I call it "doodling"

Is there anyone besides me that thinks calling your doodling "Zentangles" is more than a little bit pretentious? I've been doing drawings like this since I was in middle school. Back then, and still today, I just call it doodling.
 

Flying Geese

I had done a few half-page doodles with whatever pen or pencil I could find to hand while I was watching TV. I don't like sitting around without having my hands busy.

Eye Color

My daughter, Lisa, liked them so much she scanned them so she could color them. It was her way of relaxing at college. Then she gave me a sketchbook so I could do more!

Find the feathered "K"

String of Pearls

This is one I did when I was practicing my free-motion quilting. Read about it here.

Frame Practice

Do you see the bugs and the apple pie?  The pie started out as a simple basket weave, but when I put the circle border around it, all I could see was a pie!  By the way, there's no bugs in the pie!

Circles

There's just something about finding a good pen that glides across the paper; or a pencil that writes so smoothly...

Create!

...It makes me want to keep on drawing.

Doodle

Lisa picked up some colored pens for me too. :-) 

There's happy lobsters, or maybe they are crabs, in this one.

Ribbons

If you'd like to color them you can download full-sized images from my Picasa album, Doodles by Kathy.

Here's an ant bound for the theater!

Daisy

I hope you enjoy them!  Let me know what you think in the comments below, and show me what you've colored!

Happy coloring!

Kathy

Free Motion Quilting Year-in-Review

I made it!  I completed all twelve challenges, plus one alternate challenge from SewCalGal's Free Motion Quilting Challenge.  Not only that, I completed each one in the month that it was presented.  I did almost all of the challenges on bits of scrap from my stash, but some of them I did "for real."

Year in Review (a little bit of everything)

I want to thank SewCalGal for all of the hard work that went into presenting this challenge.  Without it, and the deadlines, I'd still be puttering around, wondering if I could do this. It is amazing how much I have improved between now and January.  I look back at my first wobbly pieces and think, "Wow, I've come a long way!"  Now if I had just practiced all month long each month, rather than cramming everything in during the last week, or even last days, thank how much better I'd be.

The guest challengers were all great and I took something away from each of their tutorials.  I've already used several of the techniques in "real" projects. I really, really appreciate each and every one of you and the time you've donated to us!  

And to all the quilters at the FMQ Challenge Facebook page, all I can say is "WOW!!!"  You all have inspired me, encouraged me, and amazed me, at your pieces.  It's been a real pleasure and privilege sharing this challenge with you.

I learned to "just do it, you'll get better," "practice, practice, practice," "train your memory on paper first, it'll be easier at the sewing machine," "check the back of your piece BEFORE you get too far into the project," and many more quilting tidbits!  You've challenged me to do feathers (in February, only the second month!!), to try different threads and battings. I have learned so much and will be able to apply it to many future projects. 

Thank you, thank you, thank you!! And happy Quilting!

Kathy R.

PS Did I mention "check the back of your piece BEFORE you get too far into the project?  I think I learned that one several times! 

A Great Finish!

December's Free Motion Quilting Challenge from SewCalGal was from Patsy Thompson.  I had found a few of her videos online already, and really appreciated them.  Patsy chose to challenge us with borders.  It was a great way to wrap up all of the tutorials that I had already done.

Finished in time!

For June's challenge I used some silky gray fabric and it turned out beautiful.  It really seemed to hide the mistakes better than cotton.  During the summer, my daughter, Lisa, and I had gone to a yard sale of a quilter/crafter who was trying to clean out some of her stash.  Lisa found me a beautiful piece of dark chocolaty brown satin and suggested I do something with it.

Well, all fabric has to age (like fine wine, really!), so I set it aside until now.  I thought it would lend itself perfectly to the concentric borders pattern that Patsy shared.  I used my walking foot to quilt the squares.  It handled that silky, slippery fabric perfectly!

The poinsettia in the center is my own design (as much as a poinsettia can be someone's design, one looks pretty much like another), all done free-hand.





  


 

Borders!

The concentric borders are from Patsy's tutorial.  They are also done free-hand with no measuring other than the already quilted squares. 

See those spirals?  Don't they look nice?  They were almost the end of me.  I had done the two borders on either side using Gutterman brown thread on top and some cheap black serger thread on the bottom.  I decided I'd do the spirals in a contrasting rayon thread.  I tested it out on a scrap sandwich and, since it was working so well, went to my satin piece.  I got the first row done, turned it over to check the back to make sure it was working well, and my heart sank.  I had flipped my piece over and was putting the decorative rayon thread on the back!  I took an hour or more to laboriously pick those threads out, trying not to make the satin fabric run.

Borders in a different light.  Look at the beautiful decorative stitch on the binding!

I finished off the binding by machine, sewing it on the back and wrapping it to the front where I used one of the spiffy stitches on my new sewing machine to tack it down.  Had to do that because, once again, it's the end of the month and I'm scrambling to meet the deadline.

I used 80/20 cotton/polyester batting left over from my tree skirt.  I am very happy to say that working with the brown satin and this batting was a dream.  No broken threads at all, compared to the struggle I had with that tree skirt (remind me to avoid metallic thread for a while). I am really pleased with how well this turned out.  I have it here next to my computer and I keep "petting" it.

The finished piece again.

Hope you enjoyed this month's challenge as much as I've enjoyed sharing it!

Kathy R.

Why my "homework" was almost late!

I managed to get my December Challenge done for Free Motion Quilting Challenge, but more about that later.  Most of the month of December, however, was spent in getting ready for Christmas - I hosted our extended family this year, which means a "super clean" of the house, and boy did it need it!  Since I tend to gravitate towards quilting and other fun pursuits instead of house-cleaning, my annual super-clean took a good week to complete.

In addition to cleaning I finally decided to finish a project that I'd been planning and working on for a good year and a half (or maybe it was two and a half) - a Christmas Tree Skirt.  I got it done with just enough time to wash it on gentle (to get the markings out) and dried before everyone got here on Christmas Eve.

TaaDaa!!

 

The FINISHED Tree Skirt

Love this pattern!

I used a great pattern from Chickadee Hollow Designs.  It's a Log Cabin sewn around a hexagon.  It was quite easy to piece.  I've made several of these table-toppers, but decided to modify it by slitting it up one side and cutting a hole in the middle to accommodate the tree trunk.

This book has nice continuous line quilting motifs.

  


I used the holly, doves and tree motifs from "501 Quilting Designs" from Quiltmaker magazine.  I traced them using Don Lin's tulle pattern technique that I learned in April.  It worked great!

holly

I used gold metallic thread for all of the quilting and ended up swearing grumbling quite a bit because it had a strong tendency to break. 

doves

The doves weren't continuous line, but I like doves to start with, and I thought they'd be perfect for this project.

trees

And I just had to make trees on a tree skirt!  These were very forgiving.  You do know that not all trees are exactly the same, don't you?

center tree

I made my own pattern for the large trees in the center - a tree that matches the ones in the border, with a diamond "star" added in the middle.

stars and loops

 
To finish off the quilting, I did stars and loops in the portions between the trees.  I had to piece the backing, and that metallic thread kept breaking every time I went over the seam.  So, I marked where the seam was on the top and avoided it.  I finally got all the stars done and turned it over only to find that the tension had messed up when I changed a bobbin.  I had to take all of one section of stars out! ARGH!

the back

 

But I persevered and the back looks good too! I even added Velcro to the slit so it would stay closed.  Unfortunately, I discovered that the lower branches of the tree sit right on top of the tree stand so it doesn't quite fit the way I wanted it to, but it still looks good!






Here's another view or two...

one section

another view

I used 80/20 cotton/polyester batting.  Other than the metallic thread breaking, the batting worked great.  I washed the tree skirt in cold water, but then I dried it in the dryer on regular.  I was running out of time!  It shrunk a bit, but not so much that it bothers me.

I got the tree skirt all done (in time for Christmas!) and then put presents on top of it, and it's on the floor... and it's really hard to show off down there!  Oh well, I know it's beautiful!  But I sure wouldn't mind you "ooh"ing and "ahh"ing over it!  ;-)

Merry Christmas and Happy Quilting!

Kathy R.

Spirals!

Wow, November flew past!  This month's FMQ Challenge from SewCalGal was all about spirals.  Sara Vedeler shared an excellent tutorial about them and even gave us some paper practice sheets.  I practiced on those paper sheets quite a bit, but was never satisfied with how my spirals came out.  This pattern looks simple, but I had a heck of a time trying to get my spirals to cross in the right spot, keep the lines within them evenly spaced, and get them more than somewhat round,  Mine kept coming out squished, and you'd think I never traced a line before in my life.  So, I kept putting off doing spirals at my sewing machine on actual fabric.

Add to that, a side trip to South Carolina where my whole family (sisters, brother, cousin, and their children, grandchildren and significant others) except my step-mother (who was there via Skype) was gathered.  We had 25 for Thanksgiving Dinner!  With 22 of us staying at the house, it was wall-to-wall air mattresses.  We had a blast!

Wall-to-wall air mattresses!

 
I have to blame it all on my niece, Amy, who had volunteered to make two t-shirt quilts and then floundered just a bit.  She happened to post on Facebook that it would be nice if Aunt Kathy were there to show her how to do it, and voila!  Road trip was planned!

Amy has done a wonderful job of piecing the quilts.  And we managed to get a few hours to sit down and play with some stitch-in-the-ditch and free-motion quilting.  My sister-in-law, Nancy, sat in on the discussion too.  I am honored that Amy thought I knew enough to help her out.  It is so cool to be able to pass on this love of quilting!  I did leave her with a quilting mantra... one that I would do well to remember too!

There is NO WRONG WAY to quilt a quilt!  No one will ever know all of the ideas you dismissed in favor of something easier.  No one will ever know that that quilting line there was supposed to be straight instead of squiggly.  No one will ever know...

I got back home to western New York with only a week to get my FMQ challenge piece done.  Yikes, our big holiday bazaar at church is this Saturday!  I had "homework" that I needed to get done before my challenge - .

First, I drew a grid.  There was no way I was going to accomplish this without it!!

So, now it's Friday night, November 30th, and I've finally managed to get one and a half pieces done. My first spirals are squished in places, and rather mis-shapened.  This is not a pattern that you can pick up overnight. 

My first go round, pun intended ;-)

 
I saw quite a bit of improvement on my second piece - my spirals were looking better, but my thread kept breaking.  It's getting late, and I was getting frustrated, so I decided to call it a night and post my pictures.

My second try - the spirals are getting more round and evenly spaced!

  

The small spirals on my second piece. 

More practice is definitely called for!  But I like the pattern, and I thank SewCalGal for sharing, and for the wonderfully detailed tutorial from Sara!

I need to figure out why my thread keeps breaking.  I don't think it's the tension.  The top thread shreds so that I end up with just a teeny thin part of it threaded through the needle with the rest of it balling up above the needle. It does this with several different types of thread, and several different types and sizes of needles.  Currently, a size 16 needle seems to work the best.  If anyone has any thoughts about what I can try to rectify the problem, I'll be happy to listen!

Until next time, remember the quilting mantra...

There is NO WRONG WAY to quilt a quilt!


Kathy R.

Not Your Normal Feathers and Flowers

STEP 1
When I saw the alternate challenge for October in the Free Motion Quilting Challenge, with guest teacher, Diane Loomis I thought, "That looks cool, I always wondered how to do that."  Diane shared her method of trapunto quilting.  The pattern was a heart surrounded by feathers.  Now, I love the quilted feathers.  Some of the work that's been done on the FMQ Challenge is just phenomenal, and I certainly need more practice.  But I'm getting a little bit tired of them and I've been wanting to do something different.

STEP 2
A very good friend of mine "poo-poos" quilting - he has other redeeming qualities.  He just doesn't see the artistic beauty and workmanship in the patterns and colors of quilts.  He also happens to be a huge Iron Man fan - not just of the recent movies, but going back thirty years.  A few weeks ago he said "The only good quilt is one with Iron Man on it."  Never one to pass up a challenge like that (you should see the dust bunnies that I made for my nephew after he said he collected them.) I started thinking about how I could incorporate Iron Man into a quilt.

STEP 1 + STEP 2 = STEP 3
Then I had a "eureka!" moment.  The trapunto method would be the perfect way to show Iron Man's armor in a three-dimensional format.  I started by going to Google Images and entering "Iron Man."  From there I narrowed it down to black and white images and came up with a half dozen or so that I thought would work.  I chose one of the simplest ones to start with.  Thanks to SewCalGal and Don Linn's April challenge I knew how to mark my fabric.  I used Don's tulle transfer method.

So, without further adieu, here is my trapunto piece, the alternate October challenge...

  
...definitely not your normal feathers and flowers, but it's normal according to me!  :-)

STEP 4 Figure out how to add some color to it.  On my next practice piece I will probably machine applique the red and yellow bits and use thread/quilting to add in any black highlights.  I've also considered using paint, but I don't want the fabric to be stiff, and I want it to be washable/usable.  I am open to suggestions!

October's Challenge!

October's FMQ Challenge

Whew, got it done!  October's Free Motion Quilting Challenge was from Teri Lucas, who challenged us to use a combination of batting, such as wool, silk, or bamboo, and experiment with different types and weights of thread, on silk fabric.  True to form, I waited till the last minute, though I did do my "practice on paper" ahead of time.

Paper Practice

 
I didn't have any wool or silk batting laying around, and I wanted to find some different threads to play with.  Saturday was my birthday, so I dragged my husband to Joann's to see what I could scare up.  I already had worked with bamboo batting, so I picked up some wool stuff.  There wasn't a silk option.  I also found some silk thread to play with.


I had some "homework" for my church's annual Holiday Bazaar (we bazaar ladies sew all year round) that I needed to get done.  I fired up my machine on Monday evening and did a nice little sunflower panel.  Everything worked great.  Then Tuesday, I was planning on doing another fall piece for the Bazaar and then work on my challenge piece, giving me lots of time to finish it up today. But darn it, the thread kept shredding and breaking!  I never did finish the fall piece, and I didn't start my challenge piece until today, the last day of the month!

For my top fabric, I used a scrap leftover from making my daughter, Lisa's prom dress.  It is a beautiful shade of teal, but my pictures make it look quite blue.  

Brandon and Lisa

 
It took me a couple of hours, but got it done in time.  As I was quilting it, I was thinking that my lack of practice during the month was really showing.  My "backtracking" stitches weren't very good, and my pebbles weren't very round.  But looking at it now, I'm thinking it's pretty good.  Amazing what stepping away from something for a while and then taking a fresh look does for you. :-)


I thought my name was going to give me problems since when I write, I pick up my pen to do the second half of the "K," but I figured it out.  The nautilus shells were tough.  Even on paper I couldn't get the inside lines consistently curved the same.  And I have large and small spaces in them.  

Here's the details for those interested:

• Lisa's silky prom dress fabric on top
• wool batting from Joann's
• a scrap piece of thin cotton batting
• muslin on the back
• mostly used a size 14 quilting needle
• also used a size 16 universal needle
  

Thread:

• outside square and nautilus shells and bubbles - gray Coats and Clark polyester trilobal
• inner outside square- ivory Talon 100% cotton quilting thread
• "Kathy" and echoes - gold mystery thread, possibly Coats and Clark rayon (hate it when the labels fall off!!)
• clamshells - black Coats and Clark Dual Duty XP 100% polyester - this is the only thread I had trouble with, it broke two or three times.
• feather - teal Gutermann 100% silk
• plump feather - navy JPCoats rayon 40 wt. - the only thread that told me what weight it was.  Why do they leave that important information off the label? ...probably the same label designer that uses the cheap glue so the labels fall off!
• tiger stripes (top right-hand corner) - YLI metallic silver

Another camera shot that shows the quilting better.

All in all it was interesting to work with the different threads.  The two layers of batting for the whole piece were a bit too much, I think.  But the alternate challenge for the month was using two layers under part of the design for a trapunto affect.  That worked and looked much better (more on that another day). This challenge pushed me out of my comfort zone, which is great.  How else am I supposed to learn new things?

I've still got a nice chunk of wool batting to play with.  Can't wait to see how it quilts, feels and looks on its own instead of layered with the other batting.

Happy Quilting!

Kathy