This was such a fun and happy quilt, and I decided I needed to share it. The chickens are pieced from a free pattern but I don't have a link here, so you have to google it! The chicken wire stitching is actually a free design on the IQ - with one small change. The result is just PERFECT!
So in preparing to write this story, I took lots of pictures, and I took a couple short videos with my phone as well. I apologize for the poor camera movement, but I am social distancing like everyone, and hopefully you can still get what you need from this to have the same success.
First, let's look at the pattern on the IQ - I found I needed to make a small change -
See where the start and the end points are on the pattern? I found a small piece of the pattern was overstitched, so when the pattern was chosen as a pantograph, it had a connecting line I was not thrilled with. I won't go into the details here (maybe it is another blog post?) but I used split and resaved the design to use on my chicken quilts....
Now when chosen as a pantograph, it comes in like this:
Now this is at the default of 12", and it really doesn't look like chicken wire yet. My block is oversized, too, to allow for clipping - that is important! First step - Flip Y -
Ah! Now that looks like very large chicken wire. My chickens could jump right through that! Before sizing it down, let's look a bit closer at the twisted wire section - using zoom, get in close -
Notice the two lines have no overlap. Use the Gap key and move the lines so that they do overlap as shown below -
Now make the size of the chicken wire what you want. I used a row size of 0.75, so my chickens cannot escape!
The above picture shows my first oversized block, and my new clipping block that I traced around the quilt's top in order to eliminate the parts of the patterns that I don't want. Notice where the block intersects the pattern - it will be easier to realign if I have a sharp point to align to! Also notice how very straight this side of the quilt is!
The next picture is of the other side -
Not quite as straight! I stitched this and advanced the quilt before recording the next steps:
The pin marks the transition between the first and second section and shows the Perfect results!
Let me show you a couple close-ups
Next section shows the last section and what can, and sometimes does, happen and how to take your time and catch and fix a potential problem BEFORE you stitch it!
Well, that about covers it! Email me any questions and I hope you liked my little process for perfect pantograph chicken wire.
I'm adding a final photo of the finished project here, but leaving on the safety pins so you can see where I advanced and just how perfect the stitching appears!
