Quilting Piece of Cake 3 & Handi Quilter Rulers

Squeal! I am super excited about the quilting I did yesterday. I knew I wanted a soft, puffy quilt and thought about doing a clamshell-type design. I watched a lot of Craftsy videos and searched on-line for other ideas. Elizabeth Dackson came through with a great design in her Start Free-Motion Quilting class: a slightly fancier clamshell with a loop in the middle. Her instructions gave me the confidence to give it a try even though it would require marking the straight lines to keep the rows evenly spaced between my free-motion clamshells.

I sketched out some practice quilting to determine the scale of the design for my quilt. I watched a few more videos to see how the clamshells might look on a full size quilt and came upon a Handi Quilter video demonstrating their longarm clamshell ruler. It suddenly hit me that I actually had purchased the HQ multi ruler ages ago and that it had a 2" clamshell on one end. I pulled it out and gave it a try on a practice sandwich. I loved the results! They were uniform and just the right size to secure the batting yet provide a lovely squishy texture. It was easy and fun to do so I felt great and very satisfied that this was the way I was going to go for the Piece of Cake 3 quilt.  After my experimentation I went back and added a few plumes within each clamshell just for fun. Wow! What a different look that gave; an Asian fan design emerged and I will definitely consider that on a more formal project in the future. I tried it with open 'leaves' as well but preferred the travel-stitched single line option. For me, starting is the hardest part but solidifying what I was going to quilt made it much easier to actually get going and once I do, I don't want to stop.

I got my quilt under the Sweet 16 needle and started my clamshells. I did mark 2" horizontal guidelines using a water soluble blue pen. It wasn't that bad at all. I'm not usually a marking girl but I wanted this design so badly that it was worth the extra work. My vintage machine piecing is a little wonky in spots so things didn't line up exactly right but it is good enough. I also had a small learning curve to deal with and there are wobbles and oopsies here and there in my first few rows of clamshells. It's a little bit more challenging when you have the weight of the 'real' quilt to manage. You know what? I'm not worrying about those mistakes at all because I have learned that you NEVER see those bad stitches again on a non-show quilt. I know for a fact there are plenty of boo-boos on all my other finished quilts but I couldn't tell you what or where they are now! Let it go!!!

Today, I am almost finished the first half of the quilting. It is going along well and so much fun. I am itching to let loose though as this is a much slower, more careful way to quilt than the free-hand, pedal to the metal way I usually stitch. It's a good change though and the finished work is looking good! I'm very pleased with it and the results are exactly what I was looking for. In fact, I am enjoying the clamshells so much that I ordered a second ruler that has a row of clamshells on each side (versus one single one that has to be moved each time). I'm hoping it will be just as easy to use on the sit-down machine. If not, I will pick up the multi-clamshell that has a single shape but in multiple sizes. That might be a great option too for borders, different sizes of patchwork, etc.

While I had my sample piece out I opened up the multi-circle HQ ruler I bought myself months ago but had never tried. It is super fun too and the circles are PERFECT! (see them under that Asian fan sample above). I love pebbles but sometimes you just want them to be exactly uniform and round. I can see a row of these lovely bubbles in sashing or borders. What great texture would result and so fun to quilt. I just might be turning into a ruler girl after all! Off I go to finish my half and get started on the second act...

Comments

[Jayne]

That looks beautiful! Thanks for sharing.:)

[angie]

Thank you, Jayne! :)