What My Spools Quilt Taught Me

I love this quilt, so much more now that it is done, as is so often the case. It took me a long time to finish it, and there was a lot of learning along the way, so that is what I want to share here today. If you are like me, you often admire quilts made by others and think "I would love to make one of those." But seldom do I act on that thought for a couple of reasons. I can't always find the same fabrics or the pattern is complex and I am not one who does complex very often. Or, more likely, I just want to admire it...a lot...but not really actually make it. The Spools pattern grabbed me. The biggest reason I went ahead and bought it, other than the fact that I do love so many of Camille's patterns, is the wobbly way the spools are stacked. It is very different from most spool quilts.

 I bought the pattern on March 17th of this year. Funny, when I checked on that, I thought it had been much longer ago. I didn't have the fabrics Camille used, but what I did have was a fat eighth bundle of Strawberry Fields by Fig Tree. I bought the fat eighth, the only bundle of that size I have ever purchased, because I just needed to have more than a charm pack of those soft, beautiful designs.

 I spent one session cutting out all the pieces for this quilt. I have never done that before. I tend to cut and sew and cut and sew as I go. I was determined to do this in a different way. I bought a plastic project storage container and kept all the parts in there as I made the blocks over time.  I think it was late summer or early fall when I finally had this quilt top finished.  So far, so good. I was pleased with the look of my work.  Now, to quilt it.

 My first thought was to shortcut it and do a loopy doodle all over it and have it done.  But having recently finished quilting a special quilt for my sister which involved 16 hours of quilting (I kept track) I started to think about doing more for my spools.

 I used the patterns on the grey spool ends to inspire me and quilted lines, zigzags and a scribble on the dotted ones, filling them in pretty densely. For the spools themselves, I quilted an oval loop around from top to bottom to imitate the way thread is wound around a spool. It is less dense than the grey areas.

 For the white background, I chose to quilt a figure 8 that ran from top to bottom. I found that I could expand and contract it pretty easily as the white area expanded and contracted.  When it was done, the lesson from the quilting became "less dense quilting comes to the foreground, while more dense quilting recedes to the background". I am sure this is not a new concept, but I didn't think of it before I quilted this.

 Another lesson I learned is about thread. While I was making this quilt and quilting it, I was short on funds and ran low on white thread. I have been sewing with Aurifil for a couple of years now, almost exclusively. It works well with my Bernina. While I did not go buy a cheap thread, I did buy a less expensive thread. I used some Mettler which I had and some Gutermann that I got at Joann with a coupon.

 All threads are not created equal and all machines do not sew well with all threads.  My stitches are uneven and I fought with my machine a bit, but I did manage to finish this quilt. I learned my lesson. If it's worth doing, it's worth doing right, including the supplies.

 The last lesson is that washing and drying, which shrinks and provides the crinkles we love so much does help to equalize the dense and not so dense quilting.  It does look better now.

I love this quilt and I am so glad I followed my heart and made it. I hope to keep the lessons learned in the front of my mind when next I start a project, but this I know about me: I am a hard headed person and I will need to re-learn some of these lessons next time I decide to take a shortcut.  Have a great day and I will talk to you soon.

Derailed

Have you ever been derailed in your plans? I'm sure you have. Happens to everyone. I was planning on getting this quilt completely finished last week.

I was quilting along. I was in the zone. It was going great...until I ran out of white thread. Really. White thread. Who doesn't have tons of white thread? Me, apparently. I had no spare time and no spare cash last week, so I pushed this aside and tried to move on to other things.  Yesterday I went to Joann and bought some white thread. I came home and loaded my bobbin and started to sew. Wasn't feeling it. Quit. This morning, again, started quilting, made it through a couple of spools and quit. I have been wandering around, trying to motivate my sewing muse. No deal.  So I cleaned instead. Sometimes my muse won't work if things get too cluttered and messy. So that's done....

 And then I got distracted by these. I pulled from my big stash of charms, greens and blues and put them on the wall. I love the way they look.  This is 7 x 7 but I cropped it to see if I liked the yellow and blue for a border...

 ...or the orange and yellow. Still haven't decided. Anyone have an opinion they'd be willing to share?

 I also pulled a stack of Christmas fabrics for inspiration and started cutting pieces for some ornaments and other sewing gifts.  Hopefully if they are all cut, assembly will happen soon.  Still have that Spools quilt to deal with, remember?

And this little stack has been sitting there mocking me for months. These little white pieces are from my Rainbow Retro Flowers quilt. I keep thinking there's gotta be a cool use for them, but I haven't found it yet. I was thinking raw edge stitching them onto some colorful fabric. I need inspiration or ideas here. Hopefully soon.  Hope you have a great week. Talk to you soon.

WIP Wednesday

I am still quilting every chance I get, trying like crazy to finish up some of those quilt tops I have lying around. Much progress is being made.  Here is today's installment.

 I am quilting my Spools quilt. This is a quilt pattern by Camille Roskelly. I fell in love with it when I saw it. The stacked off-set spools are so cute and just a bit different from most spool quilts.

 This one is getting quite a bit of quilting, as seems to be what my quilts are crying out for these days.

 I am doing a swirl around the main spool part, to imitate thread. The ends of the spools are getting quilted base on the fabric in them. Small stripes for this one...

      ...and round doodles for the one with the polka dots.  I am loving this quilt already.

The white sashing is going to be figure 8s. I am about half way done with this baby and hopefully I can have it done in about another week. The fabric I used was a fat eighth of Fig Tree's Strawberry Fields.
Linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday.

Spoolin' Around

Spent a bit of time working on my Spools quilt top today.  I like how it's coming along.  It's a very easy pattern and so easy to get into the zone and just sew.

 I had to do three complete spools to see how they were going to look.  I need that gratification to keep me going sometimes.  The "thread" is Strawberry Fields by Fig Tree.  For the spool ends I am using 3 different fabrics, in keeping with using my stash: grey dots from Vintage Modern, grey stripe from Sunkissed, and grey tiny zigzag from Reunion.

 Chain piecing is definitely the way to go with this pattern. It's so easy to do too.  It also helps me to remember which way to orient the corner pieces and stitch them correctly.

 Here is a bit of trimmings from the spool ends.  I think these triangles are way too small to keep for any reason at all.  Into the trash they will go.

And neatly put away until next time, there are far fewer pieces in the project box now.  I love when I can see the progress.  Have a great weekend.

Spools

 So I mentioned in my last post that I cannot afford to buy any fabric.  I have been so good for the last 3 weeks.  If you knew me, you would see what an accomplishment this is.  I have been wanting to do the Spools pattern by Camille Roskelly.  I bought the pattern awhile ago.  So since there is no fabric purchasing, it was off to the stash.  I found a lovely fat eight bundle of Strawberry Fields by Fig Tree Quilts.  Perfect.  I had a couple of small-ish pieces of Kona White.  Okay.  Still need more for sashing, but that can wait.  Found 3 different greys to use for the spools.

 So I started cutting all that I had.  I even had a nice plastic project bin that was recently vacated by Swoon.  So now I have all the pieces cut except for sashing, but that is so far off right now, I will find some way to get it later.

 I started sewing all my spools together yesterday.  I made many different combos.  The light isn't great here and for some reason, the flash wouldn't flash.  But here they are all stitched and pressed.

I had just enough time to sew on a couple of white strips.  As I sit here looking, I am noticing that I put two on each spool.  I'm not sure if that's right or not.  Oh well, I will look at the pattern and see before my next sewing session.








The other quick, well, relatively quick thing I made yesterday was a new cover for my sewing machine.  I saw one on Clover and Violet and was inspired to make one of my own.  I had a few scraps from a set of pillow covers I am making for my daughter, and I wanted to make them into something for me.  So this is what I did:

I made a little mosaic of the scraps and appliqued it onto some fabric.  This was a one yard piece of fabric I have had for years...Michael Miller...and was going to put it in my get rid of pile.  I just free wheeled the whole thing based on what I had seen.  Pretty simple really.  And the best part is I love it, even the green.  So it was a good day.
Hope you are having a great day too.