Thursday, August 5, 2010

My creative space... circling.

It has begun. The quilting of the ugly hexes.


I've opted for hand quilting, and decided on a simple design of intersecting circles. 

Simple in theory, anyway. I'm finding it slow going, but not really in that pleasant, lulling, meditative way I had hoped. It's taking a while to get a hang of lots of things: marking out my design; burying knots; holding an unwieldy quilt on my lap; working the needle through those layers.

And then there is the stitching itself. I started out quilting with thin cotton quilting thread and trying to do small, even stitches. After realising that I wasn't catching the backing with stitches smaller than, oh, about a metre, I decided to embrace the large stitch and go for more of a sashiko look. This looks much better to my eye, and doing a better job of actually quilting the layers together. 

But boy, am I finding it hard work. Physically hard. There is a large amount of friction going on. There must be something weird going on with my particular concoction of fabrics, batting (can't remember what sort) and sashiko thread. The three circles I've completed in sashiko-style took around half an hour each! 
Thoughts? Suggestions? Is this just part-and-parcel of doing something new?

Anyway, with all the effort being expended, I've decided I need to keep the energy levels up. This morning I made a rather large batch of cinnamon scrolls, using brioche dough from my no-knead artisan bread book.

Heavenly. What do you think - do I get one for every sashiko circle-of-pain I complete?


More creative spaces to be seen at Kirsty's place.

37 comments:

  1. One per circle? Oh go on, have one per stitch! It might be tricky and tiresome but it is looking great.

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  2. it may be hard for you to believe, but i am love with your ugly hexagon quilt. It truely is in the charming style of its ancestors.

    Regarding the hand quilting - I find it speeds up as you go along, and you can manage to get more stitches on the needle each time as you get better at "rocking the needle" (the later said with a certain Southern American drawl...)

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  3. The quilt is coming along beautifully. I guess it's going to always be a little stop and start with something new...

    But those scrolls! I am sooo green with envy and suddenly very hungry. Really wonderful stuff, Gina.

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  4. All your circling looks absolutely marvellous to me (& delicious too).

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  5. looks great - I have that book and had been eyeballing the scrolls - so you recommend???

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  6. The quilt looks gorgeous. The circles are going to be beautiful, and perhaps worth the time?

    As for the cinnamon buns, I'm wishing I could have one for every circle you finish. Better go and have a look at my Artisan Bread book I think and see what's involved in producing a batch of my own.

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  7. The quilt looks great - I don't know much about quilting but I find rubbing your needle through your hair helps lubricate it! Yummy scrolls too :)

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  8. Oh my! Woman I admire your patience. Seriously. You are doing great, keep up the effort! You know, Denyse Schmidt has her top of the range quilts hand sewn by Amish people and it takes 6 months. So you can make another 45 batches of scrolls and eat them all and voila you will be done much faster than the Amish. OR you can get us all to help you for a scroll each!

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  9. The quilt is looking great, no idea how to make it easier or faster, having never hand quilted anything (& very unlikely ever to!)

    But Gina, those scrolls! Now I'm starving, I should remember to have something delicious made for Creative Space browsing, now I'm going to have to go & raid the cooking chocolate!

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  10. It does look really good, but I can imagine that it's hard work - I think you would definitely need regular posture breaks, so get up and walk over to those scrolls as often as you need!

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  11. *wiping drool marks from the screen...*
    Looking like a very tasty household over there Gina - the quilt looks great too - though I have no advice on how to help!

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  12. that is totally stunning, never mind the hard work now, think of how you feel when you stitch that last circle!

    xB

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  13. Those rolls look delicious. I think you should just eat one whenever you want. After each stitch? Or would that be a bad idea? ;-) They look yummy enough for over eating badly :-D

    The quilt is looking marvelous. Not ugly at all. Did I say that before? I am having a deja vu feeling. Anyway, I think the circles look great. I am not a quilter, so I have no idea what time frame is normal, but I'd say the effort is definitely worth it. Go girl!

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  14. Oooh I have a hankering for afternoon tea! Those scrolls look yummy but my belly is already round enough :-)

    Love the quilt! I am no quilter but a lady I follow over at Online Quilting or Sashiko Started It once mentioned wax for her thread????

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  15. I really like the sashiko circles idea - it will look great with the hexes. Eat all the scrolls you need to make it through, I reckon! (they look absolutely divine - yum!)

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  16. The circles look great. What a shame you're not having fun doing them. Relaxing hand sewing is a treat, but painful hand sewing is such a drag!

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  17. I'm going to be doing some quilted circles on a baby quilt I'm making but I am using a wool blanket as the 'inside layer'. Hoping it makes it easier to quilt than yours seems to be!

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  18. the "ugly hexes" are looking fabulous, i love the circle idea, and the scrolls, YUM

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  19. those scrolls look so good!
    sorry can't help quilting wise . . . hopefully it gets easier as it looks amazing.

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  20. oh I want to eat one of those! perhaps you have sold me on that book now. (I was pretty tempted before but they look totally awesome). As always, impressed by your skill and dedication but not totally sure I could look at the fabric combo for too long!!

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  21. The "Ugly Hexes" aint ugly at all! Absolutely gorgeous ♥

    I love the look of hand quilting too.

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  22. i can't decide which circles are sweeter!
    looking good there...and very patient I might add.
    wonderful!

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  23. Jeepers you are insanely talented Gina. I love the looping circles ,and now I want cinnamon scrolls too. BTW, I read recently that cinnamon is a really great immuno-booster. So eat,eat, eat, lady!

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  24. Yep - for sure you get a cinnamon scroll for every circle. Take your time. It will be worth it in the end.

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  25. Oh YUM YUM YUM! And I love the hand quilting too. Beautiful.

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  26. That is looking great!!! And the cinnamon scroll....oh yum! Don't torture me with more things I could bake. I can only use this pregnancy excuse for 10 more weeks....LOL.

    Thanks for your beautiful words on my blog. Can't tell you how much your kindness means.

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  27. oh wow. i'll help you hand quilt for one of those absolutely delicious looking cinnamon buns ANYTIME. hope the friction resolves itself, or else you grow some good arm muscles quickly. hand quilting - wow! you're very committed!

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  28. Your quilt looks excellent, I recently was quilting a small quilt and found it much harder to quilt than past projects, not that I've done a huge amount of quilting but I think it had to do with the fact that I was using a cotton/poly mix and the ones before had been pure cotton...I don't know that was my guess at the difference anyway.

    mmm cinnamon scrolls look gorgeous. Good luck with your quilt, I look forward to seeing more lovely circles : )

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  29. I am still reeling over the quilting it by hand... that is ummmm.... really hard and will take a long time so I guess it is good??? Golly! The scrolls look bloody marvelous darls!

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  30. looks great Gina - both the quilting and the scrolls!

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  31. First- the cinnamon rolls look great!

    Next- the circles look great! What a great vintage looks you'll get with this hand-sewn treatment!

    As to making it easier, here are a few possibilities.

    To help in marking the circles, you can iron on a circle of freezer paper, then just quilt around the paper, or chalk around it to quilt on the chalk mark.

    For the thread, the batting will drag at it and 'beard' through the quilt top. Thread conditioner will help, but beeswax or chap-stick will work. Thread the needle then run the thread over and through the wax or chapstick a few times to coat it. Iron the conditioned thread by pulling it through muslin while pressing firmly with an iron. The Iron will melt off the wax, but leave the thread conditioned. It will also help to stop the thread from knotting.

    It does take a long time, but it is so worth it in the end! Have fun!

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  32. Your quilt looks beautiful. I love the hexagons. Thats exactly the kind of quilt that I would like on my bed...and the scrolls?...Thats exactly the kind of scroll that I like inside my belly.

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  33. Holy Wow those cinnamon buns look divine. I'm curious, where did you learn to quilt? It seems you are so gifted at it and know how to do anything. You must have learned at an early age. That, or you practice a lot... or both... looks lovely. xo m.

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  34. Ok, now I'm really hungry. And they look relatively small, so at LEAST one per circle is absolutely appropriate. Especially if you're using a fair bit of energy working that thread through! And embrace the slow - I suspect that I would be much slower even once I'd gotten the hang of it!!

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  35. Your blog makes me unhappy, because I get to see all the wonderful food that has disappeared before I get home...!

    ;-(

    Justin

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  36. Gina,

    My copy of Artisan Bread has finally arrived, any hot tips you may have before I launch into this new era of bucket-in-the-fridge baking?

    Angie

    P.S. Love that last comment before mine!

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  37. I haven't used a hoop before. I used linen thread once and it was reaaly hard and perle slid through so much easier. Are they proper quilting needles as I think they help after I used cheapy ones from Spottie.

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“Three Rules of Work: Out of clutter find simplicity; From discord find harmony; In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.”
~Albert Einstein