Life With Lilli

Did more practicing today, using some of my rulers. ;o)

The top looks great, but the bottom...not so much ;o(

Uh Oh  It turns out that this little piece is very important to the thread tension.

At least I figured it out by myself without needing to call the sewing center.

I felt like the top tension was a little too loose so I tightened it just a tiny bit.  I did learn that although I'm using the same weight thread, produced by the same manufacturer, darker thread is heavier because it has more dye in it.  Go figure...

I was feeling good enough to load an actual quilt.

This is my very wonky Halloween quilt that isn't only totally out of square, but the Frixion pens I used to mark it, took some of the color out.  So, even if it turns out good, it will be bad.  

As I said to Paula "this scares the crap out of me".  

Using this little ruler, I started.

And I did this along two rows.

Look closely, it's there.  

This is the plan for these sections...

I don't really want it to show very much since it's only the beginning.  As the saying goes..."if you can't see it as you're riding by on a galloping horse, it looks great".  hahaha

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Life with Lilli

I don't think I have done any work on Lilli since August and I thought that I would get a lot done since we came home early and the weather would be crappy but that hasn't been the case.  

No big deal, I spent some time with her today.  This is a small new piece I'm working on

and these are a couple of ideas I have for when I quilt in some squares.

These are just some practice doodles.

Lotus flowers

My first Baptist Fan using the ruler Bill gave me for Christmas

Bill and Greg gave me some gift cards to Sanford Sewing and I bought myself some new rulers.

The light strip was exchanged for the light bar Bill gave me for Christmas, which was what I asked for but not what I actually wanted.  

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Life with Lilli

I've been working with some rulers that Paula loaned me.  I used them to roughly copy a pattern from a class that she took from Margaret Solomon Gunn, an award winning quilter and wonderful teacher that happens to live in Gorham, ME!

First, I used the template rulers to draw my pattern on paper.

Next, I used Frixion pens to draw the pattern on my practice fabric.  It came out a little different than the paper one, but that's just how it happened.

From here, I attempt to use the templates to "draw on the lines" with thread.  It's a damn lot more difficult than I anticipated, partly because of my tendency to be a perfectionist.  However, this project is helping me let that go...at least a little.  Otherwise I would be ripping out every.single.stitch!  I have to constantly remind myself...this is practice.

August 3, 2019

Close up of the center

After almost a month, I made it back to the cellar to work a little more.

August 31, 2019

Now...everyone that knows me, knows I'm my own worst critic, never happy with anything I do.  However, I have to say...although this is far from great, it's not terrible either.  

Once the stitching is completed and I bury all the ends, I'll iron it and Voila, the pink marks will should disappear.  I think I might make a wall hanging so I can compare my first piece with the ones that follow.

Thank you Paula for loaning me all of the templates I needed and for not needing them back in any kind of timely manner.

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Life with Lilli

Practice, practice, practice...

Today I worked on a "fill" pattern that has a name but I can't remember it, along with pebbles, also referred to as circles.

Then I practiced some leaves

I doubt anyone would confuse these with any known tree or plant.

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Life with Lilli

Found a little more time to practice and worked on crescents...

I think I curled them too much ;o(  but I try to find one that I'm happy with each time I practice.  One row was going left to right and the other was right to left.  One direction doesn't appear to be any better than the other.

From there to leaves...

There were two different kinds, fat ones and skinny ones.  Leaves are the easiest for me, so far.

These brought me to the end of my practice sandwich and not I need to get my act together and make another one.

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Life with Lili

Managed some time in the quilting room aka cellar today.  Practiced some snowballs...

Well...one sort of looks like a snowball.

I had an empty space above the "snowballs", so I did some loop de loops.  I'm pretty happy with them.

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Life with Lilli

Since most quilters name their machine, don't ask me why, they just do, I decided to name my machine Lilli.  For some reason I was thinking about a cat we had in Shapleigh, named Lily and our first foster dog with puppies was named Lily and it just seemed right.  

As it turned out, it was a very good thing I brought her home with me that fateful day.  I returned a couple of days later to ask a question and they told me several others had stopped in after me, looking to buy her.  

Well, that was a little over two months ago and I finally started stitching.  

There were a couple of hiccups along the way.  As I said, we had to clean the seller and move things around.  Bill had to put the frame together.  He did a stellar job.  Then we had to make sure the table was level...front to back and left to right, which required quite a bit of tweaking.  Next we added the carriage and machine, which also had to be level.  Try as we might, it wobbled front to back, although the frame was level.  Back to the quilt store where Gabrielle gave me excellent advice, which worked perfectly. 

HA, that was a few weeks ago.  Although in the meantime, I had filled a bobbin, threaded the machine and turned it on. I had to prepare a quilt sandwich (two pieces of fabric with batting in between) to load onto the frame.   Finally - Voila...ready to go but I always seem to find something else that needs to be done before I get downstairs.

Today was a cold, gray, wet and windy day...perfect for being in the cellar.  Bill bought new LED light bulbs and light fixtures, which really brighten up the area.  We already had a nice fluorescent light above the quilting table and he repainted a couple of walls for me.

I follow a group on FB, and the administrator provides free written instructions and videos to teach people to free motion quilt.  I sat down last night and started reading, watched a couple of videos and today I was ready.

It's all about practice, practice, practice, although I think it helps to have some natural artistic ability, which I do not have.  So...instead, I'll practice.

All loaded up and ready to go

I drew lines on the fabric to help with size and sort of keep things in a row.

scallops or clamshells

Yeah, I know, it doesn't look like much but the idea is to work on muscle memory, so hopefully, they start looking better.

Practicing left to right and coming back, right to left, intersecting the previous scallop.  I found one I liked ;o)

Lastly, the egg and dart.  Hahaha, mine don't look like eggs or darts.

Really terrible...oh well.

I had fun today, wonder when I'll get back down there...

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Sew...This Came Home with Me Today ;o)

I thought when I retired I would buy myself a long arm quilting machine and make money quilting for others.  Well...that didn't happen, which is okay.  However, I saw a post on Facebook from the quilt shop in Sanford that they had a used machine and frame for sale for a decent price and one I felt I could afford.  

I stopped in the next morning, took a look, thought it over and almost left.  I was afraid if I left and came back, someone else would have snatched it up, so I bit the bullet and brought it home with me.  Although the box says Sweet Sixteen, which is a sit down machine, it's really a Simply Sixteen, which is a stand up machine.

Here's what it looks like, out of the box.

photo courtesy of the internet

It's really perfect for me, only takes up a 4'x6' space.  Of course, we had a lot of cleaning to do in the cellar in order to make room for it.

I'm pretty excited, we'll see how long it takes before I actually take a stitch.

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