Seriously Annoyed

I am not generally a whiner...but I had 2 product failures before I even started quilting yesterday.

I wanted really white batting for the Blue Lemonaide quilt since there's so much white in the piecing and it's fairly thin material (I used a cotton sheet).   I headed to the fabric store where I discovered that there was no bleached cotton, so I'd be stuck buying a poly batt.  I decided to give this product a try.

It did not "steam to baste all three layers instantly".  After 30 minutes of trying different settings, a spray bottle, and even the promise of adhering one side at a time w/o steam....I had a 1foot x 3 foot section of stiff batting sitting smugly b/w the front and back all by itself.

I gave up and grabbed a cotton batting from the garage and started pin-basting, when I discovered that half my basting pins have gone missing.   Arg.

I remembered that I'd come across some wash-away basting thread when I was cleaning out the thread drawer and decided to use it to make up for the lack of pins.

The thread broke every 8 inches. I don't know if it was the age of the product, the product itself or my machine.  After the 9th rethreading of the machine I just gave up.

I just started sewing.  We'll see how it turns out.

Shop Hop Quilt Finished

Here's the finished quilt, washed and out of the drier...in all of it's wrinkly goodness.

For most of the blocks, I used the walking foot and did echo quilting, or variations there-of.

I used 2 different brands of multi-color thread for the quilting: Guterman for the purple & blue, Wonder-fil for the pink and green.  I like them equally well.  Only thread issues I had was some breakage with the Aurofill that I was using to join the blocks.  I wonder if it's b/c my thread feeds vertical to the machine instead of horizontal like most new machines.

I did some free-motion machine quilting on some of the blocks.  This is the first ever that I've done on my machine.  I'm intrigued that fill patterns that I love to do on a long-arm, were really hard for me on my machine and vice-versa.  (A glass of Merlot did improve the roundness of my loops. )

I've used a couple different quilt as you go techniqes, but this one was new to me.  The background is cut larger than the block.

Then folded and pinned out of the way on the back of the block.

Block trimmed to size (in this case 13").

Then the backing is folded back out and trimmed 1 inch from the block all the way around.  The backing then becomes the sashing.

Two blocks are sewn wrong-sides-together, then the 1" seam allowance is folded under and topstitched for 1/2" on each side.

I have mixed feelings about this approach.  I managed to slice into the background piece of one of the blocks and had to do a clever save.  It was also difficult to keep the stitching line close to the batting.  But it is faster than the technique I usually use, which involves machine stitching the fronts together and hand stitching the back.

In the end, this is not my favorite quilt ever, but I did get to try some new techniques, and most importantly...it's off the "WIP" list and onto the "Finished Projects"!!!!

Wednesday WIP - Bird & Shop Hop

I really had great hopes of getting a lot of quilting done over the long weekend.  My hopes and reality didn't quite meet up.

I did sneak this project into my bag for Saturday's road trip and stitched down most of a bird.

And I spent far too much time quilting the shop hop blocks after I'd decided to try a new-to-me variation of quilt as you go.  Which allowed me to over-quilt (as I am prone to do anyway) and use all the very cool varigated threat that I've been collecting.  Then at some point I decided to buy a new darning foot and get serious about practicing my free motion quilting.  There were really only 2 sections that were so bad I felt compelled to pick them out.  It's currently in the washing machine.  Being as how there are more things that I dislike about this quilt than I like, I decided to cut my losses & skip the planned borders leaving me with a 52" square which is a dandy size for a baby quilt.

Shop Hop Quilt...Nearing Completion

Making progress on the Shop Hop blocks.

My overhaul of the blocks has been revised countless times, but this is what it looks like currently.  I'm thinking that I'll do the quilt-as-you-go approach so I can try different machine quilting techniques on each block.  As much as I've bad-mouthed this project, it is good that it has pushed me to try things I wouldn't have normally done.

Today's finishes include the Berries on the Lake from Huckleberry Patches in McCall.  The original had a pink in the center and a pale pink/purple on the outside.  I decided to make the "lake"  blue and used the purple leftovers from another block for the outside purple.

Another block that played on the name of the shop was the one from Marilynn's Pickets and Patchwork. I played with colors for hours and never really came up with anything that I really liked.  The fuschia stripe, teal and purple were from the kit, but the rest were yellow/orange.  I'm glad that I tried the technique for leaving a Prairie Point picket...but I  don't really love it.  I would have been happier with different color combos..but this was "good enough".

The "Just Like Home" block from Traditions Quilt Shop in Baker was most disappointing.  The only fabric in the kit that was a batik was the purple.  The rest were prints (weird).  I misread the measurements on the windows, which made them 1/2 shorter than they were planned.  I couldn't find my seam ripper (didn't look hard) so I just added another piece of the purple below for length.  Those windows will be far more energy efficient.

I had scads of "bonus blocks"  from creating HST.  I used leftover HST for pinwheels and just let it evolve.

My plan from here is to add black sashing around the blocks and some sort of border outside the 16 block  format that includes some of the extra scraps.

Wednesday WIP

I'm still working on Shop Hop Blocks.  Unfortunately, the only "theme" of the blocks was batik, so the colors of each shop's block varied widely and I've been making swaps from my stash.

This Stained Glass block was from LaDonna's in Baker City.  I substituted the blue for an orange, but otherwise used the fabrics in the kit.  I used to really like foundation piecing, but did not enjoy making this one.  I think it would have been easier to traditionally piece.

The other block I finished was Prarie Queen from Knit One-Quilt Too in Kuna.  I used their purple, but swapped out the pastel purple in the kit for the lime.
I probably should have used black instead since this is the only block so far w/o black.  Hmm...I'll have to do one of the remaining ones w/o black so it isn't lonely.

That brings me up to 12 blocks with 3 yet to go.  I may need to make up one of my own so I have 4 rows of 4.  This was the first time I've ever done the full shop hop and only time I've bought block kits.  It will probably also be the last time I ever buy block kits.  Oh well, at least $14 of my spending will go to Project Linus.

And yesterday I got a call from my LQS saying I had won something from the drawing from people who had visited all 14 shops.  I was really hoping for the grand prize of $55 gift certificates from each shop...but I got a pattern, some charms and 6 fat quarters in jewel tones.  Cool.   Just what I need...more things to add to my WIP pile.

The Thread Experiment

While cruising Quilt Market, we found ourselves at many thread vendors and saying "We teach mostly hand applique and hand quilting classes.  What do you have that we should know about."   As a result we scored some great thread samples.

While I was working on one of the blocks for Ester Aliu's Quilt Along (WIP # 14), I would stitch a length of one thread, then swap to another until I'd tested all the greens that we had received, as well as every green we had in my project bags and Anna's house. 

The thread in front is my standard applique thread:  YLI Silk in a 100 weight.  The middle 3 are the new ones (left-to-right): Clover silk #50,   InvisiFil Poly #100, YLI Soft Touch cotton#60.  Back row is the stash which includes an Aurifil #50 cotton and a Metzler #50 cotton. I used all the threads right off the spool with no wax or silicon conditioner.

Not surprisingly, both the YLI Silk and InvisiFil resulted in nearly invisible stitches.  I need to try again as I work on the next block since I was stitching the light green stems to which the InvisiFil thread was a much better color match than the YLI Silk.

Anna did a similar experiment while stitching down her Mimbres Fish Applique. She makes her stitches closer together than I do, and pulls her thread tighter with each stitch.  She felt that the YLI Soft Touch wasn't as "slippery" as the YLI silk so the needle was less likely to unthread itself while stitching.  When the silk was waxed, it eliminated that problem.

I wasn't impressed with Clover's silk for applique, but I am looking forward to using it for quilting.  Which gave me an idea for making an entirely silk quilt from some old silk blouses and some fabric that I bought for a blouse and never made.  Besides, quilt fabric now costs as much as silk...might as well explore some new options.   Hmmm...that's WIW (Waiting in the Wings) project #11.

Blue Lemonade

Today I had the house to myself and was psyched to get some serious quilt project action going.  But at some point I realized that I had to organize the "stuff".  Which was good, until I realized that I have 15 WIPs.  And another 13 projects for which I have all the parts, but haven't actually cut into the material.  Pathetic eh?

But I did finish piecing "Blue Lemonade".    This quilt is named in honor of the Blogger's Meet-up at the Blue Lemon at International Quilt Market in SLC . 

These are fabrics I wouldn't have purchased, but when life gives you lemons....

I was so busy talking I forgot to take pictures...but here's the ones Amy snagged.  Go see more of them at the Meet up Blog.  This combo of photos pretty much sums up my experience.  I talked with John from Quilt Dad, and had lunch earlier that day with Victoria from Bumble Beans.  I was so busy enjoying the food and talking with 2 bloggers from Utah, that by the time I was ready to work the crowd, the give-away was over and most people had left.

Inside those pretty gift bags were some great goodies.

I managed to talk Anna into trading me her 5" charm squares of Kaufman 30's repros from the gift bag for the 2.5" sets of  both French General and Cabbages & Roses we'd acquired earlier in the day. This is the fabric that became Blue Lemonade.

I had planned to do a "disappearing 9-patch" but when the color distribution didn't work like I'd imagined, I decided to use the new toy.

This is my new favorite tool.  The Bloc Loc has a divot routed down the diagonal, which catches on the seam, so you can push down with one finger on the pivot point...

Spin the block and ruler in the pivot point that's your finger....

Then slide the ruler diagonally down the seam to the size block you want and trim.

Here's their promo video if that doesn't make sense to you.

My friend Baily asked if I'd teach her local quilt group how to applique.  So today, I did Cindy's Flip-Flop block from  from the Shop Hop using 3 different applique techniques.  The soles & straps are back-basting applique, the flower I stitched 2 pieces right-sides together, then turned through a slit on the back to make dimensional petals.  The flower center is a yo-yo, using a nickel to press the yo-yo into roundness submission, then removed, re-pressed and hand appliqued in place.

I also finished the "Hearts and Diamonds" block from Stitch n' Snip in Garden Valley, with substitution of every color except the purple.

Sadly, tomorrow, I must go back to work.  But I have a lot of ideas that I wrote up as draft blog posts during Quilt Market, so I'll have posts all week, where I usually wouldn't.

Happy Stitching!