Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Sewing Monet

I've been dutifully working on the Monet quilt.  Over the weekend I decided to quit the fusing process for a while and start sewing.  After all the pieces are fused in place, you fold the interfacing, right sides together and sew across all the rows in one direction.  In this case, my panels are all 23 squares wide and when all the sections were connected, there are 108 rows.  The only challenge that I ran into, was that I had some blocks of a single fabric than  I had not used the fuseable for.  The fabric was flimsier than with the interfacing, and I didn't have any lines to follow, requiring some extra starching and ironing steps.  After all the rows were sewn,  I spent a lot of time at the ironing board, pressing all the seams one direction.

The next step confirmed my worst fears.  When I started sewing in the opposite direction, it became clear that having all the seams going the same direction was too bulky.  One corner of each square would have 4 layers of fabric plus the interfacing.  There was only one option
Snipping 2354 intersections
And pressing the seams in opposite directions.
What a pain.
The 8 rows on the right are done. This process is taking a lot longer than I'd anticipated.  Another day's worth of sewing and this panel will be finished.  That's about 1/3 of the total quilt.

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