Seams French

Stitch by Stitch and Line by Line When I started the first rough sketches for a quilt for our bed back in 2013, I had no idea it would take this long to finally get the quilt to the quilting stage. As the ideas came and went, and we came and went to and from France every six months, the designs got altered, rejected, put on hold and restarted many times. Staying at home for the last few years, progress was actually possible. Thanks to Autocad and my husband's input, the design finally came together early this year.  Whew! The quilt is now well on it's way, with a hoped for finish before 2019. (Fingers crossed!) Most of the outline got quilted before the chalk lines disappeared. All major design lines are outlined with 1/2" channels. Using a quilting ruler (in this case Kelly Cline's straight edge ruler ) is very helpful for accuracy. I love these rulers and am getting pretty comfortable with the ones used for stitching straight lines. On my next p...

When quilting on a stationery, domestic machine, the overall visibility of a large design gets lost because the quilt has to be scrunched and bunched to fit into the machine and to distribute the weight. For this reason, taking the time to mark accurately is the first step to a successful result. In my experience, too often impatience has led to shortcuts which more often than not leads to regrettable results. Above is the full size skeleton design of my quilt top, 60" x 80", without borders. Some design details have been drawn on transparent mylar, and overlay the pattern skeleton. Because this quilt is so large, I did my marking in 3 main steps: 1. Registration Lines - the main division lines in the pattern 2. Skeleton - Outline of all design features 3. Detail -Filling in the shapes 1. Registration Lines:  My preferred method for the initial squaring up process and marking of registration lines is done on a clean floor, where the quilt top can be fairly...

No sunscreen required. Hand stitched and corded boutis has been reverse-appliqued into dupioni silk. Batting and a backing have been added, and the whole frame has then been finished with machine quilting. The backing is attached with reverse applique as well. When backlit, the light shines through the boutis, highlighting the design. Another suncatcher catching a few rays. And voila, the boutis comes alive with the light.

In preparation for quilting my large bed quilt , auditioning stitching patterns and thread colours and weights has been an ongoing side project for the last several months. Some of the questions I considered: - Where is the focal point of the quilt? Is there more than one? - How can I create relief around the motif to be highlighted? - Which background filler is the most effective? - Should contrast be created by the colour of the threads or by using varying weights of thread?  Or maybe a combination of both? The 3 samples below are exploring the possibilities. Sample 1 is stitched using the same colours and materials that are in the quilt: teal silk dupioni that has been stabilized, 1 layer of wool batting and a cotton backing. All of the samples are using design elements from the quilt itself. In this first sample I tried my hand at thread painting with a contrasting colour. I used Magnifico, Superior's 40 wt. poly for the outline of the motif, and a 100 wt. silk for ...

"La Porte d'un Jardin de Colibri"      Remember this little boutis hummingbird ( "colibri" ) from a long way back ? Well, she finally found a happy home behind a silk gate of free motion quilting that opens to her peaceful boutis flower garden. She was accepted into the juried exhibit of Quilt Canada, which was held here in Vancouver last weekend, and came home with the ribbon for "Excellence for Work of a First Time Exhibitor". The finished quilt is 30 7/8" x 25 3/4": wall hanging size As I was designing the border, I wanted the flow of the boutis to continue into the border. The boutis is set into the centre of the quilt using reverse applique. The photo below shows the circular pattern around the hummingbird being extended to the border and completing the circle by piecing in some white silk. Following are some close-ups of the quilt. The top of the wall hanging. Detail of a machine quilted hummingbird that ...

Threads and Stitch Patterns Thread selection has become a lot more complicated then it was when I first started machine quilting. On-line shopping has opened up an endless variety of materials along with educational information about the product and tutorials on it's correct use. A partial selection of my thread choices for two of my projects. The teal quilt may also include some gold thread painting. My earliest machine quilts were stitched using mostly a 50 weight cotton thread, often with a contrasting colour in both the top needle as well as the bobbin. 50 weight cotton is a good choice for utility quilts that will be used daily, (ie quilts without a lot of fine detail), however, when used for more decorative stitching, the resulting "threadiness" is often more of a distraction than an enhancement. (See below). A very early attempt at machine quilting. Aside from the rough machine quilting, the choice of a contrasting, heavier thread was clearly a mis...

1. Prewash? 2. Underline with stabilizer? 3. Marking Choices? 4. Type of Batting? When starting any new quilt, there are many choices to consider and decisions to make regarding materials, designs and techniques. The above sample is testing background filler stitches. Working with silk creates it's own unique challenges. Although many quilters are choosing to work with silk today, resource info was scattered and hard to find, both on-line and in books. One invaluable source has been the book "Silk Quilts" written by Hanne Vibeke de Konig. Published in 2000, the information is well researched and still relevant today. 1. Pre-wash? Once the fabrics have been chosen, in my case it's a silk dupioni, the question of pre-washing must be resolved. Opinions in the quilting world vary on this, although my findings led me to believe most quilters choose not to prewash silk.  The draw back to this is that the quilt must then be dry cleaned if it ever gets soil...