It's Decided

I've taken the plunge - the Double Wedding Ring quilt will be a lap quilt and not full-sized. My intention when picking up Jan's WIP was to make it for Quilts for Survivors and that's what I'll do. It also makes it much more likely that it will some day be a finish. I haven't let my mind move forward too too much as to just how to finish it yet - just dealing with the bits and bobs in front of me - but I'm counting on the quilting gods to have my back.

So, I've taken the panel that is all sewn together and ripped out the seam that joins the bottom two rings to the rest of the top, planning to make it 4W x 5H rings.

And I'm left with a corner piece that looks like this. It may be the start of something else but for now its removal has helped move me along. I've just parked it in a corner of the design wall.

Then I started puzzling just how this baby is to come together. I've been referring to Christine Baker's tutorial and the goal is to have columns come together in an elongated S seam. But because I jumped into this midstream, instead of having two consistent shapes, I'm working with an interesting combo of partial rings, like tops of rings...

right sides of rings, and ...

corners of rings (if that's possible...).

I'm just talking myself through it like someone trying to convince a jumper not to jump, but progress is being made....M

My Little Dilemma

Off and on I've been assembling more ovals for the Double Wedding Ring quilt that I showed you in May. Jan left us a full box of bits and pieces before she moved and I'm keen to avoid it being relegated to a life on the shelf, never to be seen again. I decided to put the piece that is assembled up on the wall and see how many more I need to make and then make a plan of action.

This will be a Quilts for Survivors flimsy and they like lap-sized quilts approximately 48" x 64", so if I go that route, I'm thinking I need four circles wide by five long. You can see by the puddle of quilt on the floor that if I make up the entire quilt using all of the bits that have been prepared it would be considerably larger.

It's really quite striking when you get it up on the wall.

After placing two more columns of ovals it looks like I'd need only three to make this work for the lap size, which was a very pleasant surprise as it's proving to be a bit challenging working with pieces that aren't always consistently cut to come out with a good product. The dilemma as to whether I go small or large with this one seems to be tilting in favour of the small size.

So I'm sewing the missing three ovals and hope that a decision will be made along the way.

I pull ovals randomly from the box to work on (many have already been organized and pinned to a small cream oval piece) and it's interesting to see, now that they are on the wall, how so many have yellow in them compared to the circles already sewn together.

Pretty soon I'll have to figure out how to assemble complete circles. If you're old enough to remember, it's feeling sort of like cracking the secret of how they get the caramel into the Caramilk bars 😉....M

A Magical Mystery Tour

Well, everything in the Double Wedding Ring box is now pressed and organized, but there were no instructions enclosed so I've spent some time looking at what is already together for assembly hints. Finally I looked online and found this great tutorial.

The end pieces on the ovals are slightly curved compared to the squares used in the tutorial so I've had to figure out how to deal with that, but, by and large, I think I've now got a technique that works.

As I mentioned, the fabrics look like they are from the 80s but there are also a few terrific vintage-y looking pieces like this gem scattered throughout. Not sure if it is or it isn't.

Some of the ovals have very dark fabric combinations so I've been digging through my scrap bin as I go and will incorporate a few lighter bits. It's slowing a slow process down a bit further but I think it will be worth it. I'll have to ensure that they are well incorporated when I lay the rings out with the two columns that are already sewn together so that things are well distributed....M

It's a Quilt-in-a-Box

Jan's generosity to our Holy Trinity quilters continues to shine through. This week I unearthed a box filled with the makings of a very scrappy Double Wedding Ring quilt, basically a quilt-in-a-box (do they even make jack-in-the-boxes anymore?). I ended up bringing it home because no one else was willing to tackle the curved piecing required to get this to the finish line. 

There's been so much work done already to get it to this point that I just didn't want to see it waste away on a shelf someplace for eternity. From the look of the fabrics, I'm thinking that it may have been cut in the 80s. Jan couldn't confirm but she did say that she bought everything as a kit, so it looks like someone else may have cut all of the pieces.

Just about everything that I need to get started appears to be here: several oval sections either completed...

or in progress.

There's also a bag of pieces all bundled and ready to sew.

And I think that all of the oval and ring centres are cut, too, with some to spare.

There are two columns of seven rings already assembled. I'll have to measure but I think I only need to add three more columns to get it to the 48" x 64" needed for Quilts for Survivors. It may be a little long so there's a chance that I'd take two rings off the bottom in order to make the proportions work.

Job one is going to be sorting all of the bits and bobs and then giving everything a good press. Once I know what's what, it will be time to sit down at the machine and figure out just what I've gotten myself into!....M

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

Template Time

It's been forever since I've made a quilting template but we needed one to mark the quilting pattern for the Double Wedding Ring. I'm thinking that a purchased stencil may have been used for the portion that is already quilted but there was no sign of one when the quilt was dropped off for us, so I brought it home to try and figure out a way to do it.

As a reminder, my mission was to create a template for this pattern. After a little pondering I decided to just make an oval for each quadrant rather than attempting a stencil for the entire pattern, so I rescued a cereal box from the recycling bin and proceeded to draft one. It went quicker that I had imagined.

I just measured one of the ovals from the existing pattern from end and then determined it's overall width at the mid point. Once I had that cut I made it 1/4" wide and cut the centre out.

The maker had pressed the centre panel of each block so as to mark it's centre, so I just positioned one end of the petal point at the centre of the block and the other end pointing towards a corner. For the circle that encased the petals I was lucky enough to find a plastic container the same size as the outer ring and then marked an echo line 1/4" inside of that. Easy peasy.

It took several hours to mark the remaining 32 blocks that need quilting but I was determined to do it all in one day. For whatever reason, it was tricky getting a light pencil line to show up well on the fabric but I eventually got to the point that things moved along. I don't like a heavy quilting line but also wanted to ensure that the quilters could see the pattern.

It's been up on the frame at the church since early January and we are seeing good progress. Because the edges of the quilt are scalloped, we first hand basted all of those outer circles so that everything was stabilized, which took a fair bit of time. Eventually we were able to begin quilting and this past Friday we finished the first column of eight blocks and were thrilled to roll it for the first time. Woohoo! Only 24 more to go!....M

A Special Double Wedding Ring Surprise

Back in November, just as we were prepping for the bazaar, Jan sent through a note about a gal named Carrie who had contacted her guild in Kingston enquiring as to anyone who might be interested in finishing a Double Wedding Ring quilt.

It was made by Carrie's mother who had passed away in 2010. After her death, Carrie's dad had bundled it up and tucked it into a drawer, not quite sure what to do with it. They recently discovered it safe and sound. She is keen to have the hand quilting finished up and getting it bound so that she can gift it to her daughter for her upcoming wedding this spring. It's to be a surprise.

It is beautiful. About 2/3 of it is quilted and her work is lovely. It proved to be a challenge that we couldn't refuse. I mean, to be able to work on a sentimental surprise like that? Really? 

So we've put our heads together to develop a line of attack, not the least of which is drafting and marking this motif for the centre of the rings.

So far, it's been quilted in a hoop and it is very well basted with pins, so there's been little or no shifting of the quilt sandwich....M