Quilting Projects

Saturday, 11 April 2015

Jelly Roll Quilt


Hello quilty friends

I've been keeping myself busy working on a couple of new quilts.
This is the second time I've used a jelly roll and I decided to use a little design I doodled a while back.   First time I used a Bonnie Hunter pattern.

The intention was to use lots of half square triangles - 2 1/2" sounded good to me.





I didn't want to make this too big so it could be a lap quilt or a wall hanging.
Then my favourite part - the quilting.....  

For the first time ever I actually marked the spines by measuring and using a curved ruler so the feathers are quite uniform.   All my work is freehand and I don't have a stitch regulator on my machine.  I would love to be able to do ruler work and that is high up my to-do list.
I used one layer of Warm and Bright wadding.



 Some swirly fill for this bit....

 Freehand feathers in the corner.......

 This part was quite a challenge.  I wanted the feathers to fit into the space......

 Pretty pleased with how they are looking.

 Same again for these feathers, I wanted them to trail around, fitting the space.

 You can see from this photo how I have advanced the frame to work the center section.  I will roll back and finish the sides.  Not sure if this is how you are supposed to do it, but its working for me. I've never had a long arm lesson in my life so everything I do is by trial and error.
 A nice sunny photo..

 Here is the center part finished, still have to get rid of the blue lines.



Some McTavishing is my background fill for this bit and it will have appliqued 3D flowers when done.
At this point my machine decided not to play nicely.  It started skipping stitches when sewing upwards towards the left.  I ran through my checklist several times, new needle, cleaned, oiled, tension check.  I managed to get it working again for all of 5 minutes so I got hubby to take the machine off the frame so I could have a closer look.
Still in free motion mode I did a test sample and it sewed perfectly.  Just cannot figure that out.
Anyway, the machine will be going back on the frame and I hope to get this finished.  It is 3/4 of the way done.  Its been very frustrating.
Here is the sample I stitched:

Wish me luck and I hope to have a finished quilt to show next time.
Happy sewing
Rhianon.

13 comments:

  1. Sometimes it just doesn't make sense that these machines will be sewing just fine....and then.....???? The same happened to me last Thursday. Walked away from it and later went back to try once again....result: no problem!!! The mystery remains!!!!! Your quilt is so pretty! Blue/white is my all-time fave color combo!!! You feathers/McTavishing/swirls bring out the absolute best!!!!

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  2. I get that with my sit down machine too ..the Tiara.
    sometimes I just can't see the reason at all... Lol

    your quilt is stunning!

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  3. That is so elegant!
    Thank you for sharing! It has made me want to feather again!!!
    Esther
    esthersipatchandquilt at yahoo dot com

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  4. Your quilt and quilting are beautiful! The blue/white combo is always so striking, and I love the feathers. I hope your machine decides to play nice.

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  5. I was told, and have read, that when you want to roll a quilt back and forth on the frame, just do your stitch in the ditch first, and that stabilizes the quilt quite nicely, and lets me get rid of one roller, and makes moving the quilt back and forth much easier....just thought I would share. I'm coming from Oklahoma to Western England in 10 days and will make a trip into Wales, but won't make it to Scotland. I'm hoping to find some whole cloth stencils to make a traditional Welsh hand quilted whole cloth.

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  6. As always your work is amazing!!

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  7. Lovely work, as always! In regards to skipped stitches, clean the rails and wheels, and check the encoders. And when quilting from the center out, stitch down (or pin) the sides, and stitch in the ditch first to stabilize everything. But you probably know all of this stuff already!

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  8. That is A MA ZING! All that free hand with no regulator. Well done you!

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  9. Another gorgeous quilt. I do hope the issues resolved themselves and you've been able to finish this beauty without aggravation

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  10. As always, your quilting is lovely! The feathers fit beautifully and they beg my eyes to follow those luscious curves!

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  11. It really is gorgeous and I hope that you got your machine problems resolved. It's not nice when it misbehaves.

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  12. Elegant quilting for the classic blue and white! I look forward to seeing photos of the finish.

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  13. Wow, I'm just amazed at your beautiful work. Hope your machine plays nicely from now on!

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