Sea Glass FMQ is Done!

I finished up all the quilting on these pieces of sea glass tonight. It feels good to have it all done.

I started having more issues with breaking thread last night as I was quilting the lighter aqua pieces. So I looked at some videos about trouble shooting thread issues in free motion quilting. A couple of these videos said the issue could be the foot and how high it is off the fabric. I transferred that to thinking maybe MY issue was my stitch regulator foot.

I wanted to finish up the final darker aqua pieces tonight so decided to pull off the stitch regulator and put on a basic darning foot instead. Here’s the two feet, stitch regulator on the right.

If you’re not familiar with what a stitch regulator is, It’s a little computerized quilting foot that reads the speed of the fabric as you move it under the foot and adjusts the speed of the needle accordingly. It’s supposed to maintain a consistent stitch length as your speed varies in quilting.

And you know what… using that regular, non-computerized foot was amazing! I was able to finish up about 20 of the darker aqua pieces in nothing flat with no thread issues at all and with no profanity! EUREKA! I may never use my stitch regulator again! It will be nice to give a gift that doesn’t have profanity woven into every stitch!

Without the stitch regulator, you do need to pay attention to your stitch length and your speed. You don’t have the computer helping keep the stitch length consistent, so it’s all up to you. I practiced on a quilt sandwich that I had handy and felt that my stitches were consistent enough to dive in.

After our walk I trimmed the piece using the masking tape as my guide. And once it was trimmed I removed the masking tape.

I was a bit nervous that the tape would leave some sticky residue behind, but there’s nothing there. So that makes me very happy.

Most of these sea glass quilts you see online have a faced edge rather than binding. I like the look, but I want to bind this for practical reasons. I’m afraid the white edge would get really discolored from dust over time. So I’m going to bind it in a soft blue/aqua that blends with the colored pieces of fabric. Here’s a picture of the batik I selected from my stash.

You can see that it’s sort of a combo of blue and aqua. I think it’s a good choice.

Here’s a bit of a view showing three sides with the binding fabric.

Plus, my friend’s favorite color is blue. So that makes this an even better idea.

I’ve pretty much decided that I’m going to make another trip quilt out of the aboriginal strips my friend gave me. You can see other trip quilts I’ve made here and here.

So I took all those sets I had put together the other night and sorted the pieces out by color family. To make a quilt the 6 block by 7 block size I want, I’ll need 42 blocks. That means 21 strip sets — two blocks out of each strip set. With six strips in each strip set, that means I’ll need 126 strips.

I counted out the strips I had and was about 18 strips short. So I dug out my Aboriginal scraps and cut the additional strips I needed.

Then I sorted these by color family and added them to the previous strips.

I’m pretty sure I now have around 130 strips. This allows me to pull out fabrics I’m not crazy about. I’m also toying with using a common fabric for the center diagonal line in each block. I haven’t decided for sure, but that might be the direction I go.

I decided to take tomorrow off from work. I have sworn I WILL go out and get my car registered! It’s a full year past due! I can’t use the pandemic as an excuse any more. I also hope to finish the binding on the sea glass quilt and figure out how I’ll rig it out so it can be hung on a wall.

Look how cute my Rico is!!! Gah! What a sweet kid.

I harvested my first box of apples last night. I’ve got a pretty good crop on the tree, but not as crazy huge as they’ve been in recent years.

These were all peeled and sliced and spent the night in my dehydrator. And this morning, they were ready to eat.

I will run this work horse overnight quite a few more times in the next month! And it’s so nice to have these dried apples to munch on all winter.

My blog readers have been really busy over the last few days. Here’s a bunch of Frankenbag photos they’ve shared with me.

This first one is from Patricia Woltman. I just love this bag… those really pretty bright pastel fabrics with all that wonderful black and white. It’s really pretty. And look.. another zipper placket!

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This next bag was made by Kellie Doyle. There’s some really fun graphic stuff going on with her piecing. All those angles are really interesting. And I LOVE her lining! What a fun fabric. It reminds me of finger prints and it’s pretty fantastic!

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Next up is this bag from Britt-Inger Jönsson. She has made a good number of Frankenbags. She puts together some really bold and fun fabric combos. And I love her wavy checkerboard quilting on this one! Hmmm. Might have to try that one.

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And… another zipper placket! And holy cow… there’s a dog under that bag!!!

Next is this bag from Susan Conant. I love her little three dimensional pinwheels. Reminds me of the little spinners from my childhood. There’s also something really nice about that pink with the graphic black and whites. Lovely.

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Here’s another bag from Barb Schippa. She didn’t do any piecing on this bag, but she paid a helluva lot of attention to the placement of that big print! I love this bag! Everything is placed so carefully and I love that big print with that springy green lining. Look how carefully she matched the two sides of the zipper placket. And look how the zipper placket matches the placement of the interior pocket. Very nicely done!

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Thanks to you all for sharing photos of your bags!