Chicken Wire Quilting

Grab a 1/4" quilting ruler and head to the sewing machine - let's stitch some chicken wire!

Super simple to stitch, with just a marked grid and a ruler, what barnyard quilt would be complete without it? In this tutorial, I'll go over the stitching sequence first, followed by a video showing the stitching in progress, then a final discussion about scale. Let's get started!

Chicken Wire Quilting

Once the grid is set up, stitching starts at the middle of the left line of the first grid square (red dot), then down to the grid intersection. The stitches back over that line, and stop at the middle (red dot) before angling up to touch the middle of the top line of the first grid square.

Then it angles down to the middle of the next grid line, 

and continues straight on that line to the next grid intersection.

And straight back up it goes, doubling the stitching and looking just like the twist in real chicken wire, before angling again into the next grid square. Repeating the same sequence of stitching lines all the way across within the grid forms the first row of stitching.

The next row starts with the peak of the design, and is offset by half the grid square. Work either from the right to left for continuous stitching, or left to right with a new start, as shown below.

This offset row starts stitching at an angle to the center of the grid square, then down to the center of the grid line, doubling back to angle over to touch the straight line from the row before, at the grid intersection.

At the finish of the second row, the chicken wire design starts to take shape.

Continuing the design is easy - just alternate the row 1 and row 2 stitching lines.

Here's a video, showing both rows being stitched in the a continuous line method.

Chicken Wire Scale

It's important to check the chicken wire scale to the quilt before stitching, as the open space length is more than the width in this design, and could lead to chicken wire that's bigger than expected. 

Since the size of the grid determines the width of the chicken wire, it's helpful to draw a grid in several sizes on a piece of vinyl. Then sketch in the chicken wire design, overlaying the design on the quilt to test the scale. 

In the picture above, there's testing of a 1 1/2" width at the top, 3/4" in the middle, 1/2" below that, and finally 1" at the very bottom. 

On my test, the 1/2" chicken wire fits the scale of the chicks and would certainly hold them in, but it's too small a the scale for the rest of the quilt. Three-fourths was still too small, but 1" works fine as a scale to fit both the chicks and the rest of the quilt.

And that's all there is to finding a grid size for chicken wire that fits with the quilt.

Wasn't that easy? Now all those barnyard quilts can be full of chicken wire - have fun quilting!

Thanks for following!

Who Rules the Roost?

The chicken coop is full of activity, but who really rules the roost?

Is it the cocky rooster? The cute and fluffy chicks? Or maybe the jealous hen eyeing those eggs? I'll leave the decision up to wise owl, who's a curious observer of this chicken coop!

This wall hanging is my personal Round Robin quilt, made only by me at the same time as five of us worked on each other's RR quilts. The inspiration? Two of these rooster panels, which were probably meant to make a pillow.

One went with a lot of fabric for the group to work on, and one stayed with me. I'll show the group quilt next month - the guild members get to see it first. 

Our rounds were easy enough, with a choice between two blocks for each round. Being me, I did both blocks in each round:

1st - pinwheel or something from nature
        pinwheel barn quilt, and rooster panel

2nd - quilter's choice
           red checked border

3rd - flying geese or four patch
          chicken tracks, and greenery of the tree

4th - snowball or log cabin
             who rules the roost sign, and tree trunk

And what fun I had creating within those parameters! Of course, all of that scenery needs custom quilting - time to play again!

The tree got leaves, the sky clouds, and the trunk bark.

See my little owl? I bought a whole quarter of a yard just for him. And if I could have found squirrels or foxes in the right scale, I would have added those too. I was lucky enough to have a baby print in the stash with the little chicks on it to add to the open space in the coop.

They're held in by chicken wire, though they could probably escape if they wanted to! Needing just a quick refresher from my chicken wire tutorial, the design was pretty easy to quilt. Next week, I'll have another chicken wire quilting tutorial, this time with video!

Notice there's quilting behind that chicken wire? I thought it better to make the background all the same, then add chicken wire on top in just one area.

And then the barn, with it's quilted doors, using jump stitches to speed up the quilting of all those lines.

Final quilting touches include wood grain in the sign and on coop parts, bark in the tree trunk, and a horizontal stipple around the chicken tracks.

One last touch - the binding. Sky blue, green, and red bind this quilt, with seams to match the piecing. Check out the tutorials for straight seam matching, as seen at the sky and tree,

and matched angled binding, as seen at the bottom of the sign.

I'm thrilled with how this turned out, and can't wait to hang it up - it will be in good company with my other rooster, Fred, the Fugitive!

Have a great weekend, and I'll see you next week with more to crow about!

Thanks for following!

Midweek Makers #211

Welcome to the Midweek Makers linky party! Frosty Lace held a lot of my attention last week, pushing the remainder of the quilting on my Round Robin chicken quilt aside. Here's the latest progress, with more to come in the next few days.

From last week's party, how about these bright colors from Twiggy and Opal?

                       

Or this beauty from 2 Dogs Studio?

                                      

Or maybe these warm four patches from Quilting Gail?

                                  

I say yum to them all! Now it's your turn - do you have a yummy quilt to share this week? 

• Please link directly to your specific post..
• Visit the other guests, and leave a comments.
• Use the Midweek Makers badge or link to www.QuiltFabrication.com in your post.

Have fun at the party!

Thanks for following!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Frosty Lace

Welcome to my day of the Winter Blue Blog Hop, hosted by Carla of Creatin' In the Sticks. My creation, Frosty Lace, is sure to chase away those winter blues!

I'll admit that I struggled with an idea for this hop till well after Christmas. While bargain shopping, I spied a flower spray on a gift card and finally felt some inspiration.

Reworking it a bit to come up with the design above, I started playing in EQ8 by showcasing that idea in half circles in the border. And then a funny thing happened - I don't know exactly what I did, maybe a re-size, but EQ burped and gave my design wings. 

Wow! Love it, but is it sew-able? With a few seam changes here and there, I determined it was very sew-able. Yeah! After re-positioning my inspirational motifs, I kept designing, adding a center 'snowflake', enlarging bits here and there, and sending pics to my son for critique. He suggested the four sharp seeds in the center outside be larger, then I finished the design with value changes. More Wow!

And I fell in love with Frosty Lace - it's lacy and delicate, with the center 'snowflake' lending a bit of frostiness. Perfect for winter in blues, it could be just as pretty in green for spring - I'm imagining flowers coming into bloom.

After all that designing, next came the sewing. After careful cutting, those curves were pinned at both ends plus the center for quarter circle blocks (aka a Drunkard's Path block). A stylus helped to pull the smaller, outer piece into alignment. 

Treated gently, those curves just moved into position without much fuss. Though it's been a while since I've sewn curves, I enjoyed it so much that there may be a few more quilts this year that have curves. 

With the half and quarter circles done for the borders, I set in on the rest of the quilt, which is mostly applique. Taking a tip learned from one of my fellow bloggers, this homemade light box using flashlights and a clear sewing machine extension table worked wonderfully!

All that was left to finish for the top were 4 paper pieced units, a few more strips for borders, and the remaining appliques. Then on to the quilting! 

This 46" x 46" wall quilt begged for custom treatment, and is certainly full of beautiful designs to set off the applique - enjoy the eye candy!

The Frosty Lace overall texture:

a border corner:

detail of the plume around the circles (that was a bit of thinking outside the box):

a border center, showcasing the petal motif:

the same showcasing design repeated around the petal motifs in the quilt center:

and finally, the center. Notice all of the quarter inch stitching is outside the applique.

Now come down off that sugar high, cause there's a few more very important items left to go over:

1) visit the other participants in today's Winter Blues Blog Hop

Just Let Me Quilt

Bumbleberry Stitches

Mary Mack Made Mine
VROOMANS QUILTS
Just Because Quilts
Kathleen McMusing

Den syende himmel

Beaquilter

2) if you wish to make your own Frosty Lace wall hanging, the intermediate level pattern is available in my Etsy shop for $5 during the hop (now thru January 24)

3) and don't forget to enter for my birthday giveaway prizes, now through January 31st.

Enjoy the rest of the hop, and chase away those winter blues with quilting!