Custom Quilt - Double Wedding Ring Whole Cloth - Finishing

Now that the quilt is complete and I know it has been received & loved by the person who commissioned it, I can show you the rest of the quilt!

I also want to point out something that I discovered when I finished this quilt.  I knew when I started that the quilt would shrink a little bit in the quilting, but I didn't know by how much.  Well when I first cut the wholecloth, I had to label the front & back fabrics so I knew which was which. Here's the label from the quilt top:


Well when I went to square up the quilt, I found that it had already lost 2" in the quilting, and was actually 85" x 85".  The quilt was supposed to finish at 84",  but I decided not to bother with trimming it down since it was already square.  Now this is something for you to note in your own quilts if you send them out for quilting; when they come back, they won't measure the same as when you sent them out, so don't accuse your long arm quilter of cutting off too much of your border if they had to square it up and your quilt has miraculously shrunk 2" or more.  I always send trimmings back with the quilts if I have to square them, no matter how tiny.

After the trimming was complete, it needed to be bound.  Now, when I first got all the fabric for this quilt, the first thing I did was washed everything.  I don't normally do this, but because of the deep brown in the rings and the ivory fabric for the top, I didn't want to take a chance of bleeding or inconsistent shrinkage. Imagine how vexed I was to find that for the binding, I was short two strips and had to cut off more fabric and wash that too!  Well while the binding fabric was washing, I took the opportunity to work on a quilt storage bag for the quilt.

I took the larger pieces that had been trimmed off the quilt, and laid them out to figure out how I could arrange them to get a bag that would be big enough.  I also wanted to incorporate the embroidery block that I had messed up the cutting on.  I trimmed it down to 6-1/2" and got it pieced into the bag fabric.  I wanted to see what it would look like so I folded the quilt into it and took a picture:


Yah, somehow I still managed to get the thing off-center still!  Well, it serves its purpose and insured that none of the fabric I ordered from this quilt would go to waste.

Next up was to work on the label.  A couple of weeks ago I took a piecing class, and in it learned about a product called "do-sew." Apparently it was used for pattern making or some such purpose when stretch knits were all the rage.  Well now, I thought I would experiment with it and use it to turn the edges of my quilt label so that I could hand stitch it onto the quilt.

So I laid a piece of do-sew onto the front of the label, and stitched 1/4" around it. Then I trimmed the seam allowance down to 1/8", cut a hole in the do-sew, and turned it inside out:


It was at this point that I discovered that my bamboo point turner has gone MIA, which is quite vexing.  (I blame the rounded corners on that fact.) I then trimmed the do-sew close to the seam allowance, which still gives a sealed edge but removes the rest of the do-sew so that it doesn't do any monkey business later.

Here is the front of the label:


And I know someone is going to ask, so I'll just explain why here.  When you make quilts for sale, you are required by law to label those quilts with fiber content, origin of materials, and proper care instructions.  Quilts are considered bedding and are regulated by the Federal Trade Commission and the Consumer Protection Agency (which is part of the FTC.)  If you make baby quilts or other items, there are even stricter requirements that you have to follow because of the Consumer Protection Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) which was a really hot topic last year and the year before when it went into effect. It was the reason why I stopped making baby quilts completely for a while, because it required doing destructive, expensive lead and phtlalate testing on every single piece of material that went into a quilt.  You couldn't test the bolt, you had to test the piece you cut off the bolt that was going into that particular quilt.  Under what circumstances would lead and plastic find its way into the manufacture of cotton fabric?  But I digress.  Anyway, the rules are a little better now, but if you're out there selling baby quilts especially, you should get educated on the law.

Ok! So after that little adventure, the binding was washed, dried, cut, and assembled.  I attached it to the quilt in the normal way, on the front, to be stitched onto the back, but instead of doing it by hand, I did it by machine.  Also, I normally use a straight stitch to attach the binding, but I wanted to try a different stitch to see if I liked it better and if it worked more reliably:


I think it turned out beautifully! This is the view from the front, and you can see how well the thread blends in to the edge.  Here's a photo of the back:


Sorry for the terrible shot, but you get the idea.  Can you see how the stitch isn't exactly in the same place everywhere?  It still looks OK though, and no matter what I've caught the edge.  If this were a straight stitch I'd probably have ripped out a few places, but when using the zig zag, I didn't do any ripping at all.  I think I'll experiment on a couple of other stitches but I think I may have banished the straight stitch from my binding repertoire for good.

So now that you've seen the little bits & pieces, it's time to reveal the entire quilt! I laid this out in my guest room which has been dubbed the "Paris Room" and has enough room for me to stand back and get a couple of great shots:


I like how this looks in my blue room!  I especially like the brown binding, I think it sets off the quilt quite beautifully.  Here's a shot of the back:


This was taken of course before the label was put on, but the label was attached to the corner that's at the bottom of the picture.

I really enjoyed working on this quilt and the challenge it presented. I really hope that when it is presented as a gift that the couple enjoys it and has a happy marriage to boot!

To endless possibilities,

Ebony

Custom Quilt - Double Wedding Ring Whole Cloth - Quilting

Today's post is all about the quilting that I did for this quilt.  I think it provides a lot of lessons about handling large quilts with wide open spaces!

I got this quilt loaded on the frame, and then quickly realized that I would need to take it off the frame.  Why?

Well, first of all, I hadn't quite decided exactly what I was going to do before loading the quilt, and once I realized what had to be done, I had no choice but to take it off the frame soon after it was loaded.

If you're doing a wholecloth quilt (or something very close to one like this is), you really need to mark the quilt unless you're just going to do an allover pattern from edge to edge and top to bottom.  I can't do this because of the rings in the center.

Second, since I appliqued the DWRs to the quilt, and I couldn't quilt right over them (because of the color change from dark, to light, to medium, and the embroidery) I needed to define them better in the quilt.  The best way to do this is with stitch in the ditch.  On the long arm this can be accomplished with rulers, which I initially tried, but this was extremely painstaking work when you don't have a ruler with a curve that matches what you are doing.

So what I decided to do was take the quilt off the frame and do the stitch in the ditch at my tabletop machine.

To have any hope of getting the quilt back on the frame after it's been partially quilted, I needed to baste the quilt completely.  I did this with a big serpentine stitch:


I prefer basting with a serpentine stitch rather than a straight line because you get more coverage with fewer stops and starts.  I also realized that these machines really do only like quilting from left to right - lots of thread breakage when I tried to go the other direction really fast & really long.  The thread I'm using by the way, is So Fine #402 in the top and bottom. The quilt is an ivory color, and this seemed to blend in the best.

Once the quilt was basted, I took it to my Viking to do the SID work.  I took an extra bobbin that I had wound for Darcy, took a bit of it to wind a bobbin for the Viking, and then used Darcy's bobbin as the top thread:


This just insured I had a perfect thread match.  This exercise made me realize two things: that I hate working with large quilts on a table top machine, and that it's a good thing I have Darcy or this quilt would never have gotten finished.

I decided to do a pantograph design for this quilt instead of custom free motion.  I mentioned this earlier about keeping the customer's budget in mind when you work on these quilts.  I quoted this project to be a certain amount, and I have to make it work within that budget.  Needless to say, pantographs are not necessarily a bad thing - they have their applications and uses and I am glad to have a nice selection to pull from.  This design is actually one that I was saving for my French Liberty quilt, but it works out well on this quilt too:


Now because of the rings in the center, I actually quilted this in a different order than I would normally.  I marked about 2" away from the rings along the top and bottom, and then I quilted the top half (from the rings to the top) and the bottom half (from the rings to the bottom.)  To do the first row, I needed to identify where the rings fell on the pantograph, and mark that on the pattern:


Where the rings fell in the pattern, I then modified the path of the design so that it was still continuous and blended into the design.  To mark the rings, I used the hopping foot of the machine and my needle up/down to mark points along the curve, and drew dots on the grid where the laser light fell.  Then I connected the dots to mark the curve.  I gave myself plenty of room when drawing the new path so there was no chance of running over the rings.  Here's what it looked like stitched out:


As I went, I removed the basting stitches, which is a pain in the neck (literally) but a necessary evil.  You don't want to stitch over the basting because that just makes it doubly hard to get out later.  Also, I didn't want the basting to stay in longer than it needed to, because I didn't want the holes left by the basting stitches to be more difficult to close.

Now with the top half and bottom half stitched, I needed to address the sides of the rings:


For this, I again identified the edge of the rings and centered a row of the pantograph on the quilt.  Then, because there was a gap at the top and bottom, I just did a couple of curly loops to blend in the sections.  So tell me, if I hadn't pointed it out, do you think you would have noticed that filler stitch?


After that, it was time to address the rings themselves.  The two outer rings didn't have any design at all, so I wanted to put something in the center.  I have a matching block that goes with this pantograph, so initially I tried to use the design as a pantograph.  This didn't work out so well:


It ended up being extremely off-center, so I needed to work this from the front of the machine.  I ripped out the original stitches, traced the block pattern onto Golden Threads paper, and pinned it to the quilt. This way I could watch the stitches as I went and make any corrections that were needed:


I traced it using white chalk, because I know this doesn't stain the quilt if the powder gets on it:


After stitching it, I just pulled off the paper.  It's so much better to have it properly centered!


Now you're probably thinking I would leave the embroidered center alone, but I did not.  The quilt needs to be just as beautiful & well thought-out on the back as it is on the front, so the embroidered block needed to have a design too.  To get the right effect, I swapped out the top thread with MonoPoly, which is Superior's monofilament thread.  I had to make a tension adjustment, but the MonoPoly just blends into the front, while giving a consistent design on the back.  Here's a close up of the rings from the front:


And a view from the back:


And here's the quilt coming off the long arm:


In another post, I'll talk about the finishing process for this quilt and some other goodies!

To endless possibilities,

Ebony

Attaching the Rings to the Double Wedding Ring Whole Cloth

I decided this weekend that I needed to make major progress on this wholecloth quilt so that I could get it ready for the long arm.  For that to happen, I had to figure out a way to get the double wedding rings attached to the quilt.

One idea was to square up the double wedding ring, and then piece that into the whole cloth.  I quickly rejected that idea though, because having gone to the trouble of acquiring extra wide fabric for a whole cloth quilt, it seems a little insane to chop it up into various bits and pieces. Plus, I know that my piecing wasn't perfect, and the idea of doing the math and paper templates to figure out the curve along the edge just did not appeal to me.

So the next logical answer was to treat the double wedding rings like an applique and stitch it to the quilt.

I mentioned previously having messed up one of the embroidery stitch-outs early on in the process; the reason for the error was because I did not check that the embroidery was centered in the block before I cut it.  That is really goofy in hindsight, and I should actually learn to trust the little voices in my head - particularly the one that piped up just as I was putting the mat over the die and said, "Are you sure you wanna do that? What if it's not centered?"  Of course, I have another louder & more obnoxious voice that replied, "Of course I am! What, do you think I'm stupid? I pinned it!"

So having discovered that I did indeed cut the embroidery off-center (because I cut according to the center of the fabric, not the center of the embroidery), I determined not to make the same mistake twice - at least not on the same quilt. I think I need little signs posted all over the studio that say, "Is it CENTERED? Really?" because I seem to make this mistake a lot, and not all of these mistakes can be recovered.

Anyway, so I wanted to explain that first, in order to introduce the topic of how one goes about centering an applique in a whole cloth quilt.

First, you need to make sure your quilt top is square, which I did a couple of weeks ago.  It certainly doesn't hurt to check it again though; that's probably the start of another studio sign ("Is it SQUARE? Really?)

Once you know the quilt is square, you need to mark off centering lines that are equally spaced across the quilt.  Since I hate drawing on quilt tops with anything but white chalk, and white chalk being impractical for a white quilt, I opted to mark it by creasing the quilt. First, in half width-wise:


The crease is on the left.  I press as I go, advancing the quilt top to get to the next section and making sure I'm keeping the edges square as I go.  I used starch to aid in this process.  I actually mix my own starch, and many people have asked me what's the concentration I use.  So here's a picture:


Fair warning: this is a heavy, stiff starch at 3 cups water, 2 cups liquid starch.  I shake it before using it to keep it evenly distributed.  Yes, I've tried Best Press, but that stuff is pretty pricey for as much as it needs to be used.  As soon as my current BP bottle is empty, in will go a homemade starch mixture, because I like the spray nozzle on that bottle better.  :)

Ok, on to the centering!  After folding it width-wise, I then folded it in half lengthwise, and then in half again:


Creasing these folds too.  This gave me good reference points for the applique.

Next up is to press under the raw edge of the DWR all the way around.  I did this by sight & by feel, easing around curves and tucking in some places where the piecing was not perfect:


(Yah, I know I swore off Rowenta, but this one is ok as long as you don't put water in it. I'm still debating what new iron/steam generator to get.)

Now with that task done:


It's time to pin the DWR to the quilt.  I unfolded the quilt onto my cutting table.  I spread it out so that the ring was easy to reach and I could get a smooth surface all the way around. I marked the centers of each ring all the way around, and then aligned them with the centering lines on the quilt top:


Smooth, smooth, smooth!  That's my advice.  It's like basting a quilt top, pin the centers, pin the ends; find the center between those pins, and keep pinning in that manner all the way around.  I actually alternated pinning, moving to the very center of the ring, pinning it, then moving to the inner arcs, then finally to the outer arcs.  It was a very time consuming process but necessary to make sure the DWR stayed flat and centered.  I didn't count the pins, but it wouldn't surprise me if there were a hundred or more:


Next, stitch choice and thread choice.  The thread choice was pretty simple - it had to be a monofilament.  If I were doing this by hand, I probably would have used chocolate brown and used a blind stitch, but I am not a hand quilter (except for binding, and even that is rare these days.)

The monofilament I chose was MonoPoly by Superior Threads. This is usually for my long arm, but it's great for this application because I know that it is strong, heat resistant, and won't yellow or turn brittle over time. It's also super-thin, so it virtually disappears in the fabric, which is what this application calls for.

For the stitch, I wanted something that would travel around the edge and just catch the applique. I chose a narrow blanket stitch for that purpose:


I'm also using an open toe embroidery foot so I can see exactly where the needle is going:


I try to take out the pins just before I come to them. I decided to use a 70/10 needle, and it is NOT forgiving when it comes to running over pins.  :)  I am also constantly checking the quilt to make sure there isn't a piece of it tucked under the applique and getting stitched to itself. This is actually a pretty precarious stitching situation: with all the pins sticking out here there and everywhere, it's not about whether or not you will stab yourself, but rather how many times & with how much blood in the process.  It is literally... painstaking work.  :)

I went all the way around the outside ring in a continuous blanket stitch:


And then I stitched the inside ring using a straight stitch, and finally picked up a couple of points that weren't continuous. In some places, I did actually stitch on top of the ring rather than in the ditch; this helped me to secure some spots where my piecing wasn't perfect.  I tried to be consistent all the way around - so that it didn't look too willy-nilly.  Although the stitches are fairly invisible from a distance, if you were to look closely, you'd probably find my little boops and bobbles.

After a couple of hours (I lost track) here is the result!


Now I get to prep it for the long arm, and over the next week or so, agonize over the quilting pattern and thread choice.  I'm pretty sure that I'll be stippling this, but at what size I'm not quite sure yet.

Your next question is "why stipple?" Well, I know that whole cloth quilts are typically covered in feathers and all sorts of complex shapes, and if this were my quilt, I might think about doing that.  But the other consideration of design that I don't think I've discussed up to this point is the budget of the client.  Adding heirloom designs and pulling off really dense complex quilting is time consuming, and time is money.  I have happily wasted both time and money of my own, but I tend to be a lot more considerate when it comes to other people, and making sure that they get a good value for what they pay.

I'm actually thinking about a stipple design that is very dense in the center and then gradually radiates out into a looser and looser stipple as it works out toward the edges.  In order to do that and pull it off, I'm going to need to float the quilt top so that I can roll the quilt back and forth as I go.  This is one quilt where I may actually elect to start quilting in the center and work my way out.  I cut the quilt top at 87" to start, and I'm expecting to lose about 4-5" in the quilting and squaring by the time I'm done.  This will be quite an adventure, eh?

To endless possibilities,

Ebony

Custom Quilt - Double Wedding Ring Whole Cloth

Well I must say that business has picked up over here at the studio, for which I am very thankful, but boy does it mean I have a lot to accomplish in a short period of time!

Back in January I got an inquiry on a custom quilt from a mom who wanted to give a quilt as an engagement present to her daughter.  Her needs & tastes were simple, but as they say, the devil is in the details.

I tend to keep a lot of fabric on hand just for off-the-brain projects, but usually when I get a custom order it means needing to special order fabric.  This quilt was no different!

After having a few conversations with my client, we settled on this design:


Essentially it's a wholecloth quilt with three Double Wedding Ring blocks in the center.  The fabric is all solids, and the text is to be embroidered.

Now if you read regularly, you know that I do not need another hobby or another toy in the house, so I turn my embroidery over to some other talented folks to accomplish. I usually don't like subcontracting for anything when it comes to making quilts, but I know enough talented people in this area to fully trust their ability to execute a design.

Since the embroidery is so integral to this design, I couldn't do very much on the quilt until the embroidery came back, and of course you can't get embroidery done if you don't have fabric!

My client asked specifically for a solid ivory fabric, and if you've ever bought fabric before, you know that one person's ivory is another one's tan, so in this case I ordered fabric swatches from three different places and asked the client to choose.  Since the quilt is fairly large (around 84" square) only a wide width fabric would do!  If you're in the market for wide fabrics, I highly recommend Christian Lane Quilters; they are known for their "FatBacks", and also their excellent customer service.  They will send you free swatches of anything in the store, and will even recommend fabrics if you'll give them an idea of what you're looking for.

My client chose the fabric she liked and I ordered 6 yards for the top & backing.  Wouldn't you know it - they only had 5-1/4 yards left and the fabric had been discontinued!  Luckily my client is a little flexible on the finished size, and since I'm the one quilting it, I can fudge just a bit on the backing, so the quilt will still end up in the ballpark of 84" but might be just a little bit smaller.  You don't really think about how big 84" is until you have the task of squaring up a wholecloth quilt:


And to think I fancied my cutting table was big...

In any event, I hacked off a few pieces & sent them off to the embroiderer, none other than the talented Maddie Kertay of Domestic Anarchy.  She turned it around really fast and sent an extra stitch out just in case I messed one up (which I did.  Ahem.)  I asked her to make her best judgement on the embroidery in terms of placement & font, and she did a bang-up job.

My client sent me an email the other day & told me a little bit more about the couple, which is so inspiring and really makes me want to work extra hard to make this a special gift for them.  Considering what this young couple has gone through already, I think the choice Maddie made to encircle them in the same ring was quite appropriate.  So here are all the rings cut out:


Once it was cut out, I had to set it aside for the craziest week of my life in 2 years - basically nothing but 12 hour days, back to back meetings, and mandatory social events to cap things off.  Oh, and after that's all done, hopping on a conference call at 10PM to talk to Asia Pacific.  I'm not complaining, it's just that sometimes, my full-time gig really puts a damper on my fun!  :)

Anyway, since this quilt is promised for April 11, I needed to make some major progress so I started piecing the rings:


And then of course once you start piecing a DWR, you have to keep going:


Until it's all done!


Isn't the embroidery to die for?  It's just absolutely perfect, the thread color is spot-on, and I love that they are together in the center & not separated like the original drawing.

My next step will be to inset this into the quilt top and then get it loaded onto the long arm.  Looks like I know what I'm doing tomorrow!

To endless possibilities,

Ebony