Design Wall Tuesday: Machine Quilting Success!

Welcome to Design Wall Tuesday! Several of our editors were outside enjoying the nice spring weather and didn’t spend much time in their sewing rooms this week.

From Acquisitions Editor, Lori Baker:

Lori Baker

I just finished this small wall quilt. It’s been quite a journey with lots of changing my mind and experimenting but I’m happy with it.

From Associate Editor, Mary Kate Karr-Petras:

Mary Kate Karr-Petras

My weekend sewing was focused on binding my biggest finished quilt to date and one that showcases my first longarm quilting, a queen-size quilt I made just for us. This quilt was intended as a quick stash-buster, even incorporating long strips of upcycled cotton sheets that had gotten ripped and with a backing pieced from a fun variety of fabric panels. Its working title was “The Not-Precious Quilt,” about which I of course got far too precious and so it sat as a UFO for about three years because I was daunted by the thought of basting and quilting such a large quilt on a home machine.

Because I always planned just to quilt it with wavy, improvisational horizontal lines, I used it as my maiden voyage on the Grace Q’nique longarm machine we got set up here at the office. It didn’t take too long to get comfortable with zipping across the quilt, and I even started to throw in some loops as I got closer to the bottom—I think I’ll end up spending more time finishing the binding by hand than I spent quilting it. That’s OK, it’ll be done soon, and I can’t wait to put it to use.

From Video Content Strategist, Caitlin Dickey:

Caitlin Dickey

Flames and Icicles top

I’ve made a bit of progress on my Flames & Icicles mini quilt. (Find the original pattern for an 80″ x 80″ quilt called Fire & Ice by Kimberly Einmo in Quilters Newsletter presents Best Modern Quilts 2014. I’ve learned that the “measure twice, cut once” adage also extends to counting your number of cut patches twice. (Or maybe I meant to only cut 54 B triangles the first time so that I would have to spend time hunting through my stash to figure out what I did with the leftover fabric to cut those other two triangles?). And if any of the points match up anywhere in this entire top, I’m pretty sure that’s a mistake despite the number of pins; glue stick applications; un-sewing, re-aligning, and re-sewing; and whatever other methods I attempted to use. Note to self: tiny little polygonal pieces which form 2 7/8″ blocks are extremely difficult to align because everything is on the bias and the sheer number of seam allowances converging into points skews your ability to “feel them nest.” But done is better than perfect! Now to measure and add the final borders.

We’ll have more to show you when you stop back next week. In the meantime, Happy Quilting and Happy Spring!