Pillow Practice
Another nice day. I just love this weather. After walking Kona, I'll be back at the long arm today. I have some exciting projects coming up and I'm itching to get back to quilting.
Another Pillow
I have a larger whole cloth quilt planned. This pillow project is perfect for practicing the skills I need for mastering the bigger project. I have several panel quilts coming up and it is great practice for those as well.
This is the March 2020 Skill Builder lesson. I'm slowly catching up on the Skill Builder projects. I'm skipping around and focusing on the ones that have lessons I need to learn first for other projects I'm planning. The following Skills are covered in the lesson:
- Patterns too large for sewable area
- Nodes/Relocate to 2 points
- Creating framework
- Allover quilting – flipping rows
- F4 and Order Join differences
- Resizing Patterns
- Creating Double triangle
- Using Draw Line for continuous sewing
Sewable Area
The throat of the machine dictates the amount of sewable area available at a time. With edge-to-edge (e2e), a pattern is sewn across in rows up to the depth of the machine throat. This pillow is 24" and my machine has about 22" of sewable area.
This lesson is extremely useful for many types of quilts, but especially for whole cloth quilts. As the name implies, the entire size of the quilt is the design so breaking it into sewable sections is required. Nodes are used to break apart an individual pattern.
In addition to breaking apart the patterns, "Relocate" is used to reposition the design to match the new position of the quilt. Once a sewable area is complete, the quilt is rolled to expose a new area for sewing. Relocate is how you match the position on the computer to the new available area of the quilt top.
Framework
Whole cloth quilts often include multiple frames in the design. I've only worked on one other quilt top where I used a frame and that one fit my entire sewable area. Using nodes and relocate to 2 points enables me to line up both sides of the frame. When stitched out, they line up perfectly.
The Back
Of course, no pillow is complete without a pretty back. I selected an edge to edge design that complemented the front design. It is larger than the pillow front so I can create an overlapping fold to slide the pillow form inside.
Aside from all the tweaking and positioning of the designs, this was a fast project to complete. Well, almost complete. I'm waiting for the pillow form to arrive.
What new skills are you working on?
Until till next time,