Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Good Morning II for Oklahoma survivors underway w/Updates

As soon as the latest Quilt of Valor came off my frame, it was time to get the Good Morning II quilt started.  Originally, I had planned to have it all finished up and ready to load as soon as I took the latest QOV off my frame, but life (and Mother nature) have a way of changing things up sometime, don't they?  But I'm only behind a couple of days so, no worries!

Good Morning II all ready to load!

Came out pretty good, I think ;-)  You'll notice I switched out the lime-y green batik interior sashings for pink-y/orange batiks, and the exterior perimeter border is Moda's Good Morning yellows/pinks/oranges versus the previous Good Morning purple.  The strips are all from the same Good Morning jelly roll - and as we all know, I LOVE jelly rolls!  After all, I didn't get nicknamed StripperDeb for nothin' ;-)

Here's the original Good Morning quilt top for a quick comparison:

Because I was short a few strips (found them later after the completion of this quilt),
I had to create a couple of embroidery blocks to fill in the original Good Morning.  
Quilters are a creative bunch, aren't we?

                      Aren't these fabrics FUN?!

Now that that Good Morning II is all pieced, time to decide how to quilt this one.  I've been thinking of doing a panto. In fact, Good Morning I was almost panto quilted but I was in such a rush trying to get all 3 Hurricane Sandy quilts done I just quilted them all virtually the same w/McTavishing.  And now I'm so glad I did, since they ended up being a cohesive 'trio set' and I think the similar piecing w/similar quilting works for those three.  However, for this one, I think it's time to change things up a bit.  Here's one of the panto designs I'm considering:

Fly Away panto by Jodi Beamish

I like the undulating pattern of Fly Away and the scale seems perfect.  Others being considered, Circle of Life by Patricia Ritter, Fantasy Flame 2 by Jessica Schick, and Harbour Wave by Patricia Ritter & Mary Beth O'Halloran.  

Most of the pantos I purchase now come from urbanelementz.com, and I purchase the digitized versions for several reasons - 1)they are less expensive, 2)I can resize them to whatever size I may need, and finally, if I ever get my dream of adding a Pro Stitcher to my HQ16, (I use my Avante for all my freehand stitching because of the Precision SR, which works so wonderfully with McTavishing - my favorite type of quilting), 3)most digitized designs include the format for the Pro Stitcher, so I would already have them ;-). 

Alrighty then, I'm off to print out a couple of samples and make my final quilting decisions...

UPDATE 6/8/2013:  Decided to go with the panto Fly Away by Jodi Beamish:

Lookin' good so far



Using Superior's King Tut Harem with Quilter's Dream poly batting.

About halfway through:

                         Time to finish up...

UPDATE 6/17/2013:

 Bound/gently laundered/labeled - ready to be shipped!

UPDATE 6/24/2013:  Shipped and received by Mission of Love ;-)

I soooo enjoyed working on this FUN, sunshine-y quilt - my only hope is the recipient will feel the warmth that was quilted into this quilt especially for them, and know we are ALL standing strong with them.  It was a true honor to be part of this quilt relief effort.

My Best to You and Yours,
~Deb 

PS...to see pictures of some of the many quilts for the Oklahoma Tornado survivors, (including Good Morning II - center right of photo page ;-) Please follow this Oklahoma Quilt Relief for Survivors link:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/luanarubin/sets/72157634238654411/ ...Thanks!

2 comments:

  1. I've never used a panto, so now I have a question. You said you'd buy the digitized version? Do you have special software that allows you to manipulate the design? I have Quilt Cad that I think is useless, but maybe that's just me....
    Love the Good Morning quilts..

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  2. Hey Miss Katie - Thanks again for the nice words about the Good Morning quilts!

    To answer your question - if you have Adobe Acrobat Reader, most digitized panto designs come in multiple formats, including .pdf so if your printer has the 'resize' capability, you can resize any panto in Adobe via your printer. You can also print and size a panto like you would a banner in Microsoft Word and Publisher.

    And to make it even more interesting, I know you like Electric Quilt - you can import/copy/paste a panto and use in that app as well - it's a little more challenging with the older versions, but just Google for tutorials on how to do this in the particular version(s), there are even youtube.com video tutorials on this - I've watched several.

    But...my all-time favorite method to use - QuiltCad ;-) I do have the latest updates from the Grace Company (which have improved how the program works tremendously), and the additional QuiltCad program that allows me to import multiple formats - ALL of which are in 99% of digitized pantos. Once imported to QuiltCad, I can save as a .gpf file, (native to QuiltCad), resize and manipulate the designs and make a quick panto out of most any design, easy-peasy. Then print, tape together (unless you have a printer that will print roll paper, then no taping multiple pages together for you!), and I'm golden.

    Like I mentioned, the format for the HQ Pro-Stitcher and several other computer-driven optional accessories for many quilt machines comes with most all digitzed panto patterns - especially those from urbanelementz.com.

    Hope that helps,
    ~Deb

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