To be a bit cliché, this shoemaker is a professional Web Developer and her child is this blog, but it was past time to launch what I have of a new design. All the content is still here, everything else is a work in progress (kind of like most of my sewing projects)!
Even when you strip piece, it takes forever to cut out the bits needed for a 54″×72″ nine-patch. (In other words, not a whole lot of actual sewing has happened this week.)
But cutting out and constructing this quilt prompted a thought to ask you about: are you extremely judicious about cutting with as little waste as possible or do you vote for speed and efficiency, figuring you can use the scraps for something else, no matter how small?
When I cut out the half-square triangles for the nine-patch, I made sure to cut them to exact measurements rather than doing them so that one half was waste (for that project, at last) like I’ve seen some tutorials show. I’d like to say that I did this because I needed to make sure my FQ pack would stretch as far as possible, but that’s only part of the issue. I really am just crazy about trying to fit everything into as little fabric as possible. It works great for sartorial and historical sewing, but am I just making things hard on myself in the quilting world?
So, wise ones, what approach do you take? Some grey-area “depends on the project” approach? What makes you decide to cut down from a larger block, or cut exact measurements?
I spent some time working on two different projects this weekend: a quilt and a vest.
On Friday, I received my order of a 18 fat quarter pack of Miniatures by Julie Hendrickson for Windham Fabrics (ordered from Fat Quarter Shop). I wasn’t planning on starting on the quilt from it for a while—I already have some of the pieces for another cut out, but once I received the fabric, I just couldn’t help but listen to the creative voices in my head yelling about what to do with it, going all oooh, ahh, how romantically-colored.
The plan is just a pretty basic strip-pieced nine-patch with a twist or two thrown in. Stay tuned for more on that. For now, I spent time cutting out the 2 ½” strips needed for the strip piecing. Some day I’ll have a dining room and a dining room table—or better yet a dedicated sewing room—that makes cutting out strips easier on my back. Ouch.
Why a simple nine patch?
I want something deliriously simple after the bargello.
The fabrics make me think “old-fashioned and traditional,” and you don’t get much more traditional than a nine-patch/postage-stamp-esque quilt.
I want really quick blocks so that this can get finished in between my applique class project, the vest, and another quilt I’m already working on.
Speaking of the bargello quilt, it is officially in the mail enroute to my cousin, yay. Link now working. That’s what I get for quick posting.
The Vest
Outside the realm of quilting, a friend wanted a copy of a wool vest he owns that has seen many better days. So, I’m working on that. To do so, I had to make a copy of the existing vest without taking it apart.
Here’s how I did it: I draped my coffee table with a towel (for cushioning/pinning loft), then craft paper taped over that. Then I just pushed pins through the seam lines and important parts of the vest which gives me a line to trace. I didn’t take photos all the way through the process, but here is one of the front sides partially done:
Then, I used the resulting pattern to make a muslin pattern. That’s where it stands. I’ll start constructing the real vest this week.
Here’s a quick summary of things I learned in the process.
Staggered rows means uneven rows. If your pattern calls for staggered rows, then the rows starting with full blocks will be a quarter-inch longer on the top than the ones with half blocks. Knowing this from the start can reduce bowing and shifting later on.
¼” wide rows are obnoxious. If you’re inexperienced or looking for hassle free, pick a pattern that doesn’t have eight ¼” rows. I.e., not this one.
Be careful second-guessing yourself. I spent hours drawing the layout up on the computer. I calculated exactly how I should cut my mid-block insertions for purple pieces. Then, I decided to change one of them in the quilt. After doing so, I realized I should have left it as originally planned. Of course, your experience may be the opposite.
Poly micro-suede is not nearly as easy to sew as cotton. It’s a lot tougher, so make sure you have a sharp needle. I didn’t quilt in the purple areas because it’s just that much more difficult to sew through than the cotton.
Trim stray threads as you go. Otherwise, you’ll spend a lot of time pulling them through seams and snipping them out of hard to get areas.
Be aware of row alignment as you work across the quilt. My top was pretty out of square at the end. I maneuvered it back into some semblance of shape by steam ironing bits to stretch them as needed. However, it could have been avoided if I had paid attention to how the rows were aligning. With a staggered pattern like this, make sure that every other row is aligning properly with each other. Meaning, row 1, 3, 5, 7… should all have seams along a straight line. Mine did not line up across the quilt, which caused some of the out-of-squareness.
Number of seams ripped because I sewed the wrong pieces together: 6
Number of rows cut twice, because I thought I lost one: 1
Number of purple pieces cut .5″ too short: 40
Leftover fabric: I haven’t totaled it up, but I have at least a ¼” yard of most of the fabrics, and more of others. Granted, I purchased extra of many because I like them so much.
About the quilting itself
I’m kind of un-adventurous when it comes to quilting so far. I decided to stick to simple stuff: echoing the purple curve. I used invisible thread on the top, and a teal (called peacock, I believe) poly on the bottom.
My machine does not like Gütermann invisible thread. Something about the way it comes off the spool causes it to tangle around the horizontal spindle and eventually screws up tension. Halfway through, I managed to get it to work on the vertical spindle, but I didn’t want to tear out the first half, so it is less than stellar overall.
After I figured out how to get mine to work, I came across this Quilter’s Review invisible thread comparisons article and comparison table. I wish I’d seen it before. I don’t even remember why I purchased the Gütermann thread to begin with (it’s been sitting in my thread box for a while). I’m usually a fan of the brand, but I think I’ll try something different next time—especially since the author of that article claims it’s the thickest of the six (I really hate the stiff texture!).
I used a 50% Bamboo Rayon / 50% Organic Cotton blend batting, that is pretty similar in consistency to Warm and Natural cotton batting. Really, my choice of batting in this case came down to the fact that they sell a 60″ x 60″ packaged version, which was absolutely perfect for this quilt. Since I used a poly fill that I’d purchased for some previous crafting/couch reupholstering in the baby quilt, I wanted to work with something low-loft like Warm and Natural, and the bamboo/cotton blend seemed decent.
It was very easy to work with, but I suggest pulling it out of the package and laying it out flat for a couple days or ironing it or something, because it holds the packaging folds. My teacher suggested possibly throwing it in the dryer on low or air with a very slightly damp towel just to release the wrinkles, but just laying it out flat overnight had helped enough that it wasn’t too much of an issue.
As I expected, doing a 55″ square quilt on my machine was a little unweildy, but aside from the frustrations with the nylon thread and a few mistakes I made in how I’d planned to quilt it, it turned out okay, I think.
Here are some photos of the front and back.
I’m looking forward to my next class: we’re doing appliqué and free motion quilting, so expect something a little more exciting in the future!