Having done my last customer quilt for the year I’ve decided
to look for ways I can make my long arm quilting more streamlined, find and
practice more motifs and also experiment with ways to successfully roll a quilt
back and forth without distorting the backing or blocks.
I contemplated doing another online course but when I
checked these out I found that apart from stitching on another background or
panel, the motifs all stay similar to those I’ve already done and that defeats
the purpose. I did however have many
other areas I’d like to improve on and one was finding the perfect way to
audition motifs, not only in a block but also overall the whole quilt.
In the past I would take a photo of the quilt, print this
out and do my overall planning on a plastic sheet covering my picture.
This worked okay and I even did more detailed sketches in
the different blocks
However these were not up to scale and what may look
extremely busy with the thick felt tip pen on plastic becomes a scarce pattern
on a quilt or in a large block and I wanted get a better idea of the real scale
before starting.
So off to trusty old You Tube and Google and I found a site
called Forever Quilting by Dorie Hruska with heaps of videos too….. just what I
needed at the right time. After watching
some of her videos leaving comments (questions) which she promptly answered I
even ordered her book Making Connections as finding a smooth quilt path moving
from one block/area to another is also one of the things I still struggle with.
So making more auditioning sheets was step one. I used lamination pouches without any paper in
between and edged these with painters tape to prevent my pen markings to go
onto the fabric.
This allows me to lay the plastic on top of the block on the
frame and mark my pattern on scale.
Furthermore I can also mark a quilt path on these to
successfully transition from one area to another without having to go over a
previous line too many times.
Now there are other ways, I am sure, but for now this is
what I will experiment with to see how it works for me.
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