Iceblossom

I almost always press my seams open for a number of reasons. I feel I'm more accurate. I feel my seams are flatter and easier to machine quilt. Even though I have to pin, it is quick and easy. I don't get the strong bars of fabric that happen when you have white/white fabric touching. Other reasons too.

Was chatting with a board friend in PMs and said I'd pull out a quilt from the dog bed, yes -- seriously that's where it's been the last couple of years.

My son was born in June 1988, I made this quilt that winter, so it was done by early 1989. It was one of my early machine quilting attempts and was all scraps including some from clothing. Only purchase would have been the batting and the sheet for the back -- both of which have held up well. This was/is a "use" quilt. I had a really bad bout of allergies and this got washed frequently, at least every month for years.

Also, when I stitch "in the ditch" I am actually in the ditch sewing on my seam lines. Back then my piecing stitch wasn't as small as it is now but the quilting stitch was larger than the piecing. I can almost guarantee all the thread used in this quilt was Dual Duty. Never had an issue.

You can see that the biggest problem was the (cotton) fabric rotting out from lack of quilting. While some of the intact fabrics are indeed 100% cotton, the best survivors have some poly -- looks like a lot of the solids had some. Sometimes I mention that I'm ok with Rayon in quilts. The turquoise Hawaiian print came from a favorite 100% rayon dress that had been worn and washed a few times before a sad incident with an uncapped pen on my lap. It held up very well.

Basically all of my oldest quilts look like this -- seams still holding strong and proud but not enough quilting.