Finally! Something in my hoop!

Posted in Circle of Tulips, Hand-Quilting Techniques, Uncategorized by Simple Bird Applique

I casually mentioned to my husband that I would be on my hands and knees later that evening and he was free to join me! He could even take photos! Finally….I had his attention. He asked me what I had in mind. I told him I needed help basting my quilt together, of course!

First, we pinned the backing to the carpet. I use large safety pins and pin directly into the under padding. In a couple of weeks, we will be replacing the carpets with hardwood floor. Not sure where I will be basting my quilts, but I will figure that out when the time comes! I make sure the backing is smooth and fairly taut and free of cat hair!

Next, I lay the batting on the backing and smooth any wrinkles there may be. I am using wool batting for this quilt. If you haven’t tried wool batting yet, what are you waiting for? It needles like a dream!

Then, I put the quilt top on the batting and, starting at the very center, I smooth it out nice and flat. The top is already marked! I spent the last couple of evenings marking the quilt top with feathered wreaths and 3/4″ cross-hatching. I didn’t mark the outer borders because I am not sure what I want to do, yet. I have time to think about it!

Now comes the fun part. I start at the centre and baste the three layers together. The trick is not to stitch into the carpet, and to actually stitch all the layers! I use an embroidery needle with a large eye and cotton thread. I baste in a grid, with my basting stitches going both horizontal and vertical.

I like to keep my lines of basting about 4″-5″ apart.

The best part…..something to stitch!

Til next time…

Kerry

3Oct2013

Birds and Butterflies

Posted in Bouquet For a New Day, Hand-Applique Techniques, Uncategorized by Simple Bird Applique

I was very excited to begin the second side border of the Civil War Bride Quilt! When I start a border or a block, I never really have a clear picture in my mind of how it is going to look when it is finished. So I just start prepping pieces in colours that I think will work and audition them. Sometimes they work, and sometimes they don’t!

I love the bird….I love the butterflies. I just don’t love the way they look together. It just looks a little blah. I may change them, but I’ll wait until I add a few more pieces. Sometimes things have a way of growing on me once I add more pieces. I have a sneaking suspicion that because I used black and gray for the bird, the butterflies should be a bit more colorful.

So….I thought I would leave the butterflies alone for a while and audition some flowers to see if that helped…first a blue one…

…then a yellow one….

…and, finally a pink one.

I still wasn’t happy with the overall feel, so I made some new butterflies. Now, I love it!

Til next time….

Kerry

29Sep2013

Bound and Determined!

Posted in Bouquet For a New Day, Hand-Quilting Tools, Sue Garman Pattern, Uncategorized by Simple Bird Applique

Yippeel! I finally finished hand-quilting Sue Garman’s Bouquet For A New Day! I took the last stitch on Friday night at approximately 11:15 pm!

I had a relatively free weekend ahead, so I was bound and determined to bind this quilt. I noticed that the quilt was a little ruffled around the edges, so I ran a basting stitch around all four sides about 1/4″ away from the edge. It helped to keep all 3 layers together.

Next. I measured 4 1/4″ away from the red inner border and proceeded to trim all the way around. (Rather stressful. So much can go wrong at this point!)

All of the marking on this quilt (the cross-hatching and the cable border) were done with a Frixion marker. At this point I removed all of the markings with a steam iron. I did not touch the quilt top with the iron, I just held the iron a couple of inches above the quilt and let the steam remove the marks. Here are some before and after pictures.

Oh! And remember when I marked the top border with 2013 (the year the quilt was supposed to be finished)? Here it is.

Then, I (we) stitched the binding in place.

I like to stitch my binding on to the front of the quilt and hand stitch it to the back. I watched 4 episodes of Big Bang Theory while I stitched by hand….so it took about 2 hours!

One of the many things I love about blogging is that I have a permanent record of the quilts I am working on. I started hand-quilting Bouquet For a New Day in October 2012. You can look back on that post here.

And…the best part is…I finished it on Sunday, September 29, 2013!

Til next time…

Kerry

24Sep2013

Measure twice, maybe three times!

Posted in Bouquet For a New Day, Civil War Bride Quilt, Uncategorized by Simple Bird Applique

Our local quilt show was a great success! The quilts were awesome and very inspiring! I volunteered to demonstrate hand-quilting, which meant I had to stop working on “Bouquet for a New Day” for a week or so, just so I would actually have something to hand-quilt! I was definitely going through some sort of withdrawal, and so I was happy to begin working on it again. Here I am at the museum with my friend, Janet.

Since I was not hand-quilting in the evenings, I needed something else to do. So I finished stitching the first border of “Civil War Bride”. I started thinking that if I only worked on one quilt at a time, I could accomplish more in a shorter amount of time, but who has that kind of attention span? (Not me…the more ongoing projects, the happier I am!)

So I did the same thing to the border that I did to all of the blocks. I filled the sink with hot, soapy water, took a deep breath and threw the block in the water! I let it soak for an hour or so.

Then I put it flat on a towel to dry.

Once it was dry, it was time to trim the border to the correct size. Here is what I did. First I taped the paper pattern together.

Then I measured the pattern to make sure it was the correct size according to the directions (56″). The line I measured represents the finished size, and does not include the seam allowance. So I will trim the border to 56 1/2″ long.

I thought it might be a good idea to measure the quilt, just to make sure that it was the correct size. (56 1/2″) So far, so good!

Next, using my light box, I pinned the border on the pattern and lined up all the leaves and birds and flowers, to make sure the everything was centred properly.

Then I used a water soluble marker and marked the line. Remember, the line on the pattern represents the finished size, so I need to cut 1/4″ away from the drawn line. So now my border measures 56 1/2″.

So after all of that measuring and re-measuring, cutting and stitching, here we go!

Til next time…

Kerry

18Sep2013

Stunning!

Posted in Civil War Bride Quilt, Hand-Applique Techniques, Sunday Afternoon Applique Group, Uncategorized by Simple Bird Applique

I love getting together with my Sunday Afternoon Applique group! We stitch, we chat, we eat, but most of all, we inspire each other! This past Sunday was no exception. Brenda did more than her fair share of inspiring. She brought her “Aunt Millie’s Garden” in for us to drool over! Take a close look at the sashing. Brenda designed a different sashing than what the original pattern had. Awesome! This beautiful quilt was machine quilted by Elite Quilting

I have started working away on the border of Civil War Bride. First I made the bias stems and glued them in place.

I had so much fun making fussy-cut butterflies for the blocks, I decided to continue on the borders. Would you think this fabric would make a pretty cool butterfly?

Check out the butterfly on the left!

Next, I added a pretty blue bird and a purple posy. It’s a good start!

Some of you have contacted me asking about the pattern for the tulip quilt in my last blog post. The pattern is from an old “Quilter’s Newsletter Magazine”. There is a pattern for the block on my website that you can download. The best part is, it is a free download! Here is what you do…click on the button in the top right hand corner of my blog that says “Check out my new website.” Then, click on On-Line Store. Then, click on Part 1 and Part 2 of Circle of Tulips. Easy peasy! While you are there, you can also check out the first of my Hand- Applique Tutorials.

Til next time…

Kerry

14Sep2013

Trying hard not to finish!

Posted in Uncategorized by Simple Bird Applique

I am trying very hard not to finish Bouquet for a New Day. Let me explain. Our local quilt show, the Simcoe County Quilt, Rug and Craft Fair is on this coming weekend and I have volunteered to demonstrate Hand-Quilting. If I finish Bouquets, I won’t have anything to work on at the museum. So…no more hand-quilting until then!

That got me doing some serious thinking. Once I have finished Bouquets, I will need something to hand-quilt. I only had to look in my closet for my next project! I stitched these blocks about 20 years ago. (Yikes! Time does fly!)

So here is the plan. I am going to set the blocks 4 across and 5 down with no sashing, just the blocks. I can picture lots (lots!) of hand-quilting. Maybe some feathers in between the blocks. I picture a tiny inner border (maybe pink?) and, to top it all off, a scalloped border! So here is how I spent the day! First I washed the blocks. Once they were dry, I trimmed them all to same size, 11 1/2″ square.

Next, I started to sew all the blocks together in rows. And then I sewed all the rows together. Spiffy! I love how a secondary design appears out of nowhere!

Next, I stitched on a pink inner border, and finally some borders. I am not sure how wide the borders will end up once they are scalloped, so I cut them extra wide, just for safe measure. The best part is that every piece of fabric (inner border, borders and backing) will come from my stash!

Til next time….

Kerry

11Sep2013

All that fuss!

Posted in Friends of Baltimore, Hand-Applique Techniques, Sue Garman Pattern, Uncategorized by Simple Bird Applique

Of course I was procrastinating! Three of the four ferns were prepped and stitched in place. I even distracted myself long enough to make some berries. I knew what I had to do….make another fern!

For those of you who wondered, I do remove the freezer paper before it is stitched in place!

So once the last fern was done, everything quickly fell into place! Some pretty red flowers…

…and a really spiffy vase!

Next. more berries. Lots of berries!

And, finally….. another completed block! Makes me wonder what all the fuss was about!!

Til next time….

Kerry

4Sep2013

Dishes Fit For A Quilter!

Posted in Bouquet For a New Day, Friends of Baltimore, Hand-Applique Techniques, Uncategorized by Simple Bird Applique

For a while now I have been shopping for a new set of dishes. I only had one thing in mind…I wanted a white set of dishes. So whenever I would go shopping, I would always keep my eyes open for a white set of dishes. Well! There are a lot of white dishes out there! Nothing really caught my eye….until last week. Look what I found! Spiffy!

So, as my family pointed out, not only do we have quilts all around the house, and quilting fabric all over the house, and quilting stuff in almost every room, now we are eating off of quilting dishes!! Life is good!

I just turned the last corner on Sue Garman’s “Bouquets For a New Day”. Just one last border to go and I will be finished!

Not sure where Bruin is going to sleep, but he will have to find a new spot!

This block from “Friends of Baltimore” is no more time-consuming that any of the other blocks in the quilt…I am just dragging this one out a little longer that usual!

Til next time…

Kerry

28Aug2013

It’s a Deal!

Posted in Civil War Bride Quilt, Friends of Baltimore, Hand-Applique Techniques, Sue Garman Pattern, Uncategorized by Simple Bird Applique

My goal last week was to stitch the last block of Civil War Bride and take a wee break before starting the borders. I hadn’t worked on “Friend’s of Baltimore” in a while and I was suffering from “separation anxiety”. So, I started to work on the next block of “Friend’s of Baltimore”, which I must admit, had me very intimidated! The ferns have super-intense inner curves and I have been dreading doing them ever since I started this quilt. True story!

A running dialogue started in my head and it went something like this…”Yikes! Look at those ferns. There isn’t just one, there are four! How in the world am I ever going to do those ferns. I’ll just leave this block and start another one. Maybe I’ll just substitute some easier leaves. Oh sure! Take the easy way out! OK…here is what I will do. I will make just one of the ferns! And, after doing just one, if I still think they are way too difficult, I will just do some easier leaves. But here is the deal. I have to make one fern before I can start any other part of the block. Okay…..deal!”

And that is what I did. I trimmed a small section of the seam allowance and prepped it.

Then I trimmed a bit more. And prepped a bit more.

I am not saying it happened in the blink of an eye, but before I knew it, I finished one (!) fern!

I stitched it in place and then I added a few leaves and some stems.

I added a lovely flower…and another fern!

Til next time…

Kerry

23Aug2013

If I Were An Elephant Trainer….

Posted in Civil War Bride Quilt, Hand-Applique Techniques, Uncategorized by Simple Bird Applique

If I were an elephant trainer, I would definitely want my elephant and I to have matching outfits!

Let me show you how I tackled his pants. As you can see from the pattern, this is another one of those really dicey curves. By now you know that I will find an easier way to stitch it!