Remediation

Last month, I posted about this quilt and the problems I was having with the straight line quilting popping free.  I asked for suggestions about how to fix this and ended up with a lot to consider.

Many people suggested I cross hatch it by straight line quilting in the other direction.  That had never ever occurred to me but the thought of having to do that on my domestic machine was daunting.  And I don't have the right rulers to be able to it on Lola.  

Other suggestions were to repair the straight lines that were pulling and then be done with it.  Let them love it and enjoy it as it was originally designed.  That made me a little itchy because it meant the problem would continue.

Others suggested that I quilt over it on my long arm and then leave in the original stitching.  I so wish I had the ability to do that.  But the old stitching would make me nuts.

In the end, I pinned the quilt on Lola, put in a charcoal thread so I could distinguish from the original black quilting and did some square quilting on it.  I knew I didn't want to do any kind of swirly design that might overlap the original stitching and could be hard to manage.

I quilted it on a Wednesday and it was in the washer Sunday afternoon with all the old stitching taken out.  There were memory lines from the straight line quilting but I washed it again two weeks later and it's almost gone.  Taking out the stitches was relatively easy and a great project for the evening and was a great excuse NOT to be working on a Lollypop appliqué block.

We head to Toronto next week and I'm happy to be returning the quilt within 3 months of bringing it home.  Hopefully it has a number of good years left in it and can provide hours more cuddle time (or tent time for a 3 year old).  In the meantime, you all are an incredible source of knowledge and ideas.  Thanks to everyone that took the time to suggest a solution and give me something to think about.

I hope you are finding easy and right solutions for any problems you may be having!

Jan

Happy Easter!

Charity begins at home

I am so happy to say that I have my monthly allotment of charity quilts done and delivered -- for April and for May! That never happens. But, I'm a bit busy with some administrative work and I wanted to make sure that the baby quilts for the hospital got done. And since they were done, they might as well be delivered.  No sense having them here and then maybe forgetting them.

They are certainly varied. The "charity" part is that almost all the fabric was donated by friends and all I had to do was repurpose it. How sweet is that! Free fabric already in triangles or  4patches. Oh, yes, that's my kind of charity.

This quilt and the one below were made with triangles that monkeymamaquilts had leftover from a class we took at our local guild. I have railed about this pattern (instructions were dreadful) and waste of fabric (see what I mean). I won't go into it again, here. Nevertheless, I was thrilled to get her scraps and see what I could do to make them into quilts. The blocks finish at 8.5" or 9", I think.

For both of these, I practiced new "filler" quilting to see if I liked it and if it would work on a larger quilt. The answer for both is "yes" -- but I have some work I need to do to get better.

This little quilt was made from scraps from mom22smartchix and all I had to do is put the squares and 4 patches together. Love that! I practiced random free hand feathers for the quilting. Oh, my -- so much more to do in that area. I think it can work well for a boy or a girl and it's happy.

The owl fabric here is darling and the quilt is actually much cuter than it looks in the picture. The owls were compliments of mom22smartchix and were leftover from a baby quilt she had made for a friend. Because the motifs were big (and cute), I wanted to maximize the fabric and went with larger blocks. I practiced quilting flowers in each block. The flowers were fun and I'll definitely try them again.

So -- charity begins at home and I am fortunate to have a number of "charitable" friends who gift me parts and fabric periodically. I am oh-so-happy to play with them and see what can be done to pass on their blessing to someone else.

I hope your finding blessings along the way this week!

Jan