Seams French

"Dancing Shamrocks" , as I have named her, is finally finished and on the bed. My hope had been to finish the quilt for our 40th wedding Anniversary, which was March 17th. 2019! It was in May of 2018 that I was ready to start the machine quilting. By November of that year, the top of the quilt was finished with only the border left to quilt. A 2019 finish seemed quite possible. Unfortunately, unforeseen circumstances put the project on hold from Dec.2018 until October 2019. However, from then until it's finish in April of this year, my sewing machine and I have been best of buds. Even so, we didn't quite make it for March 17th of this year, our 41st, but came close. The last stitch closing the binding went in on April 24, 2020. When squaring up so large quilt (94" x 100"), a clean floor is my only option and the parquet flooring gives me great reference points for getting it square. Unfortunately, when I laid it out, setting up for advantag...

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...

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 ...

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...

It seems I blinked a couple of times and 2016 was gone. How did that happen? Since my last post, there has been very little activity on the Seams French assembly line. Several nasty versions of flu bugs have kept me pretty much out of commission for most of December and the early part of January. Preset goals and deadlines became meaningless when the only thing that mattered was having enough cough meds and tissues in the house. Vulnerability should never be underestimated. With some wind back in my sails, I decided to start up 2017 by pulling out my whole cloth quilt design that had been shelved since last April. For a quilt like this, I like to preplan and draw in fairly detailed FMQ lines for focal motifs. I love this part of the process and can get completely lost in it. Completed FMQ butterfly design. When designing, I rely on a lot of different resources. Our collection of photos is fairly large and is my first source for ideas and inspiration. Books, art, the ...