4-patch and Straight Furrows

All righty then ...  this is the last after-the-fact quilt I'll be posting for today!

Once again, let us journey back to 2010.  No, wait .. let's go further back than that ... back to 2005.

I was hand-piecing 4-patches.  Lots of 4-patches. I needed to be doing something "historically accurate" for a re-enactment Gold Rush mining town in the 1850's.  I made so many 4-patches that they were practically coming out of my ears.  The quilt for which they were intended was finally pieced in 2009; quilted and bound in 2010.

And I had a lot of 4-patches leftover.  A lot of them.

So, I made another quilt from them.  This one, "4-patches and Straight Furrows".  It's a free design from Bonnie Hunter's website but I changed how the borders look.  This quilt was pieced in 2010 and quilted in 2011.

I was doing a LOT of piecing (of a lot of different tops) in 2010; it was as though I was on an assembly line of piecing.  As soon as I finished one top, I dove right into the next one.  Not all of them got webpages made on a timely basis.

I've been updating the gallery pages on my website (man, just a whole lot of BORING technical things to change!) and I figured I probably should make web pages of the quilts where I could.  Hence the 3 new pages today!

Anyway, back to those 4-patches.  I thought I was done with them.  But no.  Oh no.  Little did I know that they were lurking around like dust bunnies.  I made another bed-sized quilt and two toddler quilts with excess 4-patches.  And ya know what?  I recently found SOME MORE!  My goodness ... where is the contraceptives for 4-patches????

So, during the website update, I made a page for this quilt ... there's lots of verbage and LOTS and LOTS of pictures, particularly of how I did the quilting.    The page is 4-patches and Straight Furrows.  :-)

Friendship Braid quilt

Here's another quilt I made in 2010, for which I am just now creating its webpage.  This quilt was made for a cousin who was undergoing cancer treatments.  I backed it with fleece so that it would be very drapeable and snuggly.

I had a wonderful time quilting this quilt!  I used a flower meander from the Darlene Epp "Pocket Guide to Freehanding" and hooked feathers from Sally Terry's "Hooked on Feathers".  I heartily endorse both books (or set of books, in Darlene Epp's case); both of them absolutely, positively WILL help anyone and everyone improve their free-motion skills and creation of feathers.

The webpage for this quilt is "Friendship Braid for Terrye" and has a whole lotta pictures.

 Here's what the front looks like ....

and here a picture of one of the borders. 

Annika's cat panel quilt

Way back in September 2010 (yes, 2 years ago), I made a child's size quilt for Mr. Pirate's grand-niece (who would be the daughter of Mr. Pirate's niece).

For whatever reason, I never quite got around to sharing it but now that I'm in the process of updating my web pages, I've done so.

What is interesting .. in an unpleasant sort of way ... is that I *forgot* to take a picture of the final quilt.  Geez ..what a doofus.  Although I've asked Mr. Pirate's niece to take a picture for me, she has never quite gotten around to it and I'm reluctant to keep bugging her.

Fortunately, I had created a note file of the process in 2010, so that was the basis for the webpage.  Sadly, details on the actual quilting are kinda sparse, as I hadn't quite finished the note file, although I did have pictures.  Thank goodness for the pictures!  The finished quilt has a scalloped edge, faux trapunto'd cat appliques and some nicely free-motion quilted backgrounds.

So, the web page for Annika's Cat Panel Quilt  is now up and for more verbage (oh, LOTS of verbage!), photos and links, surf on over to it's webpage. :-)

Jelly Parfait finished! whoop! whoop!

Oh hallelujah!  Let's stick a fork in it cuz it's done!

I pieced the top in April 2011 but just now got the quilting done.   I'm really quite pleased with my quilting efforts on this one.  Not particularly fancy, difficult or challenging but dang!  I like it!  :-)

I have String of Beads in the sashing, feathers in the big triangle areas, continuous curves in the pieced triangles and Carla Barrett's "Berry Swirl" in the outer border.   I figure it took me about 10 to 10-1/2 hours to quilt.

I have a webpage that talks in detail about the piecing journey and the quilting process, as well as lots of eye-candy pictures.

That picture is just a teaser! For all the gory details, links and more pictures, please visit my web page for the Jelly Parfait quilt.

Next up? Start working on my list of *17* tops to be quilted. Oy vey! ¡Ay Carumba! I have a LOT of quilting lined up for myself in the future.

Jelly Parfait - feathers

When I'm trying to decide what to quilt on a top, I almost always print out a full page picture so I can see the entire top at one time.  I put a piece of clear vinyl on top of the picture and use dry erase markers to draw on the vinyl.  The dry erase markers are very easy to erase if a design doesn't work out.

Unfortunately, because the picture is only 8-1/2" x 11" and the dry erase markers don't have an especially fine point on them, I can't always get the scale of the drawing to fit the picture.

That was the case with parts of Jelly Parfait.  I knew the swirly design for the border would be fine.  I knew the String of Beads would be fine.  I knew that the continuous curves would be fine.  It was the feathers that I wanted to put in the large triangles that wasn't working out nicely.

If I had a large enough piece of clear vinyl, I could have put that directly on the top and drawn the feathers that way ... but I don't.  What I did have was lots of pieces of tissue gift wrap, which *was* large enough to trace the triangles onto.  Using a photo I had seen online as inspiration, I drew one large curling feather in each non-pieced triangle.  It looked good enough for me.  :-)   The tissue paper also served as a reference for me when I got to quilting.

From experience I knew that printed fabric will hide the quilting.  That has its good points: if you make an error in stitching, chances are even *you* will never be able to find it after a while!  The drawback is that it *does* hide quilting .. which is why I don't suggest "fancy" quilting in print fabrics for customer quilts.  Why pay for something that you're just not going to see?

Then again, for my OWN quilts, I can do what I want.  And I wanted to do feathers in those triangles.  It also gave me the opportunity to practice more feathers with the implied permission that mistakes could be made.  :-)

You can see from this picture of a triangle in the print fabric, that you virtually can't see any of the quilted feather at all.  Trust me, it's there.  I used a very light lilac thread which blended perfectly.

For comparison, here's a picture of the triangle in the solid fabric.  This feather is *also* in the print fabric. 

All the non-pieced triangles of Jelly Parfait will be quilted this way.  If this was a customer quilt, I might have suggested to do some other quilting design in the triangles with the print fabric.

Here's what the corner triangles look like.

I'm still very much trying to get my feathers to look wonderful.  These are a tad sketchy in some areas; it's those very long feathers that need to stretch out to the very corners of the space that still look awkward.    I do like my fat little feathers, though.  :-)

But overall, I'm pleased with them. 

At this point, I'm on the 3rd of 6 rows, so I'm halfway through the rows.  After all the rows have been quilted, I'll do the bottom border.  Then the quilt gets removed, turned and reloaded so the side borders can be quilting horizontally.

Jelly Parfait - the journey continues

When last I left Jelly Parfait, it was in April 2011.  I was using it to distract me from a bigger quilt.  :-)   Jelly Parfait (the top) was completed and put on the Pile of Tops to be Quilted.

Well, guess what popped to the top of the stack??  :-)  I was fortunate enough to not only have the exact amount of 108" wide unbleached muslin available for the backing, but I also had a hunk of batting that was also *exactly* the right size.  In short order, it was loaded onto Lizzie.

I buy a bolt of 108" wide muslin (and try to use a discount coupon, too), wash the entire thing (ugh ... very tedious) so that I have a seamless backing available when I need it.   I'm not sure what content the batting is though .. it was on top of a Bamboo packaging bag, but that doesn't necessarily mean it *is* bamboo batting.  It really annoys me when I don't keep track of what batting is what.

I printed out a picture of the entire top and began to think about what kind of quilting I wanted to do.  This remains the most difficult part of quilting for me.  While I'm a good technician, I'm not artistic and generally don't have that special "spark" that generates a fantastic quilting design.  I have lots of books and reference pictures and diagrams to use as inspiration and instruction.  However, I find that have TOO many choices is just as bad as not having enough.

Eventually, I decided that I would use Carla Barrett's Berry Swirl for the outside border  (Berry Swirl is part of her Swirly Designs for Borders and Sashings diagrams).  I just love, love, love Carla Barrett's designs.  The inner border, made from the gingham "ribbon" stripe, gets a string of beads design.  (That design is actually called String of Pearls but mine aren't coming out nice enough to be called "pearls", so I'm going with just beads.  :-)  )

I'm now at the point where I have stitched in the ditch around all the large solid fabric and pieced triangles of the first row.  I'm doing the continuous curve around all the diamonds in the pieced triangle.  I really, really like the look of continuous curves in squares/diamonds and use Carla Barrett's directions for the stitching path so that it really IS one continuous line of curves.  (Don't be mislead by the title of the page ... the continuous curve diagram is about one-quarter down the page.)

While the Berry Swirl and String of Beads was done freehand (yeah, and it looks it), I am using a curved template for the continuous curve stitching.  And what curved template do I use??  Why it's Deloa Jone's Appliguide!  It wasn't designed to be used as a curved template but I have found that it has EXACTLY the size curve I need for small spaces.  I like it when tools are multi-functional, even when they weren't originally meant to be.  :-)   Oh .. and the Appliguide is a *wonderful* tool for its intended purpose too: helping you do outline stitching around appliqued designs.

I'll do all of the continuous curves in the pieced triangles before I move onto the solid triangles.  I've already drawn out a full-scale curvy feather on paper.  I'll be holding my breath and hope that I correctly translate the drawn design into a stitched design!  :-)

A long-time scrap top finally finished

Waaaaaaaaaaaay back in 2004, I taught classes at a local quilting store.  There was a lovely assisted living center nearby and the quilt store, local quilters and the center hosted a small quilt show.  I was asked to provide a demonstration of what quilting was all about by constructing quilt blocks.  Other people were demonstrating other aspects of quilting.

I thought about what kind of block would make a good sample.  I needed it to be simple.  It had to be *easy* to construct.  After all, the purpose was to intrigue people and have them think, "Gosh, I can do that!".  I also wanted to be able to use fabric that I already had on-hand.   I found a layout that (what my notes tell me) is called "Scrap Assassin".  It uses a fantastic amount of scraps to help get those proliferating scraps under control!

 To me, it's a variation of the God's Eye block. (I subsequently made a God's Eye quilt in 2008).  The God's Eye block uses the same fabric as a central diagonal and fills in the rest of the block with random strips. 

I have vague memories of a Scrap Assassin layout from Bonnie Hunter, but a look through her website doesn't show anything like it.  There is (currently) a book/pattern called Scrap Assassin Strikes Again and Scrap Assassin Returns, but this isn't any of them either.

I know *I* didn't come up with this layout on my own, but I have no idea where I originally found it.  


 The Scrap Assassin block uses a different color (but same width) strip for the center diagonal, also fills in the block with random color and width strips but adds a solid color triangle at each corner.  When sewn together these corner triangles form a diamond and gives the quilt a resting spot for your eyes.

And so I raided my scrap basket(s) and started cutting strips.  I wanted to be *just sewing* at the demo, not taking time to cut the strips. 

Left to my own devices, I tend to lay my quilts out in some sort of color organization.  Random doesn't come easily to me but for this block, random was what I wanted.  To easily enable me to JUST SEW and not be concerned about the color, I put the strips into a bag.  I would simply reach in the bag, pull out a strip and use that one.  Whatever it was.

It was almost a liberating feeling. :-)  Not quite because I did indulge in a small amount of micro-management ... if the strip I just pulled out of the bag was not enough contrast or was too similar to the strip it was to be sewn to, I'd pull another strip and use that one.  :-)

I also used a foundation to sew the strips to. Simply sewing the strips together makes for a very unstable block.  It's easy to distort while sewing; it's easy to distort whilst pressing.  A foundation prevents all of that potential distortion whilst providing a uniform size block.  Unfortunately, a foundation also adds bulk and weight to the quilt.

In the past, I've used VERY lightweight fabric for the foundation.  That worked nicely.  At some later point, I discovered that I could use tissue paper (as in the white gift wrap stuff) as a foundation.  Talk about being lightweight!  It was stable enough to sew through and prevent distortion.  It's also dead cheap to buy.  (Stock up at Christmas time ... it always goes on sale then.)  At first, I thought about tearing the tissue off (exactly what you do with paper piecing) but I hate that.  Really hate it. 

Then it occurred to me .. and I have no idea HOW I thought of it ... that when you get tissue paper wet, it absolutely disintegrates.  I wondered what would happen if I just *left* the tissue paper foundation in the block through the quilting process and then laundered the finished quilt.  To my utter amazement, when I removed the test quilt from the dryer, there was NO tissue paper anywhere in the quilt.  And believe me,  I looked and felt and thoroughly examined it!  The stuff was *gone*.   I was concerned about all that dissolved paper in our sewer system but further thinking led me to what happens to toilet paper .. that disintegrates in water also .. and *that* doesn't clog our sewer pipes, so tissue paper might very well behave in the same manner.

In any case, for the demo, I used both lightweight fabric and tissue paper.  After the quilt show was over and I brought my supplies back home, I packaged everything up and put them away.  After all, this wasn't a quilt that I had decided to make .. it was a 'quilt of opportunity' and I wasn't too concerned about ever finishing it.

So, now, let's fast forward to current times .. 2012.  My pile of projects (both ideas, pulled fabrics and self-kitted) and tops to be quilted is weighing heavily on my mind.  I decide that I simply MUST devote some time to getting those tops quilted and have a hiatus on MAKING tops.  And then the Olympics started. :-)

From experience, I know that I can't simultaneously watch TV and quilt on Lizzie at the same time; the quilting suffers horribly.  But I wanted to watch the Olympics!  That meant that I needed to work on something at my sewing machine instead of quilting .. just for the duration of the Olympics, mind you!   I also wanted something simple and easy to work on .. nothing that required decisions or thinking.  I remembered the Scrap Assassin project! 

Actually, it was difficult to ignore .. it was sitting right in the front of a cubby, staring at me.  :-)   So I pulled it out and worked on it.

And finished it.  :-)  The foundation sheets were cut at 8" square, resulting in a finished square of 7-1/2".  I have no idea why I originally made it that size, but for this layout, it doesn't matter at all.  Whatever size you like is fine.  Each corner has a black triangle in it, which produces that black diamond when the blocks are sewn together.

This one finished around a twin size, about 60" x 90".  I won't be putting any borders on it. 

It'll go to a local crisis nursery that I like to support by donating quilts for the kids.  Since the older kids (ages 7-11) also get a quilt when they leave, this one will be for them.

All that being said, I'm not entirely thrilled with it.  I think it's just too many jangly colors in no discernible pattern that adversely affects my eyes.  It's not just the lots of colors because I simply love scrappy Double Wedding Ring quilts .. but rather there's just no organization to this one.  But, that is totally irrelevant to the kids at the crisis nursery ... it will be very suitable to keeping them warm come winter time..

gosh, I love this template!

I have a Tin Lizzie longarm machine.  I just absolutely love my Lizzie and being able to quilt my projects myself.   There are certain tools that any longarm quilter needs to using the machine easier and to produce better results.

One such tool in my arsenal is Deloa Jones' "Rope A Dope" template for stitching a rope design.  It makes stitching a single rope design absolutely PAINLESS and ... OH MY GOSH ... the results are spectacular!   An instruction page comes with the template and I refresh my memory with those directions prior to using the tool.  There's also an instruction page on how to handle the corners so that the design looks continuous and effortless.

The template comes in different sizes, from 1.5" up to 3".  I have the 2", 2.5" and 3" ... so I wonder if the 1.5" came later?   I can't imagine that I wouldn't have purchased the entire set except for the smallest!  But now that I know there is a smaller size, I will have to acquire it to complete my collection.  :-)

On the website, I see that she has posted a sample idea of how to EMBELLISH the rope design.  Holy moley!  Is that a fantastic idea or what?  :-)

With her Rope A Dope, the resultant rope design looks so very complex but stitching it is just so *easy*!    Having that terrific design on the quilt makes you look so ... masterful and competent. :-)

I wish Deloa were compensating me for this post, but alas ... she is not.  This is just such a fantastic tool that has made my longarm experience so wonderful that I wanted to gush and let all the rest of you know about it also.  :-)

Another throw pillow: crazy patchwork

Spoiler alert:  Rene:  you said you don't read this blog at this time.  Continue to not read it, please.    To Rene's siblings and friends:  this project is for Rene.  She hasn't seen it yet.  Please let her revel in her ignorance of its existence.  :-)  (If I don't post about this project now, I'll forget all about it, being a card-carrying member of the Short Attention Span Theater Group).

Yep, another throw pillow!  I was smart enough not to make the same mistakes as I did on the knitted lace applique pillow.  Instead, I made a DIFFERENT mistake!  (didn't make the bias tape for the piping wide enough so that I needed to sew an extension to the piping seam allowance where the zipper was sewn.  Without the extension, there wouldn't have been enough fabric to sew the zipper *to*).  Heaven knows how I made the bias the correct size for the previous pillow but thoroughly miscalculated for this one.  ::shrug::

At least, I'm making progress in the mistake department.  :-)

I saw a small accent pillow featured on Hoffman Fabrics free project page.  I didn't like their fabric choices, but I *did* like the layout and the distribution of fabrics.

For my pillow, I needed to reduce the size of all the pattern pieces, as my pillow insert was smaller than theirs.  As this pillow is for my youngest Dear Daughter, I chose "her" colors (red) and novelty fabrics that reflect her interests (shoes, jewelry, baking, candy, desserts & coffee).

Additionally, I did some *VERY* simple crazy quilt embroidery for seam embellishments.  They are *really* simple because I really don't know how to combine stitches as the real crazy quilt embroiderers do.   That piece of knowledge has escaped me. :-)

The pictures below are just teasers! For all the gory details, links and more pictures, please visit my web page for the Crazy Patchwork throw pillow.

Here are two teaser photos of the crazy quilting embroidery ....

The 29th anniversary of my 30th birthday

Today is my birthday.  [looking at the computer day & time. Yup, it's still July 25th].  I had a very lovely time.

All three of our daughters called to wish me a Happy Birthday and to chat about what was going on in their lives.  [They already know what's going on in my: I sew.]

Mr. Pirate, as usual, pulled out all the stops to celebrate my special day.  He spared no expense on my behalf.

1. He took me to Orchard Supply Hardware, where they were having a Customer Appreciation Day with free hot dogs and sodas.

2.  Then we went to Costco to return an item AND to treat me with the free samples.  We also got some translucent crates to help organize my fabric stash.

3.  Finally, we went to Trader Joe's where we had some free coffee and their sampling of Mandarin Orange Chicken over rice.

My man really looks out for me.  :-)
.

Back on the ol' homestead, Mr. Pirate oven-baked some chicken for dinner ... wonderful stuff.


A friend from around the corner came over to visit.  We had champagne and the homemade orange-flavored cupcakes with orange buttercream frosting that she and one of her sons made just for my birthday.

It was simply a lovely day.  :-)

A throw pillow with knitted lace applique

The knitted lace on this throw pillow was created by my favorite middle daughter.

(Don't get your panties in a twist; I'm not slighting my other two daughters .... my knitting daughter is my ONLY middle daughter.  When you have three girls, one gets to be the Oldest, one gets to be the Youngest and one gets to be the Middle.  By default, they are ALL favorites of that particular birth order. :-)  )

Middle Dear Daughter is just the most talented knitter I've ever seen.  There isn't a pattern or project that she can't do.  And other than some very basic instruction from her older sister, she is entirely self-taught.  I find this talent simply amazing.

I don't knit.  I personally believe fairies come at night, when everyone is asleep, to create these magical items.  Mere mortals couldn't possibly do them.  And yet, I have actually witnessed middle Dear Daughter knitting!   I'm just not sure how she pulls it off. :-)

But knit this square she did.  I finally mounted it on a pillow cover by appliqueing it to the top.

Making the pillow cover was ANOTHER epic adventure all by itself, due entirely to utter stupidity on my part.

To see more detailed pictures of the exquisite knitted lace and read how the pillow nearly did me in, you can read all about it on the webpage for it, Throw Pillow with Knit Lace Applique.

That picture is just a teaser! For all the gory details and more pictures, please visit my web page for the Throw Pillow with Knit Lace

Forever Project: hand work done!

Recently the Pirate family went on vacation.  Whenever I am away from home .. vacation, long car rides, doctor appointments, etc .. I always take my current Forever Project with me.

What, you might ask, is a Forever Project?  For me, it is a hand-work project, whether it be counted cross-stitching, piecing, quilting, applique.  I have a grab-n-go container that holds all the supplies I need to work on that specific project.  The project has no deadline, hence the "forever" aspect.  It gets finished when it gets finished.

I have been working on a needleturn applique Forever Project for a long time.  Gosh, it feels like ... well, forever. :-)   This pattern is "Grapes" from Pacific Rim Quilting Company and is designed by Nancy Lee Chong.   I *LOVE* Nancy Lee Chong's 2 Fabric Applique designs!  Using her method, I learned to love needleturn applique; previously, it was a technique that I admired but would never do. (And yes, I have tried *all* *those* *other* methods.)

Grapes, while not difficult, does have, as you can see, a LOT of curves.  I wouldn't call Grapes a beginner project and you should pay attention to the smoothness of the curves that you are stitching.

When finished, Grapes should be about 24" x 36" ... a very nice size for a wall-hanging.

I figured that I'd have a pretty good chance of finishing it.  It would be AWFUL if I didn't have something else to work on!  So, I prepped another 2 Fabric Applique in anticipation of finishing Grapes.

 The other project I brought along to do, should Grapes get finished, is called "Peace".  Normally I don't make a pattern more than once, mainly because there are so MANY patterns that I want to do that I don't want to take the time for a repeat.  But, I was sorta pressed for time getting stuff ready for our vacation and wanted something that would be easy to prep.

I had stitched Peace once before, in August 2007.  I love the simplicity and elegance of the Asian design.  It so happened that my dearest Oldest Daughter thought the same.  Being the gracious and loving Mom that I am (and I am, right?), I gave her the finished wall-hanging.

But that meant that *I* still didn't have one for myself.  It was this design that I prepped for the second project to be worked on.  Fortunately, I had two fabrics on-hand that would work nicely with each other.

It was about the 3rd day into our vacation that I finished up Grapes.  I was very pleased with how it turned out.  I then picked up Peace and started working on it. 

I was surprised at just how EASY this design is to stitch!  There are inches and inches of perfectly straight lines to needleturn and even the curves are nicely gentle!  The only tricky part ... and after Grapes, it wasn't too tricky at all ... was the character for "peace".  This design is definitely a good beginner piece!  You can get your feet wet with the long straight lines before you start messing with the smaller, curved areas.

It took me exactly two days to finish Peace.

Now, I was REALLY in a pickle because I had NO needlework to do.  I really hadn't anticipated just *how* easy Peace would be after Grapes!  I did make a journey to the two local quilt stores (about 45 minutes away) but neither of them had a hand-piecing project kit available.

I realized that what I was looking for wasn't in high demand so the chances of me finding something like it was very slim.

That meant for the duration of our vacation (another 2 days), I read books.  I absolutely, positively adore reading books and brought several with me.  It was just that I wasn't quite in the mood for book reading; I wanted to be stitching!  

In any case, I managed to FINISH all 3 of my books, too.  Luckily, by then, it was time to pack up and return home.  :-)

After we arrived home, I was poking around my sewing room, looking for "something" when I ran across (which translates as "I rediscovered where I put it") another applique pattern that would be just *perfect* for Nancy Lee Chong's method!

This pattern is called "Manzanita" by Random Threadz.  It has some very interesting variations that I am also intrigued with.

ah, choices, choices. :-)

Note: the pattern is designed for raw-edge applique so don't think that you HAVE to do this as a needleturn project.

Isn't it amazing how different all four patterns look?  Fabric choices really make a difference!

Different versions of this pattern are:

"Branching Out"

"Spanish Sunset"

 

"Mediterranean Morning"

 

 

 

Hot Air Balloon fundraiser quilt

Since this past February (i.e. 5 months ago), I have been working (off and on) a fund-raiser quilt for a parochial school that is actively supported by a branch of Mr. Pirate's family.  The school is located in Napa, CA, which is known for its premier wine grape vineyards and wineries.  It is also a popular area for hot air ballooning.

With this in mind, I designed a queen sized quilt for the fund-raiser with an appliqued hot air balloon floating over vineyards in a center oval, which in turn is surrounded by a border of pieced grape leaves and a final outer border of appliqued swags.  Applique grape clusters occupy the cornerstones of the grape leaf border.

I turned under the edges of all the applique motifs and machine appliqued them with monofilament thread.  The hot air balloon itself had an extra layer of batting underneath it for a faux trapunto effect.

At 108" long, it is the BIGGEST quilt I've loaded yet onto my Tin Lizzie!  I was somewhat concerned that I'd run out of room on the rail, but fortunately, it fit.  Whew!

This shows just one of the swirly feathers.

For the quilting, I outline quilted the swags and hot air balloon & its segments, free-motioned most of the rest of the designs, with some ruler work thrown in when I needed straight lines.  Clouds were quilted behind the hot air balloon, the vineyards were simulated with quilted lines, the corners around the center oval received symmetrical swirling feathers, the grape leaves got veins and tendrils, an abstract design was put inside the swags and the area outside the swags was quilted with a piano key design.

The backing is unbleached muslin.  I get it 108" wide so I have a seamless backing.  I love seamless backings!  It makes life easier for me. :-)

The batting is a 80% cotton/20% polyester blend.

The binding is double-fold bias ... that's the only kind of binding I put on my quilts.  It's the sturdiest, most durable binding since there are two crossed fibers where the binding folds over the edge of the quilt.  I make my bias binding using the continuous tube method and actually enjoy the process. :-)   (the link is also on the right-hand side of the blog)

I also machine embroidered a label for the back with a "damask" hot air balloon on one side and grape clusters on the other.  I always catch two sides of any label when I sew on the binding.  The remaining two sides are either turned under or bordered with leftover binding.  Having the label sewn into the binding helps to ensure that it can't be casually removed.

The fund-raiser event will be this coming Fall; I'm very pleased with myself for finishing this quilt so far in advance!  I had visions of frantically stitching the binding down en route to the event!  Now, I can sit back and move on to other projects. :-)

Self-mitering (baby) blanket

 

note: I really do try to create a visually attractively spaces blog entry.  But when Blogger publishes it, many of my nicely spaces pictures and accompanying photos get horribly mis-spaced.   It's very, very annoying to me but I don't see where I have any control over the final placement of words and pictures.  My apologies in advance.

This technique has been around for a LONG time; it's very clever, easy and the result looks so wonderful.  In my not-so-humble opinion, it's visually much nicer than butted borders.

Missouri Star Quilting Company recently put a video on YouTube on March 2012 demonstrating this technique.  Jenny swears up and down that you can get a blanket done in a mere 10 minutes, but I think she's being overly optimistic. :-)

I was intrigued, this being the first time I'd been aware of it.  I'm obviously behind the times. :-)   The first time through is never as easy or as fast as subsequent times.  I can assure you that I did NOT take 10 minutes to make the blanket. :-)

One problem with having a video tutorial, as great as it is having live-action demonstrations available, when it comes to making something, I like to have *physical* directions in front of me, something that I can jot down notes to myself.  As I was making the first blanket, I was also writing down the steps involved.  I did think that I would write them up into a tutorial for not only myself but others.  I should have realized that OTHER people might have already created printable directions for the self-mitering
receiving blankets, seeing as the concept has been around for a while!

When I was looking around to find the "earliest" reference I found at least two printable versions that are more than adequate.

The Mitered Corner Blanket  is a PDF dated March 2007 from the Utah State University Cooperative Extension and is anally-retentive (said in the most constructive way possible).  It has more information that you might want to be aware of than I ever realized. :-)   Some of their drawings could be a little larger (specifically the part about making the miter), but this PDF is excellent.

The Self Binding Receiving Blanket by Natalia Bonner of Piece N Quilt is a printable document on Google Docs.  It's more of a literal translation of the Missouri Star Quilting Company's YouTube video BUT she does have an excellent shortcut for a foolproof way to figuring out where that all-important miter sewing line should be.

I did two things that neither the video nor the tutorial (that I saw) mentioned that made the final top-stitching step easier.  Once you've sewn all 4 sides and done the miter corners but before turning it right side out ...

1. I *pressed* the miter seam allowance open.  This distributes the bulk evenly and allows a VERY flat corner.

2. I also pressed the seam allowances of the border/interior towards the border.
 
I have 4 steps to create a VERY flat mitered corner.

step a.

a. First, you absolutely, positively must MAKE SURE that the two seamlines (the interior/border seamline and the miter seamline) do NOT NOT NOT go past each other.  It's better to have a small gap where the intersection is than to have the stitchings go past each other.

step b

 b. Trim away the excess fabric in the corner.  It doesn't need to be exactly 1/4"; just eyeball it.  No one is going to get inside with a ruler to judge you.





I also diagonally trim the corner away in order to reduce the bulk in that area when the item is turned right side out.  Be careful not to trim too closely to the stitched line.

step c

 c. Press the miter seam allowance open.  If you do this, you won't have a lump on one side of the seam line when you turn the blanket right side out.

Also, I like to make sure that the miter seam allowance is tucked *all the way* next to the adjacent seamline.  This also helps with creating a very flat mitered corner area.

step d

 d. Now, press the rest of the seam allowances towards the borders.  The corner of the miter should lie very flat.

I found that if I didn't press the seam allowances "up", when I turned the blanket right side out, they would sometimes "flip" on me.  It was then quite annoying to try to get the seam allowances where they should be.

step e

 

 e.  When you finally turn the blanket right side out and give the borders a final pressing, you'll find that you have a VERY flat miter.

With the seamlines pressed towards the borders, it creates a very nice area for the top-stitching, which holds the seam allowances down and stabilizes the entire blanket.




  

THEN I turned the blanket right side out.  I think the video has you turn the blanket then press the seam allowance towards the border from the right side.  BUT, I found that if I did the extra step of pressing the seam allowance up before turning, the seam allowance didn't fight me.

And then about that final, decorative top-stitching .... you do it to hold the seam allowances in place through all the laundering the blanket is going to get.   Missouri Star Quilting Company (and others) advocate a simple top-stitching, about 1/8" away from the seam allowance.  I did this but didn't like it so much because the area where you turned the quilt (obviously) is not stitched down.  If you do just a top-stitch, that gap area is actually a small "flap" since it's not stitched down in a seam like the rest of the seam.  Yes, it's a *very* small thing, but it annoyed me.  (I wasn't going to go back and hand stitch the gap area down.)
Instead, I chose to use a blanket stitch/buttonhole decorative stitch.  

My sewing machine is a Janome 6500.  I love it.  It has all sorts of fancy, decorative stitches that I rarely use. :-)  But I do use 3 of them for the decorative top-stitching for these blankets.  First, I use Mode 2, stitch 34.  This is a closely spaced blanket stitch.  I use this in the area where I turned the quilt so that the unstitched seamline area is firmly held in place.  This gap area is also where I put my little 'tags' .. they are just for pretty ... and the close blanket stitch secures the tag nicely.

Once the gap area is stitched, I switch to stitch 36 (still in Mode 2).  This is a wider-spaced blanket stitch.  The straight stitching is like a stitch in the ditch and the little perpendicular stitches go into the border area to hold the seam allowance down.

The jury is still out as to whether I'm going to continue to use the third decorative stitch.  This is Mode 2, stitch 64 and looks like a straight line with small cross-bars.  I used it specifically on the miter seamline so that the cross-bars would hold the miter seam allowances down.  I'm not entirely sure if laundering would cause the miter seam allowances to bunch up, but if they do, I'm hoping that this stitch will tend to hold them in place.

The decorative stitches take a little longer to stitch out, but they look nice.

I've seen where some people use a zig-zag stitch, but I just don't care for that look.
 

knit interior with flannel backing/border

I've also mixed up flannel and woven cotton .. depending on what I had.

I made one with Minkee interior & flannel backing/border;

one with flannel interior & woven backing/border;

one with cotton knit interior & flannel backing border.

Minkee interior with woven backing/border

So, don't feel constrained to make the blankets with *just* cotton or *just* flannel; mixtures are OK, too.  Everything was washed before I used it, so there won't be any surprise shrinkage later on.

quilting: circles  (you can see them better on the backing)

I am concerned that, upon many subsequent launderings, the center of the blanket is going to become mis-aligned or get "bubbly".

quilting: double diagonal lines

 I didn't want to spend a lot of time quilting the interior but did want to somehow attach the interior front and back.  So, I wanted some limited quilting ... but as I got into it, some not-so-minimal quilting!   Doing more quilting did take more time, which is exactly what I didn't want to do!




I've seen some of these blankets quilted with two long diagonals, from corner to corner .. that would certainly work, but I don't care for the look.  The quilting that I did is probably more than is necessary.   :-)

quilting: spiral

 They really are a lot of fun to make.

AND THEN .... just so you don't think you are limited to making only baby blankets with this technique, in 2009, Moda came up with a project that used this method to create high-end napkins for your table.

Now, granted, the main emphasis of this project was making Dresden Plate chargers for your plates but included in the project were instructions to make the napkins also!  You use 2 Fat Quarters (one is cut down to 12"x12") to make one napkin.  But the technique is EXACTLY the same as for these blankets.

Do look at the *lovely* decorative stitch they used to hold the seam allowances down!

Current Forever Project: needleturn applique - Grapes

I always like to have a handwork project to work on when I am away from home.  I work on this project on road trips, appointments, anytime I'm unable to work on my home sewing machine or longarm quilting.  I always call this project my "Forever Project" (in honor of the first Forever Project that took about 10 years to finish, if I'm remembering correctly!).  Whether or not the current project will actually TAKE "forever" is irrelevent; my family knows what the Forever Project tote looks like and that it belongs in the car with me. :-)

My current Forever Project is a needleturn applique pattern by Nancy Lee Chong of Pacific Rim Quilting Company.  I first learned how to do needleturn using her technique with another of her patterns, Peace.  Prior to that, I absolutely, positively AVOIDED needleturn because all the methods I had used up to that point had been too annoying for me to use.

But, once I learned her basted needleturn technique, I actually look forward to any project I can use it on.  :-)   Recently I was fortunate to take an applique class with her as an instructor and was practically over the moon with delirious happiness!  The class was awesome and one important lesson I learned was how to get pointy points and sharp corners.  Without her hands-on teaching, I don't think I ever would have figured it out properly.  Nancy Lee Chong is an enthusiastic and dedicated teacher; if you have a chance to take a class from her, do not hesitate to do so.

Back to my current Forever Project!   Mr. Pirate's (extended) family has vineyards that grow grapes, which are then sold to wineries to make wine.  (side note: wine grapes are lousy, lousy, lousy eating grapes. Yuck. Pa-tooie!)  When I saw Grapes as one of Nancy Lee Chong's 2 Fabric Applique patterns, I decided I would make it, in honor of our family's heritage.

I had a mottled, gold-marbled fabric from some other project that is perfect as the background.  I found a suitable dark purple fabric for the grapes.  One afternoon was spent tracing the finished seamlines onto the grape fabric.  Another evening was spent basting on that seamline with heavy-duty thread.  Once all the basting was done, my Forever Project was ready to be put into the tote and could be worked on.

It's still very much a Work In Progress ... I'm not antsy to complete it.  When it gets done, it gets done.  I have other projects at home to work on with my sewing machine. I don't miss working on it when I *am* at home.  For me, it's very much an on-the-road project.