Amish Baby 54-40 Or Fight Blocks Finished!

All Nine Blocks Finished for Amish Baby Quilt!

12" 54-40 Or Fight Block

Happy Monday!  It feels good to have something new on the design wall since the last post!  I completed all nine of my 54-40 Or Fight blocks (named for James Polk's 1844 campaign slogan) for the black baby quilt last week.  Those blocks finish at 12" square and need to be sashed with black strips and those blue sashing posts next.  Ta da!  I think they look great, definitely not too gloomy for a baby.  This should be fun to quilt, too.  I haven't decided about batting and backing yet.  Everyone (including moms and babies) seems to love when I use Minky backing and satin binding on baby quilts, but the Minky sheds all over the place and the satin binding is a pain.  We'll see.  This is the first quilt that I've designed in my EQ7 software, and it was fun to tweak all the colors on the computer until it looked just right and then hunt down matching fabrics in the quilt shop.

 

Quilt Design Generated in EQ7

Just a few notes to jot down here, to remind myself of what worked best for next time:

 

• The variety of sampler quilts is fun, but more frustrating than a quilt where one or two blocks are repeated.  Making the same units over and over gave me a chance to experiment and figure out which methods yield the best results.  These blocks came together pretty fast and got easier and easier as I went along.  I feel like I learn more by making multiples of the same block than I do when I make each block completely different.
• I used piecing straight stitch #1326 on my Bernina 750 QE with stitch length 2.0 and the upper tension dropped down to 3.25, using 50/2 Aurifil Mako cotton thread and a size 60/8 Microtex needle.  I always use my straight stitch throat plate for piecing, and as you can see in the photo below, dual feed is engaged.  (I started piecing with a larger size 70 needle and the default 4.0 tension, and the thread kept breaking CONSTANTLY).  This was my first piecing project using the new 97D patchwork foot and I loved it!  Very straight, smooth fabric feeding using this foot, even on the bias triangle points, despite the 9 mm machine. 

  
• HUGE note to self: Any time I'm piecing triangle units like these bias triangle/half rectangle units, start stitching both seams from the point where the diagonal seams intersect AND match the fabric at that point!  I botched 7 or 8 of these before I figured that one out.

  

  Sew these units from the Peak to the Base!

• At first, I tried to pin the point of that black/green triangle unit when I seamed it to the adjacent unit, but I discovered that I can feel the ridge of the underlying 4-patch unit with my fingernail.  It ended up working much better to just hold that triangle point in place with my fingernail or stiletto tool as I maneuvered it under the presser foot, because the pin through the point obscured my view of the stitches so I couldn't see exactly where the needle was hitting in relation to the point.

  

  Fingernail holds the triangle point to the seam ridge beneath

• Starching the fabric prior to cutting really helped to stabilize the bias triangle edges and reduce stretching on those bias seams, even when I needed to unpick and redo them.
• On a whim, I decided to cut extras of all the patches for this quilt, and I'm glad I did.  Sometimes I'm tempted to ignore a seam that didn't match up perfectly because ripping it out is too much of a pain, but when you have an extra couple of units you can pick out the best ones to put in the quilt and the rejects can go in a pile of orphan blocks to be seamed together later for FMQ practice.

No new paper pieced pineapple log cabin blocks on the wall since last post -- still at 12 blocks completed and 24 blocks to go.  I'll probably do another pineapple block or two once the baby quilt top is finished, but before I quilt it on the machine.  I'm still working on the FrankenWhiggish Rose needle turned applique project, and I'm itching to start my first Dear Jane blocks, but I think it would be nice to finish the baby quilt first, don't you?

 

That's enough typing for today.  I'm linking up with Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times.  Happy Stitching!

 

 

Black Baby Quilt, Because Infant Brain Development and Selfish Quiltmaker

Fabrics and Threads for Amish Baby 54-40 Or Fight Quilt

So I'm going with the black baby quilt, because that's what I feel like making, and I don't have sufficient discipline or selflessness to spend hours and hours making a quilt in fabrics that I do not personally find exciting.  I guess I'm just a selfish quilter.  "Know thyself," right?  I bought fabric for both of the designs I came up with, but I'm going to make the 54-40 Or Fight quilt first because the Storm At Sea wasn't giving me ruler-friendly numbers for all of the patches in the size I wanted to make.  The mantra for this Amish Baby quilt is going to be "Keep It Simple, Sweetie."  The 54-40 Or Fight blocks will finish at 12" and with sashing and borders the quilt should end up at 53" x 53," just right for tucking into a stroller or car seat, and later, for dragging around the house.  

My 54-40 Or Fight Amish Baby Quilt Design

I got some interesting feedback in the comments about black for baby quilts, but my husband pointed out that my high contrast designs with black, white, and bold primary colors reminded him of those "visually stimulating" infant mobiles and toys that are supposed to be better suited to an infant's underdeveloped visual capabilities than traditional pastels:

"Baby View," an "educational" Android app for infants

 I did a quick internet search to see whether this black and white baby thing was still a current recommendation (since my husband is remembering this stuff from when Lars and Anders were babies) and apparently this high contrast stuff for babies is still all over the place and now they even have mesmerizing "educational" apps for iPad, Android etc. such as Baby View, shown above, featuring this graphic, black/white/bold aesthetic.  I have to share this quote from parenting guru Dr. Sears' web site:

"The best way you as a parent can stimulate baby’s vision is using black and white stripes or light and dark contrasting colors. So what about those nice soft pastels that used to be so popular in baby toys and nurseries? While these may look pretty to you, they do nothing visually for your baby. Research has proven that black and white contrasts register powerfully on baby’s retina and send the strongest visual signals to baby’s brain. Stronger signals mean more brain growth and faster visual development. Surround a baby with soft pastel colors, and you might as well be blindfolding him. Surround your baby with black and white or light and dark pictures, and watch your baby’s eyes light up."

I put quotation marks around "educational," by the way, because I don't really buy into the idea that you can make your baby smarter by bombarding them with black and white graphic patterns.  In 10 or 15 years, I fully expect the experts to come out with new research that totally contradicts all the advice parents are getting today.  These things must go in cycles so we can continue to blame the previous generation's bad parenting for the current generation's bad habits.  Whatever -- I feel like making my black baby quilt design, so I'm going to co-opt Dr. Sears' infant brain pseudoscience in order to justify my personal aesthetic choices.  Thanks, Bernie!

Let the Piecing Begin!

So, as you can see, I've prewashed/preshrunk my fabrics, cut all of my patches, and I've started to piece the 4-patch units.  Having set aside the paper pieced pineapple log cabin project, this is my first opportunity to piece with the new # 97D Patchwork foot on my Bernina 750QE.  This is a brand new patchwork foot designed especially for 9 mm sewing machines, and I'm in love with it! 

New # 97D Patchwork Foot from Bernina

Traditional 1/4" patchwork presser feet are not wide enough to completely cover the feed dogs on a sewing machine that sews up to 9 mm stitch width, which makes it more difficult to stitch perfectly straight and accurate quarter inch seams on these machines.  That's one reason why so many quilters prefer to piece on 5.5 mm or straight stitch only machines.  The new #97D foot is wider on the left side to improve fabric feeding, and comes with a seam guide that screws firmly into the bed of the machine as shown in my photo at left.  There is a little notch in the presser foot that makes it very easy to quickly install the seam guide in exactly the right position.  The "D" indicates that this foot has a cutout in the back to accommodate the Dual Feed on Bernina 7 Series and 8 Series machines (owners of machines without dual feed should purchase the regular #97 foot without the cutout at the back of the foot).  I am amazed by the difference in my piecing with the new #97D foot versus the older style #37D patchwork foot that came with my 750QE. 

Straight, Consistent Chain Piecing with New Patchwork Foot #97D

See how nice and straight those seams are coming out of the back of my sewing machine?  Usually I struggle with keeping the seam allowance accurate at the beginning and end of a seam, when the fabric wants to shift sideways.  I feel like I have a lot more control with the new presser foot, so much so that my seam ripper has remained in the drawer.  Who doesn't love that?  What's more, my pieced units are finishing accurate to size with the new foot:

Completed 4 Patch Unit Finishes Exactly 4 1/2"

I highly recommend this foot for anyone who is struggling with patchwork accuracy on a 9 mm Bernina machine.  One of the things I most enjoy about my Bernina sewing machine is the high quality of the Bernina specialty feet which make it so much easier to achieve professional results.  Now, if only Bernina would come out with a special foot for doing FMQ ruler work on my machine...

Ah, well -- the kids are home from their first day back at school after the winter vacation.  I'd best head downstairs to see how they are getting on with their homework.

I'm linking up with Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times.  Happy Stitching!