Miscellaney

In spite of the heat, I've managed to sew a bit everyday this week and get a few things done.

I'm happy to say I'm slowly making progress on my Kaffe jelly rolls.  Thus far, all the jelly rolls have been cut and sashed on two sides.  There were 30 separate fabrics in the roll and here is one sample of each.  I think the roll was entitled something about the "sea" and you can see it is primarily greens and blues.  But there are some fabrics in here I have never ever seen -- and they are breathtaking.  You know that you can cut one strip of a Kaffe floral into 2.5" squares and it can look like 4-5 different fabrics.  Such wonderful colors!!!!  Just what the doctor ordered.

I need to iron all the little blocks (open of course to minimize see through on the little green polka dot fabric).  They will become pairs who will become four patches that eventually will be end up in 16 patches.  My challenge will be not to over think this as I put fabrics together.  It would be easy to spend too much time deciding what to put together.  I think I'll try to live with the "rule" that no two pieces in the same pattern in the four patches -- and leave it at that.  We'll see if I can do that!

I also got the back pieced for the birthday quilt -- and the batting as well.  These are wool pieces that I had and I just love the "lightness" that comes with a wool batt.  Personally, I've never been satisfied with piecing battings on my machine.  I always end up with some bunching as one piece moves through the machine at a different rate than the other -- even with a walking foot.   

I've gotten into the habit of trimming my batting pieces up into strips when I trim my quilts after quilting.  The strips may be 4"-12" and they go in a tote.  Many of the six quilts I took to Chicago to quilt two months ago were "pieced" like the one above.  I bought one roll of 1.5"of "batting tape" but it's a tad pricey.  So, I bought some lightweight interfacing, cut it into 1.5" strips, and it's worked like a charm.  Both in the "piecing" and flatness and in the quilting.

The birthday quilt is quilted (on my domestic machine) using a great variegated Valdani thread.  Binding is also on -- with the corners sewn down.  If you've read my blog much, you know that I've developed an aversion to binding (irrespective of how hot it is right now and having a quilt on me is almost smothering!).  One of my head tricks is to sit down and do all four corners first -- then it's just about straight binding.  Faster and no worry about how the miter will work -- I've already done those when I was "fresh".  I adore this polka dot fabric with the solids.

The birthday quilt has a lot of fiddly piecing so I needed a lot of leaders and enders for my starting and stopping.  I'm in a swap with friends from Chicago that requires 800 four patches.  Strips are cut at 1.25" and the four patch will finish at 1.5".  I do love finding a use for 1.25" strips that are leftover from other projects (or even in my string bags).  I also love that it lets you cut some less than favorite fabrics into teeny tiny pieces which minimizes some of their offensiveness.  Either way -- I have between 400-450 done and the deadline is January.  I'm in good shape with this commitment!

And since this is about miscellany.  Here's a washed out picture of my African violet.  Isn't she lovely?  I have wanted one since we moved and picked this out around Mother's Day -- it had a few blooms which were near the end of their peak but the leaves were beautiful.  I haven't fertilized her -- she sits on a glass shelf in my kitchen and I am enjoying her colors for now!

I hope you're finding time to create!  Jan

Four Corners and a Tip!

 Don't you just love finishing the quilting on a quilt and starting to think about who it's going to be given to?  Are you one of those quilters that loves to sit with a cup of tea and enjoy the binding process?

I used to be but something has changed and it's a little annoying sometimes to have to sit and sew.  I hope to get back to the "pleasure" of binding rather than the "torture" that I sometimes feel.  I think I feel constricted and that I "shouldn't" start cutting or piecing a new project until this one is done.To help me keep going with binding, I have a little head trick I play (which I cannot take credit for -- I saw it on a quilting blog a year or so ago but can't remember whose blog it was). 

Because I'm most motivated when I first sit down to bind and to take advantage of that binding mojo, I do each corner first.  I am more apt to take my time with the mitering and making sure that the corners are square and as perfect as I can make them.  I have to say there is a sense of relief when the corners are done -- it's straight shooting after that.  My other head trick is that I bind  both the long sides first and then it seems so much easier to just do the shorter sides. 

In order to have more options (and more speed), I know I need to keep practicing on machine binding.  Right now, I can't bring myself to try it on anything other than NICU quilts.  Certainly one of the blogs I follow regularly suggests a 2.5" binding should wrap around 3/8" and 2.25" wraps around 1/4" when binding -- with the 3/8" wrap being easier for machine binding. 

The two pix that you see here are 2.5" binding (top) and 2.25" on the bottom.  The bottom quilt has a pieced back so it's a little nauseating when you look at all the fabrics -- it looks much better on the front (and it's done and ready to be shipped to a friend -- HURRAY!).  I cut the 2.5" black binding with the full intention of doing it on the machine but decided I didn't want to experiment with this gift quilt -- and so, I'm playing head games again (and have the duplicate quilt ready to bind when I finally finish this one).  I'd rather be piecing right now but deadlines are preventing that so know that I'm plodding along through the weekend!

I'd love to know your binding tricks -- and head games!  Keep binding, Jan