Book Review - Free Motion Quilting with Angela Walters

   Since I started quilting my own quilts a few years ago I've been on the look out for interesting ideas and articles on how to choose quilting designs and inspiration for free motion quilting (FMQ). While looking around online one of the names I kept seeing attached to some of these amazing quilts was Angela Walters.
I've since been lucky enough to talk with Angela in person, emails and on twitter and she even sponsored a chat on Talkin' Tuesday. She is one of the nicest and most genuine people I've met in this industry, which is saying something as the quilting community is full of amazing people.

Stash Books recently released Angela's new book, Free Motion Quilting with Angela Walters: Choose and Use Quilting Designs for Modern Quilts. That is a long title but it says exactly what the book is all about.

Angela goes through the entire process of how she decides how, where and what to quilt on modern/contemporary quilts, which tend to have a lot of negative space, irregular shapes and really bold bright fabrics.

The act of quilting is the same on both traditional, modern and hybrid quilts but the designs and placement tend to be different as quilting is about complementing and enhancing the design of the quilt top.

There are 22 designs in the book that Angela shows step by step how to create, and you can do these on your domestic sewing machine just as well as on a mid or long arm machine.

   She explains in both words and photos/diagrams how to not only form the design but how to connect it so you're not starting and stopping constantly.

   There are tips through out the book to make quilting easier and more fun. A lot of them are things learned over time by quilting so many quilts and they are so helpful in getting the results you want.

 The book has no judgement of style. Angela is able to share her love of modern quilting without in anyway taking away from more traditional styles. Many of the quilting designs, and all of the helpful tips and tricks, can be applied to traditional quilting as well.






If after going through all the designs and sections of the book you're still stuck there is another section for that! Angela goes through all the questions to ask to help you get unstuck and quilting.

This is a book I recommend anyone who is even thinking of quilting their own quilts pick up. You'll return to it again and again, even if you're a traditional quilter.

  Number one tip from Angela? "Relax and Practice drawing first" 

 From my experience this is the best way to get comfortable with the design. Do it until you can reproduce the design without stopping or thinking and it will be easy to quilt!

Nothing remotly witty

I can't think of anything witty for a title so that is my title.

I've done a bit of sewing, working on some little projects. I'm really trying to plow through things, even when they don't turn out as I wish.

I love this tumbler block, and really wish I'd had more of the Maypole, but oh well. I'm still going to quilt it some more but thought I'd show it off a bit now. I wanted to keep the odd sides but there was no way in h*** I was binding all those dips, so I sewed around the edges and turned it right sides out again and voila! It is edged and no binding at all.



The inspiration for this can be found here.
This one is big enough to be a real doll quilt, but I think I can use it as a spring banner on my door too. We'll see after it's quilted.

A few days ago I cut out hexagons from my Cornucopia charm pack, I have the Marti Michell templates but in the larger size, well you can use on of them to make 2" hexagons, so I did that. I'd been planning on making the free pattern off Moda's website, but well....you know how things go, and I seem to have lost my smaller triangle so I used the instructions in the pack and did the sew to the dots method. It didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped, mostly because I think my cutting was a bit off and that of course throws everything else into disarray.
But keeping with my promise to myself to finish more things, even if they're not quite right, kept me going and here is the flimsy for a table runner. There are some pin tucks and such but I think when all is said and done it won't be THAT noticeable.



I plan on finishing it like the Tumbler block doll quilt, I'll get to keep the interesting edge, without binding it. My only concern is with it being smaller the edges not being as co-operative.

I'm really trying to get into my stash and use it up, maybe not being afraid to use it is a more accurate term. Those precuts and such aren't going to do anything sitting in the quilt pantry. And I'm honestly tired of it all taking over what little room I have in my apartment. If you picture and "L" shape it takes about 5x5 feet of space along the wall in my dinning room, which is really part of the open space that makes up my kitchen, living room etc.
I'm also going somewhat stir crazy not being able to do things around here. This 5 lbs rule stinks, seriously. I'm not an organized or particularly clean person, I don't enjoy cleaning in anyway, but having to rely on DH to get thigns done is getting very old, especially when I have to nag to get thing slike the recycle taken care of. I hate nagging, it really bothers me, but so does an overflowing recycle bin. Sigh. Can't be happy with anything eh? ;)

Simple sewing

So I went to my little quilting pantry, one of those cheap little things from Canadian Tire, and found an old kit. It's Bob the Builder with about 6 quarter yard cuts. The problem? I couldn't remember which pattern was supposed to go with, so I looked through all the patterns in one of my binders and decided it had to be either Can't Cut it or 5 and Dime. I decided to go with the Can't Cut it. And made oopsies with the cutting so it kind of came out funky, especially with me muddling up the block direction and not noticing. But hey it's a quick quilt, going to my little nephew down in NC. I got the whole top done in a few hours.


I'll eventually get the more elaborate quilt made for him, but every time I touch it I seem to mess it up more. This is the EQ5 mock up of the quilt. I had EQ6 but have lost the upgrade cd so when I got my new laptop I was back to 5.

DH is coming down with something, he thinks allergies, and Little Bit has been with Grandma most of the weekend so it has been pretty quite around here. I really have to get working on Lillebet but that probably won't happen this week. I need to do the cutting on Little Bit's Halloween costume, which hopefully I'll be able to get done. Mom has said she'd help if I can't get it done, I still tire easily. She is going to be a pink Belle, melding her favorite dress with her other favorite princess Aurora.

Wall Hanging

So up until about 2 hours ago I still had a snowman wreath on my apartment door. As it is now officaly spring, and flowers are actually bloomimg, I decided I had to change it. I didn't want another wreath, I just haven't liked any I've seen.
So I dug through my small flimsies and got out my Urban Indigo star, familiar from my header.
I quilted it and it looked ok. It wasn't pieced the best because I was just making up the design as I went so didn't really plan well.






So not too bad right?
Well then came my nemisis. The binding. I hate binding. I am not good at it. I can't hand sew because my fingers cramp after about 12 stiches.
So what in blue hell (does anyone know where this saying came from?) made me think I could attach attractive binding to a quilt with 8 points and 8 indents? Yeah this was dumb. A perfectly decent wall hanging is destroyed by my binding. I don't really want to show anyone but I will.




Ok not too bad?
Wait until you see the back. Its bad, really bad. But I was at a point that I really didn't care.
I mean who is going to see it, right? It's against a door.



So out on the door it went. It'll keep people from thinking my door is the door to the garbage room. Which will keep my little puppies from barking up a storm and making me deaf.


My exams are done now and I don't start back until May 8th so I'm hoping to get a lot of sewing done. I want to try a few more paper pieced stars.

Paper piecing

Before today this is the only paper piecing I had ever done. I haven't gotten to putting binding on it but it is quilted, though it needs an iron from the look of the picture, which could just be from me just dropping it on the ground for the pic.

I took a class a few months ago because it is something I just could not for the life of me figure out. It really is the easiest thing, if somewhat time consumming and wasteful. The wasteful is just because I haven't learned any of the strip methods that are out there. A few women off one of the yahoo lists say they have a few methods to seriously reduce the waste, and Carol Doak has a method also. I hope to buy her books soon. I love the designs. I have another book I got for my birthday, 365 Foundation Quilt Blocks, by Linda Causee but it is more just patterns, some great ones too.
Paper piecing came up on my the Pickle Road list and some one mentioned Carol Doak has her own list. So off I went and joined. It is really neat. She has very generously added some patterns to the list. So I decided to jump in and made this.

There are 56 pieces in one 6" square! It took forever, more because Little Bit was wanting something every 5 minutes than because it was hard. Just time consuming, having to trim and press everytime you add a piece.
I used Fusions from Robert Kaufman fabrics. I love the fusions, but especially these ones, which I think are Fusion 11. I have about 20-25 FQs of them that I use in projects.
I'm really enjoying the intercacy and accuracy you can get with paper piecing but I don't think it will be my primary method still. I like the look and simplicity of regular piecing.

Working on that block meant I didn't finish the flimsy of Day in the Country which I had planned on finishing today but that's ok.

I should be studying for my exams later this week but really don't feel like it. I wrote two last week and am kinda crammed out but one of the exams I don't feel like I know a damn thing so I had better get cracking on it.
Bye for now!

Center

I got four of my blocks done. I think I'm going to just keep it smaller. I got hubby to hold the flimsy up for me so I could take a picture.

I don't have a lot of the peach and DH is on me about not buying more fabric, and since it's an older collection I'd have to go to ebay. So I think I'm going to add a border, bringing the secondary star into the border. I'm still doing the math, hoping I have enough peach. Right now the top is about 40". Adding about 6" to each side....should get to be about 52", which I guess is ok for a lap.

I've been so busy studying for exams. I have palliative care tomorrow. I'm so tired of books. I just want to QUILT. I'm really tired of not getting to do anything. :(

DD is bugging me to make her babies another quilt. She's 4 and the other days grabbed some of my fabrics, handed them to me and said "find blanket for baby!" She already has 2 for her dolls, but apparently the Care Bears need their own.
She really is my anchor when things get crazy. She really reminds me of what is important.

Day in the Country

I have four fabrics from Moda's Day in the Country, one of Fig Tree Quilts lines, and I can't decide what to do with them. I'm thinking maybe some sort of blended quilt but I don't really love the ones I've seen.

I do have some of Moda's basics cream, which is Fig Tree cream, so it would probably work if I needed to add another fabric but it is a solid and I'm not crazy about solids. I was thinking of doing plain ole Sawtooth stars with the greens as the background and the walnut as the points...maybe the peach for the center and corners? Or use the green for the stars, the peach for the center and the walnut for background?
I'm going to have to find pictures online and import the fabrics into my EQ.
Which starts me on another though of I REALLY want my EQ6. I bought it and had it on my old laptop, but since the move and new laptop cannot find it anywhere. It makes me so sad :( I like EQ5 but 6 really is just that much better, that much more fluent. Oh well.

I think the fabrics are going to have to sit and stew for a bit before I figure out what I want to do.

Way ahead of myself

I've not been feeling well this past week and don't seem to be getting any better. I was up late last night with the little one and decided to raid my charm packs and make something simple to give me some sense of accomplishment.
I picked the All you need is love, from moda.
What would this innocent charm pack turn into?

Hmm...some yummy colours...

Get the cutter out...Don't you just love the pink?
Well lets start simply...

Add a border...

And get really tired. I'll save the rest for later. I'm going to try appliqueing hearts from the remaining fabrics. I'm not super comfortable with applique, especially anything but fusible. So this will be a learning experience. Hopefully.

Late Night

I had a late night last night. I got to sewing and remembered I had some baggies filled with cut pieces for my Moda U quilt, the one that used the Allspice Tapestery bundle from Fig Tree Quilts, which is my favorite designer. Joanna has lovely lines, and her patterns are fun too. It was fun but I don't tend to sew too much until after DD has gone to bed, which was around 8 last night, and I didn't start until about 9:30. I finished about 12:30.





I also started a BOM from the Quiltery, it's called Lillibet's Garden. It should be very pretty. The only thing I'm concerned about is the cream is a white from the block I have received but the cornerstones and sashing are still a cream/beige.
I'll just have to wait and see. This quilt has a large amount of applique, which I'm still not horribly comfortable with. But it will be a good experience.