Modern "It's Complicated" Cheater Quilt Panel

This is another in my series of posts about cheater quilt panels available from Spoonflower.com.

This is "It's Complicated" by mainsail_studio available from spoonflower.com.  (The designer states the quilt's name was inspired by "the beautiful ups and downs of a marriage"). It was printed on 2 yards of their wider cotton sateen fabric.

I was immediately drawn to the designer's fantastic use of color alternating with the zig-zags of white and several light greys.  It's such a fun vibrant design!

Putting this many colors and triangles into a digital design is a challenge. It's just not easy. There are places in this print were the color slips out of the lines and other places where there are gaps where the elements of the print abut.  These aren't visible from a distance but are up close.  So the print isn't perfect, but the design is about a marriage...and what marriage is perfect?!

Thoughts about designing cheater quilt panels:

One thing I've noticed on cheater quilts panels is that without the seam lines, it's often difficult to see the intended block layout when light colors/light greys are used.  What the designer intended to be a half-square triangle or a flying geese block ends up looking like a floating triangle. However, quilting these panels in the "virtual ditch" does make it possible for the eye to see the intended block.

Hawaiian Cheater Quilt and Testing Sewing Machine Needles for Free Motion Quilting

Here's my completed "Hawaii at Home" quilt using the "cheater" panel "Matisse's Seaweed" from spoonflower.com (see my post March 3, 2016 for more details about Jeni's panel).  Also included are 4 patch blocks with actual Hawaiian print fabrics.  There is also a Hawaiian print fabric on the back of this quilt.

Here are two blocks from the panel showing quilting details.

I used this quilt to test a number of different needles to see which produced the best free-motion stitching with my Bernina 440 QE sewing machine.  I tried Schmetz 90/14 and Superior titanium 90/14 top stitch needles--both skipped stitches fairly frequently.  I also tried the Janome purple needles which friends tell me do a great job preventing skipped stitches on Janome machines.  Sadly, I had skipped stitches with them on my Bernina.

I had good results with ball point jersey needles but lots of sources I read stated they should not be used for quilting. 

The needle giving the best stitch quality without skipping on my particular machine was the Schmetz 90/14 Quilting Needle. 

Every sewing machine is different so this may not be the best needle for you.  However if you are having problems with skipped stitches and your machine is clean and you have tried everything you can think of, it's worth making a sample quilt sandwich and testing a variety of needle types and sizes to see what works for you.

Hawaiian Cheater Quilt Project

My family has had connections with Hawaii thanks to the US Navy.  They like to go back to visit when it's winter Stateside!  

I found this fabric, Matisse's Seaweed,  designed by Jeni, who is jenimp, lellobird Design and Illustration on Spoonflower.com. Jeni states she designed this cheater fabric "to look like a traditional Hawaiian quilt as interpreted by Henri Matisse". This is a yard of fabric. It could be used to make a small "cheater" quilt without any piecing.  

I'm going to cut out the printed blocks which measure about 9 1/2" square and make a slightly larger quilt by adding some fabrics printed in Hawaii that a friend brought me as thank you for cat sitting.

When I purchased the fabric from Spoonflower.com, I choose to print it on Kona® cotton. This print has a white background. It looks light blue in the photo at the top--an artifact due to taking the photo on a winter morning in New England!  I have some 10 inch layer cake Kona® white squares.  I plan to make seven 4 patch square blocks using them and the the fabrics from Hawaii.  That should be easy using the 10" layer cake squares which I scatter between the printed blocks. 

Sewing the beach!! What could be better? It already feels warmer in here on this March day in Boston!!