Quilting Suggestions for a Beginner

[Renata L.]

I'm posting a picture of my first round robin with my mother and sisters that I had made reference to in the "Okay, Count me in!" section of the forum. Since it is not a pineapple block quilt, I am posting here. The quilt represents an ancient and lovely Chinese (and Japanese, and others have their own version) fable of how the image of a rabbit (a jade rabbit) came to be seen on the moon. It took me about a month to do the center (my blanket stitch does not look very good up close) and then off I sent it to my sister, Daniela, for the first border. As you can see, everybody took off with it and went to town in interpreting the fable. My mother has since taken the story and re-interpreted her own way in her own quilt.

Maybe it is okay for me to be afraid to try... somehow, I think it would take a lot of chocolate and a fair amount of vino for me to want to tackle this. I welcome ideas here too. I can actually stitch in the ditch with a fair amount of success so I think it's the first thing I'd do. After that, I am still lost... But, I also recognize that fear of messing up this quilt that is pretty special to me on many levels is pretty high up there in my thoughts. I really do not want to send it out for quilting either... I'm determined to do it myself. The question is: when? And of course, how?

[Kathryn S.]

Renata, what a beautiful quilt! Just so you don't feel alone, I'm fairly experienced at machine quilting and I get nervous and intimidated before doing a larger quilt! Okay! I think I read that you have been doing Leah Day exercises on small pieces- that is an excellent way to jump in. Your quilt is a little like those smaller Leah Day pieces- if you look at it, there are several smaller areas that are separate, rather than a larger overall pattern. That is good! If you stitch in the ditch to hold things together and straight (I call that nailing it down), then you will have smaller areas to quilt. You can select some related designs to quilt in these smaller areas. If you feel up to it, you can outline some of your designs, like the rabbit in the center, etc. You could give the moon a texture and keep the rabbit unquilted except for the outline, perhaps. Just go slowly and build up your confidence as you go.

When I start the first few stitches I always worry about how well I will do. then I get caught up in doing it and realize that it will be okay, and even wonderful! You can do this.

Good quilting, Kathy

[Rita C.]

It's a beautiful quilt Renata. I think Kathy is right if you stabilize it with SID then you can work on any section you want to to begin with. It doesn't have to work from the centre out. I would usually SID around every object on the quilt because I want them to pop out and then tackle the background in some way. But even if you decided to do nothing but cross-hatching this quilt would still be beautiful and unique. I don't believe that you would mess it up and if you have done lots of practice with Leah Day then you are ready. Just make sure that you do a good 15 minutes practice each day before you begin on the actual quilt to warm yourself up for the real job. Good luck.

[Lotti D.]

i agree with all of the above - absolutely beautiful. would also SID first - then you only have small sections and can look at each of them individually. much too beautiful to keep rolled up!

[Lois B.]

Renata, I love your quilt. It is beautiful. Follow the advice given above and just do it. Breaking it up into small pieces is a good idea. You sound more confident with SITD. Start there and then take a break. Pick a small section that is not so intimidating and start there. Take a break and pick the next section. Good luck! Lois

[Renata L.]

Thank you, thank you, everyone for your suggestions and encouragement!!! Quilting the first one has to be the most difficult. You gave me enough that I can at least make a start and I have a sneaking suspicion that once I stabilize the quilt with SID, and do one section, there will be no turning back. I might even enjoy it (I hope!!!!). I haven't done a tremendous amount of practice on the Leah Day stuff, but I have gotten to the point where my stitches are becoming consistent, without bird's nests underneath and not as much tension nightmares as before. I also find that I do better on a few blocks put together than on plain fabric sandwiches because then I have a little more sense of purpose in my practice. But I do get on the machine and practice as much as possible. And FMQ does get better! I just wish I weren't such a perfectionist...

Since I've never put together a serious (larger than a placemat) quilt sandwich, I've contact a few friends and next week we are going to get together and they are going to teach me how to put Rabbit in the Moon together so I can start quilting. So you see, I've made the commitment--can't back out now... :wink: THANK YOU!!!

[Lotti D.]

good for you - am looking forward to reading how it's going

[Kathryn S.]

Renata, you've got the right frame of mind- your quilt will be even more beautiful after you've finished it. There is no such thing as perfection, especially with hand made things. You'll have little things that didn't turn out exactly the way you thought they would, but no one else will notice them.

I'm about to start this process with the 2011 BOM. The top is finished, I've bought the backing, and the quilting is somewhat figured out. So I will be working on mine when you are doing yours. Here's to good work for both of us.

kathy

[Nancy R.]

Renata - That quilt is so beautiful! You definitely come from a family of artists! You've gotten a lot of great advice and the only thing I would add is to not be hard on yourself about little bobbles in your quilting. Remember that nobody will ever put their nose as close to the quilt as you have it while you are doing the quilting. Step back when evaluating your quilting. Look at the whole rather than the individual stitches. Advice I've read several places is to move on when you make a mistake. If you can't find the mistake when you're done, then it's not a bad mistake, is it?

Nancy

[Renata L.]

Kathy and Nancy,
you are both so right and I plan to reread your postings and those of others who were kind to comment whenever I hit quilter's block, if there is any such thing. After washing some of my practice pieces, I sometimes could not find my mistakes--the little bit of shrinkage made the uglies kind of disappear; on the more egregious errors, I chalked them up to learning (some of them even got lost in the midst of other quilting and only I knew where they were or others were too kind to point them out). Occasionally, I've ripped out the stitches just to get practice in fixing things. I guess when all is said and done, this will have been my first quilt top that I've quilted and I'll accept it in that vein. Gotta start somewhere so I may as well take the plunge! Nancy, you're right, I do come from a family of artists, in earnest--mother a designer, one sister a painter but dabbles in quilting and the other sister a quilter with 30 years under her belt! And they just sucked me right into quilting the day I retired from the military! Kathy: Cheers! Salute! Prost! Proscht! Nostrovia! Kampai! Gan Bei! to our quilting journey and anyone else who would like to join us! I will do my best!
Renata

[Daniela D.]

I have faith in you, you don't give yourself enough credit. Now take that bunny by the ears and go with it. Love ya Sis.

Danny

[Lois B.]

I have faith in you, you don't give yourself enough credit. Now take that bunny by the ears and go with it. Love ya Sis.

Danny

Danny, Good time to join the banter. Not that I want to distract your sister from the job at hand, but I do wish she had an avatar. Preferably, I'd like to see her own face. Her personality is starting to come through her postings and it just doesn't fit with an image choosen by default. Lois

[Rita C.]

I agree with Lois, Renata. It would be so nice to see you.

[Daniela D.]

Agreed Lois and Rita, it would be nice if Renata posted her picture. I will try to convince her as she trys to get me to post pictures of my quilts.
Danny

[Renata L.]

I promise, I'll get to putting my face up and I'll even fill in my profile. But, today my Thai student is coming and I'll have her for the weekend and tutoring (plus DH's siblings and entourage visiting from out of town starting tomorrow) so please be patient... and after all this beautiful 50+ degree weather, we are expecting snow on Sunday! I was perfectly happy with pink hair because that is what happens to redheads when they age anyway :lol: :lol: :lol: