Question Thursday #22

LeahDay

Leah Day has been teaching online since 2009. She's the creator of the Free Motion Quilting Project, a blog filled with thousands of quilting tutorial videos. Leah has written several books including 365 Free Motion Quilting Designs, Explore Walking Foot Quilting with Leah Day, and Mally the Maker and the Queen in the Quilt.

6 Responses

  1. Pat says:

    Thanks so much Leah! I will stitch that quilt into submission, even if I have to quilt the snot out of it! LOL!

    You always make me smile, thank you for all of your help and support! You make me look forward to Wednesdays and Thursdays!!!

  2. Malini says:

    Thank you, Leah for answering my questions. You're always so sweet.

    I know this particular project I'm not able to let go the structure because I was already exploring modern quilting and wanted to make a particular quilt I saw at one website. So, probably my thoughts are all wrapped around it and couldn't get out of it and be free for the wonkyness.

    Thanks again!
    Malini

  3. MC says:

    I noticed the same thing about randomness when making blocks for my improv quilt. Every time I've tried to organize pieces so that they look random it doesn't look quite right compared to just grabbing them out of a pile. There is also something satisfying about watching something come together when you don't know in advance quite how it's going to turn out.

  4. Leah ~
    You make me smile 🙂 Love your answers… and that "quilt the snot out of it " Phrase, well, cracks me up every time~
    Godspeed,
    mary

  5. Teresa says:

    Hi Leah, I also have probs with polyester. If I'm having stitch problems, it usually is on the poly fabric. I just quilted a quilt for someone and had a "dickens" of a time with thread shredding, breaking, skipping etc. On inspection, the areas of problems were when I went through a block that had mystery fabric (it was a log cabin made of old clothes so everything was in it) Here's my theory – take it or leave it.
    When Polyester hit the market in the 70's, the polyester thread at the time was as tough as nails. You could not break it with your hands, so it sewed the fabric with no problem.
    Over the years, the manufacturers have changed the poly thread to feel and behave more like cotton – a good thing. But, it also behaves like cotton when sewing poly fabric. My theory is that when I sew somewhat faster, the friction builds up and weakens the thread. Of course, I have no science behind this theory, but if I slow down, it behaves better, and if I avoid polyester (like the plague) it goes terrific. That's my theory, and it works for me 🙂

  6. Rachel says:

    Hi Leah, probably a bit of a late response here (catching up on my reading post holiday), but thought it might be of value in some way… Regarding the question about contrasting quilting density, I have two examples of where I've done this.

    I recently finished a quilt where I stippled in the white and then did a looser quilting design on the coloured parts. You can see the result here: http://mymessings.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/lauras-quilt-3-piecing-quilting.html The contrast in density probably wasn't quite as high as what Pat's talking about, but i think the effect was great – it did give a different texture but the difference was good, it highlighted the quilt design and added to it, rather than just happening along side it, as the coloured sections were a bit puffier than the white sashing.

    The second thing i've done with different densities (which I've actually done three times) is a quilted advent calendar (which is from a tutorial by Elizabeth Hartman): http://mymessings.blogspot.com.au/search/label/Advent%20Calendar On those the sashing was very densly stippled and the pockets just stitched around the square in the ditch. It definitely has an effect on the texture, making the unquilted pocket sections puff up a bit, which is fine since they're pockets, but would probably look a bit weird if they weren't.

    Not really an answer, but hopefully my examples may guide others as to what *might* happen for them

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