Quilting

Bamboo Quilt – Piecing of Panel Done

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Finally, I have finished piecing the elements for this quilt top. The next steps will go relatively quickly.

Bamboo Quilt Panel – Finished

Now I have to add borders: a narrow light one, then a wider batik that seems to coordinate with all the other batiks in the pieced panel.

I’m thinking I will do something simple to extend the width of the back – a jellyroll race piecing, crazy quilt strip…. Whatever it turns out to be it will go a lot more quickly than this piecing did. I got tired of creating these elements which took quite a bit more time than I expected when I started which is why the project ground to a halt.

Now I can move again, get the quilt done and added to the collection for the showing in Parrsboro this summer. Whew!

Bamboo – Further Along

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Making headway. The width is now about 42″, with the fill-ins being place-held with batik blocks; the panel length will approximate 62″ – with borders added the quilt top will end up a reasonable size for a lap quilt.

Tentative Layout

So it’s looking like I will want between 7-10 more “bamboo” blocks – that’s getting to be within range (it was beginning to feel as if the end of the project was nowhere in sight). I’m giving up on getting any overlap between the blocks – bits of sashing to make blocks fit is going to have to do.

Truth is I’m feeling pressure to get this quilt done. I want to get onto a bit of garment sewing – I need to make a pair of pants and maybe another casual jacket to take to Florence at the end of April – that’s just a month away.

Bamboo – Making Progress

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I’m making headway slowly on the Bamboo quilt top. I’ve created some more blocks – they’re getting better even though I’m not getting faster! The tapering of the inserts is looking more like I want it to. I’ve also started joining blocks and fitting in inserts where needed to make row segments. I’ve got 15 blocks assembled – I figure I’ll need between 35 and 40 to make a lap-size quilt.

Bamboo – Beginning To Take Shape

In the picture I saw originally, there are some leaves overlapping from one block to another: 

The only way I think this can be done is if the whole quilt top was constructed using raw edge appliqué. I’m doing this with slashing and inserting contrasting fabric.  I’m stumped about how to accomplish the overlapping across blocks! Nevertheless I’ll keep working away at these blocks.

Charm Pack Quilt – Finished

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It’s done. Quilted and bound with a label. A vanishing 9-patch quilt with borders built from ~80 charm squares.

Charm Squares Quilt – Top

I’m pleased with the scattering of the small yellow blocks – they appeared when the assembled 9-patch block was recut into four – the yellow central block became four small corner squares. The distribution of colour also has worked out well. The pale inner border ties the central pieced panel nicely, the narrow yellow border provides accent and the dark wide outer border balances out the quilt.

Charms Squares Quilt – Back

For the back I selected a few squares from the second charm pack I’d bought (in case) and cut an equal number of batik squares to set up the bordered strips. The backing fabric is the same fabric I used for the borders on the front – didn’t have quite enough to cover the top so had to create a horizontal stripe as well. I reversed position of the two pieces when I added in the vertical strips to add further interest to the back.

The quilt is now in the growing collection of quilts to be shown in Parrsboro in July/August. It won’t be for sale since it already has a home with my physiotherapist. I think it fits the bill for her – she didn’t want it so fancy that she felt she couldn’t just throw it on her sofa.

Help!

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In the late summer I offered to finish off, back, and bind a queen-size hand embroidered crazy quilt my friend Ruth has been working on for the past many years. She almost finished, then lost interest and put the quilt away. I know she intended going back to it, but I also knew she probably wouldn’t get there. So I offered to complete it for her – with my sewing machine using decorative quilting stitches where she’s done hand work, but it would work.

Yesterday I dug out the quilt from the closet, this morning I opened it up and started by trimming the quilt edges to make them straight, machine basting flapping bits of fabric – there’s quite a bit of beading near the edges – broke a needle on one. My next task will be to remove beads near edges so I can properly machine sew where I need to.

I also need to add fabric to three corners, and figure out a way to decorate a seam that joins a panel across the quilt near one end – lace, silk, bits of crochet, whatever bits and pieces I can find in my collection of stuff that kind of goes with what Ruth has used.

Hand Embroidered Crazy Quilt

Here’s my problem – the quilt needs a backing. I can set up a backing using a light cotton (the quilt is VERY heavy already and doesn’t need anything weighty on the back). But how am I going to stabilize the top to the back? I can’t stitch over existing embroidered edges because it would look awful and there are beads on lots of those edges. Do I tie top to back with bits of yarn? I have to do something.

If anybody has any idea how to attach a back to something like this, I’d love to hear your suggestions because I’m stumped, I must say. The underside of the quilt does need to be concealed because there are thread ends and raw edges throughout that will ravel and come out if left exposed.

Charm Pack Quilt – 2

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Just finished piecing the charm pack quilt. Three borders – two narrow and one wide. The overall finished size will be 47″ x 60″ – a good lap quilt size.

Quilt Top Pieced With Borders

Now my problem is the back. I have 53″ of potential backing fabric (the same fabric I used for the dark wide border). To make that work I have to extend the length by 12″ in order to have enough hang-over to be able to quilt the project. I have enough leftover blocks to create a strip and with borders I can make the insertion strip the required width to give me the length I need for the backing.

The width also has to be extended – I have a workable 42″ in the width-of-fabric – I need a finished width of  51″. I will have to extend the width another 11″ – 12″. That will mean using almost a third of the blocks in the unused pack for an insertion strip.

The easiest way of doing this is just to extend one side of the length and of the width but that  will end up being trimmed and I want the entire inserted strips to be included in the back with the trimming coming from the major background fabric. Those extension strips will need to be inserted approximately 8″-9″ from one edge of both length and width.

That’s for tomorrow. Done enough for today. Got further than I expected.

It’s All About Pink – IV

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I haven’t worked on this quilt since Dec. 31. I’ve read 5 mystery novels, watched some interesting series on TV, added elastic to the bottom of two sweaters, continued repairing socks in the “repair socks” basket (five pairs completed, six left to do), knit a new pair of socks and close to finishing the first sock for another pair. But no sewing on this quilt.

However, yesterday, I pieced the quilt back. Today, I pinned the quilt sandwich.

It’s All About Pink – IV

Yesterday, I also set up an embroidery to fit a 150mm x 150 mm block; I still need something for the borders – I’ll probably use one of the decorative stitches for the narrow border and something related to the block design for the out border – have to do that now.

And then the quilting in the hoop will begin.

It’s All About Pink – III

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Here’s the quilt top assembled:

Quilt Top With Borders

I like how the pale narrow inner border finishes off the pieced centre. I was just lucky with the outer border – not many fabrics to choose from and at first I passed over this one, but in fact the “golden” shade within this pink brings out all the tones in the top.

Next…. Now I have to piece a 14″ strip for the backing – this top has finished at 54″ wide. For the back fabric panel I need another 14″-16″ to allow enough excess width to assemble the sandwich.

It’s All About Pink

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Just finished the 63rd block. Laid them out – first pass – to get an idea of what the whole would look like.

63 Blocks

Not bad, there’s a LOT to look at here, although one block has to be revised – I didn’t see the swastika until I looked at this image. I’ll make a replacement. I also need to array all of the blocks on the floor and walk around them for a while to make sure I’m happy with the layout – colour, shapes all reasonably distributed.

And then the big challenge – there’s not a lot of light pink batik available here in town so once I get these blocks assembled into a 7 x 9 array, I will have to go shopping for a couple of fabrics to border, back and bind the quilt. There’s nothing in my backing stash that goes with pink.

Overall, I am please with how the impact of the layout is “pink” – that was what I was aiming for. A lot of improvising has gone into this block collection – I didn’t have measurements for most of these blocks, while I worked a bit with graph paper, most of the time I started with an element and built around it. In effect each block represents a “sample” – the sort of thing I’d do to work out the dimensions of a block before using it in a quilt. Here, the sample is my end product.

Blocks 30-43

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I’m up to block 43! Just 20 to go (at least for the quilt top – I’ll probably work on more for the back – a dozen or so…)

Blocks 30-43

What’s going on here is a lot of improvisation – some “standard” blocks accompanied by a lot of using up scraps to end up with 6 1/2″ x 6 1/2″ blocks.

The challenge is having enough light pink batik – I’ve got lots of mid-range fabrics and enough dark. I’m running short of the lighter values and without the light the blocks aren’t going to work. I may have to resort to a few printed fabrics – I’ve used just two so far and am trying not to use more but I may be forced to.

The Scrap Collection

This is what my cutting table is looking like at the moment. I’ll clear it up (actually throwing out pieces that are too small or narrow to be useful) when I get back from some errands.