My New Oliso Smart Iron

My New Oliso Smart Iron!

Hey, where is my new Oliso iron?  Has anyone seen it? Ha!

Oliso with a new quilt and an old one (Development)

Yes, I am at QuiltCon!  However, I am also working like crazy to finish up some quilts for another exhibit.  It is hard doing both at the same time, and sleep is scarce.  Which is why I did not notice, as I was quilting late into the night, that the back side of my quilt was getting folds, lots of folds.  And once the fold starts, it continues and gets worse as the quilting continues.  So it had to be fixed.  I was tired and very frustrated because it was the first time I tried to do a lot of quilting lines without checking the back.  Mistake!

If it had only been this one fold, I probably would have just repaired this section (on multiple lines of quilting).  But there were LOTS of sections that had folds like this.

This is the back side of the quilt.  It is another two sided quilt. So BOTH sides have to look good! The seam ripper is holding up the fold so that you can see where the actual seam is.  It is eating about 1/16 of an inch now, but if left un-repaired, that amount grows.

I am quilting in concentric circles, so I had about 10 lines to rip out.

And, I am not a fast ripper.  It was almost good for me though, because I was already doing my best (or at least I thought I was), and I had no idea how to keep this from happening again. And I am really good at basting, but when sewing in concentric circles, crazy things happen, and I have experienced a few of those disasters as well.  I had a new idea to pin baste, and then on my machine with BIG stitches, quilt some randomly spaced radial lines, taking those out as I go, along with the rest of the safety pins.  You can see below, the brown line of thread and the backs of the safety pins (yes, this is the back side of the quilt).

Unfortunately, all the folds were happening right along the edges of those brown basting threads because I forgot about the rip it out before sewing, and I was sewing over them.  Lesson learned. sigh....

I finished ripping and went to the first day of QuiltCon and found this fabulous new Oliso iron! It is so smart!  You can iron with it, and without lifting it, take your hand off, and it automatically pops out these retractable thingies that lift the iron off the work surface! Magic!! I used it to solve my problem.  I have never ironed a quilt during the quilting, but it worked to ease the fullness in during this giant mess of a problem, and allowed me to continue working.

Now watch as I take my hands off temporarily, and use both hands to smooth out the fullness of this large project. The iron pops up! (I will try to take an actual video of the magic, once my 'assistant' wakes up. I will post it on Instagram). You can also google this and find videos of it happening!

A close up of the magic:

Last, I was careful to press both sides of the quilted sandwich before proceeding with the quilting. And, with the 10 foot long cord, it was easy to get around this big quilt! Here is the front side:

Works like a charm!! So far I love this new Oliso iron!  And, it's yellow!!! (comes in other colors too!). And, if you buy it at QuiltCon, there is a discount. Check it out if you are in the market for a new iron.  I am looking forward to using it on many projects to come! And, because it rests in this position, I can be assured that it won't tip over and crash to an early death.  True confession: I have done that to two irons already.

PS. I do not work for Oliso.  If you have a problem with yours, you should contact the company directly.

Plenty to Go Around: hand quilting

Plenty to Go Around
80" x 80"
Hand Quilting

I love the way hand quilting looks.  I love the process of hand quilting.  It is meditative, slow, and calming to the soul. It also gives the quilt a very nice softness of texture.  And, I love that it looks somewhat organic compared to the perfect computer drawn quilting lines of newer technology.

I have been quilting since 1980.  The first quilt took about 15-20 years to complete.  It was all hand quilted, before I knew how to hand quilt.  Basically, stick the needle in from the top, grab in on the bottom side with the other hand, turn the needle around and stick it back up to the surface.  This is called stab and grab.  It works, so that's what I did.  It is not the reason the first quilt took so long to complete!

One year, I was at the International Quilt Festival, winding my way through the vendor booths, and I ran across someone selling these little gadgets for hand quilting.  In five minutes, I had a thorough lesson in how to hand quilt.  It was fabulous!  The tool was good too, but I don't use it anymore.  I prefer using my hands and a few other tools.

Above is a self portrait of my hands.  I can now quilt for hours on end, but afterwards, my hands feel kind of dead! Ha!  (Also, my back and shoulders for sitting too long!).  Meanwhile, what you see here is the wonderful Clover leather thimble with a metal coin.  The coin part is dimpled and allows me to set the needle without it slipping.  The leather part is super comfortable and soft.  I had worn out two of these fantastic little thimbles and so started this project with a normal full metal thimble.  Sadly it didn't fit and gave me a cut and giant blister on my finger. Nuts! It was totally worth driving to a nearby city for a new leather thimble that was in stock on the only night it snowed in Austin! Yes, I am dedicated to my craft!

You may have noticed the blue spots on my fingers? It is blue painter's tape.  Quilting without them leaves my fingers feeling like they have been needle felted, or tattooed without ink.  A bit painful and unnecessary.  I cut new little pieces of tape for each quilting session.  If you press on them for about 20 seconds, they will stick pretty well.  They also work to build up layers if one isn't thick enough.

Which brings me to the needles.  I use a LOT of needles, because I tend to bend and break them.  I have yet to find the perfect needles, but these Bohin needles come pretty close.  I used to think it was the needle (and inferior needles are problematic), but I have come to find out that there is a minor flaw in my quilting technique, and if I am not paying attention, I will bend the needle, making it pretty useless, and I am on to another one. I have tried lots of styles, but the Betweens and Sharps seem to be the best for me.

The quilting technique.

I like to load the needle with a lot of stitches at one time. I think this one has about 6 stitches.  I am never sure how to count those?? Meanwhile, really excellent hand quilters can get 10 stitches per inch.  I am not there, but also, I find that I prefer to see the little stitches, so I will aim for the size that is visually appealing.  The bending of needles comes when I push too hard on a needle that has lots of stitches.  It works better to use the thimble to push and load the needle with stitches, and then use some locking forceps to pull the needle through.

Last, I use a hoop.  It helps get the tension right and seems to work for me.  I have seen other quilters NOT use a hoop.  I don't know how they do it.  Magic!

And for this quilt, the Plenty to Go Around quilt, hand quilting is the perfect compliment for a quilt that has been hand appliqued, and all hand batiked elements. I love the way it looks in the concentric circles, which is also paired rather nicely with the symmetry on the front. The same lines add a different element to the story on the back.