I guess that the time I've spent on other peoples machines had helped as this on is shaping up much quickker than that, though I do wonder who is training who. My tension still wasn't great but I have that sussed now, I needed to relearn how to adjust tensions. My principles were right but my technique sucked. Oddly these machines seem to actively like metalic thread, I wasn't just being mean.

I've truied to include the machine is some of the pictures so you can admire the blackness of it. I think it looks fantastic. The really observant will spot that the machine has a stitch regulator. No it wasn't something I wanted, but I did want the better motor that comes along with it. The speed with which the machine starts and stops is just amazing.

Innova day one

It's taken me a while to post these but this is my first play piece on my new machine. Don't look too closely, I hadn't got the tension figured out or the wheels set right yet, but I had to play. It's so much fun having a new toy and the ABM Innova family is amazingly welcoming.

Art quilts - impressionism

Sunday I spent the day in Worthing teachin impressionist art quilts. The class is based on my quilt 'In full bloom'. I supply a pattern to get people started and during the day teach them how to make their own patterns from photographs. As with all my art quilts there is no drawing skill required just the ability to not take yourself too seriously. It's a great venue and I hope everyone had fun, certainly there is a lot of very promising work going on.

Feline assisted longarm assembly

Yes it would be easier without the cat.

Meccano

Is this grown up meccano or what. I am loving this.

Sigh!

I really hoped I was going to get back into the swing of regular blogging but it seems the universe has other ideas. I've not had much I could blog about until the last week, and then being ill took up most of my free time. The picture is from last Saturdays class for Rickmond and Kew quilters. It had to be postponed in the summer when I managed a concussion the day before, so there was no way I was missing it again. We were making faux trapunto roses and a lot of fun was had. This group came up with a lot of new variations to the class which was great and we came up with some interesting ideas for other ways to use the technique. One of which I think will become a new workshop. I just wish I had thought to take morew pictures. I'll get back into the swing of this if it kills me and with more bookings coming up hopefully it won't take too long

Mostly I've been boring

I know you aren't supposed to admit this but the truth is my life has been quite boring to the last few weeks. There has been paperwork accounts and tax returns. House work and planning but not much of interest to quilter, well not unless the cleanliness of my toilet is interesting, sparkling ;) I am now back clearing some customer work before getting onto my next show quilt. The picture is one of those. This was an intersting quilt for me to do as it needed a cheaper version of the quilting I put on the last one I did. I was lucky enought to quilt a show quilt last year for Jenny at Patchwork Corner and this is the same as that. I am pleased that it has the feel of the original and I hope the customer will agree.

Tonight I am giving a talk to Amwell Quilters. I just hope the snow stays at a minimum and they make it there. I aught to get back to driving, but I thought it would be good to show I hadn't forgotten you all.

Sneaky peak

Here is a section of todays quilting on the applique. As you can see it is taking a lot of thread changes to blend properly, but it's fun. I think I might get all the applique quilted by the end of tomorrow, but who knows.

Round 2 threads

I've finally got the applique onto my new quilt. It's taken 2 weeks solid work to doit and my hand doesn't love me. Now I have to quilt it and that means another large selection of threads. These are actually a lot more grey than they look and as they are all I have in the range I just hope they are enough. I already suspect the pale is too pale which makes things tricky. I guess I will do what I can and if I have to resort to cunning tricks so be it.

Cutting out

I've spent most of my time this week cutting out. If you haven't made this type of quilt it's hard to believe how long cutting can take or how triring it is. I hope this picture will give you an idea. I need to cut along the line that is highlighted. This piece has taken me well over an hour so far. I use small scissors and plod along. Yes it's hard on your hand. Sprung scissors help a lot. I did try using a craft knife or scapel but I found the didn't cut the fabric reliably and did make a mess of my cutting board. So back to scissors I went. Is it worth it? Yes I think it is. i am getting really excited by the quilt now aand I can't wait to get back to quilting it.

Quilting the background

I wasn't sure how the background quilting was going to work. I wanted shading but I wanted that to be subtle and I needed the background to be interesting as there is a lot of it. This is the design I've settled on. Well the selection of designs actually. I don't see me ading many more different designs as I want this to be the background and not grab too much attention but at least it's got a bit of life to it. There will be seven different threads in the upper area of the background and I think eight different ones in the lower area. You know me though, this could change before I get that far.

New project

I've finally got my own project onto the frame. It's based on a piece of hand dyed sateen, by Heide Stoll-Weber. These are the threads I will be using (probably) for quilting the first background area. I have mostly picked threada that tone in with the background but for the look I am after I want to be able to do some shading hence lots of threads.

Cow head drying

I thought you might like to see the front of the finished cow head. This is it pinned out on a thick piece of polysyrene to keep it flat while it dries. As I mentioned before I didn't wash out all the stabiliser so it is going to be a little stiff, but I think that might also mean it hangs really well. It will be interesting to see. For now it's just going to stay where it is. It's quite safe there and I can get on with other things.

Back view of the front end of a cow

I thought you might like to see the quilting on the cow head. It's always easier to see from the back, but the washaway stabilizer makes it even clearer. The background quilting is black on black and will be very hard to see when it's finished.

The quilt has now had a bath and is pinned out drying. I deliberately didn't get all the stabilizer off. I thought being a bit stiff would help in class, both with me holding it up and with the amount of handling it will get. Of course it may also cause other problems but I won't know until I try.

Dusty's rulers

When I was in Houston I bought two sets of rulers from Dusty and folks asked if I would put up a review of them when I had tried them. I have now, so here goes.

Firstly the cute packaging is also useful. I can hang the bags from their drawstrings and keep a whole set on one hook, neat. I am also using them for storing my cunning pin catchers but more on those another day.

The set I have spent most time with are the radical rulers. Their first outing was a baby quilt for a regular customer. She doesn't mind if I play and a baby won't critique my quilting. I used the 4 way cross shaped ruler to do the borders, with the gothic arch look. It wasn't perfect, I don't use rulers much so that is to be expected but it was acceptable. If you look on you tube you will find some video of him demonstrating them and the border I tried was one he shows.

I did find the ruler a lot easier to hold than most I've tried. It's a really good size, big enough to be usefull small enough to he held stable easily. I then had to quilt Tet's Christmas present to his mum. It has a lot of applique on it that had to be stitched around. I grabbed my trusty straight ruler and the went hunting for something to use on the curves. Three of the radical rulers got pressed into service. The two arches and the 4 way. Between them they had something close to every arc I needed and were all easy to hold. It wasn't what they were designed for, but they are very very good at it. So much so I've done tons of stitch in the ditch (something I normally won't do) on two sampler quilts as well.

I still need more time to play with the rulers and the other set I bought, but so far I am a very happy camper. These have changed the way I look at ruler work completely. I've also started using my leader grip side clamps. They are much easier to open and close than I had expected, which is good and I love the way the hold the backing. The leader grips for loading quilts are waiting to go on the new frame when it arrives, which will be a while yet because I wanted it customising. I know, typical, but hey if you are going to spend that much you might as well get it right.

Cow on the frame

As you can see I am making good progress with the cow now. Yes this does mean the tracing is all done. I am so relieved, it was getting really boring. The cow has been about for nearly a year without quilting. It is one of the samples for my art quilts 3 class and is based on the photos I took for Herd Mentality. It is quilted very differently from Herd Mentality, and is also acting as a test for my next quilt. Fur goes much faster than I expected and is a lot of fun to quilt.

What's on the frame?

Well, two things actually. I know that's a bit odd bit when I need a long table I lay a piece of polystyrene on the rollers. At the moment I am using that to trace a pattern. The picture shows part of round 1, I'm on round 2 now, and for this project there will be a round 3, though 2 and 3 are only partial tracings so it's not as bad as it sounds.

Actually mounted on the frame I have my cow head sample quilt. I finally got fed up with the pins at a time when the frame was free so the pins are out and the stitching is going on. I made it from the exact requirements I give students which meant the backing was too small to mount so I mounted heavy weight washaway instead. I am not enjoying quilting a quilt with a lot of layers of fabric and the thick washaway front and back. I won't be making a habit of this.

Quilt finished

No I haven't been taking time off from quilting over the holiday. Did you really think I would? Yesterday I finished off a customer quilt the loaded this little one. It's a sample for one of my patterns so I will show you it when the patter comes out, but for now I can at least show you the back. It's not the most exciting quilting in the world. It needed to be quick and easy and done.

Loving having access to my blog again.

Am I back?

Hopefully this new phone will let me start blogging again. I can't get the new blogger software to do what I want and my handset got too old and shaky to deal with email or web access. So for my present to myself I got a replacement handset. 2 days to get things synced and I seem to be back up and running.

The quilt is a sample for a pattern. It's just keeping me out of trouble until I can start on a new art quilt. Just waiting to get the new printer up and running.

Quit done

When ill everything takes longer, even quilting. Why am I quilting when I feel ill? Well you might have noticed the date, Christmas is coming and my queue is full so I have to get a certain amount done every day no matter how I feel. I have been picking out the simpler projects though. There is no[chance of me doing complex work right now. Even this quilt took at least 4 times as long as it should have done, but it's finished now and hopefully can head home this week.

Houston? Nah, Florida

I was going to post some more pictures from the Houston quilt show, but actually I'm not in the mood. So here are some pictures from Florida instead. However, to keep my quilting fans happy lets start with some quilting. Some really really famous quilting.

I hope at least some of you guessed what the quilting in question might be on, given my background and the location :) All these panels are quilted. We got to see some samples in the VAB which showed the stitching much better but you can see it fairly well here. As you can see she isn't the easiest thing to get a picture of, you just can't get back far enough, but Tet did his best.

For me this has to be the ultimate patchwork quilt. It's a serious working quilt, although the colour scheme isn't the most imaginative I've seen.

We were very lucky to see Atlantis. There was just one week where they were allowing sneak peeks before she is built into a 'proper' display. Personally I would much rather see her grubby and on very functional stands. It suits who and what she is. I hope they don't tart her up too much.

 This is one of the launch pads used for shuttle launches. The gravel tracks you can see leading up to it are the roadway used by the crawler that carries the platform and whatever is being launched to the platform. I do mean both tracks are one road. the crawler has huge tracks and straddles the grass between the gravel.

We got even luckier on our visit. There is a platform on the pad and a crawler under it. Our guide said the crawler had just had a complete refurbishment and new engines so we were guessing it had come out here as a test run. Whatever the reason, I've always had a soft spot for the crawlers so it was great to see one.

From this angle you can see the fire trench and the massive water tower which dumps water at the base of a shuttle launch just before the engines fire. The water is there to damp (literally) the sound waves which would otherwise damage the orbiter. It's a neat and very clever solution to a potentially huge problem.

Lastly, for tonight at least, the rocket garden. Maybe if I have wifi on the train tomorrow I will try and post some more quilts :)