Quilt Update

Quilt top in daylight

I have done no sewing.  Instead I bought and assembled a bunch of new furniture: a couch and two bookcases.  Last year I got a new apartment, now I finally I have furnishings that work in it :)


I did buy backing fabric for the quilt since my intended backing fabric was too narrow.  It's cobalt blue cotton, yum!  I need to wash and dry the fabric, then layer and pin baste the quilt, then quilt it.  Because I decided on poly batting, which isn't opaque, I am lining the quilt top with muslin.  Otherwise the white squares will look slightly blue.  So the whole project is much more complicated than originally intended.

A Funny

I have a new top and added twill tape waist ties, and last time I wore it they were stiff.  Only the bottom half of each, mind, and I couldn't think what had caused this.  Stain spray? no.  It had been hanging in the closet, so I had no idea.

Then I'm in the bathroom on Sat, happen to look over, and there's my cat chewing on the ties!  No wonder they're stiff and funky feeling!  I rinsed them off, washed them a little, but cat spit apparently works better than starch.  At least I solved the mystery ;)

Ella, caught in the act!

Quilt Top Finished

Well, my plan to finish the quilt by tonight was overambitious.  A few things went wrong, other things came up, and I barely managed to finish sewing the top.  But it looks good :)

Borders

I only figured out how to reliably sew a 1/4" seam on my machine halfway through this project.  As a result my sewing was inaccurate and pieces didn't always match up.  This meant that I had to pay attention to every seam so the points and seam lines matched up, and that took a lot of time.

For borders I added a 1/2" white strip to act as a frame around the blocks.  Then 2" of the light blue and 3" of dark blue.  The blocks are 9" square.

White square begging to be quilted

Now that there's no hurry to finish I'm planning to do some really nice quilting.  In the large white squares I'll put a swirly design.  The borders will get something special, too.  Also horizontal and vertical lines on the whole thing to make the blocks pop and to hold it together.

I overdyed the backing fabric, hung it up to dry, and realized it has a crazy diagonal pattern.  I don't really like the dye job for this project anyway, so I'll buy a different fabric for the backing.  I may buy cotton batting to replace the poly batting I was planning to use.  I'll test the poly batting against a sample of cotton I already have, see which looks better.  I need to practice my free-motion quilting anyway.

Quilt Progress

Finished blocks

I finished piecing and pressing all 20 blocks last night :)  This makes me a day ahead of schedule!  So there's time to have a bad day, and spend more time on the quilting, while still finishing the quilt for Saturday.  I hope.

 Still to finish:

• sew the blocks together and add borders (creating the quilt top)
• layer the backing, batting and top, and safety pin them together
• quilting
• binding
• sign and date the quilt

The blocks are 9" finished size, and the quilt will be 4 blocks wide by 5 high, plus borders.

Quilt layout

If I have time I'd like to quilt a special design in the large white square created where the blocks meet (center of photo at left).











The big decision now is what to use for backing.  I'd love some opinions!

The white and larger blue floral in the blocks are flannel, and I have enough of the blue to back the quilt.  Except that it works in small amounts and is, imo, rather hideous on its own.  I have another flannel, a small floral, that could work.  However I'm leaning toward bleached muslin at this point--I have it, it looks and wears well, and nobody dislikes white.

I am decided on the borders.  The lighter blue for the inner border and darker blue for the outer border.  I may add a narrow innermost white border, to visually separate the blocks from the borders.  The whole thing will be bound with the dark blue print.  It's a really cool fabric, pointillist in appearance, and won't show dirt.  I want this baby quilt to be used.

Block with border fabrics

We Interrupt Regularly Scheduled Sewing

For a baby quilt!  Yes, I used to be a quilter and sometimes still dabble in it.  I'd started a small quilt several years ago but never finished it.  I'm hoping I can bust out the finished product by next Sat, the baby shower.      There's maybe half the piecing for the top left to do, plus some quilting then binding.

I'm too tired to take pictures tonight, but soon.  Bonus: sewing (or quilting) is so much faster than knitting!