Terry Frey's jeweled butterly, a finished quilt

drumroll, please!

~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~

After 145 hours

 of cutting, sewing, pressing, and quilting,

a 4 day battle with bleeding dye,

lots of sweat,

maths

and even some tears,

we have a finished

one of a kind

quilt.

This quilt contains

117 different fabrics,

(many of them fussy cut)

2 battings

(Quilters Dream 100% wool on top of Pellon 80/20)

and 

6 different threads,

and is

- quite possibly -

the most epic quilt

I will ever make.

Terry contacted me Oct 23rd, 2018

and asked if she could commission me to make a butterfly quilt.

We messaged back and forth,

and it turned out

that what she really wanted

was a jewel-tone version 

of Tula Pink's butterfly quilt.

So that is what I set out to make.

I spent a little over a month searching for

and collecting fabrics,

and made my first block

on Nov 28th

Terry wanted me to 

'put my mark' on her quilt,

which I very much appreciated,

because,

as you all know,

I'm not so great with patterns in general.

And honestly,

I'm not the biggest fan of that particular pattern

(shhhhhh).

I bought the pattern,

but I took an awful lot of liberties with it 😉

(And then,

thanks to cutting mistakes,

bad maths,

and who knows what all,

I took several more liberties...🙄)

I swapped out blocks I wasn't crazy about

and replaced them with  a bunch of self-drafted ones

(and self-drafted versions of others)

that were either meaningful,

or would help me create the look I was aiming for,

for the butterfly.

At a glance,

the quilt looks like most of the other 

Tula Pink Butterfly quilts

but when you look more closely,

you can see I changed things up a good bit.

I worked in pairs,

making mirror images of each block,

and made the heart borders 

when we couldn't find a fabric that would work.

I finished the (3 sections) top

in mid-February.

I basted each side separately

because there was no way 

I was going to attempt to quilt

a queen-sized

double-batted quilt

on my domestic machine.

(little side note:

I thread basted one side

and that took for-e-ver,

so I spray basted the other.

The thread basted side has several small tucks and folds

quilted into the back.

So - unless you're hand-quilting,

I'd recommend spray basting with 505)

I started quilting the wing portions on February 26th

(doing my best to quilt mirror images on each side)

and finished them March 7th

We purchased an old longarm on March 8th.

For a few weeks,

I quilted the background fabric on my Janome

while also practicing quilting on the longarm.

Every time I finished a section of background,

I'd add hand quilting with silk button twist

 to outline the butterfly.

(Terry could take or leave the hand-quilting,

but I figured it wouldn't really have my mark on it

if I didn't add a least a little 😏)

Terry was in no rush for the quilt

and I had some other quilts that needed to be made

to celebrate a niece's graduation

and the arrival of a new nephew,

so I put hers on hold

while I worked on those.

Somewhere around that time,

my left shoulder started hurting really badly

and I had seriously reduced range of motion,

which made pushing that quilt

through a domestic machine near impossible.

It suddenly became really important

 to improve my longarm quilting,

because the longer my shoulder hurt,

the more I wanted to be able to finish the butterfly quilt

on the longarm.

So I focused on getting my longarms skills

on par with my domestic machine quilting skills.

Longarming was a little painful,

but not nearly as much as regular machine quilting,

and it had the benefit of being soooo much faster.

When my longarming was finally up to snuff,

I loaded up the unfinished side

and completed it amazingly fast,

and even achieved reasonably decent symmetry.

Then I joined the sides to the center

and finished the rest of the quilting

in just a few days.

(this color is soo wrong 😑 )

Because I quilted the remaining background so fast

I had lots of hand quilting to catch up on...

Then I made and attached the binding over the course of a few days,

and sewed it down with big stitches.

I finished the quilt on Tuesday, Nov 19th,

took a quick celebratory photo,

 and tossed it in the wash.

To my absolute horror,

it came out with pink splotches 

where there shouldn't have been any pink.

After many soaks and washings

it was restored to its proper glory on Friday.

Whew!

And now 

almost exactly one year after I started it,

Terry's Jeweled Butterfly

is finally ready

to go home.

💗

And I will be able to donate 3 sewing machines to Rahab's Rope,

and start saving for the next one 😁.

(You can find progress pictures

with  associated stories, whines, celebrations

and thought processes

  under the tag terrys jeweled butterfly quilt

(all one word though)

on Instagram)

Terry ~ this quilt is filled with love and hope and prayers

and fond memories.

Thanks for hiring me to make it for you 

and helping me save lives.

I love you!!

becoming a longarmer

Picking up where we left off yesterday...
(this lying around all day is good for something, I suppose)

While deeply grateful for the opportunity to practice and learn

on other people's tops,

I was starting to feel 

that if I continued this much longer,
I was going to be getting the short end of the stick.

I totally recognize I could not have gotten to where I am

as a quilter

without these ladies allowing me to quilt 

less than amazing quilting

on their carefully pieced tops.

but because of that

I was actually starting to get

- dare I say -

good.

I didn't feel like I could just go on 

indefinitely

quilting for free,

no matter how badly I wanted

 to be able to continue to practice regularly.

There are only so many hours a week 

I can dedicate to this hobby/ministry.
and while I was loving the improvement to my quilting,
I wasn't doing anything to help improve lives for my RR ladies.
(Not that I always have to be - but it is always on my radar)

I started thinking about maybe quilting for pay,
but at a reduced beginner rate.

It'd be a win for me,

because I'd still be getting practice,
but I'd also be able to earn some money

for more machines for Rahab's rope,

and it'd be a win for clients,

because they'd be getting decent quilting

- with a little more character 

than computer generated edge to edge 

or pantograph quilting -

for less $$

(and that money would be going to a good cause!)

I also had been thinking

that

as much as I love Lucy

and am so grateful and thrilled to have this old longarm,

I'd really like to be able to do ruler work.

(translated - I'd like a different longarm someday
in the not too distant future)

It's something that I'd been looking forward to

 about owning a longarm machine.

I didn't realize

that without a stitch regulator,

ruler work would be difficult (at best)

and when you add a very heavy machine to the equation,

it's next to impossible.

So I wondered -
would it be okay if I saved some of that money
for myself
??

God is always so good to us.

Every big decision we've had,

where we might be inclined to not see exactly eye to eye,

He has brought us -separately- to complete agreement.

Where one of us starts the conversation

(with perhaps a bit of trepidation)

and the other one says,

"Yes! That's exactly what I was thinking too."

The end of July,

Tyler told me he'd been thinking.

He thought that I should think about 

quilting for pay.

And that I shouldn't donate all of the money,

but keep some of my earnings

to save for another longarm.

a horribly pieced and badly cared for vintage quilt top I purchased off Etsy.
Quilting this showed me that I just might actually have a gift!
I'll share more about this one when it reaches the top of the to-be-bound stack ;-)

But.

I didn't want to just throw myself out there.

(I don't want to spend my precious sewing time

quilting ugly tops.
Just being honest here.)

So I was thinking and pondering and praying 

about how to proceed.

the quilting on the colored portion and the right side background fabric was done on my domestic.
I finally got good enough, and brave enough (and tired enough of this quilt needing to be finished...)
to figure out how to put the partially quilted thing on the longarm.
The top portion was done by Lucy.

Three days after Tyler and I had that conversation,

I got a message from Mary.

She wanted to discuss
 hiring me to quilt for her.

💗

Star Bright, a finished quilt

When I started this one

I thought I could maybe piece the top

in a day.

It's only about 50 x 60 or so,

so it seemed doable.

It wasn't.

(at least for me....)

ah well.

I basically copied a quilt that 

Melissa of Sew Shabby Quilting posted about a year ago,

except I added in feathers and onion peels and ribbon candy,

because I could.

(It wasn't all that long ago 

that I couldn't quilt any of those!)

The colored fabrics are all Kaleidoscope

by Allison Glass -

woven fabric

with different colored threads for the weft and weave.

To be honest,

I wasn't all that impressed.

I was expecting a much more shimmery and iridescent look,

but the two colors are only evident 

in a couple of them.

They'd probably be nice for bags,

but not worth the price for quilting.

Even though I'm not thrilled with the Kaleidoscope fabrics,

I'm quite thrilled with the quilt.

I think the quilting turned out pretty amazing,

if I do say so myself,

and it washed up quite nicely.

(I was pretty amazed when I pulled it out of the dryer.

I was like - I did this?!)

The wool batting 

with minky backing

(a throw size blanket that I bought on clearance 

for $5 a couple of years ago

for just this purpose)

make it extra scrumptious.

plus - the minky shows the quilting really well 

😊

My friend Karen

always says that thread matters,

and I repeated that to myself many times as I was quilting;

I really prefer a thread with a bit of shine to it.

I used a spool of Coats and Cotton quilting cotton thread

that I bought back when I started quilting,

and it's just dull.

 When I got to the border,

I switched to Aurifil 

 - still 100% cotton, 

but it has a tiny bit of sheen -

and I liked it much better.

Really, 

I think I like a 40 wt poly best.

But if I had a 50 wt poly,

that might be the very best.

It'd be thick enough to see,

but thin enough for travelling.

(do they make a 50 wt poly?)

Even with

dull thread 

and my displeasure with  kaleidoscope fabrics,

this one's a favorite.

Sojourner, a finished quilt

This was a fun one,

and I am so so pleased with how it turned out!!

Back in April,

Billie told me she'd like to order a quilt.

That started off a flurry of messages,

and sending links back and forth

so I could get a feel for what she liked.

We ended up choosing Kathleen's Gypsy Wife quilt

as inspiration.

I thought at the time

that it was not an actual Gypsy Wife,

because her fabric choices 

made it look so different from all of the others I'd seen

but Hydee assures me it does follow the pattern.

Not knowing that, though, 

I drew up my own pattern /map.

I told Tyler and Brandon during a brain storming session

that I wanted a name that was similar to Gypsy Wife

but more appropriate for this quilt

and for Billie and Andy,

and when somebody tossed out 'sojourner',

I knew we'd found it.

You see,

Andy and Billie are currently living in Bosnia

teaching English,

using the Bible.

Not only are they currently literally sojourning,

they live their entire lives

with a Kingdom focus,

as if this earth is not their home,

so the name was doubly perfect.

I ordered lots of fabric

and even ordered a couple of jelly rolls for greater variety

(there are at least 156 different fabrics in this quilt!)

and started piecing on May 23rd,

not long after finishing up my niece's epic quilt.

I finished the 64 x 80 inch top in mid July

and then sewed the backing.

We went with a wool batting and lawn backing

to produce an exceptionally luscious quilt

and I basted the layers together with Lily's help

in late July.

I didn't actually start on the quilting until mid September

because I quilted Sparkle first,

so I could give it to my sister sooner

and also so I could just get in more quilting practice.

Using a quilt of Kathleen's as inspiration

was rather intimidating!

I'd already told Billie that my quilting

wasn't going to look anywhere near as good as Kathleen's,

but still, I didn't want her dissappointed,

ya know?!

I watched videos

and practiced practiced practiced

a whole bunch of new to me quilting motifs.

And then,

to make sure I was ready,

I made a whole practice quilt.

All of that paid off,

and I am ridiculously proud 

of the quilting on this one!

I feel like I have grown so much as a quilter this year,

even though I was sooo busy with building 

that I only made a few quilts.

I know that Angela Walters says

that seam ripping doesn't make you a better quilter,

so you should never un-do your quilting,

but I unpicked quite a few 

less than excellent lines of quilting anyways.

It might not make me a better quilter,

but it makes the quilt better,

so it makes me a happier quilter.

And that's better ~ right?

Because I love adding scripture to quilts,

I quilted in 2 verses;

"How beautiful are the feet of them that bring good news"

and

Psalm 146:9

"The Lord watches over the sojourners."

How perfect is that?!

I love the image of God himself

watching over my friends.

My photographer friend, Lisa,

 was going to take pictures of this beauty for me

but I wasn't done with it at the appointed time : /

I finished sewing on the binding

about 26 hours

 before they were going to be picking up the quilt.

(and still had to make the label!)

Even though it wasn't done done,

all washed and crinkly,

the sun was out,

so I threw it down in a spot of sun 

got a few pics with my phone,

then grabbed the boys

and told them to grab something to stand on

and we quickly ran out in the 15 degree weather

and snapped a few more pictures.

I made the label after everyone was in bed,

sewed it on yesterday,

tossed it in the wash

and pulled it out of the dryer

about 10 minutes before Billie messaged me

that they were on their way.

Cutting it a bit close, eh?!

Sojourner was a joy to make

and I am so happy to get to make a quilt

for such precious people,

and to start the year off

giving a couple of machines

to Rahab's Rope!

Andy and Billie - we love ya!

Thanks for being such wonderful examples of love and generosity.

Thanks for partnering with me.

Oh, and Billie - you know how you said India

is becoming more closed to missionaries?

That's where our machines are going.

💗

linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts