DianeLoves2Quilt: X_Marks_the

Showing posts with label X_Marks_the_Spot. Show all posts

Sunday, July 16, 2023

Alameda County Fair Entries

For the 2023 Alameda County Fair I entered two quilts. Details on sewing the two quilts are in my 9/18/22 post for X Marks the Spot and in my 5/12/22 post for Quilt by Number. When the fair ended and I retrieved the two quilts earlier this week, I remembered I had not published a post about their display. I'll admit I was a tiny bit bummed that I did not get any ribbons this year, not even an honorable mention, but it was still a source of some pride to see them hanging from the ceiling. I was curious to read the judges' comments when I picked them up. Entries are judged using the American System of Judging where exhibits are judged against each other. Judges may choose to omit a placing if it is believed to be without merit.

I enjoyed reading the positive ego-boosting comments from the judges. I re-typed them after the scanned labels since the minuscule font size may render them illegible.

XMARKS THE SPOT, ENTRY#4444
- Very effective design and color/fabric choices. The customized quilting is creative and upgrades the complexity of the piece.
- Piecing skills are beautifully showcased on this piece. The curves of the orange peel quilting soften the block design and fill the sashing space well. Some tension issues noted.

QUILT BY NUMBER, ENTRY#4445
- Strong quilt design complements the piecing to create a captivating piece.
- Very effective design and color/fabric choices. Quilting is exceptional and the customized quilting design enhances the overall pattern greatly.

I also take to heart the constructive criticisms from the hand-written slips attached to each quilt. Several comments pertained to the quilting. I do know that my quilting is still in its growth stage and has room for improvement, so there were no surprises there. I also scanned the judging slips and include them in this post.

Of course I prowled around to see what quilts did win ribbons. These two got 2nd place (tiny red dot in lower right corner of each).

These two got 1st place (tiny blue dot in lower right corner of each).

This 1st place quilt was awarded Best of Show.

Viewing the quilt entries at the fair is an annual tradition of mine. Seeing the variety is a source of wonder and inspiration, encouraging me to try new designs and ideas. Constructive criticism strengthens my resolve to work on improving skills in my weak areas to become a better quilter.

Tuesday, October 18, 2022

Midnight Crossing - Naming and Completion

Naming a quilt, embroidering the labels, and stitching on the binding are my final steps to completing a quilt. But when it comes down to adding the label, I need to settle on a name, which can take a while. For convenience and consistency during my indecisiveness on selecting a more personal name for this quilt, I used the working title Midnight Crossing, the same as its source pattern. Some name considerations for the final title were:

CHEX (for checker boards and X's)
RR_X-ing (since the X's look like those crossed bars for trains),
X-TRA (why not?)
ORANGE_IS_THE_NEW_BLACK (since it is sort of for Halloween).
My husband suggested X_MARKS _THE _SPOT, which appealed, but I claimed it was too long.

My issue with length mellowed and so the chosen name became X_MARKS_THE _SPOT. Now I could machine embroider my labels and hand stitch them on diagonally. I secure them in place before I attach the binding. I was glad I had made the effort to fussy cut the binding so it lined up uniformly around the quilt. I also was pleased with the somewhat military precision of the piano key border.

To document the completion of a quilt I have heard that a straight on photo of the front as well as some artfully draped poses are recommended. My artful draping is a bit awkward, but I tried to improve the poses by including some of my fall decor. There area few closeup up photos, but most of those are in previous posts. First, here are two outdoor photos.

Then indoors with some furniture draping.

Then some closer-in views showing the binding, labeling, backing, and table decor.

Often I am asked how long does it takes me to make a quilt? Since quilt-making is not a continuous process for me, that is hard to answer. But based on my blog posts of progress, this 68½" square quilt, X_MARKS_THE_SPOT, took me about two months from mid August to mid October. I still see a few FMQ glitches that I might fix, and I may add a bit more FMQ in the sixteen blocks, but I am claiming completion. Completing this quilt by Halloween was a 2022 goal of mine and I am claiming mission accomplished! I really enjoyed working on this one!

Start of the kit and first six blocks (08/18/22)
Continuation with four more blocks (08/23/22)
Completion of last six blocks (08/27/22)
Making nine patch corner posts (08/29/22)
Inner sashings and central assembly (09/12/22)
Adding outer sashing and borders (09/16/22)
Fussy cutting binding and thread selection for FMQ (09/29/22)
Heart quilting in blocks (10/10/22)
FMQ in inner and outer borders (10/14/22)
Displayed for Third Saturday of October (10/15/22)
Naming, completion and final photography (10/18/22 - this post)

Saturday, October 15, 2022

Third Saturday of October 2022

For October I chose to display the black and orange colors symbolic of Halloween but in more muted tones. The pattern I used is Midnight Crossing by Fig Tree & Company and the Moda fabric line is All Hallow's Eve. I just complete this quilt last night and have not yet written its final blog post. It measures 68½" x 68½" and the title on its label is X_MARKS_THE_SPOT.

Hang Your Quilt Day
Beginning April 2020, my quilt guild members began a tradition of hanging quilts in the front of their homes on the third Saturday of the month as a source of enjoyment for the community and as a thank you for the essential workers during the pandemic. My initial post about this practice is in my blog post dated 4/22/2020.

Friday, October 14, 2022

Midnight Crossing - Inner and Outer Border FMQ

The inner border is 1½" wide in a gray zigzag. I considered a simple wavy line, and previewed it with a clear plastic overly, as shown in the next photo. Often times less is more. But this was too little and I thought the narrow border needed more. I decided to consider what I'd be putting in the outer orange border first and before deciding the narrow gray inner border. The two border designs do need to complement each other after all. The outer border of this quilt is a 3½" wide orange mini-floral. How to quilt it?

I considered a diagonal grid to carry out the "X" theme, but decided it was too prone to being crooked. I considered a scrolling vine with sporadic pumpkins but the required marking spooked me. Then I just stopped and looked at the fabric. In reality it is a stripe. I thought a piano key border aligned with those rows of roses would accentuate the stripe and, although somewhat tedious, would be fairly easy for me to do with a high probability of success. Yes it was more ruler work but it was sure to be textural even if it did not have visual impact. I did complete it all in one day, several hours of careful lines stitched up and down with a ruler as a guide at the same spacing of the rose rows. I used a thread color that matched the background orange.

Back to the inner border. I considered stitching a simple loop design sometimes called traveling vine; I learned this design as Lazy L since my first teacher described stitching it as a cursive capital L. I considered one loop for every border straight line, then a wider spread look with one loop every other border straight line. I started with one pass of Lazy L's. I could always fill in the wider spread with a second pass to make it denser.

After seeing the effect, I ended up doing two passes offset from each other so they formed X's in the center. The X's fit in with the X theme. The quilting barely shows up here, either, like my stitched hearts in the blocks, but with much less effort expended. I am pleased that the double pass holds the inner border with a more evenly distributed texture. These Lazy L's were quick to quilt even though I did two passes.

As my FMQ skills grow, I am becoming braver with the designs I will attempt. Clearly, however, I need to get better at my choices of thread color. I prefer quilting with prints rather than solids, so I think if I want the stitching to show my thread colors need to be bolder. Most tutorials are with solid fabric and contrasting thread. Uh, oh. I have now introduced more analysis paralysis to go with my quilting endeavors. Next post will address my labeling, binding, and completion.

Monday, October 10, 2022

Midnight Crossing - Heart Quilting in Blocks

I was really, really pleased with the piecing on this quilt. The petal FMQ in the sashing and corner posts also met with my sound approval. See end of post for 9/29/22. So now I am even more timid and under more pressure not to muck up the rest. I know I am prone to overthinking things so here is the ongoing saga of my FMQ decision process.

Decision, decisions! Analysis paralysis! I just bought some heart templates by Amanda Murphy for long arm quilting so of course I wanted to try out my new toy on the blocks. I experimented with different orientations in PowerPoint. Here is what I considered: hearts on horizontal and vertical, hearts on diagonal, hearts of different sizes, hearts with points facing either in or out and any of these options combined.

I decided on large outer hearts pointing out with small inner hearts pointing in all on a diagonal. Then I noticed the hearts in Power Point are rounded and do not have the artsy doubly-curved edges of the template hearts. I practiced the look of several sizes of these stylized hearts with templates on scrap sandwiches. Then I traced the selected heart option on clear page protectors and lay them over a block as a preview.

I did not want to take away from the piecing and the prints. I sure succeeded in not doing that! After all my agonizing, planning, and practicing, my quilting in the blocks barely shows up. Seeing my disappointment, my husband encouragingly knows what to say. "It will puff up more after you wash it." I have to be satisfied with texture and functionality rather than visual impact. On the brighter side, my errors do not show up glaringly, either. Here is the variation in visibility in the stitching on four colors of blocks: orange-centered black or gray, and black-centered mixed or orange.

On a high note, though, after 128 hearts (plus those from practice) I got pretty proficient at using my Good Measure hearts template by Amanda Murphy. They work great and I love them! With the blocks, inner and outer sashings, and corner posts completed, I move on to FMQ decisions for the inner and outer borders.

Thursday, September 29, 2022

Midnight Crossing - Layering, Binding Prep, Thread

I aim to piece my backings to be 2" larger than the finished top in both dimensions. The backing fabric was a small enough scale print that matching the piecing seam went well. Using glue to keep the seam aligned until I stitched it, I then pressed it open to even out bulk during the upcoming FMQ phase. I cut my bamboo batting 1" large in both dimensions then popped it in the dryer with a damp cloth to ease out the wrinkles and folds. I crawled around on the floor (ugh, my least favorite part) smoothing the backing, batting, and top layers together, then peeled back each layer to spray baste with Odif 505 temporary adhesive for fabric. For the quilting, I ordered thread in several pale orange colors, but need to wait for its arrival to down select.

Meanwhile I worked on the binding. I fussy cut 8 widths of the remaining backing fabric in 2½" strips, a multiple of the X images, so the pattern did not drift around the bound edges. I joined the strips on the diagonal; I was pleased how well I was able to match those seams, camouflaged where the dog tails stick out before removing. Then I trimmed ¼" off along the entire length to arrive at my desired 2¼" binding width.

It was pouring rain that afternoon, September 20th, a welcome downpour for my drought tortured state of California. I felt snug in my sewing room gazing out the window while leisurely and carefully cutting off that ¼" along greater that 320 inches. I still need to press it in half along its length... but all in due time.

All this while I was thinking about my FMQ pattern to distract me from my tender knees and fickle back from layering and to waylay my impatience from waiting for my thread arrival. My thread finally arrived – less than a week but still I mildly grumble finally. Here were my color options from palest to darkest from Essential Threads by Connecting Threads: 21582-Cantaloupe, 21120-Apricot, 21581-Chai. I chose Apricot, the medium of the three shades. Cantaloupe had too much pink and Chai was too strong.

I am in the process of quilting a band of petals in the sashings and quilting pillowcase edges in the checkered nine-patches on my HQ Sweet Sixteen sit-down. I am still contemplating what to do in the blocks themselves. I played with some heart templates but have not yet come up with an option that truly appeals. I will keep thinking and experimenting in PowerPoint while I continue stitching on the sashings and posts.

Friday, September 16, 2022

Midnight Crossing - Borders

The outer sashing is a different fabric, a mini floral rather than the mini-dots of the inner sashing; I am pleased the subtle variation adds a bit more interest. I added the outer sashing two days ago and it took most of the afternoon. Since there are only four long seams I anticipated adding that sashing would go more quickly that it did; but I'd forgotten how much time it generally takes to match up all the existing seams at the corner posts with care to ensure the right angles mate well. I sewed slowly, also, to be sure that I did not nip off any star points and that the seam allowances from the blocks remained facing the preferred pressing direction.

The quilt in progress has now outgrown the bed and hangs over my upstairs railing. It awaits the inner grey border and the outer orange border. No seams to match or points to watch out for when I add those!

Inner and outer borders were added yesterday. Here is a quick look at the upper left corner. Borders really do add something. I must remember to do that framing touch to more of my quilts. (Hmmm... I really should have smoothed the folded top out better before photographing. It truly is more square than it looks.) The diagonal seaming for border length did camouflage well. Next up is piecing the back and sandwiching with batting.

DianeLoves2Quilt