En Provence Quilt - A Finish

 I took the final stitches in the binding and label for En Provence yesterday evening. Today was a crisp and clear Fall day, so I put it on the clothesline to get some photos.

Maybe I take too many pictures, but it seemed like it was only fair. You work on these quilts for multiple years and then all of a sudden, they are done. Ready to be packed up and given to someone who will hopefully enjoy them. It's only fair to have a photo session. Speaking of which, Quarta needs to get her Senior photos taken before we ship her off to college. Hmm.

 Anyway, En Provence was the mystery quilt starting in the Fall of 2016. It was the quilt top that I used as a background picture for my first smart phone, and it's still on there. It really is a gorgeous pattern, with the motion of the purple accented with the sparkling magenta stars. I seriously depleted my purples and neutrals when piecing it.

The quilting pattern I chose was squiggle-loop-flower, with a couple different types of flowers I repeated more or less randomly. I depleted my cone of Robison-Anton eggshell thread when I was quilting it. I used to buy it at Joann's, at the dealership inside the store, but they don't carry it anymore. I will have to look for another source for better-quality machine quilting thread. I picked up a spool of Aurifil at Craft Warehouse, but I've never tried it before and really, I'm on a roll (sort of) with machine quilting. I want to encourage myself to get a bunch more done, and that means buying a big cone of thread. And probably a few more extra-wide backings, since piecing backings is kind of a drag.

I really like the light check fabric I used for the backing of Grand Illusion and the label on this quilt. I also like the kind of grunge-looking extra-wide backing (and binding) I used for this one. Maybe another trip to Joann's and another coupon to buy another backing for when I'm ready to quilt On Ringo Lake. I have been piecing a backing for the Tone It Down quilt, which I want to do next. And I finished piecing the Scrappy Trip Around the World top, which I'll share next time.

Machine Quilting

 I finished machine quilting "En Provence" in mostly one day. I think I may have had a breakthrough of sorts. The lack of stitch regulator means I have to pace myself, and it is more difficult to stop and start, so I just keep going until the quilt needs to be rolled or the bobbin runs out. I used my all-over squiggle-loop-something pattern. This time the "something was flowers. Little double daisies as above...

 and little chicory flowers. My breakthrough is finally figuring out that machine quilting is just doodling with thread. And no one cares if doodles are a little uneven or lopsided. My original mistake may have been buying Harriet Hargrave's Heirloom Machine Quilting 22 years ago. It was excellent as a treatise in perfectionism, but I have come to the point where I'm happier getting the quilt done and thinking of the quilting as doodling.

I even cut and stitched the binding on the same day. Now the hand stitching will take longer, but I'm really happy with the overall effect.

Quilt Finish: Grand Illusion Mystery Quilt

Grand Illusion, the mystery quilt from 2014, is now finished! I gave it a little airing after the last of the binding was stitched on. The piecing on this started after Thanksgiving of 2014 and finished sometime in 2016, and then the top waited around for three years to be quilted. I am trying to kick out some of my quilt backlog.

I love how vintage the colors make this look. It reminds me of the tile-work in the MAP South bathroom at college, built in the 1930's and more elegant than your typical college dormitory.

 My quilts have been getting steadily more scrappy every year.

It's 88" square, queen sized, backed with a wide backing I bought at Joann's, and has a label and everything. Binding took me a long while with all the going to camps the last month, but it is all done now. Maybe I can find a family member who needs a queen-sized quilt. I have a few too many.

I enjoy hanging out quilts for photography, but the clothesline isn't quite tall enough. Also, glad I did this before the weather abruptly changed over the weekend and it has gotten rather cool and wet.

Yay! for finishing things. The 2015 mystery, En Provence, is now on the frame.

 I didn't get far today, but I used up the remainder of the thread in the bobbin that was left from the previous quilt. My pattern will be squiggle-loop-flower, which I did on the Easy Street way back when.

So far I have two different kinds of flowers. But I didn't really have the energy to get into it very far today.

Back-Blogging: Machine Quilting Update

More back-blogging today. Last time I talked about my machine quilting situation, I was upset with the cat...

who did this to the stitch regulator while the machine was dis-assembled for other maintenance. The "Quilter's Cruise Control" that came with the machine set-up 11 years ago would cost $500 to replace. That is not going to happen, at least not for some time.

This speed switch also came with the set-up. It would only cost $70 to replace, because it doesn't regulate stitch length. Basically, it is a replacement for the foot pedal, with a dial to adjust the sewing speed once you click the switch. So I set it up and loaded "Grand Illusions" onto the frame.

Grand Illusions was the 2014-15 Quiltville mystery, and one of my backlog of quilts needing to be quilted.

 I determined to push through and learn how to use the new (to me) switch setup, despite the lack of a computer brain to regulate the length of the stitches. At least it was easier to set up. And really, once I figured a good setting for the speed for me, the quilting went smoothly. There is only me regulating how long or short the stitches are, but I've had years of practice and it's not that bad. I decided to stick with squiggle-loop-star, easy on the stars, for this first quilt.

 About a quarter of the way in, the cheap plastic cover of the on-off switch (center) cracked and popped off. I had to disassemble the switch to find the plastic bits that had fallen inside. It's roughly the size and shape of a push-button on a ball-point pen. Now you know why this is so much cheaper! Still overpriced at $70. I went to the hardware store to see if this was a standardized part I could easily replace. It wasn't. The employee I spoke to advised a pencil eraser cut to fit and glued on with a dab of superglue.

What I used instead was a wooden dowel with an old rubber thingy that snugs onto it. I'm still thinking about the dab of superglue to attach it, but at least now when it jostles and bounces out, it doesn't break and fall through. Analog solutions for the win!

I finished quilting Grand Illusion in one day, even with the trip to the hardware store and fixing up the dummy switch. It requires more concentration, but it's so cumbersome to stop and start that you push through and it gets done quicker. I'll give the final quilt show-and-tell in the next post, but I was pleased that quilting is still possible. Maybe in my next quilt I will try a few more fancy figures.

Randomday with Catastrophe

 First the good news. Celtic Solstice has been finished for about two weeks, and is going to live with my brother in Virginia. I haven't been finishing quilt tops very fast for several years, and I would like to do better at supplying my family and friends with quilts. So this one's for Andy.

 She looks so innocent, Muffball does. But no!

This is the brain of the stitch regulator that was attached to my Megaquilter setup. I took the machine off the carriage so I could replace some worn carriage plastic tracks, as I blogged about after finishing Celtic Solstice. I was very optimistic that I could whip out those six quilt tops that need quilting. But I dawdled a bit with re-lifting the machine onto the refurbished carriage. And yesterday when I came home, I realized the entire carriage had been toppled over off the tracks, and the framework of the apparatus that goes around the heavy machine had fallen sideways onto the far end of the frame. This caused the wires leading into the red box to wrench out, and broke at least two of the black components on the circuitboard. It's a $500 piece of high-tech equipment that I can't possibly fix and can't really justify replacing right now. So now, instead of looking forward to zipping out lots of quilts, I'm going to have to try quilting with no real control of stitch length and speed. I used to do machine quilting on my little machine, not the frame, without a stitch regulator. But... grr. I can't even figure out how to dis-assemble the stitch regulator and replace it with the speed control switch that came with the frame, or whether that will even work. It unquestionably deflates my happiness in being able to solve the (relatively inexpensive) problem of wobbly tracks. Technology and I do not get along.

It was almost certainly the cat. Wish I could have been home to see her terrified reaction to jumping on the carriage... but only if I had hidden the stitch regulator first!

The Airing of Quilt Tops

The Megaquilter is disassembled, and I successfully put cut the track segments needed to replace the worn ones on the carriage.

They are now inserted into their grooves and the carriage is back on its tracks, which aren't worn enough to need replacement yet. But I haven't put the machine itself back on the carriage yet. It's still sitting on the round table in the family room where all the stuff gets put. I've stitched a bit with it to put it through its paces, and I think I'm almost ready to put it back on the carriage now and load another quilt.

I made this cute little thread-holder on July 4, in patriotic colors. It's replacing an old brown-paper lunch bag that was held on with masking tape. I love how it looks like a pair of suspenders!

This is how it will hang from the carriage assembly. It's very easy to snip threads and reach back and put them in there when I am having a marathon quilting session.

Also on July 4, I hung out the finished Celtic Solstice on the clothesline. Then I decided I needed to see all my quilt tops awaiting quilting. I definitely need a kick start on getting some tops finished.

I didn't have enough clothesline. These are the Bonnie K. Hunter mystery quilts I haven't quilted yet. Left to right are Good Fortune (last year), On Ringo Lake (year before that), En Provence (year before that), and Grand Illusion (2 years before that).

 I tried the panorama feature, but it came out kind of weird. I HAVE finished four of the mystery quilts since I started doing them: Allietare (2015), Celtic Solstice (2013), Easy Street (2012) and Orca Bay (2011)

 I took a close-up of On Ringo Lake.

 I have two tops that are not Quiltville mysteries.

 The Tone it Down quilt was the APQ quiltalong a few years ago. It's enjoying another round of popularity on Instagram, but I've had this top finished for a few years. It's a Burgoyne Surrounded block, but in scrappy low-volume fabrics.

 And this is one I've been saving for maybe the longest... I call it Country Stars and it was inspired by a quilt I saw years ago in a Lake Oswego quilt shop.

Photobombing provided by Quarta.

So I need to get some backings ready and just dive in to quilt these.

Celtic Solstice - A Finish

Celtic Solstice was the 2013 Quiltville mystery; I finished piecing the top in 2014, almost exactly 5 years ago. I started machine quilting it in November of 2017 and just finished it last week.

I hung it out on the clothesline on the 4th of July. It really sparkles with those vibrant oranges, blues, greens and yellows. I totally need to spur myself onward with getting quilts quilted. More of that in another post.

Closeups of the wave quilting on the borders. The outer border fabric and the binding come from that epic estate sale I went to over 5 years ago.

I have a set of rubber stamps with designs from the Book of Kells... I decorated some plain fabric with them once and decided to use the fabric here. Celtic kitties...

and Celtic knot patterns.  The quilt measures about 78"x81" - better for a Full than a Queen size. I used navy thread for quilting and, aside from the wave pattern and some outline quilting in the borders, an overall squiggle/loop/star pattern that is my go-to, standard pattern for most quilts.

Also, since it's a new month, the UFO challenge random number is #1, and for me that breaks down to my long-neglected "classics" tote bag, and spinning the light green with silver glimmer fiber that I bought at Sock Summit. Both of those are theoretically possible, but I haven't worked on either so far.

The Joy of Finishing

So, I have progress in both knitting and quilting to report this week. Of all the things I have blogged about, the knitting and quilting have always been constants, and since I am still struggling with blogging regularly, it is easiest for me to push myself to blog when I have progress or even a finish to report. So, I started a new, impulsive summer knitting project this week. It is Gemini, from Knitty summer 2012 issue, and I am trying it with some reclaimed cotton yarn from an unraveled thrift store sweater. But my conscience nagged me as I knit, because Mint Chocolate was lacking only the buttonhole band and some buttons, and it had been started 5 1/2 years ago.

Also, full disclosure on my abundance of UFOs -- on the right is On Your Toes, a Green Mountain Spinnery pattern I started about 8 years ago (?) with some handspun Shetland wool. And on the right is Rosalind, also long in hibernation. Rosalind doesn't need too much more, On Your Toes needs quite a bit.

Well, I stayed up late and banged out that buttonhole band. It was just a little math, and looking up how to do one-row buttonholes. The next morning I sewed on all the buttons, which were salvaged from my favorite red Nordic sweater I bought at Goodwill, after it wore out at the sleeves many years ago.

 I even practiced my selfie-taking skills a bit. They are better than they used to be. Mint Chocolate, finished at last.

So after I blocked it, I also washed three other of my colorwork cardigans in the Kookaburra woolwash. And then I ordered some more Kookaburra because it's been too long and basically all my woolens need washing. Amazon delivered it the NEXT DAY, which is kind of insane but impressive.

So last week I blogged about returning to the Megaquilter to work on Celtic Solstice, which had been basically waiting 1/3 done since the end of 2017. This was the 2013 mystery quilt. I got to the bottom border and had to refresh my memory about how the quilting goes. It was a good thing I had taken a picture over a year ago of the border quilting, which is a wave pattern.

That was this morning when I finished the bottom border.

 And the right side. Then I took it off the frame and remounted it so one side was ready to have the border quilted. When I took my training lesson on the Megaquilter, the lady said to do this with borders. You can just let the weight of the quilt hang over the front rail to keep a basic tension on the area to be quilted.

 How it looked from the side before quilting...

and from the front of the machine. I tucked the extra quilt under and up again over the batting rail to keep it out of the way while still holding tension. If necessary I put a heavy notebook in the middle, in the "pocket" formed by the folded quilt. Believe it or not, this helps!

So I have finished quilting Celtic Solstice. I am still having some trouble with the machine, but I think it is because the hard rubber rails on the carriage have abraded in certain spots, and maybe also because it needs me to use different thread. I can tell it's the rails by visual examination, and because the bumpiness I feel in quilting happens when I am quilting north-westerly or north-easterly. I think I can fix the rails on the carriage, cutting down the short rails that I have never used from the original set-up. I will need to disassemble the set-up and take the machine off separately from the stitch-regulator to do that, and I can maybe sew on the binding while I have it off to test whether the machine itself needs a tuneup. This is a lot of tech talk to say, I need to hold myself accountable to actually do that! It's a bit scary for me. But I am on a bit of a high from having actually finished a project, and maybe I can channel that. I have so many more tops to machine quilt!

So in summary, I have finished two long-standing UFOs in June so far. They are just NOT the ones chosen randomly from my list.