A new addition

As I hinted in the last post, I have a new addition to the collection. Yes, I bought a new sewing machine. Well not new, but new to me. I have always been a big Pfaff fan. I originally had a 1471, updated to a 1473 about 18 years ago and I absolutely loved that machine. Way ahead of its time - built in dual feed/walking foot, bobbin thread monitor, needle threader, hundreds of stitches 9mm wide and various types of alphabets. You could even design your own stitches and enter them into the computer of the machine and store them. I was so happy with this machine I was beginning to worry that should anything happen to the computer board it may be getting to the age that parts are no longer available.

I had been keeping an eye out on ebay and other places for a spare when I saw an ad for a more recent model, the 7570 including the embroidery unit and digitizing software for what I considered a very reasonable price. The 7570 was the last German made Pfaff. Pfaff merged with Viking/Husqvana and the machines were made somewhere else in Europe after that. So I have spent the last few weeks trying to learn all the ins and outs of the 3D software. Its like trying to learn another language. I must admit I have never really desired to have an embroidery machine and I would have happily bought this machine even if it wasn't included but seeing I've got it I thought I'd better learn how it all works. Even without the frame embroidery stuff, the machine is fantastic. All the great stuff the 1473 does plus as well as 9mm wide pattern stitches it even does 60mm wide pattern stitches because the feed dogs don't just move backwards and forwards but sideways as well. Its the strangest thing to watch but you can tell it to stitch in 16 different directions. So if you want to stitch in the ditch with the foot on and you stitch down one side of the block you can just stop at the corner and tell it to stitch sideways instead of turning the quilt. This model has been superceded a few times since it was released and if I wanted to pay 6 or 7 times what this one cost I could have gone for the latest and greatest but I really don't think they're worth the cost.

More quilting on an oldie

I seemed to have dropped off the blogosphere there for a while. Sorry. But don't get the idea I've been sitting around twiddling my thumbs. (well maybe just a bit) No, I've been continuing to finish off some ancient UFO's and adding more quilting to some others. Here's one that got more quilting added to it. I was never particularly happy with the quilting I originally did on it. So following the adage that there's no such thing as too much quilting, that's exactly what it got.





and a close up

.....and I bought myself a new toy (HINT: this makes 21) .....but more about that next time

Another ancient UFO bites the dust

Many moons ago there was a quilt competition. About 1994 I think. Quilts had to be a specific size 90cm x 125cm (35 1/2" x 49"). Many hundreds of entries were received and a large number of these were juried in to a huge exhibition held in the Sydney Opera House. Of these 40 were selected to go in the book and also to be a part of a travelling exhibition touring around Australia for about 4 years. The exhibition was shown in regional areas and country towns that wouldn't normally have the opportunity to see a quilt exhibition. I was fortunate to have a quilt selected. Because it was an acquisitive exhibition the quilt was no longer mine so at the time I made a duplicate. The quilt titled 'Keep the Aspidistra Flying' was air brushed using fabric paint and hand quilted with heavy black crochet cotton around the main shapes. The duplicate never progressed further than a top so when I came across it recently languishing at the bottom of a pile of UFO's I decided to drag it out and quilt it. Only 15 years late. Got done eventually.

I got a little sliver of it showing on the cover.
At the time I made it, it was very unusual for me to do anything so 'arty'. I had been playing around with a recently acquired air brush and compressor and was doing a lot of fabric dyeing and printing with leaves and found objects around this time.

Another Journal Quilt and a UFO finally finished

I've been so busy quilting the last couple of weeks I've neglected the blog. This is one of the pieces I finished recently. It's another journal quilt for the Aus/Nz Artquilters Group. We don't necessarily have to do the monthly themes in order so this is actually the June theme - The Centre. These journal quilts are A4 size and quite fun to work on.

As I was doing this I remembered a quilt top that I did many years ago along similar lines and never really finished off so I dragged it out and was inspired to finish it. The background green is piece I hand dyed. The black border was sewn around it and then I printed with grevillea leaves using gold fabric paint. The 'woven' bits are actually cut from the one piece of fabric that I dyed and appliqued after the printing. I felt it didn't stand out from the background very well in places so I ended up couching a heavy metallic thread along the edges. The title is 'Unravelled'. I'd love to hear your comments.

Another Journal Quilt

This is another journal quilt I made for one of the on-line groups I belong to - Aus/NZ Art Quilters. We have a monthly theme for the journal quilts. This was February's and the theme was 'Love'. I was a bit uninspired by this. As you may have gathered if you've looked at my work, I don't do - cute, pretty, tizzy, frilly, lacey. Nor will you ever find a cute bunny, pussy, chicken, duck, cow or any other farm yard animal on anything I have sewn in the last 40 years or indeed likely to sew in the next 40 years. Sorry to offend the bunny lovers out there, but it just ain't me.

Batting tests

I mentioned in the last post that I wasn't happy with how stiff the wool/poly blend batting went when it was closely quilted, so I've been doing some testing of different battings. The first one (blue) is Matilda's Own 60/40 Wool/Poly blend (before washing and after washing). I drew around my 6 inch square before quilting and then marked around it again after quilting to see how much the close quilting drew it in. After the piece was washed I marked around it again. As you can see the quilting brought it in about 1/4 inch and the washing nearly another 1/4 inch. So 1/2 inch over 6 inches. That adds up to quite a bit over the size of a large quilt. Washing did soften it a bit but not a great deal. Nice loft. The quilting stands out well even after washing.

The next batting I tried (green) was Matilda's Own needlepunched Polyester. A bit less loft than the wool/poly but drew in about 1/4 inch after quilting and a further 1/4 inch after washing. So almost the same and the wool/poly.


The pink sample is Matilda's Own Cotton Batting. Quite flat. The quilting didn't stand out as well. Still drew in after quilting and more again after washing but not as much as the previous two. Had the usual distinctive cotton batting crinkled look after washing which can look quite good for traditional quilts but not really my preference for the quilts that I do. Softer drape than the others.

The last one I tested was thin polyester Pellon. About half the thickness of the others. Quilted up fairly similar to the cotton. Very flat. Really didn't show off the quilting and crinkled up much like cotton after washing. Quite soft but seemed too thin. Pulled in much the same as cotton. I thought I would like this one but when it was done it was a bit too thin. I want to try some Bamboo batting but I suspect it will be similar to the cotton.

So, what did I learn?

Surprisingly they all drew in about the same amount from quilting and from washing. If you're going to do heavy quilting it's probably best to wash the quilt before you sew on the binding or you could end up with a rippled edge. If you're going to do heavy quilting don't just do it in some areas and less in others or the quilt will probably distort badly. The more quilting you do the stiffer the quilt becomes.

What will I use in the future?

I really like the wool/poly for quilts that don't have really close quilting. For the heavily quilted ones the search continues. I would really like your ideas on this. Let me know what you like to use for these types of quilts.

Done at last

I've just put the last stitches in the binding. Doesn't have a hanging sleeve yet but that can wait. The quilting seemed to take forever. As you can see from the detail, there's quite a bit of it. I've hand-dyed all the fabrics in this quilt. I'm on a roll with quilting at the moment so I think I'll drag out a couple of tops from the 'I'll get around to quilting these some day' pile and finish them off.

Still going......

I'm still quilting THE VERY YELLOW QUILT. Very intensive close quilting and it's taking me forever, but I'm more than half way there. I'm not entirely happy about the batting. It's Matilda's Own 80/20 Wool/Poly blend which I normally like but with such close quilting it becomes very stiff. I'll wash it when I've finished the quilting and hope that softens it up. Just as well it's a wall quilt not a bed quilt, it wouldn't drape very well. Can't show you till its done.

This is another Journal Quilt I made recently.

Even more progress

The REALLY YELLOW quilt has now been added to, appliqued and, as of this morning, basted. Thread basted. Have I mentioned how I loath pin basteing? I don't think it holds everything well enough. I always thread baste in a grid with rows about 4" apart with stitches about 1/2" long just going across from one side to the other. I've never seen the logic in going from the centre out or from the centre to the corners. And I've never had a problem with pulling out the threads once they've been machine quilted over or with any shifting of the layers. At the moment I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to quilt it so no photos till its done.

A bit more progress

I've put a border around this now. Still not finished. I was a bit bothered by that centre block in the bottom row. But really it looks a lot bluer in the photo than in real life so I decided to leave it. I'll add some more strippy/leafy bits to 'spill' out into the border areas. Did I mention it's ............ yellow? It's very, very.........yellow. I've never before made a quilt quite so ........yellow.


I've also had some fun doing a couple more journal quilts this week but I haven't put the bindings on so I can't show you yet.

January Journal Quilt

This is my very first ever Journal Quilt. I belong to an online art quilters group and decided this year to do the journal quilts each month along with the other members. Yes I know we're half way through February. The quilts are only small - A4 size (12" x 8 1/2") There is a different theme each month - January's was Heat. Appropriate as I was stitching this last Saturday. The hottest day in Melbourne's history (46 deg C) and the start of the worst bushfires we have ever known. The last report I heard 185 dead and nearly 800 homes burned to the ground. That death toll is sure to rise as more bodies are discovered in burnt out homes and cars.

Show and Tell

This is a bit of show and tell from many years ago. I thought I might drag out some of the old photos of quilts I have made over the years and scan them. This quilt used and lot of my hand-dyeds, some that I had overprinted with leaves from the garden, and some drapery fabrics. The dark areas don't show up very well in this photo. I really should re photograph many of my quilts with the digital camera.I've been shifting around sewing machines this week. So....you think. What's the big deal. You pick it up you put it somewhere else. No. I'm talking about industrial machines. They weigh a ton. They have a large solid table with a large heavy motor that is attached under the table. The head of the machine (the bit that actually sews) can be lifted out of the table. I can barely lift them, they're so heavy. I have five of them that I use for my business, well four really, cause one I had set up for machine quilting in my studio. They have sooo much more room under the arm of the machine than a domestic machine. These have about 12". I needed to swap this one for a different one that had been geared down and was a bit more controllable at slower speeds. So I had to wait until someone came to visit that could help me lift them. Where's a man with muscles when you need one?

Hot Hot Fabric

Here's a few of the pieces that I tray-dyed yesterday in all that hot hot weather. Quick and easy to do and always a surprise how it turns out. Definitely too hot for ironing it so that will have to wait.

Feelin' Hot Hot Hot

It got to 44 deg C today (thats 111 deg F) . Much the same yesterday and expected to be the same tomorrow. So what do you do when your hot hot hot? Well I've been itching to do some direct dyeing for a while but that would need space to spread out fabric and that would mean working in the shed. Definately not a job to do in this heat so I contented myself with some tray dyeing. I have quite a bit of print fabric that I want to overdye. You don't see the print on the reverse side of the fabric and when it's been dyed it doesn't look any different to plain fabric. Turns something I wouldn't use into some thing useable and doesn't cost anything.

Tomorrow I'll show you how it turns out.

Thumbs up - Thumbs down?

I'm not really sure what I think about this quilt top. I put it together over a year ago. Occasionally I pin it up on the design wall and wonder if I feel like doing something to it. Whether I might use the other bit of hand-dyed pinned up next to it in a border, or just wad it up in a ball and toss it. It's probably the colours. I'm just not a yellow, green, orange person.

I have no recollection of what was going through my head when I started it. Let me know what you think.

Real Age

Are you in good shape for your age? I did an interesting quiz today. Occasionally I watch Oprah and the other day they were doing one of their medical type shows with Dr. Oz. They had members of the audience do this quiz with lots of questions on different aspects of their lifestyle, health, diet, exercise, cholesterol etc and from this they determine your REAL AGE not just your calendar age. Quite a nasty surprise for some of the audience members. Someone may be 45 but due to being overweight, smoking or not eating right their real age could be closer to 60. Or, your real age could actually be less than your calendar age.

Well I was quite surprised to find out that my real age is 45, 6 1/2 years less than my calendar age. I'm 5'5", 61kg (134lb), I exercise, don't smoke, hdl:ldl ratio is 1:1, BP is on the low side of normal, low stress, rarely eat junk food or take away, and I'm very careful about what I do eat. People usually say I don't look 51.

Try it http://www.realage.com/. Helps if you've had a recent blood test and know your cholesterol etc. In Australia we use mmol/l and in the US mg/dl. Just multiply by 38.67 to convert cholesterol and 88.57 to convert triglicerides.

So?....watcha been doing for 2 years? Part 2

OK its Part 2. Don't groan. I said I'd give you the abridged version. Then we'll get on to the quilty stuff. I suppose the most memorable bit of 2008 was ending up in hospital for a week in December for a bowel resection. I have Crohn's Disease and although I haven't had a flare up for over 2 years some previous bouts had caused some problems and the surgeon needed to remove about a 12" section. I seemed to recover from it very quickly and even got back to the gym after a few weeks. Nothing too strenuous.


I managed to get quite a bit of hand sewing done while I was in the hospital. I've been doing this very traditional Grandmother's Flower Garden (English Paper Piecing) for most of last year. It's my 'take to meetings' project when I can't get to a sewing machine. It might get finished in another year or so. It needs to be about twice as big as it is.

So?....watcha been doing for 2 years?

I noticed the other day that this is the 2 year bloggerversary of my last post and as good a reason as any to get back to blogging.

Quite a few things have happened since then and I've been sitting here trying to remember them all. Don't worry. I'll just give you the abridged version.

I suppose the main change has been that my mother moved in to live with me at the start of 2008. (remember I told you - only child of an only child of an only child.....) She turned 90 last week and drives me insane most days. She had been living on her own since my dad died 7 years ago and in mid 07 had a pacemaker fitted. A couple of months after that she had a fall and broke her wrist. It became clear that it wasn't really a good idea for her to be living on her own. This necessitated the recently relocated studio in bedroom 2 to relocate again to bedroom 3 so that she could have the bigger room. And Daniel (son No.2 age 24) to relocate himself entirely to his fathers house, a few kilometres away, instead of living in both places.
Daniel spent a month in Greece with his girlfriend in July 07 and then went to Scotland for a couple of weeks.
I'll tell you some of the other things next time.
Only a modest amount of non work related sewing was accomplished. A few quilts, including this one using my own hand-dyes.