My! it's August already?

Hi Everyone,

I can't believe it's August already.  Times sure fly fast these days.  I must say this year is very challenging for everyone.  I feel for parents who have young children who are not able to go back to school.  I pray that you'll be strong and hang in there.  There are silver lining behind every cloud!!

On a personal note, I'm pretty much stay on tasks.  I feel very productive this year.  All thanks to Patty at the Elm Street Quilts for her OMG challenge. 

My August goal will be squaring up and binding the quilt 'Journey'.  You can read about this quilt here and here. 

Stay strong and quilt on....

July OMG finished

Hi Everyone,

It's very hot here in Los Angeles.  I've been working on my July OMG for the whole month.  The goal is to quilt the quilt called 'Journey'.  The quilt is about 72" square but I had to make it 80" square for the quilting.  Here are the front and back pictures of the quilt.

Here is a closeup shot.

I don't know how to do free motion quilting, especially on a big size quilt.  I've played with free motion quilting on smaller pieces but I can't translate it to big quilts.  I chose to quilt it with a walking foot on my Juki TL-98E machine.  It's a great machine and works like a charm except when it decided to be fussy about thread tension.  I had it worked on by a Juki certified mechanic before, but it's still very temperamental.  It's very frustrating when I was in a middle of sewing and had to make a 90 degree turn, without warning, the corner thread became curved instead of having a sharp clean angle.  A seam ripper saved the day, again.  It happened so many times that I even thought of throwing the machine out the window.  I took many breaks, re-adjusted the machine and continued.  That's has been my experience for the past three weeks.  In the end, I finished it this morning.  All the loose thread ends were tied and buried.

I learned a lot from working with this quilt.  Thousands of times I wanted to give up and work on something else, but I kept telling myself  'Don't let the beast win!!'. 

I'll be very, very happy when the binding is on.

Maybe it's time to really be serious about free motion quilting..... 

Another day in quilting

Hi Everyone,

Last time when I made Candy Box, I had such a great time working with scraps to make improv blocks. It’s such a liberating feeling to work without worrying about cutting or following patterns. I decided to make another improv quilt. They will be smaller pieces to fit windows in my new sewing room. 

I tried some new techniques.  One of which is called inset circles, which I have been curious about for sometime. The modern quilt studio has a tutorial on YouTube that you can watch it here.  This is my first inset circle, and I must say that I was pretty nervous about it at the beginning.  I'm glad I tried it and it's not that hard.

After I made this block, I cut it up into several 5" squares and used them in the new quilt top as below.  Right now it's 22"x28".

It looks somewhat like the Candy Box quilt but smaller.  This one will be put on a 27"x54" window opening.  That room has two windows so I have to make another one.  I think I will use different colors.  

I also am working on a new piece which is on my design wall right now. 

This one is conceived from a sketch that I did.  I showed it to my daughter and she really liked it. I just love consulting with my artist daughter. We share what we’re working on regularly.  I love to get her comments. 

Now I have got to get back to my quilting goal for July.  Journey, at 72” square, is such a big quilt for me. I basted it yesterday and now I'm ready to actually quilt it. I have a renewed respect for those of you who make big quilts. 👏👏👏👍👍👍

Stay cool and quilt on.....