So I muddled through as best I could,and after the second round of strong tea and Advil, plus protein, it lessened enough I could move my head. I set aside my laptop (one can still do minimal support when one’s head is settled amongst pillows) and shuffled down the hall to go play with fabric.

Face it – I needed the break anyway.

I tried to quilt a bit and screwed up two feather blocks. Well, screwed up one and tried a different method on another. I’m not doing each block exactly the same, trying out a few different things every so often.

But the orange thread on the plain pink square? Upside down? Post-migraine?

Yeah. Not a good idea.

I did, however, take pictures for you to point and laugh at. Today I attacked it with a seam ripper.

Also shown: I did a small disappearing 9 patch baby quilt and laid out another, all from the same line of “Giddy” fabric. Nice and springy and Valentine’s in one.

I had always planned to do big feather plumes in these blocks, as it just screamed at me to do so. Problem was when I started the quilt, I’d never done them. So I drew and I practised and I did some samples.

Today I actually dug out all the thread and took the plunge. I’m using yellow thread on the back and in some places on the front will be changing thread colors. This not only blends in better (to hide potential goofs ) it also helps me use up much of my half-empty spools of thread. OF which there are plenty.

I’ll do all the large blocks on this quilt first and yes – I am stopping and starting on each block, snipping the thread entirely and not stitching over to the next one. I also did not draw on most of the quilt top for a template. Some I just drew the spine, some blocks nothing at all. They will be almost entirely freehand.

I’ve also been picking up some tips from Diane Gaudynski and her upcoming free motion quilt along. The topic for February? Feather plumes! Mine don’t look near as nice as hers, but like she says – just keep on practising!

By the time I get to the last block, I should be pretty good. They are fun to do, if maddening in parts. I definitely like the look of going back and outlining the whole thing until the block fills. It definitely hides my turn backs.

I also chose poly batting because of the loft, and to see how my Bernina handles it. So far, I still don’t like working with it.

I used the same pattern for both quilts, except for Meaghan I sized the blocks smaller to 5″ and made the sashing smaller as well. This brought it down to a twin size. She picked purple and grey as her colors.

It sewed up fast enough but both Meg & I hummed and hawed over how to quilt it. Finally we decided to go for diamonds in the sashing areas. When I finished that part, she picked a curved leafy design for the borders. That was not something I want to quilt again any time soon. They are small and detailed.
After another long period of indecision, I went and quilted loop squares in the squares .Those were pretty fun! It worked up fast too, as I just went in a straight line down the side of each square to get to the next one, and went around the quilt in a big circle towards the side. This made nice lines on the back as well.

I bound it in a grey on grey floral she picked out from the Thimbleberries line. Just straight cut, 3″ wide, folder over and sewn down on the front.

She’s happy, so any mistakes are noticed only by me. It crinkled up real nice after washing as well.

There’s a shot in here of the border before and after washing.The denser quilting on the border definitely crinkled up really nice.

I’ve been mentally trying to figre this out since yesterday afternoon. Then I made extra copies of the designs, scanned it in and flipped it, printed off those and even then could not get it to line up.

So we turn to the old fashioned way of pencil and paper. I got another sheet, made sure each side of the border I traced was heading to the corner in the right direction, then figured out how to fill in a leaf myself.

Final result with the original corner and the drawn version of the next corner.

Each corner will be used twice in one quilt, at opposite corners. Note how in the original the leaf is tucked in and you hardly notice the direction change. In the opposite corner, the leaf has to point out, or at least look like it did.

Now I can stop thinking about how to do it and maybe go quilt some more.

There’s enough going on it would get lost as a quilt back. So. Baby quilt it is.

Bonus shots of a couple close-ups of the fabrics used. (different lighting so the colors are washed out in some.)

But it was baby quilt sized and it sold out of my Etsy shop rather quickly. The up side was I looked at the leftover fabrics from that quilt and realized I could make a whole ‘nother quilt! Some more brain waves, a couple of scrap bag finds later and I introduced purple into the mix.

The only think extra I bought was a fat quarter of a really bright orange batik print. It was mostly orange and yellow but with a faint pink /purple in some spots. Perfect!

I picked the perfect pattern to highlight the fabrics and more importantly use them all up. There are large 6.5″ by 15″ blocks and since I was stretching out the color scheme with some solids too, I knew I had lots of space for creative quilting. The only thing that came to my mind was feathers.

Big, lush, feather quilting.

Which I had never done.

Those following on flickr saw my multiple tests and tractising to get it right. Not only does it lok good, it’s pretty fun to do too. And by the time I get all the blocks done on this quilt, I should be pretty good at it.

Here is the quilt on my design wall. Right before Christmas I was still attempting to at least get the top all pieced, but alas. It was not to be.

So last night I really needed a sewing break, so I made sure I worked on this quilt alone. I got pretty far, but I think I mis-pieced the middle row. Good thing I have pictures from earlier to check… except by them I was tired enough I could not find the pic on my camera.

Le sigh.

There was one row I pieced with the long pieced sashing and the horizontal bars were not lining up. So I did take my handy seam ripper and rip out that very long seam and pinned it to line it up in a couple spots and sewed it all over again. Much better.

Not long to go now. Then I will piece all of the leftover fabrics for a pieced back because I really really want to have no leftovers. I’ve angsted on the back for a while too. The quilt shop has some really cozy fluffy soft fabric, but the colors are dull and muddy. They also had a bright yellow mottled backing fabric (no piecing needed) expect for some reason I think that is too plain.

I also picked out a poly batting to try again with this machine and because it will make it poofy. Kaytlyn also likes heavy quilts so I may find a flannel sheet to put in the middle as well, but I don’t know how difficult that will make it to quilt, with my quilting plans. I may have to skip that bit and make a simpler but heavy quilt for the both of them later.

(which I’m sure would be terrible. Oh the problem of lots of quilts.)

*janitorial notice – I’m going to try and use the built in image galleries a little more, see if I can figure them out and see if I can eventually replace flickr.

** whups – sorry about the not rotated photos

1. Isabella’s quilt, 2. all done!, 3. hot pink and yellow and orange quilt, 4. another baby quilt, 5. blue & yellow quilt close up, 6. Emma’s quilt, 7. Paddington quilt, 8. Baby quilt, 9. purple sleepover quilt – front, 10. red blue white baby quilt – front, 11. birthoween quilt front, 12. love you wall hanging

Mind you, this is just the ones I actually *finished*. We all know I made more tops and some of these tops were made the year before.

Let’s see how much more backlog I can clear out in 2012.

Edit: after all that work I just realized I forgot Sarah’s blue & white quilt an I think Izzy’s quilt I gave to her last Christmas….

Clearly I need to keep better track of these things.

Anyway! Runners are fast, usually quite easy, and let you try a few different blocks or techniques without committing to a bed sized quilt.

Though I will note if one is tired, or has a case of the megrims, one usually makes mistakes.

But even simple designs, like the following are not without their challenges in such cases.

I ripped out and redid far too much on this for how simple it is. then when it was pieced & shown off, decided to back it and quilt it. Less than an hour later:

This one I liked working up more than the top one, and I have recipient in mind. I used cotton batting, which is nice and flat, and it folds well. My seams are almost all matched perfectly and the whole things lays flat, which is an accomplishment. There’s more of all these fabrics, as I went through my stash of these prints (again) and cut out charm packs. I’d previously cut out layer cakes from the same prints, and still have some fat quarters left, as I’d started with half yard cuts of many of them.

I also made myself a new wallet, but will now have to make myself a new purse to match it.

There was a part on the brown insert that needed binding, so I machine-stitched it all down and didn’t like how it looked. Of course I ripped it off and redid it “properly”. Sometimes you really need to do things by hand, especially when it’s smaller. I just knew the other way would bug me too much, and the way I re-did the binding wound up thinner and neater looking. Even though this wallet was not a fast project, and picking the fabric took almost as long as sewing it, I would probably make this again. I’m picky about my wallets, which should double as a small purse – and this held all my stuff with room left over. Pattern is A Safe Place. Hmm, if I could do a slight modification to have a closing flap instead of the red wraparound, and an optional long shoulder strap, it’d be perfect.

Round two, I guess.

Jitterbug – 30′s prints from jelly roll book. Currently away as I’m taking a break
Christmas Cross – Ron & I picked it out. Blocks almost done.
Green/pink/brown/blue – jelly roll I finally figured out what to do with. kinda Trip Around the world. Maybe 1/4 done, if that. Lots of tiny squares.
Blue & Yellow bento box – all blocks done. need to lay out & put together.
yellow/pink/orange – yes, this one is really bright. crazy eights pattern, which works up really fast.
green/brown/red – Picture this, large blocks and I cut out enough for a queen sized bed because I am insane and it used up a lot of fabric. still have a lot left tho.

edit: forgot the red/black/brown one – this was a brick pattern, but I pieced the big rectangles in a long strip to cut it up smaller, and like the big pieces too much. the fabric is pretty, so it will be 3 or 4 rows of HUGE rectangles instead of 24 rows of tiny ones.

This doesn’t count all the finished tops waiting for quilting. I need batting.

Friday afternoon, I went to Sew With Jo, and I *only* took 3 small quilts to quilt. Nothing to piece. Thereby forcing myself to get over the fear of quilting part. My plan was to use my walking foot on all the straight quilting I had to do across all three quilts, then use the other foot to do free motion.

I got all the straight quilting done on the blue Christmas wall hanging that Mom made me, and I got almost every line done on the Yellow, White & Red Paddington baby quilt. I even bought a new blue marking pen while there.

Then I ran out of bobbin thread. Did I bring extra? No. I can’t wind bobbins on the machine I had (long story) and Jo’s machine would not wind my bobbin. the store had no pre-wound bobbins. So I had to tell Ron to come get me. I had two and a half lines left until the quilt was DONE. Pooh.

I did finish it after I got home, and wound up starting supper a half hour late, even tho I left early.

This quilt is one in which I celebrate the mistakes. While I was trimming the batting, I accidentally cut part of the backing level with the edge. My plan had been to fold the backing over to the front. So along that one side, I had to add a piece. there was also one block with a tiny chunk out of it that I had meant to put along the edge. It wound up almost in the middle of the quilt and of course I noticed it while quilting it.

I just sewed extra stitching around it.

I also had a couple places where the binding didn’t quite catch and had to re-sew sections. If you look close, no doubt you can see these spots. I celebrated by stitching around my label, all the way through, so you can see a rectangle of stitches on the front.

I used all cotton batting in it, which shrinks enough to make the quilt crinkle after your wash it, so I tossed it in a regular load and threw it in the dryer. Some loose bits showed up after that, and I just stitched them flat.

This quilt? This is one for a new baby boy. I expect it to get loved and used, so hopefully with the imperfections celebrated, the boy and his parents will happily drag it around the house, build couch forts, use as a cape, cuddle it, throw up on it, and generally love it.

Because it’s a quilt made with love. And I am heartily in love with the batting and how it affects the finished quilt.