OK ... I'm waiting for the weekend to cut the borders for my King quilt, I want a fully recharged brain because I have just one shot at cutting the borders right. In the mean time I made a test DJ block!! I used two of the colors from my sample that I knew I would not be using. They're sooooo ugly together (think ice blue and baby puke green) but I wanted to see what it was like to work with the shot cottons.
They're gorgeous to work with!! When I iron a seam it lays sooooo flat and it STAYS flat (I love flat seams - see my siggy line!). I do have to make sure that I trim the darker fabric shorter than the lighter fabric (I did a PP block) as it will show through. I also have to watch that I'm placing the fabric in the right direction. Even though the shots are 'solids' some of them are made by using two completely different colors for the warp and the weft (the baby puke green for example is kelly green weft and orange warp - yeah .. baby puke green). So when you look at it one way you see more green, and the other way more orange.
On the downside I can see that it will fray. Not as bad as homespuns or silk, but a bit more than regular quilting cotton.
So ... that brings me to a question that I would have had regardless of what fabric I chose to use.
How are you guys stabilizing your blocks once they are done and waiting to be sewn together?? I'm not going to be pinning mine to my design wall. I plan on keeping them in a box until they are done and ready.
I was thinking of basting 4 blocks to a single sheet of 8.5X11 paper (just regular copy paper). The bonus is that I can write the block number right on the paper.
Also. Are you removing the paper (if PP) to store them?? Thinking if I baste them to sheets of paper I may not have to leave the PP paper on the block.