HMQS Federal Feathers Pattern

Federal Feathers finally came to the top of my priority list since we showed and discussed it on QNNTV. I started this quilt months ago and made it for HMQS to display in the teacher section (see previous blogs). The pattern is designed with large areas for feather motifs or other quilting designs.  Easy and fast piecing leaving lots of time for free motion quilting!  Federal Feathers makes a great gift, table cloth, or center medallion for a larger quilt. It is now available on our website as a download pattern, paper pattern, or packaged with my QCI stencils. The border design is not a stencil but will be downloadable on the website.

Federal Feathers Pattern

Federal Feathers Package

With stencils, feather designs can be easily transferred onto the quilt. I used the blue marker on the cream and white chalk or Stabilo pencil on the black and red. 

QNNTV and One Yard Tall Tote

Last summer Jodie Davis, QNNTV Quilt It! The Longarm Quilting Show host, invited me to be one of the guests for the new series.  We taped the show in September and my three segments will be shown in December. The taping was completed in two days at Handi Quilter headquarters in North Salt Lake, just 50 miles south of where I live.  It was a little intimidating because the show was not scripted but Jodie is  a wonderful host and made conversation easy. It was fun to meet some of the other guests and visit with Vickie Hoth and the Handi Quilter educators. I'm not sure exactly what will be on  my segments because we taped much longer than the time segment. The recording was handed off to the editors but Jodie assured me that the editors are good to us, which was comforting.  One advantage of QNNTV is that all the shows, past and present, are available for members  to be viewed at any time day or night. The shows cover a wide variety of topics so there is  something for everyone. Becoming a member is easy just by going to QNNTV.com/join and signing up. Quilt It! is just on of the shows on QNNTV but it has great information for both long arm and domestic machine quilters. People ask what you can do with a quilted Skillbuilder panel. On Quilt It! we showed the One Yard Tall Tote for a Skillbuilder project. Choose a busy back for Skillbuilder and thread to match, quilt the lines on Skillbuilders 1 or 2 and make it into a tote. This is a perfect tote for the 24" ruler that falls out of every other bag and chips the corner when it hits the concrete (voice of experience). It is also great for carrying around bolts of fabric, although I might be the only person who does that. Skillbuilder 2 is on the "back" on the inside The top of the bag can be folded down in and the horizontal webbing is the handle for a  smaller bag. This is a great travel or shopping bag because it grows or shrinks. A bonus is that  the horizontal webbing fits over a suitcase handle. Skillbuilder 1 is the "back" on the inside I found the nylon webbing at our local Smith and Edwards hardware etc.store in the "rope room".  Their motto is "We have everything if we can find it." The written pattern is in my blog  Free Patterns and Projects tab and is also available on our website.

Patriot Dream for Josh and Quilts of Valor

Here is Josh with his new Patriot Dream throw. His deployment to Iraq was tough but the future is bright for his family. He and his wife, Kristy (my niece), are anxiously waiting the arrival of their baby boy in the next few weeks! It was fun for me to give Josh one of the quilts made from the fabric I designed with Quilts of Valor in mind.

Strips for Stripes Bag

I designed this Strips for Stripes bag as an exclusive for Bernina.  It is made with the quick "quilt as you go" or "stitch and flip" technique.  You can sew it scrappy with all different prints from your stash, coordinate and repeat fabrics, or use jelly roll strips. The handles on both bags are purchased but they could easily be stitched out of fabric.  The instructions are free and posted on the We All Sew blog.

Marilyn from UK asks: I have just found you on Internet and wow I'm so happy. You can't believe how I have been looking for someone who does DVDs on machine quilting. I live in UK, have just started quilting and am self taught. Could you please tell me which product you would recommend for a beginner in top quilting? I am so excited about what I have read and seen.

Good question Marilyn! My recommendation is Skillbuilder 1 fabric practice panel and Skillbuilder Companion book to start. Skillbuilder Studio Volume 1 - Introduction to Machine Quilting DVD are very helpful for visual learning. Skillbuilder 2 panel and Feather Fundamentals DVD are a good next step if you want to learn to quilt feathers.

Kathy from Wisconsin asked:  "Do you have a pattern for the pretty creche wall hanging in the background of your You Tube 10 Minute Table Runner tutorial?  The nativity is a pattern my sister, Janet Selck, designed.  It was originally in her book Pot of Stew but that is out of print so it is available on her website as a pattern.  Go to scrapsoftimequilts.com and you will find it in the pattern section. 

Selecting Fabrics Part 2

This second group of fabrics met my "elegant" expectation but presented some problems. I could not transfer the quilting design onto the black or red fabrics with a light table like the blue quilt. I solved the problem by having Quilting Creations International make me custom stencils for the blocks. These designs will be added to the QCI line this spring and we will have them on our website as soon as they are available.

The next problem was thread. I originally planned to use a taupe for all the colors. Bad choice. It was too obvious on the cream and did nothing for the red or black. Cream on cream was nice but what about the red and the black? I made some samples and determined red on black and red on red was the best. I then tried several red threads. My husband, Andy, voted for metallic and I agreed. Problem solved.

Red metallic thread for the black and red, cream on cream.

Final problem - What to quilt in the outside border? I eventually quilted 1/2" parallel lines. Stitching the close lines with the walking foot slightly stretched and distorted the border. Luckily, the wool batting blocked nicely so the borders lie flat.

Triangle parallel lines repeat in the border.

Finished!