Well, my plan was to complete all of the SID (Stitch In the Ditch) quilting throughout the entirety of my 102" x 102" Deco quilt before starting to quilt the fancy designs. Instead, I got this wild Mary Poppins idea in my head about how a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down and it probably wouldn't hurt to quilt just a few fancy designs on my quilt before I advanced to SID the next row, just to see what they will look like...
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| Finally Some Quilting I Can See! |
In hindsight, the designs I stitched in the light blue squares are more densely quilted than I had intended. I knew this 10% into stitching the first one, and I could have stopped the machine right then, picked out those stitches, and chosen a less dense, faster stitching design. But I didn't want to spend 30 minutes picking out those stitches. Now I'll have to quilt the rest of the behemoth of a quilt more densely to balance it out, which will take an extra hundred hours or so... 😳. I have a very peculiar and inefficient laziness whereby avoiding work creates much more work. Anyway, it's gratifying to see some quilting texture on this quilt. As this is a bed quilt and I want it to finish softer than cardboard, I"m using 50 wt matte polyester So Fine thread in my needle paired with MagnaGlide 60 wt thread in my bobbin. This is going to take forever... Wicked thought: What if I just CUT THE QUILT OFF at the bottom of this row, and instead of a bed quilt it can be a TABLE RUNNER?!
Here's how those designs look in the setting triangles across the top of the quilt stitched in contrasting Teal thread against the solid Indigo background fabric:
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| Setting Triangles Quilted in So Fine Thread, Color Teal Against Indigo Fabric |
All day today and yesterday, in between forced frisbee outings with His Little Highness the Dog, I was working on my Deco quilt. But wait -- there's more! A few days ago, I started prepping appliqué for my Stonefields quilt!
Here's what I have accomplished so far for my Stonefields Month One appliqué blocks:
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| Stonefields Appliqué Getting Ready for Stitching! |
Don't get too excited; none of those are stitched, just prepped and glue basted and ready for hand stitching. Or machine stitching, I suppose -- no reason why I couldn't use those machine appliqué skills I learned from Harriet Hargrave and Karen Kay Buckley, just pop a cone of monofilament thread on my Bernina B 990, slide a scrap of tearaway stabilizer under the block, and stitch the little shapes down using the invisible appliqué stitch that looks like a very tiny blind hem. She says as she turns up her nose like she's smelling something nasty...
So yes, I'm planning to hand stitch them. You know, someday the arthritis in my right hand will get worse and I might not be able to enjoy hand stitching anymore. When that day comes, my Bernina will be ready to take over.
I had so much fun digging through my scraps for this project, by the way. I would be done stitching all of these blocks if I hadn't spent so much time auditioning little bits and pieces of fabric for every single shape.
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| Orange Peels on Left Cut Out, Orange Peels On Right Have Edges Turned |
Here's another fun thing I did to waste time. I have two "Gateau St. Honore" blocks to make and I misread the (very sparse) instructions for this block. The pattern author was telling me to cut away the background fabric after appliquéing a large circle, but my brain read this cut-from-behind direction as reverse appliqué, where the patch goes behind the background fabric instead of on top of it. Before proceeding, I must confess that this will not make one bit of difference to the finished block and it was a total waste of time. Unless practicing a seldom-used technique is a valuable exercise in and of itself, which I suppose it is, so in that case this wasn't a waste of time after all. Here's what I did:
I fused two layers of freezer paper together, traced the 6" block outline with a straight edge, and used a Perfect Circle template to trace the circle in the middle. I carefully cut out the center as smoothly as possible, centered the freezer paper template shiny side against the wrong side of my block background and fused it in place. I used my scissors to cut out the center hole leaving my standard scant quarter inch turning allowance, then clipped perpendicularly to within a couple threads from the drawn line all the way around. I wet the clipped turning allowance with starch as usual, then lifted up one side of the background+template so I could get my iron in to press that wet fabric up over the edge all the way around the inside of the circle, like this:
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| Double Freezer Paper Template for Reverse Appliqué |
Once cooled, I carefully loosened all the turned fabric flaps from the freezer paper with my fingernail and then peeled the freezer paper off the background fabric, all without lifting the block off my ironing board. The goal is to handle it as little as possible so nothing can stretch or shift out of place.
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| Freezer Paper Removed |
Remember, this is the BACK side of the block background. Next step is to dot Roxanne's Glue Baste It just inside the turned edge all around that seam allowance, still without lifting the piece off the ironing board. I laid my oversized reverse applique fabric right side down, centered over the hole, and ironed it in place to ensure it was perfectly flat and smooth and to dry the glue thoroughly. Lifted it off my ironing board when it cooled and stuck it on my design wall as you saw in the earlier photo as I will now need to spend hours and hours choosing the eight perfect scraps for the ring of smaller circles that will totally cover the edges of the big circle so no one will ever be able to tell whether it was reverse appliqué or regular appliqué.
More decisions I make that waste time: I shouldn't have oversized my blocks so much and shouldn't have bothered with overcasting the edges. As I'm folding the applique backgrounds to create placement lines, I'm realizing that the perfect 7 1/2" squares I cut so carefully are no longer perfectly square after I serged the edges, even though I tried to be consistent in the whisker's width I was trimming off with the serger. What's more, I have decided that my light box is too big and cumbersome to bother with but I can't see my pattern sheets through my fabric without it. If I'm going to eyeball the placement of the applique shapes on my block backgrounds, it would be helpful if I could also eyeball my seam allowances. I hope I don't go to trim these after stitching and discover that I have appliqué extending INTO those seam allowances!
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| Fold Lines for Placement of Orange Peel Shapes |
And here it is, that first Orange Peel block ready to stitch down. Three Tilda fabrics and one Deep Stash Scrap:
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| The Cuteness Of This Block Is Unbearable |
I am practicing EXTREME RESTRAINT by just prepping the blocks without stitching yet, but that's only because, when I do climb into my comfy chair with all of my hand stitching goodies, I don't want to run out of things to stitch in 15 minutes! I wish to wallow in my hand stitching and enjoy it, like a piggy luxuriating in her mud. And so the prep work continues...
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| Early Glimpse of My Stonefields Quilt Taking Shape |
Remember that those two blocks on the far right aren't ready yet; they get a ring of smaller circles all around the edges of the big circles. After that I have two more blocks to make, one Posy block and two Willie's Birthday Surprise and I think those will take a bit longer than these first ones due to more shapes total and more complicated shapes.
I can't stand it anymore; I must make little circles for my Gateau St. Honore blocks! I'm linking up today's post with my favorite linky parties:
MONDAY
Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts
Monday Musings at Songbird Designs
TUESDAY
To-Do Tuesday at Quilt Schmilt
WEDNESDAY
Wednesday Wait Loss at The Inquiring Quilter
THURSDAY
Needle and Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation
FRIDAY
Finished or Not Friday at Alycia Quilts
Off the Wall Friday at Nina Marie Sayre
Beauty Pageant at From Bolt to Beauty
TGIFF Thank Goodness It’s Finished Friday, rotates, schedule found here: TGIF Friday
SUNDAY
Frédérique at Quilting Patchwork Appliqué
Slow Stitching Sunday at Kathy's Quilts
Oh Scrap! at Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework
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