Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Stitching away on Winter Garden...

I'm having a lot of fun stitching away on these Winter Garden blocks.  Below is a detail pic from the first block showing the blanket stitch that I'm doing on the edges of the appliqued pieces.  When doing these, I set my machine down to the smallest width and length for the stitch so that it is very small.  I really love the colors in this, nice and subtle.  My mind runs in a lot of different directions while working on this, thinking ahead to how I'm going to do different things with it - the borders, the quilting, the backing, etc.  It's all tumbling around in my head.  :)

8 comments:

  1. BlackBird design had a wonderful comment on the quilt you did and received a wonderful ribbon.

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  2. What weight thread are you using?

    When I have tried the blanket stitch on my machine, it does a double stitch so the thread is always so heavy looking. I've thought about trying 60-weight.

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  3. When I first started doing machine applique, I was using Connecting Threads cotton thread (size 50), but found that it was too heavy looking. So for this project, I used Connecting Threads poly longarm thread. I like it much better as it has a finer look to it and is a size 70.

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  4. Do you machine applique everything? What kind of sewing machine? And do you quilt by hand? If not, what machine?

    And what do you use for a quilting frame? I'm hoping to be able to quilt someday and since you are a prizewinner, I think you must have a good system for quiltmaking.

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  5. Thanks Eddie--I will order some and try it. Do you use it in the bobbin as well?

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  6. Trilluam - Pretty much, Yes, I machine applique everything. I have a small wall hanging in progress that I'm appliqueing by hand, but for anything of size, I'll do machine applique - just don't have time to do it all by hand. I use a Brother QC-1000 that I use for piecing and doing the machine applique. I've had it a couple of years now and really like it a lot. Their next generation version of it is the NX-2000 which has more stitches, but is basically the same machine. For quilting, I have a Gammill Premier 18" longarm on a 10' frame.

    Verver - Yes, I use the same thread in the bobbin as what I'm using in the top.

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  7. Hi Eddie,

    When you machine-applique the pieces, are the edges of the applique pieces raw? Do you fold/press them over or treat them in any other way? Do you satin stitch or blanket stitch or straight stitch them on?

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  8. Yes, the pieces are fused with raw edges and then I do a small blanket stitch by machine around all the edges.

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