Too Early for Christmas!

They are reporting on the news that retailers already have Christmas displays up. I thought I was upset when they started putting them up before Halloween, and now they have them up right after kids are going back to school?!? To me, it's perversion of what the Spirit of Christmas is, and it makes me sick. Not to mention that many of these displays contain cinnamon and cloves for smell, and that makes me sick for real! (Allergies!!!) So, it just cuts down on my shopping, and doesn't do what they intended, which was to make me spend more.

So, oddly enough, what is the subject of today's blog entry? It's pictures of a Christmas project! I actually have a purpose for posting these pictures, and that is to show off one aspect of detail work that can be done on the Avante: writing of words. I have a client who would like an inscription written on her quilt, and rather than do a label on the back, the name of the quilter and date is going to be incorporated into the quilting itself.

My friend Bonni made this piece, and then passed it onto me to quilt. I put a Trapunto layer beneath the JOY letters, because I wanted them to stand out from the rest of the project. To accent that puffiness, I wanted the background to be tight, and so I thought that greetings of the season would be appropriate. The lines are 1/4 inch apart, and on them are written: Blessings, Love, Joy, Peace, Noel, Silent Night, Merry Christmas, and Hosanna. My quilting on the side probably violates every rule of a traditional quilter who's meandering means you should never cross over your stitching, because instead it is a series of loops! I think it looks good on this project, and that's all that really matters in the end. I had a dark green that was perfect for the binding, and I ended up being really happy with my perfectly mitered corners. (Thank you Sharon Schambers and YouTube!) Bonni never expected to get this project back, but she will get it returned anyway, since it's a way to advertize that she has a friend with a LA machine, if she is so willing to refer people to me for quilting.

LoriEl's Quilt, Final pictures

It's done, and it's past time I updated the pictures for it. Sorry, Lori, I am so late in doing this. The post office estimates you should have your quilt back on Thursday.

First, the final bundle as it went into the box. Lori wrapped the quilt in Saran Wrap when it came to me, and I found this method kept the finished quilt wrapped into a tidy bundle that would fit in the box nicely.

Next, the finished edges, with a matching motif from the centers, stitched the same way as before, with paper 

transferring the pattern:

And, more final pictures of the quilt off the frame:

 

LoriEl's Quilt Continued

Work in progress: here's how part of it looks stitched:

Because I had to modify the store-bought template to fill the space that I had, I scanned in a good copy of one section of it, then Emilie, my daughter, cleaned the edges up in GIMP, and then copied the sections to make one full pattern. I found that AVERY LABEL SHEETS leftovers (labels used up) make excellent transfer paper. The backs can be printed on, making the pattern 100% consistent for all blocks without having to chalk them and eyeball putting sections together, and it was the easiest of all the papers I tried for transferring patterns. This product rips away cleanly, if you increase the number of stitches per inch. (16 or 18). I have tried several expensive papers meant for this purpose, even the "wash away" ones, and I was frustrated by every single one. Wasted money, unless I find another use for them. This (free!) recycled Avery label paper works great, and since my friend George does a lot of mailings through his business, I have an endless supply of this paper to recycle for patterns. I printed them out on my HP inkjet printer.

LoriEl's Quilt

 Here are pictures of LoriEl's quilt. Because we didn't have a design set in stone yet for the quilting, I took the liberty of SID along all the edges of the cream areas. This stabilized the entire quilt and allowed me to roll it forward and back along the frame without any fear of distortion. I used a cream/tan thread (Superior Thread's So Fine! #403), which happens to blend nicely with both the cream on the front and the backing fabric.

I used Quilting Preview Paper and an Expo Dry Erase Marker to audition several designs. I tried several other designs for the dark colored runners, but none of them looked right, especially at the intersections, and so I didn't add those to this blog entry. Here's one I liked for those runners, along with HQ's VersaTool Ruler that I used to draw the curves (and will quilt the curves with):

Keep in mind that quilting on dark areas tends not to show well, and so it's best to keep your quilting simple in those areas. (Unless you are going to be looking at the back for an overall design, it just needs to be quilted for stability.) Because I SID along the edges where the dark meets the line, even the single cable through the pink centers would be enough.

For the first center design in the cream area, this is a flower that I had previously done. The first sketch was commented on as being "too busy", so this one was simplified and made larger. Also, it shows the outlining of the runner squares as SID, which makes them into "little pillows". Which, I think is a simple effect that is still nice, and is also nice and easy to stitch as well.

And for several center designs, taken from those thin plastic templates that you would chalk to get the design- some are modified to fit the space. I thought this one left too much cream unquilted, although I could add the diamond from above to add to it.

 This last one I would reject for being too busy as well:

Birds of interests

Just a short entry to show you  who has been distracting my attention lately! Both of these nests are active- babies will come and go, parents will come visit.

First are two hummingbird babies, Joplin and Heather. Joplin has fledged and keeps coming back to the nest; Heather is trying her wings but hasn't yet left for the first time, but it will be any minute now! Mom comes back to feed the two often.
http://sportsmansparadiseonline.com/Live_Hummingbird_Cam2.html

The 2nd nest is closer to home- Peregrine Falcons right in SLC. There are 4 chicks, which are also trying out their early wings and getting ready to leave the nest. One was eating a small bird this morning. Falcons hunt other birds.
http://wildlife.utah.gov/dwr/learn-more/peregrine-cam.html

The Design Process

The Avante needs a new quilt on it! As it so happens, Lori's arrived yesterday.  Here's a pic taken this morning in the sunshine, before it got hot.

It's just gorgeous. As you can see, it has two defined quilting areas- the dark X's, and the cream diamond. This is actually good, because it lends itself to repeating designs that aren't edge to edge. I won't say I hate edge-to-edge, but they seem to lack imagination. I spent yesterday mulling over ideas for this quilt, not directly, but while doing other things. My mind works best this way, making connections to shapes and ideas that will just bubble to the surface when they are ready. I went to bed at 1 am, but found that my mind wasn't ready to shut off. So, at 1:30 in the morning, I got back up to jot down  ideas as I glanced through my latest Fons and Porter magazine.  I quickly filled 3 pages, and then I finally my empty mind allowed me to rest.


I have a program on my computer called Gimp, and it allowed me to take the photo of the quilt, and import layers onto it. This provided a good test for some of the ideas. Layers were imported by scanning my note pages and by hand drawing some of those ideas using a Wacom tablet, and then careful editing to allow the background quilt show through.

As you can see, the first design was very sloppy. Drawing with a Wacom takes some getting used to, because it's not a perfect replica of using a regular pen. I had to learn to do small sections and stop often, so that I had a point that I could "Control Z", or "undo" the last part of. I decided I liked the darker areas, but wanted to redo the centers.

These center flowers were taken from my sketches. Because they were so detailed, they took longer to clean up to remove the gray and graph paper that was picked up from the scanner, but once I got just the flower image, I was able to rotate them to make them appear to fit the diamond blocks. When I quilt these, they each will be unique and I won't have that problem. The quilting will much more pretty than a quick sketch, and of course, the thread color will be chosen to either highlight the flowers, or make them blend in with the cream, depending on which Lori prefers, if she decides to go with this pattern. The ones on the dark should be a dark thread, so that it doesn't compete with the diamond centers, but we could go either way on the cream.

When I looked at a saved intermediate step, I was presented with another idea- having the quilting in the dark areas hide altogether. I could SITD (stitch-in-the-ditch) along the edges of each dark square. It simplifies the look of the quilt, but is no more or less work than the flowers to me. The flowers can be done in a continuous line, where the SITD requires some stopping, and precision to line up with the squares.

The other way of auditioning designs is with Quilter's Preview Paper, and I have some of that too. I may do that as a final step to determine how big some of the flowers should be, and to fine tune their proportions so the intersections are consistent throughout the quilt.

Revisit of an old post

Long ago, near the first of this year, I got my Avante. And, I attempted another blog, which left me frustrated because I could not put pictures between the text, nor edit anything but the text. I quickly gave up blogging. Now that I have found a better platform, I will revisit that attempt, this time with pictures in the appropriate places! :-) As soon as I figure out how to link to another web page, I will link to the Henna practice pages that I studied as I waiting for my machine to arrive.

originally titled: Week 1 Adventures; Posted: 9 January 2011 at 9:45 p.m.

I ordered my HQ18 Avante before Christmas, and after several weeks of impatient waiting on my part, it finally arrived at my home. I have been having a wonderful time practicing on it, save for that broken needle and drive to SLC to have the timing adjusted just 2 days after I got my machine (oops!) My machine arrived Wednesday, and it's only Sunday, but I have pictures to show for it that I think are quite good for a complete nube!

 

The dragon is my daughter's design; she drew it on the fabric and I quilted it. It looked rather plain so I decided to try microquilting and found that small circles were actually easier to make than large ones! It's pink in the bobbin thread, and the other side was cream on cream for the top. The dragon is my favorite thing done to date, and I can't wait to put more of my daughter's wonderful drawings to fabric.

 

The feathers were terrible on the quilt practice, but I knew I could get pretty ones on paper, so I took a friend's advice and used a Crayola washable marker (I have kids, so I have plenty of those!) to draw my feathers on the fabric, and the result was remarkable! Feathers I wouldn't be ashamed of people seeing. The Crayola markers completely washed out. (You don't see any marker on these pictures, do you?)

The southwestern theme was taken from Henna-practice designs, and then I decided that they needed to become cacti and red rock so prominent in Utah where I live. My clouds need help, I will admit that. I intend to do some more exploration with those, and with the Colourque technique (also called Ink-Lique) to paint the fabric afterward.

So many things to try, so little time! :-)

White Chicken Chili

Perfect for chicken off the grill, which is what I have leftover from last night. Of course, you can brown chicken in a frying pan in some of the butter and then shred it. This recipe is the modified version for how I like it, which is very mild and missing most of the salt. I like the bean and the chicken flavors to stand out, versus being drowned in spices. It looks only remotely like the original, which normally has Tabasco sauce, salt, pepper and cumin added.


Mild White Chicken Chili

INGREDIENTS:

2 large onions, chopped
1 stick unsalted butter
1/4 c all-purpose flour
1 c chicken broth
1 can of evaporated milk
1 1/2 teaspoons chili powder
Two cans 7-oz Fire roasted, chopped green chilis (low salt)

2 cans 15 oz white beans, drained and rinsed (low salt)

About 2 lbs chicken breasts grilled without the skin, chopped up (grilled without salt and pepper)
1 1/2 c grated Monterey Jack or ColbyJack cheese
1/2 c sour cream

INSTRUCTIONS:

Saute chopped onion in the butter. Carmalize onions if you can (it gives more flavor).

Stir in the flour, cook for a few minutes.

Add spices and 1/2 the chicken broth, bring to a boil to thicken, stirring well.

Add the rest of the broth, the evaporated milk, chicken and beans. Cook for about 20 minutes.

Stir in the cheese and sour cream right before serving, or serve on top of the chili for presentation. Can be served with soft tortillas or corn chips, and with any topping you like on your chili (cilantro, jalapenos, tomatoes, more cheese and sour cream, etc.)

As with all chili dishes, they get better the next day as the flavors mellow. 

First Entry

First entry- I know! What a boring title for a first blog entry. I will have to get more creative with the in the future.

Since I put up a picture, I might as well explain that now, since the picture could change in the future.
Here's the pic:

As you can see, it's a pointillism of a young lady, dress blowing in the wind. A pointillism is a drawing that is composed of just dots. This piece of art was done by my daughter, Emilie, and the full size is a 3x5 index card. I should really get it mounted and hung. Right now it's on our refrigerator. She did it in a single day in an art class at school. Yes, I know she's a talented kid!

This is the basis for a future quilt, one on my long To-Do List. I've got my Quilting UFO list, my To-Do list, my Neat-Idea-But-I'll-Never-Try-It list. As a quilter, it's always best to keep looking at things from a new prospective. Many times, works of art will give me new inspiration for quilting patterns. Some people like to segment their quilting into only continuous lines, but I find I would rather stop and start than to keep a monotonous pattern. I like free motion quilting, and think that I would never use a pantograph or a groovy board with my Avante, but paying customers may just change my mind about that someday. I want every quilt I do to be like this pointillism, a single unique piece of art.