Quilting with a Ruler Foot

I've been having so much fun checking out the entries for the Blogger's Quilt Festival, I can't resist adding another one! I love making all kinds of quilts, but baby quilts are my favorite to create and gift. They are the perfect size to make (big enough to be a satisfying project, yet small enough that they actually get finished!) and it is just plain fun to make something for a new little person.

This one is on its way to the new little girl of a wonderful friend from college. It's constructed entirely from half square triangles (I have a bit of a thing for HSTs...) in a herringbone pattern and made in Gooseberry fabric by Vanessa Goertzen of Lella Boutique.

This is the first time I quilted a quilt using my ruler foot. There is a learning curve on this technique, to be sure. I'm still learning to love it, but I think we'll be friends with time. I like the design possibilities that it opens up, as I am not one of those people who can free motion beautiful designs. For this design, I used the large curve on Piece 'N Quilt's 4-N-1 Machine Quilting Ruler. I'm still trying out different rulers and seeing what I like best, but I certainly like the flexibility of this one!

Some tips for ruler work:

Practice! Spend some time playing around with samples and getting a feel for the technique.

Though it never seems to make a difference for me with free motion quilting, dropping the feed dogs on my machine helped a lot with ruler work.

I needed to put more pressure on the ruler than I initially thought. Simply resting one hand on the ruler resulted in a lot of slippage. Really get a good grip on that ruler!

Happy sewing, everyone!

Secrets to a Perfect Half Square Triangle

I finished my half square triangle quilt and just love it. The quilting came out just how I envisioned, and it's a great size for my reading chair. Perfectly cozy!

I'm a big fan of half square triangles. Pretty much any fabric works for a half square triangle, you can make them big or small, and it's such a flexible block with so many layout possibilities. I figured the handy half square triangle deserved its very own quilt!

I always make my half square triangles a little big and take the time to trim them down to the size I need. It's a time-consuming extra step, certainly, but it's so pleasant to work with perfectly sized squares. I sure some quilters are able to achieve a perfect half square triangle without trimming, but I'm not one of them! Trimming is a nice task to do away from the sewing machine. I call them "TV-watching tasks." Trimming half square triangles is a perfect activity to do while you're doing something else.

Another secret to perfect half square triangle is to press before you cut the two halves apart. I always give them a quick little press with the iron before cutting them apart and pressing them open, and it seems to help them lay nicely. They, of course, take another trip to the ironing board after I press them open.

Here is the completed half square triangle quilt, featuring fabrics from several of Denyse Schmidt's lines.

Straight Up

I’ve spent a lot of time quilting straight lines lately. My fallback quilting choice is usually to stipple my quilts. I love how quickly I can get a project done with stippling and I enjoy how it flows. Lately, however, I’ve been inspired to try other quilting designs.

I recently finished a half square triangle quilt top. I quickly knew I wanted to quilt it with straight lines, diagonally across the quilt. I wanted lines to intersect the peak of each triangle, and figured out lines spaced 7/8 of an inch apart would be close enough together for the effect I wanted. This translated into a lot of lines.

Was quilting so many straight lines monotonous at times? Certainly. Probably a bit more monotonous than stippling, but not much. It went fairly quickly and was pretty easy to accomplish on a domestic machine. 

I love the modern look it gives the quilt. It adds dimension and texture, but works with the orderly look of the half square triangle quilt.