On the longarm today…Swoon

August 3, 2016August 1, 2016 Lovelli Quilts2 Comments

I feel like I should be putting one hand on my forehead and one on my heart as I sink gracefully onto a fainting couch. But, no, it isn’t that kind of a swoon, the quilt on my longarm today is made using the pattern, Swoon, by Camille Roskelley. It is a wonderful pattern which is well written and easy to make. There are many ways to quilt a Swoon quilt top and for, me, that is one of the challenges–because I want to try them all!! For this quilt, I chose a block pattern from One Song Needle Arts which would lay nicely in the block, emphasizing the different segments of the block, and yet be a cohesive design. I always try to add ways which cause a viewer to look at a quilt and find interest from across the room, from closer, and then from closer still. One way to do that is to lay a quilting design on top of the quilt so that it doesn’t follow the piecing exactly, but it emphasizes it.

As I design a quilt layout, I look for designs which repeat motifs found in the fabric, in the piecing and/or in the applique. For the Swoon quilt I noticed that several fabrics had circles, and that several had flowers. I chose to combine several different flowers by Anita Shackelford for the sashing.

I was very pleased with the way that the quilting turned out.

Now is a great time to get started on Christmas gift piecing. I can guarantee that any quilt sent to me for quilting in August will be quilted before Christmas (custom or edge to edge).

Have a great quilting adventure!!

Matching Fabrics to Create an Invisible Seam Tutorial

August 23, 2015August 19, 2015 Lovelli Quilts2 Comments

Can you find the seam in the picture above the headline? I made this quilt, top and back. for a client who wanted a fun quilted bed topper for the holidays. When I saw the fabric she chose I thought that it would look jarring to have a seam down the center with mismatched dots and deer. However, the method I use to match seams, i.e. lots of pins, would not work with this many dots or the tiny deer. Can you imagine two pins per dot? Ouch!! I brought out my trusty glue stick instead. I was in a rush so I used the glue stick which I had on hand, an off brand. I have since found that Elmer’s Washable School Glue works better, and washes out easily (it is a starch product). I do not have a relationship with Elmer, I love their product, and it is a great time of year to stock up with back-to-school sales.

Step one: Gather tools. I use washable glue, stick or liquid, pins, seam gauge, iron.

Step two: Press a seam line. I used a seam gauge to ensure that the seam would be straight. (I removed the selvage from the seam allowance after sewing).

Step three: Place the fabric which has not been pressed right side up on your ironing board then place the pressed fabric right side up on top. Move the pressed fabric so that the print motifs on the fold match the motifs on the unpressed fabric. I pinned the fabric using pins straight up and down into my ironing board to secure the fabric while I glued it in place. I found that the glue stick was more likely to distort the fabric than a liquid glue. Heat set the glue with a hot iron.

Step four: Once the seam is glued and heat set I am ready to sew. I unfold the fabric so that the right sides are together and sew along the fold where my iron created a crease.

Correct lighting is essential–with some fabrics I might have to adjust the light falling on my sewing area so that I can see the crease, I experiment until I can see.

Here are the finished seams, selvages removed and pressed, the red arrows point to the seams:

No deer were beheaded in the making of the quilt!!

Tammy 4 all seasons

January 13, 2015January 13, 2015 Lovelli Quilts48 Comments

Welcome blog hoppers!! My ‘season’ is Spring and I had an absolutely delightful cross stitch pattern by Brooke Nolan to stitch for my Tammy Bag by Madame Samm. The Tammy bag is the perfect size for a hand stitching project. The ‘pinny’ by Cori Blunt is a perfect accessory for the bag–I will no longer put my pins and needles in arm chairs now that I have this pinny. I starting taking photos outside, hoping that ‘Spring’ would come despite the cold temperatures and snow. However the cold chased me inside to complete them.

The back of the bag has a pocket with a “faux” binding, a convenient place for a pattern. The back of the pinny has a thread catcher and a place to store your needles.

I placed two divided pockets in the interior of the bag to store my scissors, reading glasses and other supplies. I found this lovely aqua gingham in my stash and I knew it would be perfect because each of Brooke Nolan’s designs has some gingham depicted in cross stitch. I was so excited by the prospect of cross stitching again that I stitched all 3 of the remaining seasonal designs and got a good start on the Tammy bags and pinnys for them as well.

Please come back and visit me to see the finished projects. Please visit all of the people on today’s hop:

Lovelli Quilts (you are here)

Quilted Delights

It Seams To Be Sew (has been moved to the 16th)

Cheryl Wilkinson will post to Ipiece2-Mary

Just Because Quilts

Stitchen’ My Life Away

Thank you Madame Samm and Mary our wonderful cheerleader. Have a quilty day!

Designing Starlight on Water with EQ7 Serendipity, part 1

July 17, 2014July 17, 2014 Lovelli Quilts2 Comments

Designing Starlight on Water started with a Design Seeds photo and palette on July 12.

http://design-seeds.com/index.php/home/entry/color-escape9

I immediately thought that the white boat was a striking part of the photo, and I knew that it should play a role in the quilt design. I also thought that the ripples in the water added a subtle texture to the photograph. My first block was a very simplified EQ7 applique drawing of those inspirations: I couldn’t stop there, because the drawing didn’t express the calm I felt from the photo. I started playing with the block in EQ7’s Block>Serendipity>Kaleidoscope. The above screenshot shows EQ7’s ‘Create Kaleidoscope from Block’ dialogue box. I have 3 different boat blocks on the left, because I tweaked the original block a bit before I was ready to play with Kaleidoscope. On the right are 4 different triangle subsections of the selected block. The selected subsection, marked by a turquoise box and multiplied by 8, makes up the center block. By selecting different subsections, I can get 8 different blocks.

When I find a block I like I click the ‘Add to Sketchbook’ button in the dialogue box. Sometimes the kaleidoscope is really beautiful, sometimes I like the shapes, and sometimes I choose not to add it to my Sketchbook. Here are the blocks I chose for Starlight on Water:

I further edited the colors in the blocks once I started putting them into the quilt. Creating the center star used another Serendipity function which I will show you tomorrow. The blocks will be constructed using fusible raw edge applique. Have a quilty day!

Using EQ7’s Serendipity to Design Original Blocks, part 2

July 5, 2014July 5, 2014 Lovelli QuiltsLeave a comment

Today I would like to show you some more quilts which I designed with the help of EQ7’s Block>Serendipity>Shrink and Flip. You can find part 1 of the tutorial here. In the galleries found below the first image is always the original block and the following blocks are the combinations from Shrink and Flip, used in the quilt design and numbered to reflect the set of flags in the Shrink and Flip dialog box.

I took the “Palm” block in EQ7 and rearranged it for the following quilt design.

I find that by mixing and remixing the combinations in the Shrink and Flip dialog box I discover new blocks and fun new ways to arrange blocks. Many times the combinations are unexpected and beautiful. I hope you discover something new when you play with Shrink and Flip.

For the following quilt, I recolored some of the patches in each block once it was set into the quilt and I also darkened the background.

Finally here is the Orange Slice design which I showed you in part 1 of the tutorial:

Spend some time to play around with this neat feature!

The Design Doldrums

May 22, 2014 Lovelli Quilts7 Comments

I am trying to do at least one Quilt Design a Day on Facebook. Each day two palettes are chosen based on two photographs and then we are challenged to design at least one quilt, not spending more the 15-20 minutes on a design. Today’s photo was taken from Design Seeds, it is a picture of the side of a building: turquoise shutters with orange and blue siding. Some days I jump for joy, because the palettes are so beautiful, or the inspiration photo is so beautiful; other days I just say to my self, “huh?? how am I going to use that color scheme?” I saw today’s colors from the above photo and wondered if maybe I should go wash the dishes! 🙂

I looked at the photo, noticed the slats in the shutters and the lines of the colored siding. I tried several blocks which had similar lines, none of which seemed right to me. I went in search of inspiration and searched for photos of American Southwest art. I frequently look at art or photos to inspire me. Most of the time I will pick up a shape, an idea, or a play on words, etc. which will jump start my brain. Today, I saw a photo of a rug and thought I could adapt that to a block design and this design was born:

I was so relieved that I had come up with something, I quickly posted it…and then regretted. I liked the horizontal lines, the feeling of movement, but I wasn’t completely happy. I walked away and enjoyed a really stupid movie with my sick son. (No, his illness was not caused by looking at this quilt!) I definitely achieved a feeling of movement (maybe too much) in the quilt, when I really wanted to create more minimal design. I needed to edit. My next thought was to add some negative space, although I’m not sure that orange is that negative space and I rotated half of the blocks 90 degrees.

I think my “editing” further complicated my “minimal” design. I looked some more at the original photo. I thought that the shutters and the orange siding were important in the original photo, so the quilt should reference them. As a result I drew the slats of the shutters, I placed them off-center to the left of the block and chose the darker blue as the background, and then placed the orange. A minimal design. It is so simple, why does it seem so difficult?? Which design do you like best?

How do you get inspiration?

Have a quilty day,

On the Design Wall

May 12, 2014 Lovelli Quilts1 Comment

We had some absolutely stunning palettes to work from over the weekend at Quilt Design a Day. I had gobs of fun designing. The colors reminded me of summers sitting by the pool, but in the shade with sunscreen and a hat, drinking cold drinks–heaven!! I’ve been thinking about making this one. It would be fun to do with Dale Fleming’s 6-minute circle method, which you can find here: http://www.hgtv.com/video/easy-circle-quilt-blocks-video/index.html).

I’d also like to sew the Ocean Waves quilt in the patriotic colors. What a great idea for a July 4 picnic. It would be tons of fun to quilt in the negative space–fireworks, exploding feathers, etc.

Have you ever felt like the “odd bird” out? I know that I sure have, just like the red bird above. However, that is the bird that makes the quilt interesting I think. Celebrate your unique-ness today!!

Did you notice that most of my designs were inspired by things that happen in the summer??!! “Orange Cream sickle”, I loved them as a kid (if truth were to be known, I think I still like them 🙂 ). Enjoy the spring!!

Linking up with: Anything Goes Monday.

Have a quilty day!!