It's Ready To Wrap!

The beautiful Double Wedding Ring quilt that our church group has been quilting is now a fait accompli and it couldn't be prettier.

Since I had the binding, I drew the short straw on being the binder, which meant attempting to figure out dealing with a scalloped border. I looked at several videos but could not find the one that I had come across a few weeks ago so I had to wing it a bit.

It was a little nerve wracking making that first cut to trim the edges but once I got started it went as smoothly as I could have wanted.

Attaching the binding to the quilt went quite well too given that we had hand basted the entire edge before we started quilting. It was just wrestling with a quilt this large that took a bit of time.

When it came to hand stitching the binding down it was the interior points that proved to be time consuming - it took me about eight hours to bind it, if not more. In the end, I created a very narrow pleat at the corner (approximately 7/8"!) to make everything work. Then I put in a few small stitches front and back to hold it all in place, keeping the very edge open to allow for a little movement.

A little midnight oil was burned to finish it this week as Jan, who is moving on Wednesday, had volunteered to connect with its owner en route to her new home to drop it off. I have to say, that's probably the last thing I would have entertained if it was me, but she is game.

I shared it with the quilters this morning and everyone agreed that the soft green binding was a perfect choice. And, as much as I like the front of it, the quilting shows up so beautifully on the white backing. We put in about 165 hours of work to finish it up so I can only imagine the total number of hours put in by the maker.

So, now it can be wrapped and gifted. We're hoping that the mother-of-the-bride is able to share a photo or two with us later this spring. It was such a gift to all of us who were able to work on this quilt to see it completed and ready for its new home....M

The Double Wedding Ring is Off the Frames

Our quilters are doing a little bit of a happy dance because on Friday, the Double Wedding Ring quilt came off the frames. It is beautiful. 

So many quilts are machine quilted these days for speed and convenience but there's still nothing like the look and feel of a traditional hand-quilted quilt. 

When we started working on this one at the end of last year we thought that it could take us until March/April, but we thrilled to have surprised ourselves. It's ready to bind!

I made the binding when I marked the quilting pattern so it's all ready to go, but first I have to trim the edges, which are all large scallops. Then I need to figure out how to attach the binding so that things don't bunch up at the corners, but I've found a good instructional video to follow. Having relatively large and shallow arcs will help.

We've noticed a couple of small stains on the front of the quilt that will need to be looked at and today I found another small one when I was examining the back. I don't think that it will be the end of the world if they don't come out, given the sentimentality of this project.

With so many different quilters working on it sometimes we wondered what the quilting would look like when it was all finished but it has turned out beautifully. It's such a treat to look at....M

The Cowboy Quilt Has a Border

Well, Jan's Cowboy Quilt is now finished. 

After inserting a 1" light grey border, I took all of the 10" strips left from the extra blocks and laid them end to end to create two rounds to make the final border and I think it works.

There are lots of busy prints in this one so the solid calms everything down a bit, creating a break for the eye.

I was sort of making it up as I went and wasn't convinced that I would have enough strips left to make a second border so the grey corners are sort of catch as catch can. To try and make things consistent, I ended up sub cutting two of the horseshoe strips into corner squares so that they would all be the same.

I wasn't wrong in my concern about not having a enough strips to make the outer border - I was definitely short. So. I dug into my stash and found one more sand print to add to the mix - the little brown stars in the bottom right - and added five of them to make it all work. 

Now it's ready to be quilted. As I was packing it up to take back to the church I remembered that I had also set aside this red 'hanky' print from Jan's remnants to make a binding with. It works with the cowboy theme and will make for a cheery finish to the quilt.....M

The Closer

One of our quilters at the church - Jan - is in the process of moving to southern Ontario in the coming weeks so she has been doing a major purge of her sewing room in order that she's not paying to move fabrics and WIPs that she no longer loves/needs. As a result, our quilters have been one of the beneficiaries of lots of goodies. 

After sorting several bags into colour groups, I brought home four, maybe five, projects to get to the finish line for Quilts for Survivors. I feel like a closing pitcher in a baseball game put in for the win 😊.

This cowboy-themed flimsy seemed like a good place to start. It's an interesting, fairly straight forward design with six oversized batik Cathedral Window pieces added throughout, which I haven't seen before.

It's not quite large enough so the question was how to make it larger without any of the original fabrics. I had also brought a piece of light grey home so I'm wondering about inserting a border of it.

And, there is this pile of 8 or 9 surplus blocks. After a little noodling I decided to take them apart (a job easily finished while watching TV one evening) and then playing with the 2.5" x 10" strips to see what I might create in terms of another border. Time to play on the design wall for a bit....M

Sweet Hearts

It's Valentine's Day, the perfect opportunity to share a pretty little heart-themed quilt in the making.

This is one of my sister Betty's creations, begun about six months ago for one of her two nieces and steadily worked from concept to quilt.

Each hand-pieced block is 4.5" in size and separated from it's neighbours by a narrow white sashing, which, like the pinks, are very scrappy. The hearts in each row are staggered against the adjoining rows. LUV.

She's made about 400 blocks in total but will likely use only 330.

The extra blocks were going to be worked into a border pattern I believe, but she's reimagining that idea so we'll wait and see what the final design becomes. So sweet.

Happy Valentine's Day!....M

Pawsitively Lovely

Big, Big Paws is pretty much made up of four very large nine-patch blocks so assembly went really well.

Because I had those 16 large HSTs to make, and lots of the grey remnants, it was just as easy to make two HSTs at the same time so I decided to make two flimsies. No point having a pile of remnant 6.5" HSTs lying around wondering what else I could do with them. It also gave me a helpful visual reference so that I didn't mess up the order that the blocks were to be sewn together.

My borders are slightly bigger than those on the inspiration quilt because I wanted to get the quilts to be 48" x 64" to meet the size that Quilts for Survivors prefers. The edges are 6" finished and I believe that the top and bottom borders are about 12" wide.

It took a little doing because I discovered several random marks/stains on the sheets that I wasn't able to discern what they were - wax? oil? Regardless, it meant figuring out how best to cut so that I got the most out of the fabric while still avoiding the stains, but I did it.

The little blossom at the centre of the paws was a fun addition.

These are happy quilts and I hope that whoever they are gifted to enjoys them as much as I enjoyed making them....M

Big Bear's Closeup

The longest part of the giant Bear Paw process was finding the right combination of fabrics for each quadrant, but I finally got there. Because the lighting downstairs is hit and miss, I thought I'd share closeups of each 'paw' so that you can get a better sense of just how diverse the fabric selection is. You can get even better closeups if you click on each image.

Nice bright spring greens on this cold, cold winter's day.

Orange and yellow, heading towards tan at times.

This one is still showing up a little muddy but they are all actually quite bright. I love the combo.

And last but not least, teal and blue, with a little red surprise. That's an idea that I totally stole from the designer Giuseppe Ribaudo, AKA Giucy Giuce, and I love it. That little bit of quirkiness keeps everything interesting. I've tried to find a name for the pattern but haven't had any luck so I'm sticking with Big, Big Paws....M

Big, Big Paws

I've been working on a quilt that is sort of counter intuitive for me, but I have to say that I'm really enjoying it. No itty, bitty 1" strips or squares in this one. This time it's 6" squares and HSTs. And...more grey.

Just after I mentioned that I tend not to use grey that often, I ran across a photo of a Bear Paw quilt that's been on my radar for quite some time - grey with a terrific collections of brights that often read as solids and the odd funky large print.

It was a little scant on details initially...

but as more colours filled in you could see it starting to build.

Eventually, despite the not so great lighting in the sewing cave, you can see that it has started to really come together....M

A Few More

I've been sewing around the remains of a few unmade blocks using the 1" strips that were sitting on my sewing table (note to self: find a name for this block) so I decided to put them together.

Naturally, the first scrap that I picked up wasn't one of those that I had left behind but a new piece of black floral that had followed me home from the church. I hesitated to use such a dark print but I have to say that I absolutely love the block.

This one challenged me a bit because I just couldn't land on a colour to use for the outer border. The yellow works nicely but it will be one of the challenges of trying to use only the scraps that I have on hand and not cutting into yardage. It was a close call!

This yellow strawberry print is an oldie and I know that I am coming to the end of it. It will be missed.

I'm debating if I should pick a palette/style or just work with random and see how things turn out. The green outer border on this one is a sweet print but I was uncertain about its fit until I saw it on the wall with the others.

Group photo. Here they are all together on the small design wall near my machine. They all play well together and am more convinced now that the darker prints will be key in maintaining interest throughout, but they are hardly what you would call fabric guzzlers - nine blocks used nine 2.5" squares, 108" of one-inch strips and 162" of 1.5" strips.

So, this will be my view and inspiration for the coming months (read 'years').

I seem to be spending a lot of time finding just the right combination of prints for each block so hopefully I get more spontaneous as time goes by. I'm also doing a really good job of messing up all of my strip bins. Me thinks that I'll have to figure out a system of sorts that allows me to plan several blocks in advance and then sit down and sew. In the meantime, I'm enjoying the view....M 

 

A New Life for My One-Inch Strips

Not being able to waste even the tiniest bits of fabric, I've been resolutely saving 1" strips for some time now and my basket is overflowing (there's also a second smaller one on the cutting table). While trimming remnants over the holidays I got to wondering if I would ever use them. Maybe I should just throw in the towel and start dealing with larger pieces because heaven knows, there's lots of fabric here to work with.

But then I saw some inspiration on Pinterest that had me rushing to make a few test blocks: framing a 2.5" square with 1" strips and then a 1.5" strip. It's a 5" block and just as cute as can be. LUV! 

My inspiration had the narrow strip sewn like you would sew a Courthouse Steps block with two short strips opposite each other and then the two longer strips opposite each other. All of the narrow strips were one colour, but mixing them up just seemed like much more fun. Double LUV!

I found myself wondering what it would look like if I just stayed within the same colour family and sewed the strips more like you would a Log Cabin block, just circling that centre square. Just too much fun! Given that my strips are relatively short, this approach would give me much more flexibility because I wouldn't need to find enough for all four strips.

I wrote a quick reminder as to the lengths that I would need so that I wouldn't have to keep measuring every time.

This block was sewn the same way but it's hard to tell because I used a single print throughout. Nothing says that I couldn't make it a combo and use both styles because it would be scrappy anyway.

Of course the inevitable was going to happen. Any remnant shorter than 2.5" but longer than 1" was cut into a 1" square, maybe for tiny nine patches? Crazy, I know, but fun!...M