5 More Things I Learned While Flow Quilting

Okay, technically my first post in this series was titled "5 Things I Learned While Grafitti Quilting," but then Yvonne (Quilting Jetgirl) had a discussion on her blog about what to call this style of quilting and in the course of that discussion a few of us started calling it flow quilting. It's the same style of quilting, but flow quilting describes it better, we feel.

Over the course of 2 weeks, I spent about 30 hours flow quilting the negative space in this magazine project. I can't show you the whole thing yet, but the texture of the quilting is amazing!

Here are the things I learned in those 30 hours of flow quilting.

 

1. Once you learn to quilt a design at a certain size, it's hard to quilt it bigger.

Boy did I struggle with this one! Because I started doing free motion quilting without an extension table, I only had a small space in which to work. That meant I did all my designs very small and I have a hard time making them bigger. I started this quilt knowing there was a lot of negative space to fill in, so I kept telling myself 'large scale, large scale,' but I don't know that I actually succeeded 😊

In my defense, here's the scale I usually quilt, so I did manage to quilt somewhat bigger. I could certainly have gone bigger, though.

This is detail from my X Marks the Spot quilt

2. Relax and figure out how to do fmq without tensing every muscle in your body.

Spending two or more hours quilting every singe day meant that every bit of tension in my body became more and more noticeable as the days went on. When reading the comments on one of Christa Watson's posts recently, I saw that she said "I’ve noticed that it’s difficult to get an ergonomic setup for short people (like me) so the next best thing is to take lots of sewing breaks and stretch when needed" and I so agree! If you could see my setup, you would laugh. I have a box on the floor with books on it, trying to stop myself from twisting to keep my left (non-driving) foot on the floor, plus I sit on a book on my chair to raise me up high enough to be comfortable with the height of my sewing machine and extension table on the kitchen table. It's crazy! It kind of works, though, and I'm able to relax more than when I'm straining to reach. I still have to remind myself to relax as I seem to have a tendency to tense up, but I'm working on that.

3. Take breaks to walk around (see #2)

Even with the best setup, and even if you remember not to tense up as you quilt, quilting is still a lot of strain on your muscles. It's a good idea to get up and walk around now and then to really relax and stretch. If you take breaks, you'll be able to quilt comfortably longer, which is definitely a good thing!

4. If you lose track of where you're going and quilt right through the middle of a pebble, no one will ever know.

I know that I quilted right through the middle of at least one pebble, but no one will ever be able to find it...even me! There are probably thousands of pebbles in this throw quilt, so finding one that has a mistake would be impossible. Try your best to make each motif perfectly, but don't stress about little imperfections, especially when there are so many motifs in the whole quilt.

5. If you're flow quilting a large quilt, make sure you have lots of time and lots of thread.

30+ hours in a two week period (while also working full-time) meant I had to quilt every single night and even more on the weekends. Since I had a deadline, I worried a little about whether or not I'd have enough time to finish. If I'd had more time, or if I'd been able to quilt at a larger scale, I wouldn't have had to worry.

As for the thread, I ordered two spools of Aurifil 2610 for the quilting and I'm so glad I did. Flow quilting really eats up the thread! I used about half of the second spool, which means I used roughly 2000m, or 2 km, of thread 😊 I'm always amazed when I think about the distance the thread I've used could cover!


So that's what I've learned with my most recent flow quilting. Do you have any lessons you've learned while quilting? Add them in the comments below if you do 😊

Is It Well?

Devotion for the Week...

For the past couple of weeks now I've had an old hymn running through my mind. It is "It Is Well with My Soul" by Horatio Spafford. We sang it in church one Sunday and ever since then I've been finding bits of it popping into my head at random times through the day. Does that happen to you too? It bugs me when it happens with songs I don't like, but thankfully, I like this one.

The simplified gist of the song says that no matter what happens in life, everything is okay with my soul. It doesn't say that life is perfect or that nothing ever goes wrong. In fact, it says "when sorrows like sea billows roll" and "though trials should come" still, even then, "it is well with my soul."

It's not that the song makes light of those hard times, either. 'Sorrows like sea billows' makes me think of overwhelming sadness, which makes sense since Spafford wrote the hymn after losing four daughters when their ship sank. He had previously lost a son and suffered financial loss after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. The man knew what it meant to have sorrows like sea billows roll through his life.

So how could he, and how can we, say "it is well with my soul"? The answer lies in verse 2, which says, "That Christ has regarded my helpless estate, And hath shed His own blood for my soul." Jesus died for us. He didn't die to keep us from the sorrows and trials of this world, which are all part of living in a sinful world, but He died to make our souls well.

We can't escape the troubles of life. Being a Christian is no guarantee of a perfect, problem-free life. Jesus even said, "In this world you will have trouble" (John 16:33). We shouldn't be surprised when bad things happen, even to good people, because it's all part of living in a world where sin runs rampant.

But that's not the end of the story. Jesus died to free us from the mastery of sin, to bring us back into eternal life with God. "For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins" (Colossians 3:13,14). And that is why it is well with our souls. No matter what life may throw at us, nothing can take away the redemption and the forgiveness of sins given to us through faith in Jesus as our savior.

The most important question of all, then, is this: Is it well with your soul? Do you believe that Jesus died for your sins? If you do, then, no matter what, your soul is secure in Him. If you don't, nothing else I write here can make your soul well. There is no way to be enough of a 'good person' without Jesus.

If it is not well with your soul and you'd like to learn more about Jesus, feel free to ask questions in the comments, or email them to me: devotedquilter at gmail dot com. I would love for it to be well with your soul too 😊

Linda's First Quilt

As part of the 'My First Quilt' link party, I'm posting for those readers who don't have blogs so that as many people as possible can participate and share about their first quilts.

This post is for Linda, who writes:

Technically this is not my first quilt.  I made giant log cabin 35 years ago as part of teaching a quilting course.  The “logs” were about 4 inches thick and there were four giant blocks.  I basted it on my kitchen floor – at 7 months pregnant with our third child.  It took 8 hours.  Then I quilted it on a hoop through the fall and over the winter. We used it every night and wore it out in about 10 years.

And then there with the appliques butterfly quilt that took 9 years to finish because my husband didn’t like me sewing on it all the time.  My kids told me I had to finish that one before I started the next one which happens to be the pictured quilt. 

I made this quilt for my son and his wife when they married in 2003.  I bought the fabric in April and finished binding the quilt the evening before the wedding in September.  It was hand quilted by the ladies in the church I worked out of at the time.  It is called “Love on Stormy Seas”.  If you look very carefully there is a heart in a deep green in the bottom left corner of the picture.  I consider it my first quilt because I made it entirely following the pattern – something I very rarely do.  The heart in green came about because the bride’s favourite colour is green.  Apparently I made it too subtle as she still can’t see the heart unless it is pointed out to her.  Just this New Year’s I enlisted my grand daughter’s assistance – only fair since she spilled nail polish on it – to applique coloured hearts onto it.  these covered the stains and marked the years of her mom & dad’s marriage.  Think it’s time I made them a new quilt – and I have one in mind for them.  Maybe for their 20th anniversary?

Linda sent me a second email, which said:

Forgot to mention that I was complimented on my “points”.  Funny thing was I didn’t know this was a difficult pattern.  I thought it was easy and engaging.  I’d been sewing since I was 11 though.  I thought points were supposed to meet properly!

That made me laugh out loud! Sometimes it's great to not realize a pattern is supposed to be difficult so you aren't intimidated by it 😊 

I love your quilt, Linda, and the story that goes along with it. Thank you for sharing it!