Personal Appearance Quilt

Personal Appearance Quilt is finished.

Here are lots of photos my long arm quilting adventure, working on Personal Appearance, a queen size quilt.

Such a colorful  quilt.  I added the electric blue fabrics to scare ya!

What a wonderful way to use lots and lots of colorful fabrics.

Four - 4-patch blocks (4" squares) joined with a variety of sashing fabrics and 

contrasting corner stones.

Edge to edge free style long arm quilting - I call my design "Feathers and a Swirl" .  The long arm design sequence is built upon a wide serpentine line, and back-tracked with feathers and big swirl to close areas where a little more space is left open.

This is an improvised quilt . . . I had no real idea how it would look in the end.

And isn't that what makes it all so much fun.

I must admit the colors photographed "brighter" than in real life.

I turned off the lights in the studio for a moment, and got a better color reading of the fabrics

Double sashing with corner stones.

Squares of course = a very square quilt, 

so I added an extra border top and bottom to accomplish a queen size quilt.

Just finished quilting first row.

When I install the binding, I move my machine to the layout/cutting table where I can spread out the quilt.  The large table surface supports the quilt well and makes installing the binding easy.

This is my 1992 Kenmore Sewing Machine (old faithful).  

Review of My 10 hour Day:

I cleaned and oiled the long arm machine, wound 10 bobbins, then loaded the quilt, changed needle, and threaded the machine.  Completed the quilting in 5 hours.

Removed the quilt from the frame.  Trimmed away the batting.  Prepped 400"+ of  binding.  Sewed binding to the quilt perimeter.

I rolled up the quilt and moved from the studio to the house.  Prepared dinner.  After dinner I sat in the big leather chair, and listened to TV while turning, pinning, and hand stitching the binding to finish.  It was a good day.

Thank you for looking at my work.

My first show in 2019 is Memorial Weekend Sat/Sun May 25-26

at Rising Star Mill in Nelsonville, WI - Arts and Craft Fair, always a big crowd.

Lots of vendors showing their beautiful hand crafted items for sale.

Story:  What a difference 6 weeks makes!  Remember April 15, 2018 with the big snow storm that dropped 20 inches of snow?  Six weeks later I was sitting under my tent at the Rising Star Mill Memorial Weekend Arts and Craft Show trying to catch a breeze (there was no breeze all day), and the temperature was 95 degrees F.   Mercy.

Biddies and Growd Ones Quilt

Calling this quilt "Biddies and Growd Ones" 

Saw this photo on the web . . . and thank you to the person who put it out there.  It made me smile.    When I saw it and had an ah-ha moment . . . a title for my next quilt.

From bits and pieces of scrap fabric (biddies)--growing some 12.5" square quilt blocks to build a queen size quilt.

Biddies and Growd Ones Quilt

42 blocks sewn, joined with a concrete gray cross sash and navy corner stone.  Two rows assembled, 5 rows to go.  Then I'll add a two strip border to finish piecing the top.  This quilt is being constructed with my very reliable 1990 Sears Kenmore.  

***

I'm sewing from the comfort of the red dining room during the month of January and February.   Its just too darn cold and icy walking from the house to the studio.  

The WIND CHILL: we had some brutal -50 F below last week.  Its the kind of weather that kills car batteries, and makes you stay home and make potato and ham soup, and we had some darn good chili too!

***

I keep carving up scraps to produce 2.5" wide bits, and some 4" squares when possible.  If you think this is my only bin of scrap fabric--you'd be wrong.  I'm not saying how many.  I'm just saying . . .

When I do summer shows--I bring along a turn of the century hand crank sewing machine--to demonstrate and get some work done while sitting.  

Here's one of my favorite hand cranks, a 1916 Singer Model 28 with "Victorian" decals

I stitch end to end random lengths of  2.5" wide fabric.  I sew and sew and sew until I have a palm size roll about 100" long.  I store the rolls of scrap fabrics in a basket.  From those rolls I make quilts and purses. 

***

I busted through a lot of scraps in January 2019.  Finished another quilt top called 

Personal Appearance from 4" squares.  What a great stashbuster quilt.  

Here are some photos of "Personal Appearance".  When the weather breaks, I'll go back to the studio and do the long arm quilting on it.

Thank you for looking at my work.  Leave me a message, and we'll discuss why we quilt and why there is no time left over to do anything else . . .

Farmhouse Quilt - Scrap Buster for Sure

Up in the studio - working on another Scrap Buster quilt.

I call this one - Farmhouse Quilt (queen size)

Sewing with my old stand by Sears Kenmore, c1992.

I spent the better part of the day, cutting 4" squares from lots of fabric remnants.  

My choices of fabrics illustrate my quest to liquidate fabric remnants I've been holding for a long, long time.  

Included . . weird themes or patterns--bug eyed fish, Christmas lights, polka dots, paisleys, fruit loops,.  One turquoise fabric was so bright I turned it upside down to diminish its brightness.  There are little hedge hogs, and tiny kitten fabric too for neutral plain blocks measuring 7.5" square.

Pictured below--the finished backing, and the top--ready to quilt.

No Rules regarding colors for this quilt.  

But I deliberately interrupted the flow with a black and white checkerboard fabric (larger pattern), as an exclamation point.  Black and White checkerboard with Red Cherries no less.

Edge to edge free style long arm quilting - a sequence I developed called Floral Feathers.

It's a light, and airy quilt.  I cut way more squares than required--enough to make a 2nd queen size quilt.

I'll be offering this queen size quilt for sale at my first show Memorial Weekend.  Details to follow in my next post.

Thank you for looking at my work.

Repairing Cracked Bed on Old Sewing Machine

1894 Frister Rossmann hand crank purchased on Ebay from the UK the end of August.  Darn!  Wish there was a happy ending to this story.  The machine was packaged poorly by the seller.

I'm going (to try) to repair the bed crack with JB Weld.   It is my first rodeo with a repair this extensive.  I contacted my sewing machine mentor Skipper.  He is guiding me through the process.  

Skipper has just finished a cracked bed repair on his Frister Rossmann antique hand crank and is also sharing with me the steps for restoring the black surface (japanning).

You can read about his techniques

http://www.quiltingboard.com/vintage-antique-machine-enthusiasts-f22/cleaning-repairing-shellac-clear-coat-vintage-sewing-machine-heads-t193635.html

and 

http://www.quiltingboard.com/vintage-antique-machine-enthusiasts-f22/cleaning-repairing-shellac-clear-coat-vintage-sewing-mcahines-t186522.html

Here are some of supplies to make the bed crack repair.  I am waiting on the black aniline dye powder.  Also waiting for Jon's wood working clamps, and his extra hands to help me dry-fit and prepared for the JB Weld repair.  

And of course, it gets a little more complicated than first glance . . . 

Lower right hand side--see the metal ruler I placed on the wood base

Detail - just left of the metal ruler is a chunk of cast iron missing.

Trying some Kroil oil to loosen the hand crank bracket upper screw.  Probably hasn't been loosened in 100 years!  Its on there tight.  After 8 hours, I still can't loosen the screw.  I'll try again later--might have to add some hair dryer heat.  I did some light tapping on the screw--can't do much of that because of the cracked bed.

Detail of hand crank bracket screw upper that is locked down tight.  It is an odd angle at best to access the screw slot.  

Can this machine be saved?  I'll try best.  I will share photos later.