A new quilting chapter - The "new-to-me" Avanté Longarm

 For many years, I have looked on with a dreamy glaze, of those people who made the leap to a longarm quilting machine.  I had almost resigned myself to not ever buying one.  When you think of the price per quilt, it really is an expensive investment with questionable payback.

But sometimes, the heart wants what the heart wants.  I had kept one eye open for a chance at a used machine and when one became available, I decided to take the plunge and buy it.  I am now the proud owner of a Handiquilter Avanté machine!

Now, where to put this monster!  My daughter is in her last year of post-secondary education, so I asked her if I could put a quilting machine in her old room.  It's still her room, but the reality is she is on the verge of a new chapter in her life that likely will have her living closer to wherever her job ends up being.  Her response to my vague description of "Any objections if I put a quilting machine in your room?  It means I have to clean your room from now on." She said yes without asking questions about this quilting machine.  That's how good a heart she has.  Still, do you think she'll be shocked when she comes home for Christmas and sees this:

My new-to-me long arm

I am fortunate to have enough friends with longarms who warned me of two things - you will need to practice as this is a whole new style of quilting, and you will have issues with tension.  It pays to have wise friends!  I got some cheap cotton fabric in a bargain bin at a local fabric shop and have it a whirl!

First attempt - Topside

The first attempt was fun and terrifying.  It was fun to see the potential, but terrifying to see how much my quilting skills were impacted.  I even did a quick pantograph pass and it was not great.  Then, I turned it over:

First Attempt - Back Side

YIKES!  Tension disaster.

So, stay tuned as this new chapter begins and let's see together where it takes me!  

PS - Did I mention that Avanté means "Forward"?  How appropriate as I begin to move forward on this journey of longarm quilting.

What did you say today's date is?

Are you like me and losing track of time through the COVID-19 pandemic?  It took me a moment to realize today is September 1st (double-check the year, yes, it's 2021!).

September starts off my favourite time of the year as we have many events this year and we've hit that sweet spot in the weather where it is warm enough to still wear shorts but cool enough to open windows at night, turn off the air conditioning, and let in some fresh air.  It also represents that time of year I like to refer to as Elf Overtime.  

I have a tendency to over-plan all the wonderful homemade gifts I will give for Christmas and traditionally I'm lucky to complete ONE.  Why would a global pandemic change that approach (she says, dripping with sarcasm)?

This year, I have 6-8 quilts that I'm eyeing to complete by Christmas.  Most are in progress UFO's and goodness knows my UFO list is long enough that finishing that many would make a dent.  Of course, September also means the launch of my local quilt guild's annual mystery quilt and the annual Bonnie Hunter mystery is just on the horizon.

September is the month where my optimism is at its highest and there will still be hope even at the end of this month.  Still, I hope you'll come along for the ride and maybe, if you are like me, we can encourage each other along the way.

One way to help myself to have an incentive is the Elm Street Monthly Challenge.

My one monthly goal for September is the completion of the Summer Swag quilt I'm working on, based on a workshop I took with the pattern's creator, Krista Moser.  Krista is returning to our guild this month as a guest speaker, so I'm feeling a little pressure to get this quilt done.

What do you look forward to now that September is here?  Any special projects you're working on?  I'd love to hear about it.

It's been a hot minute!

It has been both hot and a while since I last wrote.  I've been off working on a complete rebuild of my local quilt guild's website, including building a members-only portion, a members forum, and an e-commerce platform.

It also happens to be a summer of extremes and we're experiencing near-record heat, with daily heat warnings.  I count myself as lucky as many people are dealing with so much more - forest wildfires burning out of control, record flooding in the eastern US from back-to-back tropical systems, and of course, no one could ignore the situation in Afghanistan at present.  Quilting is a refuge from all of it that I have been happy to immerse myself into once more.

I have two projects I'm actively working on right now, with two more on the sidelines, and I anticipate up to 3 more starting before the year is out.    The two in my immediate view are a mystery quilt from our guild and a Krista Moser pattern that is from a workshop I attended with that charismatic lady.  Our guild launches its new season of meetings in September and Ms. Moser will be our keynote speaker, and the big reveal of the guild mystery will occur.  Nothing like a deadline to get one very focused.

Two projects at once!

Since I'm still piecing, I'm using the guild mystery as a "leaders and enders" for the chain piecing I'm doing.  I have not cut my thread and started over with something on the machine in, what feels like a long time.

I'm looking forward to a very active quilting season and pursuing both my own projects and some extras as well.  

What have you been working on lately?  I'd love to hear about it.

Virtual Quilt Canada 2021 - Opening Day Anticipation

Today is the day the Canadian Quilters Association is launching their annual celebration of all things quilting in Canada, appropriately titled "Quilt Canada".  This moving festival of inspiration, education, celebration, and of course, shopping, is normally held in a different city across this vast country.

Last year's event, planned for Alberta Canada, had to be cancelled due to COVID-19.  This year's event, scheduled for Toronto Ontario, had to be converted to a virtual event.  Today marks the very first Virtual Quilt Canada.

The organizers have gone to tremendous lengths to make this a wonderful event.  The next four days will be filled with all the things that make Quilt Canada what it is - inspiration, education, celebration and shopping.

I plan on sharing my perspectives on this amazing event with you here and I hope you enjoy it too.  I should note that attending Quilt Canada requires registration and the registration deadline has now passed.  If you have signed up, feel free to reach out to me on the Networking tab.  If you missed the window, allow me to be one voice sharing their perspective on this national event.

The label says it's done!

 It may have taken 2+ years, but my "Healing Waters of Reconciliation" is DONE! 

 This was a guild mystery quilt from 2018-2019 and I finished it on Mother's Day.  How appropriate!  The yellow fabric is called "Healing Waters" and was designed by a Canadian First Nations artist for Northcott Fabrics.  It is the lifecycle of a loon - the very essence of motherhood - and utilizing the image of a loon, which is one of my favourite birds on the water where I live.

This quilt was also a challenge for me - it is done with stitch in the ditch quilting, followed by a ruler quilting border of continuous loops, and finished with some free motion quilting, including outlining those loons.  This is also the first quilt I've done that's for me.  I think this is such a special quilt and I can't believe how proud I am of this journey and what I've learned.  2021 is definitely the year I am stretching myself as far as quilting goes.

The final step - the label - is complete and I have one less UFO in the pile.  What is something you've done that pushed you but you were so happy to accomplish?

The free-motion quilting water is fine! Jump on in!

 How to learn something new?  You can watch others until the proverbial cows come home but at some point, you must jump in and try it for yourself.  Then, like any skill, you need to plan on practice, practice, practice.

This was a guild mystery quilt that I had already done stitch-in-the-ditch quilting on.  Fate must have wanted to give me a nudge as my mother gave me a present of the perfectly coloured thread to use to highlight the fabric already there.

The time had come to jump in the free-motion quilting waters!

I started with a continuous loop border using the ruler quilting techniques I had learned from the Continuum project.  I then went truly free-motion with outlining all the looks and adding in some filler motifs in the larger solid-coloured portions.

I'm over halfway done quilting and it is wonky, and inconsistent and threads everywhere, and I think I love it.  It's far from perfect, but I'm so proud of myself for jumping in and trying it.  That is a piece of advice I would offer any quilter hesitant about free-motion quilting.  Take a project you don't love or one that you feel comfortable sacrificing to the practice heavens, and go for it.  I can already see the progress over the course of the quilt.  I don't think I'll ever do a simple stitch in the ditch quilt again.

I'm a Quilting Magpie!

 Confession time.  I see new quilt projects like a magpie in fictional tales sees shiny objects.  In a year when I have more than enough projects in hand to keep me busy, I now find myself with two more - one in hand now and one on the horizon.

The first is a decision to participate in Angela Walter's Free Motion Quilting Challenge (Flora & Foliage Free Motion Challenge).  While the challenge and videos are free, I decided to splurge and purchase her panel fabric, borders, backing, and thread package.  I've never quilted a panel before, so it represents a first for me.  I've also never done a free motion class before, so again, more skill improvement is the rationale for undertaking another project.

The second is an upcoming workshop in June with Krista Moser to learn to do her "Summer Swag" quilt design.  I'll save that picture for a later post.

So, now I have to think about magpies, and I'm going to embrace an alternate description of the magpie, According to Wikipedia, "In East Asian culture, the magpie is a very popular bird. It is a symbol of good luck and good fortune."  Yes, that is what quilting does for me!

If at first you don't succeed...

Perseverance is a quality I fully expect many quilters to embrace and I am no exception.  I have, however, noticed a change in my approach.  There was a time when I would slap something together and call it good enough.  Now, I find that I am challenging myself a little more to redo what I'm not happy with and only if the fabric is on the verge of disintegrating, do I call it good enough.

This has led to a couple of items that I wanted to update you on.  First is a guild mystery that you saw in the last blog post.  This time, we've assembled two blocks and added an edge to them.  The blocks and edges were upwards of four times before I was satisfied with what I created.

Now that this month's clue is done, I turn back to the machine quilting I've been procrastinating on.   I'm determined to not only finish the stitch-in-the-ditch work I'm doing on the Loon quilt, but I'm linking up with Elm Street Quilts to try again this month to finish quilting this prior year mystery.

I received a bundle of thread for Christmas so I plan on embellishing the quilt with additional ruler quilting and free motion quilting.   I could certainly use the practice for both, and I'm inspired to give it a real effort.

As if that isn't enough on my plate, I have just signed up for two additional quilting adventures.  I'm going to be taking a class with Krista Moster (www.kristamoser.com) that I am really looking forward to, AND, I'm joining in on Angela Walter's upcoming Free Motion Flora and Fauna challenge!  More on that in the posts to come.

I'm ramping up my quilting and my blogging, so it should be a fun season to follow along.

A bias about bias

In working on the latest clue from my guild mystery quilt project, I was faced with one of my nemesis - bias piecing!

This quilt is the colour theory quilt challenge I'm undertaking.  I have been excited to work with this fabric.  This block is done by cutting everything on the bias.  Can you say "STRETCH"?

It was very delicate work to avoid manipulating the fabric and deforming it. The challenge was to cut and assemble these blocks without using paper piecing as a stabilizer.   The use of my iron seemed to help.  That being said, I think I constructed and ripped and re-assembled every block at least twice, if not three times. 

I am so happy with the results and I'm ready to move on to the next month's clue.  Do you have an experience with bias and piecing that you care to share.

A COVID Quilt Retreat

 When someone hears "Quilt Retreat," they may think of a very old-fashioned group of people, usually women, sitting around a frame, working as a team on a single quilt.  While that can still happen, and I've even participated in a marathon version of that as a fundraiser for Breast Cancer Support, my experience with the modern version of a Quilt Retreat is typically a location that is away from home, and not usually the traditional place a quilting guild or other quilting group will meet, but a special location, where people gather to work on projects, share inspiration, have a lot of fun, and strengthen the fellowship that is part of the quilting community.

The guild I belong to typically does a weekend retreat, where we go to a hall we've rented, with meals prepared for us - simple fare, but filling, and when you don't have to cook it or clean it up, it tastes even more delicious!  We each bring projects of our own to work on and we share tips and fun together.  You may arrive as a relative stranger, but you leave feeling you've just gained a whole group of friends.

This past weekend, I helped organize our guild retreat, but with COVID-19, we made it a virtual retreat.  Several people were hesitant to join in, but we made the most of it and ended up having a wonderful time.  We're finding small blessings in a global pandemic.  We normally have to restrict our retreats to 24 people, given the size of the hall we have access to.  With Zoom, we were able to have over 30 people join in.   We used the break-out room function of Zoom to allow small groups to chat and get to know each other, while we had mini-demos and workshops that people could join in on.  Throw in a quick game, some door prizes, and a fun show and tell, and you had the closest thing to a retreat as we could ask for.

What small blessings do you find in these times of COVID?  This is in no way to minimize the hardship and suffering many have endured, but to focus on the silver lining for a moment, instead of the ominous black cloud.  I hope you find a silver lining too.

UFO Focus for February

 I'm leveraging the Elm Street Quilts UFO monthly challenge to help me finish more quilts than I start in 2021.  I completed the ruler quilt last month, so this month I will be focusing on completing the quilt I call "Reconciliation through Healing Waters".  It is a guild mystery quilt that I pieced, sandwiched, but have to quilt and bind it to complete it.

I actually had no intentions of doing this mystery, as I have many, many UFO's that I should be focused on first.   Then, at a guild retreat, we went to visit the local quilt shop and I spotted this fabric.  The yellow fabric is a line called "Healing Waters" and was designed by a Canadian Indigenous artist by the name of Mark Anthony Jacobson, who resides in British Columbia.  Here is another fabric in this collection that will give you a better appreciation of this amazing fabric collection:

If you want to see the full fabric collection, please feel free to check this link out:  Northcott - Healing Waters

Looking forward to finishing this quilt as it is the first lap size quilt I've made for myself!  Everything beforehand has been gifted to others.

First Finish of 2021

 What a great way to end January, with my first finished project of the year.  One UFO is a UFO no longer.  I've called it "Skeewiff Learning with Style (Westalee Continuum)".

This is far from a perfect quilt and I've talked earlier of the challenges this quilt represented with my old sewing machine.  It was the catalyst that made me invest in a new sewing machine.  Never fear though - my old faithful machine still sits beside me too.  Maybe it is just me, but I believe as a quilter, you have a special trusting relationship with your sewing machine.  This was my first time working with free motion quilting using quilt rulers.  I look forward to the opportunity to do more.

Second guessing a mystery

Do you ever second guess the work you do on a quilt - to the point where you are willing to take a few steps backwards and rip out the work completed thus far to fix it?

I suspect if you've worked on several quilt projects, you have encountered this challenge.

I'm starting on the final step of assembling the Bonnie Hunter mystery quilt pattern - "Grassy Creek".  The challenge with a mystery is even if you follow the directions given, you may want to change some things when you see them finally coming together.  In my case, I have a sort-of scrappy quilt.  I'm using multiple fabrics for each colour selection, but not a truly scrappy quilt.

Case in point - here is the assembled first block:

The dark teal-green fabrics are in the same colour family, and I wasn't really happy with the result.  I took a second block, used more of the teal-green fabric and laid it down on those four corners and took another picture:

Suddenly, the star popped for me, and as much as I didn't want to rip two assembled blocks apart, I knew it was better now than never.

I think that would be two pieces of advice that I have received that I would share with you:

1.  Assemble a corner of your quilt top when doing a mystery, or hang your blocks on a design wall, so you can see if anything is going to distract you and eventually bother you.  If you squint your eyes and can't see it - leave it.  If you squint your eyes and it still bothers you, fix it now.

2.  Never underestimate the power of a photo to give you some perspective.

Have you ever had to rework a quilt?  What tips would you share?

"Grassy Creek" - Getting Grassier!

 As you may recall, I challenged myself with the Bonnie Hunter mystery "Grassy Creek" to alter the colours.  It is not that I disliked Bonnie's picks - in fact, I loved them - but I was using 2020 as the year I stretched my boundaries with colour design.

As I started seeing the final pieces of the mystery coming together, I grew more and more unsure of my choices.  I decide to put a corner of the quilt together, just to see how badly I had messed things up.  I was already starting to plan on downsizing this from the full size to a lap quilt.  Keep putting that corner together, I would tell myself.  Maybe I would just donate it and hope no one noticed I "forgot" to put my name on it.  Don't give up yet, just a little further and then you can decide, I would hear between my ears.

I have not even finished putting it together, but was far enough along that I started to see what was coming as I laid these partially assembled pieces on the floor.  Perspective is EVERYTHING.  I have not even finished assembling this corner, and my feelings about this quilt have already changed.  It is not what I expected, nor what I envisioned with this project, but the result is shaping up to be something wonderful.

What do you think?

"Grassy Creek" - Bonnie Hunter Mystery Coming Together

Friday was the day Bonnie revealed to her fans, this year's completed mystery quilt - Grassy Creek.

Today was the day I revealed that I had finished the 5th of 7 clues - progress!  Bonnie's quilts are challenging and complex, but she provides detailed instructions and with patience and persistence, it is possible to replicate her design.

Having completed part five, I started with one of the grey string piece blocks of part six and moved to part seven to try assembling the main blocks.  Have you ever struggled with colours?  I'm trying a technique a friend once shared with me - use your phone/camera and take a black and white picture - you will clearly see the light to medium to dark tones of your fabric.  Here is an example of taking scraps of my fabric, laying them out in the order I could possibly piece them, then taking their picture.

 

As of writing this, I have two blocks assembled, and I'm so proud of myself.  This is the first time I altered Bonnie's colour selections, and this was to challenge myself with the creative use of colour.  I think when this quilt is complete, it will definitely have some fantastic patterns emerging.

My thanks to Ms. Hunter for her time and energy in creating these projects.  This is my third Bonnie Hunter Mystery and I think they are amazing!

Elm Street Quilts - UFO Challenge - January 2021

One of my goals this year is to get serious about finishing some of my many UFO's.  To help motivate me and hopefully keep me accountable, I have joined up with Elm Street Quilts and their monthly UFO challenge.

How does it work, you might ask?

You pick a UFO you commit to completing, and at the start of the month when the site is opened up, you submit a link to where you have posted your UFO.  At the end of the month, you return and post your wonderful and hopefully completed result.  While there are prizes as an incentive to participate, I'm mostly in it for the combination of bragging rights and getting quilts done!

If you want to learn more for yourself, why not check out the blog at:  Elm Street Quilts - One Monthly Goal

January's UFO for me is my Westalee Ruler Class Quilt project - Continuum (or as mine will be called "Skeewiff Learning with Style"!

How are you approaching completing UFO's this year?  You'll see an updated UFO list for 2021!  We'll need to revisit it at the end of the year to see the progress that will be made.  I guess I better get at it!