I’ve been working on the hour glass blocks.
It occured to me as I was working that I should try to get the animals to be the right way up!
I think it will take me about a week to finish these blocks and I’m determined to finish this quilt before I start something else, but you all now how things change.
Filed under Quilting
So I sewed both versions to make the decision easier …
I’ve decided to go with the version on the left (blue fabric in the triangles). I’m foundation piecing these hour glass blocks because my rotary cutting is dreadful – although I did find starching the red fabric made the cutting easier. So only another 35 blocks to go…
Filed under Quilting
I’ve attached the border strips.
Here is what it looks like so far …
I need to make 36 hour glass blocks for the second border. I’m going to use this fabric …
They will look something like this …
Or like this …
Or perhaps a combination of the two. So we could have this
Or this
Or this
Oh no I can’t decide – any opinions?
Today I cut my four border strips.
I cut four strips 7.2cm wide – 6cm border and 1.2cm for seam allowances. As I didn’t starch enough of the fabric, the final strip was in the unstarched section of fabric. I could tell the difference so now I’m sold on starching.
My plan is to sew the strips on tonight and start work on the hour glass blocks tomorrow.
Filed under Quilting
I finished sewing the binding on the quilt – not too bad in the end. As I used a water erasable marker to mark the quilting pattern, I need to wash it before I take a photo. So this means I can start a new quilt!
I have this alphabet panel I bought a couple of years ago thinking I would make a baby present out of it – of course I didn’t. I’m thinking I could make a wall hanging.
My plan is to add a plain fabric border (red spotty fabric) and then an hour glass block border. In the above photo I’m measuring the panel to determine how wide the fabric border needs to be, so I can fit the hour glass blocks.
After much anguish I’ve decided the border needs to be 12cm, the quilt top will then be 80cm by 72cm. Ten hour glass blocks (each 8cm) will fit along the length and nine along the width.
I starched my fabric for the first time today – Heirloom Machine Quilting recommended it – it certainly seems crisper, but I haven’t tried to cut or sew it yet.
I’ve finished quilting my Seattle quilt – the new sewing machine definitely helped although I did struggle a bit with the tension settings. I’m now working on the binding. I always struggle with the binding – I’ve read heaps of tutorials and watched a couple of avi/dvds, but still I’m hopeless. This time I tried to do a continuous binding for the first time – not too bad, but not perfect either.
I thought I would try to machine sew the back of the binding to the quilt rather than hand sewing, but it was completely hopeless. With the first attempt I didn’t always catch the binding and the second attempt just looked shocking, so I’m back to hand sewing. At least it’s cold at the moment so sitting around with a flannelet quilt on my laptop is actually quite pleasant.
Filed under Quilting
I’ve been busily trying to finish quilting my ‘seattle’ quilt with my new sewing machine. I call it my Seattle quilt because I bought the fabric in Seattle in 2002 (yes that is five years ago and I’m still trying to get it finished!). So not much to show on the craft front.
However, I recently purchased Heirloom Machine Quilting by Harriet Hargrave, so I thought I would give a quick review.
There is no chance that I’m ever going to hand piece of hand quilt, so the idea of using my machine to create something that looks ‘heirloom’ was quite appealing. I have done a bit of machine quilting in the past, but have never been completely satisfied with the results. I was beginning to think that I should send my quilts out to be quilted on a long arm machine or at least someone with a frame, but to me that always seemed like cheating (no offense intended to anyone). This book, however, has convinced me that I can do it myself with a normal domestic sewing machine. The gallery quilts are stunning and to know they achieved them with a normal sewing machine is inspiring.
Here’s a list of the things that really stuck in my mind…
Starch the quilt fabrics before piecing to make everything a bit crisper and easier to work with.
Plan your quilt design before you even plan the top (not sure if I will ever get to this point because for me quilting is all about the fabric and the way it goes together)
Stabilise your quilt sandwich by stitching in the ditch (you can even use vanishing thread if ditch quilting is not part of your design)
Plan your quilting so you don’t have to manipulate the entire quilt constantly. For example, when quilting in the ditch, quilt all of the vertical lines and then all of the horizontal lines.
There was also quite a section on free motion quilting, but I haven’t read that properly yet because I want to master the straight line stuff first.
I really want to get my Seattle quilt finished so I can move onto something else and try some of these techniques. I have at least five quilts in mind.
Filed under Book Review
In the end I bought a Janome 1600p
I’m really pleased with it – it seems to do everything I want. I was a bit disappointed that it didn’t come with the darning foot (for stippling) or the even feed foot, but I will buy those in the next week or two.
The quilt in the picture I have been working on for some time (off and on). I stopped the last time because quilting on my MC9000 was just a bit too hard. In the past couple of days I have made huge progress. I’m using an invisible thread to do my quilting and it kept breaking – very annoying. I worked out that the bit coming off the reel was threaded under cotton still on the reel – I had to cut it off and waste a bit, but now it’s working brilliantly.
On a completely different note – my fabric arrived from equilter! How quick was that? And it’s lovely, exactly what I expected, which is a good thing given that I ordered it over the internet.
Filed under Sewing Machine
I’m thinking about buying a new general purpose sewing machine. I’m a bit of a Janome girl, so I’m looking at the MC6600P.
There is also a 6500P and I wonder if the additional features are worth an extra $500. Does anyone have any opinions?
Filed under miscellaneous
I had my market stall today. My brain is too full to make a decision about whether it was a worthwhile endeavour or not. More on that in another post.
I’ve discovered equilter.com! I’ve put three yards of fabric.
I shall use the brown dotty fabric and the pink hearts in my business (www.excessivelydiverted.com) but the green floral will be used in quilting. Even taking postage into account it is till cheaper to buy my fabric form equilter.com than from my local store.
Filed under Fabric Stash
