Hand Quilting Itajime Piece

This morning I finally got a date for my surgery after the insurance folks tried every delay in the book. It's scheduled for the third week of October.  Meanwhile, I'm trying to finish up a piece to enter in an upcoming show. Sometimes I have so many ideas on how I can do that and sometimes not a one. Something I find helpful to do is to lay a clear transparency over the piece and use water soluble markers to plan a design. Then if I don't like it, I can erase and try another one. Below is a picture showing this.

To figure out what thread would be best, I audition a variety of them on top of the quilt, unspooling a couple yards of each. I decided on Sulky variegated long staple cotton 12 weight threads. 

Hand Quilting and Symmetrical Design

Last weekend I started hand quilting my latest itajime quilt and am liking it a lot. It took awhile for me to figure out what to do.  To plan where to stitch, I lay clear plastic over the quilt and use a water-soluble marker to try out different designs until something clicks with me.

My students are creating some wonderful symmetrical pieces of art using a very cool multi-step process. It's a crayon etching technique but with a twist to it. You take a piece of paper and fold it in half. On the inside right side you use multiple light colors of pastel in a random design to fill the paper, making sure to rub in the powder. Next you put a random design of crayon over the top in dark colors really laying in a heavy, waxy coat of it.  Then you place a paper inside the folded piece so you can protect the crayon from transferring while you draw half of the design on the outside front from the fold out. When you are done with your half design, remove the protector paper from inside and take a pen pressing hard on all your positive lines and shapes.  The pressure will lift the crayon off the pastel, which acts like a release agent and the crayon will be deposited on the left half of the inside. On the right half will be the leftover crayon against a light pastel background.

Here are a couple of them.

Outside front half of design

Inside on the right is the  pastel with the leftover crayon. On the left is the crayon that transferred due to the pressure of the ink ballpoint pen used on the outside cover. Pretty cool, huh? Below is another great one by a different  student.

Outside Front

Inside

Hand and Machine Quilting

On this quilt I am combining hand and machine quilting.  With the cotton velveteen, regular machine quilting doesn't show up well.  It gets buried in the nap.  I started by doing rays around the solar hurricane center, but it didn't show, so I hand-couched a pretty, nubby yarn in between the machine stitched lines, using them as a guide.

Below is a close-up.

I'm working on the mountains now, trying to put in some shading. I'm enjoying using a 12 weight Sulky blend.  I'm doing free motion quilting using a small zig-zag stitch.

Below is a close-up of it so far.

Stil a lot more work to do on this, but just wanted to share what I've been up to.