Battling my Son's Quilt - finally won!
09-06-2011, 07:23 AM
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Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: Nawth o' Boston
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This was one of those 'if it can go wrong it will' quilts but I finally finished it. it was an easy pattern from ToaduSew 'Stripes and (something)'
I changed the pattern to do all blues but didn't have enough FQ batiks to fill the pattern so picked up FQ hand dyes at quilt show.
Hand dyes were random cut to odd lengths so some strips got cut not vertical grain and some a few threads short.
Batik fabric was so smooth and delicate, hand dyes rough and easily made wonky.
First attempt as joining 18" strips not good - gacked up JT strip cutter, then had trouble getting the strips sewn straight.
The blocks came together and finally all got cut squared at correct size 8 1/2" but they morphed in the damp weather despite starch.
The suggested quilting pattern looked too difficult as I don't quite FMQ yet so made up an easier straight line pattern which looked easy, no marking, but involved turning the quilt 180 degrees to accomplish and resulted in thread tension issues - loose stitches and breaks.
By the time I was well into quilting I came to hate the thread I chose. Too dark, too heavy, too bright, too shiny, too fuzzy. Ugn.
I tried light on top and dark on bobbin but tension was building in more ways than one.
The only things that went smoothly were piecing the backing in the same stripe as the quilt blocks, and the binding, which went really great.
It can only get better from here...
thanks for listening!!
And hope this never happens to any of you!
:-D :-D :-D
I changed the pattern to do all blues but didn't have enough FQ batiks to fill the pattern so picked up FQ hand dyes at quilt show.
Hand dyes were random cut to odd lengths so some strips got cut not vertical grain and some a few threads short.
Batik fabric was so smooth and delicate, hand dyes rough and easily made wonky.
First attempt as joining 18" strips not good - gacked up JT strip cutter, then had trouble getting the strips sewn straight.
The blocks came together and finally all got cut squared at correct size 8 1/2" but they morphed in the damp weather despite starch.
The suggested quilting pattern looked too difficult as I don't quite FMQ yet so made up an easier straight line pattern which looked easy, no marking, but involved turning the quilt 180 degrees to accomplish and resulted in thread tension issues - loose stitches and breaks.
By the time I was well into quilting I came to hate the thread I chose. Too dark, too heavy, too bright, too shiny, too fuzzy. Ugn.
I tried light on top and dark on bobbin but tension was building in more ways than one.
The only things that went smoothly were piecing the backing in the same stripe as the quilt blocks, and the binding, which went really great.
It can only get better from here...
thanks for listening!!
And hope this never happens to any of you!
:-D :-D :-D
Sue's Blues?
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