recycled quilt

I love free motion quilting.  I draw shapes. Whatever shapes happen to develop while Im quilting. Ive been quilting for about 11 years. Truthfully, I find that I make the same shapes over and over. Lots of curvy circles, mixed in with sharp edges. I also like to echo the shapes into each other.   

I got a new machine. It is a Singer 500a,  Rocketeer. When I found it on craigslist. It was a frozen up mess.  Nothing would turn, the dials would not move but, the light would come on! I brought it home and did some serious oil and cleaning and now it is working pretty well. Ive got all the stitches working and the hand wheel adjusted. Now, I only need to get the feedogs cleaned out. The stitch plate lift is still frozen up. I hope to work on that today.  Here are some videos of me working the machine - 

Well, I started with best intentions .. and fell behind pretty fast. I only got the first step done. I picked out the fabrics. I love the "barn raising" pattern and decided to make my mystery quilt fabrics into a barn raising style quilt. Here are some pics. I really love the way the quilt came out - I love love the Free Motion Quilting. I used about 5 different kinds of threads. I doubled some threads up and used Some thick deco threads, too.

I started to quilt thinking this was the kind of work I most wanted to do. When I was first quilting I would end up with lots of bubbles is the fabric and bunching in the cloth. I could not figure out what people were talking about when they "bobbin work" - but after a long break from even being interested in doing this work -- here some is. I was making something to give as a prize during a drag show - and poof this came out. Im really kinda loving it.

I made two twin quilts that are these colors - I have one quilted and Im hoping to get the other one quilted starting as soon as I post this message. Im happy with the way both off them came out. I made them a generous size width because I think they are gifts for younger people - and I like to stuff junk under my bed and hide it -- maybe others do too? Something told George he could just jump right onto the table today?! That lasted as long as it took for me to take a pic.

Here are some finished pics -- Some of the center blocks have a dense quilting pattern .. All of the 9 patches have a squiggle pattern.  Some pics showing the diff fabrics -- All done -- I really do like the pattern and the quilt. I think any time I want to make another Irish chain I will remember there needs to be lots of contrast between the chain and the background.

Ive been working on more tee shirt quilts. I love using recycled fabrics - and am learning to cut better and tp piece better. Tee shirts can be so streatchy. I am learning!

I am in love with cool weather -- I get depressed for a week or so knowing its comming but, then when its here I get really happy!! I love quilt weather! 

I finished the quilt - I decided to keep the back after all. I just put a hot pink binding on it. Yes ... I match, today. The back will be plenty strong enough. All I was worried about was snags - and I put lots of heavy criss crossing quilting into the piece to prevent that.

This is the front of the quilt - after I added the edges. This is a view of the back -- Close up of the fabric on the back.  Well, I used up some fabric thinking it might be strong enough to be the back of a quilt. I thought a light weight quilt would be perfect .. but, Ive decided the backing isnt strong enough for constant use. So, Im going to put another back on the quilt and the current backing will become the batting. This fabric is a sort of waffle fabric that would be great as shower curtains or window curtains -- but doe snot seem strong enough for daily use.

Ive been working on new things.. new patterns, new free motion quilting patterns -- its hard work to try new thuings. Its moving pretty slow. I miss my dog. George and I are doing pretty good even with everything going on.

I am torn about what I want to do and made this video about my process on working it out.

Another recycled fabric quilt! I went crazy doing free motion quilting- I messed with as many different patterns as I could think of in the blocks. I dont know as many patterns I some people - and, Ive never been good at doodles. I am better at making patterns. This quilt is huge - a big bad KING size one. The batting is not recycled in this quilt - it is a new cotton batting - Im pretty excited to see what happens when it shrinks a little bit when I dry it. Working with recycled T-shirt fabrics - I have come to accept that I will have some tucks and folds in the quilted tops. I am more interested in color and pattern anyhow -- I forgive those tucks. You can see I used a straight Stitch to applique the pieces. I sold the Zig-Zag machine and am using my Straight Stitch machine now for everything. I took these pics outside before all of the quilting was finished.

Can you see the wind power mills in the WAY back of the first pic?

Hey, Its been a few weeks - crazy here on my end. The computer broke during school finals. And finals were the last thing I wanted to be doing at ALL ! I have been quilting, here are some pics of this quilts process. The above pic was taken while I was putting it together - the below one was taken before I quilted it. This was the inspiration This quilt is raw edge applique and ade from 100% recycled fabrics - mostly tee shirts.