How to square up an art quilt

I had finished the quilting on this art quilt the other day, done my little happy dance and begun squaring it up when I thought I should record the steps to show you how I do it.

With a traditional quilt you usually have blocks or sashing to line up your edges with.  With an art quilt you may not have any straight lines at all.  But I usually have a horizon line, or a flying bird shape, or a vertical line that I can get my horizontal line from.  Luckily with this one I have a horizon line.  It is crucial that the horizon line is parallel to the top and bottom straight edges or it will look 'wrong' on the wall.

Of course, if you want your audience to feel unstable and unsettled when viewing your quilt then go for wonky horizons - but that's a whole 'nother post on how to convey emotions with art quilting!

Take your longest ruler and lay it so the edge lines up along your horizon line or another line that is meant to be horizontal. 

Use another ruler (I like my 12 inch square) to slide along your first ruler until you get to where you want your right hand vertical edge.  Hold it really steady and make your first vertical cut.  Now you have a straight edge to work off.

To get your bottom right corner, take your first ruler away, then slide your square up along your vertical straight edge, until you reach where you want to cut your bottom horizontal edge.  I put my large ruler back on top and realigned it with the horizon as a double check.  Cut your corner.  Now you have two straight edges and a 90 degree to work from.

Slide your square ruler left along your long ruler until you reach where you want to cut your second corner.  Hold firm and steady (this is no time to get ruler slippage) and cut again.  Now you a nice square bottom (ha!).

Working with your square ruler in the bottom right hand corner, use it and your long ruler to continue the right hand vertical edge.

Continue working your way around the quilt using both rulers to achieve square and straight edges and corners.  Use your horizon line, or whatever line on the quilt you first started with, to double check the everything is looking good.

And while you've been merrily cutting away, thinking you'd finished your quilt, keep an eye out for that one thread you missed when you were tying your ends in....there's always one more you didn't find!

And then once it's straight and square and looking pretty, it's time to put it back on the design wall and start auditioning for binding or a facing, or whatever you are using to finish your raw edge.

I hope that was useful and if you have any tips of your own to add I'd love to hear them.

Auckland Festival of Quilts 2015 - Instalment 2

Here is another lot of quilts from the Auckland Festival of Quilts.  This is a bit of an eclectic bunch, but once again, they caught my eye and I'll share why as we go. 

'Phoenix Rising' by Dianne Dowd, was made from a pattern by Cheryl Phillips.  Dianne made a stunning, very eye catching quilt with her fabric choices.  Her quilting, done on a domestic machine was very well done and she won Second Prize, Amateur Wall Quilt, sponsored by Fabric by Three.  

What also struck me about this quilt was the clever hanging mechanism that allowed a circular quilt to hang straight and flat.  You can see below that there is a piece of calico fabric attached to the back of the quilt.  The calico is then cut square at the top and has the hanging sleeve and velcro attached to it, making it easy to hang.  Brilliant!

'Old Library Door' by Ngaire Fleming.  Started in a class with Gloria Loughman.  This little wall hanging was just so nicely done.  There was attention to detail, a great use of perspective and perfect colour choices.  The quilt was square, it was just hung fairly high up and tricky for me to capture a good photograph.  It won Highly Commended, Amateur Wall Quilt, sponsored by Minerva and Auckland Quilt Guild.

This small quilt was made by Heather Bassett and began life as a curved piecing exercise.  I liked the use of solid coloured fabrics and, if you stood and looked at it for a while, the very subtle shift towards darker colours at the bottom of the quilt, which suggested a landscape to me.  The organic straight line quilting complemented the piecing well.  I've serendipitously found Heather's Instagram feed a day or two ago.  She is @hezbez13 if you want to see more of her work.

I think the colour scheme of this quilt caught my eye at first.  I'm partial towards pinks used in a darker way, rather than a 'little girl sweet' colour scheme.  'Butterflies' by Chris Behersing had a slightly chaotic feel that intrigued me and the use of many different prints and checks and all sorts of interesting fabrics all together made it feel as if it should have been a hot mess, but somehow it worked!

Alison Laurence is an accomplished art quilter and her clean style is once again evident in this piece,  titled 'Focus'.  The unusual viewpoint was fascinating, particularly when taking a photograph of the quilt.  The quilt was fairly large too, making the subject oversized and Alison's award, Judges Choice, sponsored by House of Patchwork, was well deserved.

I took a photo of these two quilts side by side to illustrate how a pattern can really be made your own by fabric choice and quilting design.  Both were titled 'The Caswell Quilt' and made from a pattern by Corliss Searcey.  The quilt on the left was made by Ann Gregory with needle turn appliqué and quilted by Jacqui Karl.  The quilt on the right was made with raw-edge appliqué by Betty McLean and quilted by Linda Young with embroidery by Heather Clark.

This is a closeup of the quilt on the right.  It won First Prize, Small Quilt Multiple Makers, sponsored by Quilt Shop Papamoa and Best Machine Appliqué or Embellishment, sponsored by Cottage Flair.

Here is a closeup of the quilt on the left.  It won the Best Amateur award.

And here's me!  With a cheesy grin next to my quilt 'Memories of Flight', which won a Highly Commended, Professional Wall Quilt, sponsored by Minerva and Auckland Quilt Guild.

Minerva is a textile bookshop that is on my bucket-list of places to visit.  Here's the link to check them out http://www.minerva.co.nz

Thanks Minerva and thanks Auckland Quilt Guild!

Auckland Festival of Quilts 2015 - instalment one

I visited the Festival of Quilts, run by the Auckland Quilt Guild, on Friday - opening day.  It's one of the quieter days, as all the full time job holders wait till the weekend, but it was still busy with enthusiastic viewers.

It's Sunday today - the last day of the show.  I thought I'd be considerate and wait to share my pictures and thoughts until everyone had had a chance to view and experience for themselves.

These photos are a few of the quilts I admired and I'll be sharing why I admired them in particular.  I have some more photos to share later.

Above is 'Korowai Ma' (which roughly translates to white cloak in Maori).  Made by Annie White, it won first prize in Amateur Wall Quilt (sponsored by Sewing Machine World).

Annie's quilt was original and unique, exquisitely made and had wonderful touches that elevated it to something special.  The top band is woven.  Every petal is backed with colourful fabric which gives a faint blush of colour to the petal underneath.  There is cording underneath each row, along the top of each petal, which finishes it nicely and also lifts them slightly.

Just stunning.

The quilt above is called 'Seasonal Stereotype' and is by Robyn Rognstad.  This is Robyn's own design and I admired it for the clever construction of the Turkey and the subtle use of colour.  I like to see completely different, original work, and this was one.  

My next quilt to share is called 'Circles 'N Squares' and is by Judi Schon.  Judi won Best Commercial Machine Quilting (computer guided), sponsored by Quiltique.  Judi made this pattern by Debby Maddy and quilted it with patterns from Sharon Perry and Nancy Haacke.  What really caught my eye with this quilt was Judi's masterful eye for appropriate fabrics that really complemented the quilt design and then even more masterful selection of quilting designs.

The photo below shows a closeup of just how well the quilting designs worked.

Here's something a little different, it's only a small quilt, but it stood out in the crowd.

The quilt is called 'Frida' and is made by Ngaire Fleming and quilted by Leonie Wihongi.  It won a highly commended in Wall Quilts, Multiple Makers - sponsored by Auckland Quilt Guild.  Frida Kahlo is instantly recognisable even when constructed with this fractured style.  There was nothing else quite like it in the show.

This next quilt struck me as masterfully capturing the feelings behind the making of it.  On first view, it is frenetic, chaotic and a little disturbing.  When reading the artist's statement, all becomes clear.  "This quilt started as therapy when dementia started affecting my life.  It has caused a great deal of stress and damage to sibling relationships."  The quilt is called 'Dementia: The holes in the story" and is by Chris Behersing.

So.  There you have a few of the quilts that for one reason or another made me stop and look again.  I hope you enjoyed them and stay tuned for some more another day.

Tuesday Tip - using up bobbins

What's wrong with this picture?  

I needed a bobbin in a particular colour for my quilting, and I have none spare to wind.  Ug.  I don't like winding a different colour over the top of a half-full bobbin because inevitably I'll need the colour underneath, and that's just a straight path to frustration-ville. 

So what I usually try to do is keep plenty of empty bobbins.  But how do I do that without wasting thread?  Well, I use my bobbins as thread spools when I'm piecing or sewing something that doesn't need a particular colour. 

You just pop your bobbin onto your thread spool holder and use as usual.  Easy!  

I try and kind of match my colours to my piecing, like darks for darks and lights for lights, because you will see bright yellow piecing thread if you use it for midnight blue fabric.  But I seem to use an awful lot of beige, grey, taupe and cream threads in my bobbins.  And sage green, lavender and medium blue are pretty neutral too.

And have you ever made 'frankenbatting'?  That's a term coined by (I'm pretty sure, correct me if I'm wrong) Pam from Hip to be a Square.  It's where you piece together lots of random batting leftovers to make one bigger bit.  And ain't nobody going to know if you did that with leftover lavender thread from your bobbin!

I don't use my bobbins when I'm quilting, because a) I'm going to run out of thread too quick and b) I don't know if having unwound from a spool and re-wound onto a bobbin would mess with my tension.  But I've never had any problems using it for piecing, so give it a try.

And while we are on the topic of bobbins.  I wanted to tell you about the best bobbin cases I've found.  One of mine is a Sew Mate Bobbin Box, the other is exactly the same but unbranded.  The inner is closed cell foam and the bobbins kind of squash in.  They never fall out, they never unravel, the lid has a good catch and the hinge has never broken on me.  The plastic is the same as plastic food storage containers, which means it doesn't smash if you drop it (ask me how I know).  

Whenever I see them, which is infrequently in New Zealand for some reason, I buy them because people always want them when they see mine!