Ballerina Quilt - Samantha's Quilt - Finished

The time came to put the Ballerina quilt into the quilting frame, I used a prepackaged batting (meaning it was folded and squashed into a plastic bag by the manufacturer) I needed to let the batting 'rest' overnight. After taking it out of the plastic bag, the batting expand and most of the creases fell out.
The batting has a bonded edge 'scrim', that side will be go against the backing. To avoid bearding from coming through the top of the quilt, the 'scrim' side was place UP instead of DOWN. The Sandwich consisting of the 3 layers are put together, backing fabric is facing down, batting with the scrim is facing down, quilt top or flimsy is facing up is on the frame.

I am using Guttmann 100% cotton Col.5201 black thread on the top and also in the bobbin.

Below is a photo of the back of the quilt.

Here are a photo's of the quilting pattern Q-bot is quilting out and the quilt loaded onto the quilting frame. I choose an edge to edge pattern.

Finished at last and given to my granddaughter, who as you can see has wrapped herself up in it on the floor all nice and cosy, watching TV...

Until next time happy quilting
Anne

Ballerina Quilt - Samantha's Quilt

I decided to make a pieced flimsy back for the Ballerina Quilt.

First step - Make the 4 Patch blocks:
Cut 9 Strips of Pink 2½" and 9 Strips of Black 2½" to make the 4 patches. 70 blocks were needed The strips were sewn together then the strips were cut into 2½" squares once they were cut they were pressed open by a hot iron. Then they were sewn together to form the 4 patch.

Second step - Making the Blocks:
Then I made the blocks by cutting 4½" x 10" rectangles, (70 blocks are needed) then these rectangles were sewn to the 4 patches, remembering to always place the black square of the 4 patch on the upper right hand side of the rectangle and then the 4 patch and the rectangle fabric were sewn together. I chain pieced all the blocks.

Third step - Placement of the Blocks to form the flimsy top:
Alternate the rows when sewing together, one block up and one block down. 14 blocks across and 5 Rows down.

Also I have been cutting and sewing the Ballerina shoes for the four borders. Using the same process as the ballerina's on the main panel - they are all raw edged appliqued to the background fabric using blanket stitch on my Janome sewing machine.

As you can see in the photo below I've finished the two side borders and I am nearly ready to sew the top and bottom borders on.

Here are the other borders.

Happy quilting until next time.
Anne

Ballerina Quilt - Samantha's Quilt

I loved the idea for the "4 in the Raw quilt" designed by Helen Godden published in the Australian Quilter Companion magazine Vol.9.6 No.46. I did some tweaking which resulted in my version of her idea. Warning this quilt is very bright, lots of hot colours on a dark background....

First I prepared the Ballerina designs. I've played around drawing four different 10" square ballerina's. The designs are reversed for use with fusible web.

The next step was to trace the designs onto the paper side of each 10" square of fusible web and numbered the shapes to identify them.

Using a hot iron to fuse one square to the wrong side of each of my chosen four squares of coloured fabric. A total of sixteen square were needed.

Then it was time to cut these squares into pieces along the marked lines. As every piece of each square will be used in this design, I had to make sure to cut alone the lines carefully and keep all the pieces together.

The next step was to reconstruct the sixteen squares. Placing them in a row on a flat surface.

From each of the four ballerina squares, I removed the centre and set it aside. The rest of the pieces became a Jig Saw puzzle placing them I different fabric arrangements. As there are five pieces and four colours in each square, there will be two pieces of one colour in each new square. These colours can't be placed next to each other, the two pieces of the same colour fabric must be placed opposite each other.

This is the fun part, position the newly formed squares on the gridded homespun black background fabric, leaving a channel approximately 1" between the squares to create a narrow black sashing.

When I was happy with the placement I removed the paper from the fusible web and used a hot dry iron to fuse the pieces to the background.

I am stitching around the raw edges of each piece in each square, I am using blanket stitch but a zig-zag stitch would look OK. Also I am using an invisible thread to make the stitching less obvious.

Until next time
Happy Quilting
Anne

Mermaid, Hearts & Pansies

 This single bed quilt was made for my granddaughter, Samantha (Sam) a few years ago. The design and layout was my own idea and I really enjoyed the whole process of using different techniques and trying to put this quilt together.

I started with the heart blocks using material cut from hand painted fabric the hearts were then pieced together by machine, the centre mermaid and pansies blocks (appliqued) were cut from fat quarters and my fabric stash, which was small at the time of making this quilt but has grown very large since then and still growing, the pansy and mermaid blocks were then hand appliqued using blanket stitch, sewing neatly around the edges with one strand of colour matched DMC embroidery thread to the mermaid or pansy petals colours not the background fabric.

I then joined four blocks together (consisting of 3 hearts and 1 pansy block) I made black bias binding using a ½" (2mm) Clover Bias Maker, 1" (25mm) black cotton strips (cut on the cross of the fabric) and ¼" (6mm) strips of Heat and Bond tape, I then added two borders (one blue fabric print and the other pink fabric print) to the two sides (right and bottom), after joining the borders to the block I squared up the 12 blocks, each block measured 15½" x15½".

With the centre panel I kept adding borders until the centre mermaid panel measured 30½" x 30½" 

 The mermaid was hand appliqued to the white panel using blanket stitch, using one strand of colour matching DMC embroidery thread.

I wanted to try the “Quilt as You Go”(QAYG) method so I sandwiched the batting and backing fabric to the 12 individual blocks and the mermaid panel.  Once this was done using my domestic machine with the open-toe foot (darning foot) attached, I  free-motion quilted in the ditch around each pansy and the mermaid shape. This time I used white thread to match the background fabric.  

The mermaid panel was diagonally quilted with lines of cross-hatching, as a guide I used 1" removable tape (packing tape) for my machine walking foot to follow, the pansy border fabric was quilted using free-motion open-toe foot (darning foot) following the print of the pansy fabric (this was good way to practice free-motion quilting and I gained a lot of confidence by doing this).

Then I changed to a walking foot and quilted each heart block by echoing ½" inside each heart matching threads to the hearts colour, then changing thread to white and  I stitched in the ditch around the outside of the each heart shapes.

The next step was to join 2 blocks together and joint the blocks to the right and left sides of the centre panel of the mermaid, I then joined 4 blocks to the top of the quilt and the 4 remainding blocks to the bottom of the quilt. I used the “Quilt as You Go”(QAYG) method here as well.

The quilt was returned to me after years of wear and tear for repair by my granddaughter, who had loved it to death, I replaced the original binding (which was pink) with a brighter pink binding, the original binding had worn away and was becoming thread bear in places. It was a simple repair job but with a bit of unpicking and sewing the quilt was made new again, it has been returned to my granddaughter for more loving.

Happy quilting

Anne

 P.S.

I have just finished reading an amazing book about my ancestors (direct descendent mother side of family) the book titled "On the Back of Two Sheep" is about my family history and how that line of my family came to Australia from England 196 years ago. For the crime of stealing two sheep, my ancestor George Solomon Webb, aged 26 was transported on the ship “Morley” to the penal settlement of New South Wales in December 1816. After marring and gaining his Certificate of Freedom, he and his family journeyed south and made their home west of the Murrumbidgee River the family branched out and became well known pioneering settlers on the Tidbinbilla and Urayarra Runs. Claire Lewis has made my ancestors and family names come to life from these pages, reading of their hardships I can only imagine how isolated they must have been in the bush trying to carve out a living from the land. Thanks Claire for putting pen to paper.

Copies of this book can be obtained from:
Claire Lewis 1 Dakin Place, Hackett, ACT 2602.