Welcome to my stop on the Morris Mist blog hop! Morris Mist is Sherry Shish's new signature line with Island Batik and the colours are so pretty! The purples, especially, are so rich. I decided to make a Formal Garden baby quilt and I love how it turned out! The Formal Garden pattern is available in my shop.
The 3 year old I'm looking after this year loves purple, so all while I worked on these blocks, I kept thinking of her saying multiple times every day, "Purple is my favourite colour of the rainbow!" You have to say that with as much enthusiasm as possible, to really get the full effect.
In the pattern, I included notes for cutting directional fabrics, so you can keep them properly lined up in the blocks. I appreciated that this time around, since it meant I didn't have to do any extra thinking for the couple of directional prints in the Morris Mist line.
Formal Garden blocks stitch up quickly, especially when you're only making enough for a baby quilt. Once the top was put together, I stitched some of my off-cut scraps of Warm and Natural batting together, and pieced the back. I've had this purple for years. It was almost big enough, so I just cut it and inserted a strip of one of the Morris Mist fabrics to make it fit.
Shortly after I started the quilting, I had a mishap with my Janome 6700. The bobbin holder (the black plastic piece the bobbin sits in) spun a quarter circle counter-clockwise while I was quilting! Everything seized up with a horrible thunking noise, as I'm sure you can imagine. This is what it looked like when I opened it up. If you look closely at the black plastic, just under the metal bar on the right, you can just see a tiny red spot that should be lined up with the red arrow on the metal piece right in front.
When I took the bobbin holder out, there was a gouge in it where the needle had struck it, plus another spot that was roughed up. My husband took it and smoothed them out as best he could, but when I tried to sew again the bobbin holder bounced like crazy. I wanted to cry.
The next day I called the shop where I bought it, only to be told they weren't servicing machines for a couple of weeks. Ugh, that's not what I wanted to hear! Thankfully, I still have my old Kenmore machine, so we pulled that out and cleaned it up to use while I wait. My Sew Steady extension table was brought out of retirement, too.
The Kenmore works fine, but I sure do miss the Janome's throat space! I also miss the stop/start button. My ankle and calf get sore when I sew with the foot pedal for any length of time, so I've been using the button on the Janome for a couple of years. I even use it when free motion quilting, so I never use the foot pedal anymore. Adjusting to using the pedal again took a bit of time, and I keep trying to push a button to stop, except there's no button to push!
Despite the machine woes, the swirl hook quilting was fun to do and looks just the same as it would if it was all done on the Janome. I did have to concentrate so I wouldn't quilt smaller and smaller and smaller as I went, though, because of the smaller throat space. But this is a great reminder that you don't need an expensive machine to do pretty free motion quilting. And just look at that texture!
I used Aurifil 2540 (medium lavender) for the quilting. The lovely lavender shade mostly blends in, except on the white and the backing.
Get the Formal Garden pattern in my shop to make your own baby quilt, or throw, or queen size quilt.
I cut up what was left of four of the fat quarters for the binding. I may have been a little overzealous when I pieced the binding. No worries, all this extra just went into the binding scraps box, which was getting a little low anyway 😄
One side benefit of the renovations Paul did in our dining room this summer? I now have a pretty spot for indoor quilt pictures! Good thing, too, because the weather hasn't been great for quilt photography since I finished this one. I may have done a little happy dance when I saw how well this picture turned out.
December 1 - Sherry @ Powered By Quilting
December 1 - Leanne @ Devoted Quilter (you are here!)
December 2 - Brianna @ Sew Cute and Quirky
December 3 - Jen @ Dizzy Quilter
December 4 - Kate @ Katie Mae Quilts
December 5 - Sally and Sally @ Sallys' Sewing Circle
December 6 - Tammy @ Tamarinis
December 7 - Kathryn @ Dragonfly's Quilting Design Studio
December 8 - Anja @ Anja Quilts
December 8 - Sherry @ Powered By Quilting
I'm so sorry your Janome bobbin case went haywire and I hope the shop will be able to get it fixed for you without too much extra time or expense. Your quilting looks fantastic and I would never have guessed you used two very different machines for it. This quilt shows of Sherry's new line beautifully, and hooray for great spots for indoor photography!
ReplyDeleteYou did a fabulous job on this and I love this fabric line. My Janome likes to do it, I just put it back...maybe its a different model. Whatever it is, I hope they fix it quickly.
ReplyDelete