Oh Captain, My Captain!

I'm so happy to finally be able to share my secret project from the past few months. I have given it to the newly married couple so it's safe to show it off now. First, a few stats:

Size: Queenish
Pixels: ~4500 2" squared
Subject: Captain Jean-Luc Picard
Timeline: Apr 6-Aug16



Playing around with a new app on my phone. Here you can see the back and front.
 

As I mentioned above, I started this in April and finished it with only enough time to drive to the wedding rehearsal (ok, I was 10 minutes late). Those last few hours were a little stressful and I don't think I have ever bound a quilt that quickly. My clover clips really came in handy on this one!

So, I pretty much followed the same process as with my Sheldon Quilt but used larger pieces of interfacing so that it was much quicker and easier. This also made the squares line up more cleanly. This was the first quilt that I free-motion quilted. I probably should have started on something smaller but it turned out pretty well in the end. I had originally planned to send Picard to a long-arm quilter but they weren't sure they would be able to get a good result because of the way it was put together. This was a good learning experience though and I will definitely continue free-motion quilting in the future.

For now, I'm resting my poor exhausted arms and mentally planning my first commission which is due to start about today. This will be my first real stab at a full-size applique quilt so wish me luck!

Quilting the days away!



Here is the correct-ish quilting. I LOVE the feel of it.



It's Monday. I'm happy to be back at work today. What?!? Yeah, that's because my arms are too tired to do any quilting right now. I spent the entire weekend quilting the secret project. This was my first stab at free-motion quilting and I'm thinking I should have started with a baby quilt rather than something queen sized. That'd be too smart though, right? I'm not one for taking the easy way out unless there are no other options. Here are a couple of pictures of the quilting. It's not bad for the first run but I'm learning as I go.

Here's the terrible messed up quilting - although I do kind of like the look of it, my tension was way off on this.



And Here's my adorable puppy. Well, he's 3 but with his haircut he looks like a puppy. He's peering out of the cargo netting we put on the back of the jeep to keep these two in there.

I'm not dead!

Hi all, just wanted to let you know that I have not fallen off the face of the earth (or died). May has been a crazy month in the Candy Coated household. We have worked a craft show for our other hobby, Dartmouth Clothing. We have taken a 2-day motorcycle course and now have our beginner's licenses although no motorcycle yet. And we took a trip to Ottawa to visit my Dad and his wife. ALSO IT WAS MY BIRTHDAY!!!

Phew! I'm excited to relax and get down to work on Secret Quilt #2. It's killing me to have to keep this a secret but its receiver may read this and I want it to be a surprise. I've mentioned that it's in the same style as Sheldon so that narrows it down a bit. I've taken my own advice and am using the metered fusible interfacing which is MUCH faster. My only complaint is that the grid lines are very light yellow and are hard to see. I imagine this is so that they don't show through the finished product but it's very annoying!

In conclusion: I am not dead and I hope to have something interesting to show you soon. Excite Bike is not finished yet so maybe I'll do that just to have something interesting to say.

Excitebike 2

I've been working on the excitebike quilt more than the new secret project because I just felt like I needed to finish something and that's an easy win. Here's a pic of the finished top.

Excitebike!

Hi hi! As usual, long time between posts. I've been working hard on two different quilts. One is a secret so I can't say much about it except that if you liked the Sheldon one, you'll probably like this one. The other is this Excitebike quilt.

Almost done the quilt top. I think it's super cute. I'm loving the pixel quilting these days and the old NES games are a natural fit. I've had a few other thoughts for similar quilts including Duck Hunt, Dr Mario and I've had a request for Punch Out! even though I didn't play that one when I was a kid. I was awesome at Dr Mario and Tetris but my game was Mario 3 by far. Anyone else have any suggestions for pixel quilts?

Stars

Hey all, just finished another quilt and wanted to show it off. This is a baby quilt for yet another person we know who is expecting. I like doing baby quilts because they're small and relatively quick. It also gives you a chance to try out new techniques without getting too deep into it. I've wanted to do these stars for awhile and it just so happens that my Go Baby has the dies needed to do them.

I actually think it looks better in person. I'm not sure why but in pictures, it looks like it has way more white space.

In other news, I used Sheldon to sleep with for the first time last night as my normal quilt is in the wash. You will be happy to hear that he is nice and warm. The interfacing softened up a fair amount making it fluffier than it had been. A couple more washes and it should be perfect.

Coming Soon: a new project that you will all be very excited about (or not, I don't know!). Just working through the fabrics to be used, etc. This one could be epic.

Make your own Sheldon!

Hi all! I've had a lot of questions about how I made my Sheldon Cooper quilt so I wanted to share my process. I'm not saying this is the best way to do it, but it worked for me (I have noted where I would make changes to my process).

First, I made the pattern using the above photo and myphotostitch.com. This is a cross stitch pattern maker but it works pretty well for a quilt pattern as well. You will have to play with the settings a little bit to get the image you want. Once I had my pattern, I purchased my Kona colors that roughly match the suggested thread colors.

Here are my squares all cut up. In the end, I had about 7500 1.5x1.5" squares.

So then, I basically followed Sew Mama Sew's instructions for how to "quick-piece tiny squares" Here's the link to that. My photo above will show you how I did it differently - I drew the grid directly on the interfacing which came in 8.5x11 sheets. Next time, I would definitely buy a pre-gridded interfacing that came in metres as this became quite expensive. This is supposed to be wash-away interfacing but I haven't tested that theory yet. After you go through all of those steps outlined by SMS, you will end up with something like this:

And then, once quilted and bound should turn into something like this:

You can then show off your handiwork to anyone who cares to listen. Honestly, the quilting was the worst part of this and I felt like I had to fight with it the whole time. I think partly this is due to the fact that this was the largest quilt I tried to finish on my modest little machine but also I think the interfacing I chose was to blame. It was much stiffer than expected but hopefully it will be a lot better once it's washed once or twice. I started cutting pieces for this quilt in July and finished the whole thing in January. That's a long time! I've learned a lot though and I'm sure the next one will be much faster - especially now that I have my Go! Baby cutter!

I'd love to see what you decide to make with this mini-tute. Please pass along a pic! And if anyone knows someone at CBS, I think this would look really good on TV!