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I'm steadily making progress on my marbles. As you might imagine it's tedious work that also requires a lot of focus so I generally work on it about an hour at a time. I also do my share of ripping out stitches when things don't line up quite right. But it's fun and I'm keeping at it. Here are 6 more:  9 segments, skip 5 spaces, a circle and an oval ruler with 2 passes of each, one on each side of the ruler foot...for a total of 4 passes  5 segments, skip 1 with 4 different circles and the 2 largest circles to create the edge  21 segments, skip 4 with the narrow end of an oval ruler  16 spaces, skip 6 with straight edge, create center diamond and ruffle edge with small circle templates (Pro Circles from Lisa Calle)  14 spaces off center, skip 5 with a circle ruler.  21 spaces, skip 4 with pointy end of oval ruler. One round does half then travel over one spot to do the same again. Finish with tip of oval to create the rest of the edge. More marbles quilted this week!  Divided into 6 segments and used the tip of 3 ovals in each segment. The circle finished off the edge.  10 segments, skip 4 places using 2 rulers.  21 segments, skip 5 places using 1 ruler  8 segments, using 1 ruler in each segment. This one was a pleasant surprise!  15 segments, 1 ruler for the inside skipping 7 segments, another ruler for the edge  12 segments, skip 5 with 1 ruler for the outside and 1 ruler for the inside skipping 5. This one shows the difference you get stitching on the outside of the ruler foot vs the inside of the ruler foot. I'm sure as time goes on I'll have plenty of duplicates. I'm not working very hard to avoid duplication. I'm just trying to try different things and I'm having fun and that's all that matters!
 Divide in 10ths, large circle for interior design, small circle for the edge. Skip 4 segments to the left. Quilt 5 points then travel one space and quilt the other 5 points and then travel around the edge of the rest of the motif. From the minute that I started making this quilt I knew that I wanted to do Spirograph quilting in the circles. I bought every circle and oval ruler from Quilter's Apothecary so that I'd have every possible curve. Quilter's Apothecary is the only place I know of that has every circle size in 1/2 inch increments. They also have a wonderful set of ovals. Then a couple of years ago I found Sue Heinz and her Circleliner series of marking tools. Her tools make is easy to divide circles into increments of 3, 4, 5 and 7 so I can divide a circle into 6, 15, 21, 16 and lots of other increments. With these tools I was ready to get started.  Lost My Marbles quilt top For reference here's the quilt top right after I finished it in February 2015. Every one of those 109 circles will have a Spirograph type design. In this series of posts I'll share each motif I quilt and show the rulers I used to get that design. These aren't meant to be tutorials. If you've played with a Spirograph you will be able to figure it out on your own. Today I'm posting my first 6 designs. Only 103 left to go!  12 divisions, quilted with complete circles lined up in the outside mark and the center of the circle.  16 divisions, soft curve oval ruler, skipping 7 sections - they aren't perfect but they are close enough  10 divisions, 2 circles skipping 3 sections  They don't have to be centered! 16 segments, straight ruler skipping 7 sections  6 segments, 2 ovals skipping 3 sections so that the edge has to be used to travel. Used the same 2 rulers on the edge.
Yep. I'm going to call it "Lost My Marbles". I can't think of a better name for the effort that's going into this quilt. I spent some time Tuesday starting the quilting and as you can see my thread choice was a very bad one. It matches beautifully! It will show great in the dark blocks but the light side of the quilt will look unquilted.  So back to my obscene thread collection to find something else. I have lots of choices! These are the first 3 that I pulled. I love these colors The 2 on the right are acrylic threads from the collection of threads that I bought from Lunn Fabrics years ago when they were closing out these threads. I used some of these threads in Parasol.  Do you see how the thread on this one is really loose? Have you ever had that happen?  This is how much thread I had to let fall off the cone before I could get it down to something relatively neat and controllable. I don't think it's a problem with the thread, I think it's because I had the cone upside down in the drawer. I haven't paid a lot of attention to how I stored these threads but now that I've gone through the drawer I see that almost half of them were upside down. I've fixed that now. It's a really pretty pile of thread though!  But after all that I didn't choose any of these 3 threads. I decided on a bright orange that shows even better than in this photo. It's going to even stand out more in the darkest and lightest blocks. But then I ran into another snag. My ruler foot wobbles left and right a little bit. It has to do with how tightly the foot can be screwed on and still hop up and down. Michele, from Virginia Longarm, is bringing me a new washer that Innova developed to fix this.  I thought you might want to know how I'm marking my circles.
Right after I made this quilt I saw Sue Heinz at Birds of a Feather and she had these tools. I knew they were exactly what I needed! I can easily divide circles into and multiple of thirds, fourths and fifths. So once I get the new washer for the ruler foot I'll be ready to go. I'm going to document every circle that I stitch and will share the rulers that I use for each one as well. But I have to wait until next Saturday to get the washer. I'm going to try to use all of the time between now and then to get everything ready for my classes and booth at Birds of a Feather on February 8 - 11. During my break times I'll work on some postcards and maybe plan a new quilt.  Does anyone remember this quilt? Waayyy back in 2014 I hosted a Drunkard's Path quilt along on my old blog. That blog has since been deleted so I can't link back to it. I made at least 3 DP quilt tops that year and this was one of them and my absolute favorite.  You might remember this version that I made with the leftovers from the big quilt. I quilted it up for a veteran's quilt last summer. Now it's time to do the big one. I quilted the little one easy. Of course I can't do the big one easy!  Here's the underside. You can see that this quilt gradates diagonally light to dark just like the leftover version. But this one is pieced in circles. I knew from the moment that I conceived this quilt that I wanted to quilt Spirograph motifs in the circles. I want each one to be different. Have I lost my marbles? I don't think so, at least not yet. I'm very excited to get started.
Next I needed to pick the thread color. Because there's so much going on in the fabric I've decided to use the same color thread in every circle. First I thought about gold and picked the thread on the left. Then I was going through my shiny poly threads again and found the peach on the right and I like it much better. I'm a little concerned that it might now show up as well in the pale blocks but this is the best of all of my thread options and I'm not buying more thread! I'll use something blending for the background I think but that's for much later. I'll do the SID around the edge of the circles when I do the background quilting. Hopefully that will work out OK.  Here's the backing. It's a spiral pattern that I dyed last year sometime. It took forever to bast the quilt because I wanted it centered on the backing.
My thought with this backing was to have the Spirograph motifs look like stars in a galaxy. Picking the bobbin thread for the background fills will be a challenge. Maybe I really have lost my marbles and maybe that's what I'll name this quilt. Be prepared, you will see a LOT of this one as I quilt it. |
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I'm Vicki Welsh and I've been making things as long as I can remember. I used to be a garment maker but transitioned to quilts about 20 years ago. Currently I'm into fabric dyeing, quilting, Zentangle, fabric postcards, fused glass and mosaic. I document my adventures here. Categories
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