Cross

Seeing my first design hanging on my wall is something to be proud of, taking into consideration that sketching and pattern-making are not a talent completely develop yet. It was so invigorating that I started sketching another idea on paper and from there grew to like the design even more than the first one.  And now I can fully understand why some art quilters are great at what they do: they practice again and again with a new concept, designs and fabrics.

                                                            Cross by Louise Deveault

I'm well aware that there are greater artist quilters out there and as I beginner pattern-maker-artist, or whatever you want to call it, I should not compare my work to theirs, but used their advanced skill to help me gain more understanding of those new areas. So I'm very thankful for tutorials videos and books available for us, beginners that want to join the fun.

 Designing:

The Cross came from a simple design I had in mind that I could draw on paper with a pencil and eraser and I drew the pattern from the sketch on a larger piece of cardboard paper. I haven't used any software like EQ or the like for this project, because I wanted to keep it super simple for myself.

Because I used the cardboard as my main foundation for piecing, I found out later as I sewed each section that they were crooked, not perfectly aligned with each other. The top rectangles were very bad.

Lesson #1: Measure your cardboard paper or foundational paper for accuracy BEFORE cutting and sewing your pieces.

Free-Motion Quilting

For this little quilt project, I've used scraps of batting that I had sewed together previously. It worked great! The method for sandwiching my quilt has switched from spray-basting, which I dearly love, but inconvenient during the winter season when all windows are closed. I've also used the Pinmoore that is wonderful too, but after founding many pins stuck into the carpet fibre, I decided to switch back to safety pins. It's safer for my family, visitors, and Merlin my dog who all walk around my sewing area.

Quilting with a Juki 2010Q and a free-motion foot and used a white Isacord thread to showcase my designs.

 Small hang quilt like this one gives you the opportunity to develop further your sill at free-motion and to get to know your sewing machine too.

  For this project, I slowed my pace to give me more control over my stitches and for smaller designs.

Bad Stitches! Oh me..Oh my

Even if I quilt every day of the week, it seemed that I do not get better with the free-motion quilting and that frustrated me to no end. I've gained great skills at piecing and pressing my seams, but when it comes to free-motion quilting, I become discouraged when I saw ugly stitches over my nice top.

What should I do then? Quit? Not at all.
Lesson #2: Playing around with your tension, bobbin-case, thread, the needle can help you recognized what is going wrong. Yes, sometimes it just us pulling to fast on our fabric, but this time it was my bobbin-case that resulted in the problem.

Good Bobbin Tension

Left side, bad stitches. On right side good stitches. Notice the difference of the smaller stitches after I fixed my bobbin-case, also I had more control over the stitching.



All the design for this project were taken from 356 Free Motion Quilting Designs By Leah Day

You can purchase Leah Day's book on Amazon.ca

This project was my first attempt and will not be my last and I've already started to work on another sketch that I've called the Praying Woman. And yes, I'm still using my stash of fabric as much as I can for every new project.