Practice makes perfect... options to find quilts to practice on, and my great binding adventure

For former seamstresses, such as myself, who are struggling with the teeny-tiny 1/4 inch seam allowance on quilts, doing the job of binding feels relatively familiar.  Fold, press, pleat... when they talk about a "miter", it's very similar to a Dart.  And the finishing stitch feels very much like that final hem that we put on a dress or a new pair of pants.  Tiny little hand stitches, hoping not to have them show too much against the front of the dress... and the wonderful thing about the binding is that in a QUILT, unlike in most dresses, you've got several layers of fabric to work with.  You can easily stitch through the first few parts of the quilt and not get anywhere near having your work show up on the "good" side. 

On the other hand, most quilts (at least the non-framed variety) are meant to have both sides showing.  Both used... neither should have little stray threads poking from a frayed edge of a seam!

The good news on the 1/4 inch seams is that if you've purchased fabric meant for quilting, at least, the feel of it is a little stiffer (it's not meant to softly conform to a body part, there is never any stretch at all in it, and even on the bias, it's a little less stretchy and soft than we're used to)... the fraying is also not as prolific.  Which means, of cousre, that we have to be more exacting in our seams and cuts.  We can't add a little ease into it (like we do when we put some ease in a bustline, for example) by simply letting our machines stray a little further into the seam line... and the quilter never seeks to nip in a waistline a tiny bit by making the curve of the path of the needle be just a little wider. 

No, the straying that we are used to doing with our machines... the graceful curves along a seamline, the diminishing part of a point of a dart, the things we do to give a little more contour to our clothing, does not work well on a flat surface. 

So we need to learn how to sew a straight line.

Luckily, it seems that most quilting groups are involved in joint quilting adventures.  It sees the safest of these joint ventures to get involved with is about quilts for charity. 

There are many projects... for children in hospitals (the Linus Project) ... or for wounded war heroes (Quilts of Valor), and many, may other similar projects.  Most quilting organizations will pick one or several charity projects, and will share in the making of quilts to donate.  The wonderful thing about the sharing of these projects is that there are many opportunities to learn the basic skills of quilting while doing this good work and there is almost no way your beginning quilting skills can really mess up the project enough to worry about it.  There is always someone who can help you figure out what you did wrong and no one will ever get fussy that your points did not match! 

Don't get me wrong, they'll TELL you that your points don't match (often with an offer of help to figure out how to do it better next time), but as everyone will tell you, the beauty of a quilt is often in it's errors, so this is a good way to learn that point.  The recipients of your quilts will never know that you made the work harder for yourself by using the wrong type of needle, or that you should have mitered the corners rather than that awkward little tuck that you used... And you're not getting stuck on your own pet project!  They will LOVE the place in their quilt where the point doesn't exactly match.  As they are waiting for the pain medications to take effect from the latest and hardest physical therapy yet, they will be staring at your imperfectly matched star and they'll think, "I can't believe they made all these quilts for all us guys.  Some nice lady, a perfect stranger, did this for me.  I wonder what she was thinking when she realized that the star was a little lopsided..." 

They will love it all the more for it's imperfections.  Believe me.  I inherited some quilt tops that a great, great aunt thought were not worthy of being finished, and I cherish them all the more for the imperfections.  It is not the same with clothing.  My mother made me many items of clothing in her lifetime, and I loved every item... but for some, the imperfections in the clothing make it impossible to wear.  Imperfections in a quilt RARELY make them unsuitable for providing warmth and comfort!

Still... as nice as it is to be able to be imperfect, it's also nice to try to improve our skills... and this is what those charity quilts are great for.

A few weeks ago, I took on the binding of a Project linus quilt.  A wonderful little quilt made of simple squares in primary colors.  The binding had already been cut, the sandwich quilted and squared up, and all that needed to happen was for me to sew together the binding and get it ON to the quilt.  I had only done one binding before, having accomplished the finishing in different ways before... So I pulled up a tutorial online and followed it exactly.  Unfortunately, my sewing machine did not cooperate.  I had to get it serviced.

At the sewing machine service shop, the lady taking in my machine asked, "did you know you were using embroidery thread?"  Well, yes, I suppose I did, it was still there from a previous project and the color matched so I just used it.  Hmm... could this be part of my problem?  

So I said, "I may need to organize my thread a little better if I'm going to keep working on the variety of projects that I want to work on". 

Was that an understatement or WHAT?  I was sick of a growing collection of thread spools and bobbins that had no home, so they kept getting separated and moved around.  With no dedicated sewing space for the past 8 years, I had managed to separate and move the pieces of my crafting/sewing supply cabinet over & over until it was unmanageable.  I'm sure I have 3 or 4 spools each of every color in the rainbow, if only I could FIND them. 

So when I went to pick up the machine after it was serviced, I wondered aloud to the saleslady, "I have always wanted one of those things that hangs on the wall and displays all the thread, so that I would have it all in the same place and easy to see".  I'm glad I said that, because she said she doesn't like those things, they allow the thread to collect dust!  BRILLIANT!  If I've got so many different spools of thread that I've had some sitting in the closet for nearly 8 years, of course it would get dusty if I let it sit out. 

So I went to JoAnne's... and $20 later, I had enough little plastic bins for all the CONES of thread I have as well as all the LITTLE spools... a little thinking and I realized that I can put a bobbin that's still full of thread on a spike close to the actual thread spool it came from, and there you go... suddenly, I've got a level of organization that I've not been able to achieve in 8 years!  yippee!!! 

Because the bins are plastic, I can see through to see the colors of thread, unlike my mother's old sewing basket... and because they have lids, I can avoid the dust issue. 

Binding this little Linus Project quilt taught me a lot.

Oh yeah, and it also taught me how to miter the corner... a very cute little trick that makes the whole finishing process on the quilt a whole lot easier than I had originally thought.

From now on, no more stalling on the final touch... it seems binding is NOT a part of the quilting process that will hang me up any more!  Binding, I have discovered... is EASY! 

OK... next step... join in one of the "block of the month" or "heart block" adventures... where I sew JUST ONE BLOCK, according to the instructions of someone else, and either give it to them (a heart block for a sick quilting bee member, or a "thank you" block for an officer of the quilting club who is leaving her office), or enter into the lottery where I might get ALL the blocks to use as I choose...

I hear these block things can sometimes get picky.  THey want seams pressed properly, and the right size, and points all in the right place... and exactly the right size... and colors need to be followed... well, basically, ALL directions need to be followed closely to do it right.  And I understand that I can learn a LOT in these things, because if I do not do it right, someone will tell me... (hopefully in a nice way)... and if I WIN the lottery for the month's blocks, then I will have the chance to see how other people accomplished the task and see how exacting their standards are, see whether my own work measures up, as well as start to understand why one would want to follow all those pesky instructions... that the blocks where the seams are NOT pressed into the darker color start to show through, or the blocks that are cut too small or where the seams are too big, may not fit into the whole quilt... etc., etc...

Practice makes perfect, and quilting clubs, bees, guilds, projects... can provide plenty of opportunities for practice. 


 

Wedding quilt in progress, still in the planning stages.

OK, I've ripped out the seams of my wedding dress and it seems a lot smaller than it did when it was all together, flowing, and ON.  And my old giant sized "boyfriend" style suede jacket, likewise.  THe linings are out and only one dress left to disassemble... my stepdaughter's red silk dress that she wore to my wedding.  I've sought the advice of my Faithful Circle Quilt Guild , and came up with the very smart idea to get fuseable interfacing to use to stabilize the silks that I'm using for this quilt.  That will make them easier to work with. 

Pretty much everyone was in agreement with my idea to do a crazy quilt from this, but my contrary nature just kicked in and said to myself, "if that's what everyone thinks should be done, I want to do it differently.  DANGEROUS idea.

So I've thought through this.  The double Irish Chain pattern would look really cool in these colors.  My white skirt providing the white background color, Songee's red dress being the dark X color, and the medium part of the chain would be the beige jacket.  Hmmm... I'm thinking of it.  If I cut the strips and pieces that I need to do a chain, and it doesn't work for me, I can always start just piecing them, willy-nilly as originally planned.  We'll see. 

And as I look at it, it doesn't look like NEAR enough fabric to constitute a whole quilt... the nice kind that I want that will keep me warm with all my memories, as I get older... but I know that can be deceptive.  We'll see. 

Another idea for this... I might just take 4 squares of a foot per side, of the white dress, and use it to make very small art quilt pieces, like quilting/stitching samplers... and then string them together for a wall-hanging... maybe using some of the beading trip that I used for the neckline.  A few beads to string together 4 mini-quilts... Still thinking, thinking, thinking. 

My Wedding quilt idea

OK, so I've got three active quilt projects going... First, I've got to do a label for the one I just finished, and I'll post when that happens, how well it worked.  Second, I've got a lot of green & antique white fabrics with a bit of red, for a series of log cabin blocks that I intend to use in a variety of ways for Christmas decorations.  The third is my wedding quilt.

I made my own wedding dress.  It was very simple in it's styling, not to be too frou-frou, and to show off my curves rather than add a lot of fluff around them.  The one thing I wanted out of a dress was that it be real silk.  No fake fabrics for this bride-zilla!  So I ordered some silk charmeuse from an importer that I trust, and voila, enough to make a long dress with a flowing skirt.  I was very happy in it, but no one is likely to ever wear it again. 

For the occasion, we bought my stepdaughter her first real silk dress also.  Also simple styling, not a lot of ruffles or tucks. 

I also have an old jacket, very soft and supple suede of a neutral color.. I'm not sure whether you'd call it fawn or dark beige or light brown, but it's a good color and texture to provide a little variety.  It was given to me as partial payment for legal services about a dozen years ago.   And I'm thinking of taking one of my old black dresses that was velvet, for a little more and different texture. 

What I intend to do is chop all these things up into various shapes, without a lot of forethought, for a truly "crazy" quilt.  I've seen crazy quilts recently that were actually cut using a pattern, and there is a definite repeat, definite blocks involved.  For this one, I think I'll try a "quilt as you go" method. 

Instead of making a series of patchwork blocks, I'll be making a sandwich first.  The backing, the fluff, and the underpinnings of the craziness will go first.  I will lay down a piece of wedding dress and stitch through all layers.  Then I will take a piece of stepdaughter's dress, put it right side together with the piece of wedding dress that is already attached to the quilt, and I'll stitch a straight seam through all layers, then turn it over so it's right side up.  Press.  Repeat

When I come to a place where the suede goes, I'll not have to turn it under, the edges of that will not fray. 

I figure I'll just keep going till the whole sandwich is filled on top, and then if there are parts of the sides that are uneven, I'll slice them off, bind, and VOILA!   Wedding dress quilt.  OK, not ENTIRELY wedding dress, but it'll be a quilt made of clothing that were very special to me, a big part of which happens to be a wedding dress. 

After it's finished, I might also find myself taking some little pearls from the dress and sewing them onto the quilt, or buttons.  Or maybe I'll find some lace to add... something a little more frilly, because I'm no longer worried about over-fluffing my hips.  

In my constant quest for something that will be both cool, meaningful AND easy, I'm hoping this will be all three!  I'll have to post updates about that, though.  Charmeuse is difficult to deal with (making the dress was a challenge!) and layering it on top of less slippery fabrics, I have no idea if it'll be easier or harder to deal with.  And I sorry about the suede a little... it's VERY fine, without all the stiffness that we see in most suedes.  Hopefully, I'll be able to make this work. 

Wish me luck!

The Double Irish Chain is easier than it looks

I'm all about easy.  What attracted me to quilting was the possibility of creating things that did not have to fit a three dimensional shape.  I've been sewing since I was 5 years old.  The first thing I sewed, with the help of my wonderful Mommy, was a sundress.  A cute little blue and white striped a-line sundress with straps that were an inch wide.  Perfect for a 5 year old!  Just a few years later, I asked Mom about the patch in the straps, and she confessed that while she was showing me how to do it all, with my little hand in hers in the scissors, we had cut a divot in the strap.  She pretended it was nothing, and by the time we were ready to sew a seam the next morning, the divot was totally repaired with a patch where the stripes matched so well you'd not even know i was there unless you inspected it closely.

I liked homemade things, but I did not want them to LOOK homemade.  I babysat for a woman when I was growing up, who had furnished her house with homemade items.  Home sewn calico patchwork bedspreads, curtains, napkins, tablecloths, placemats, pillows.  Afghans crocheted in a style familiar to all of us who lived through the 1970s, and macrame plant hangers.  Thought my teenaged self admired the effort, but the effect was overwhelming.  My parents may have been raising us in a small town, but I fancied myself as being much more fashionable than to drape and clutter up my whole house with calico everything.  So I stuck to sewing garments.  I did an occasional needlepoint or cross stitch project when I found one that fit my aesthetic. 

Two decades full of self-made clothing later, I saw a tumbling blocks quilt.  Something about the way a flat piece of fabric could be sewn to show shadow and light, create a graphic that could trick the eye into believing it was three dimensional.  How lovely, flat and seemingly easy to make.  I figured out how to cut the diamonds by cutting strips first and measuring the diagonal to make multiple diamonds at once.  But sewing it required just as many little tricks as sewing a garment, between turning the pieces this way and that to get the Y seam.  (It took nearly 30 years for me to finish this one.  I quilted it myself for my Dad's 85th birthday a few years ago, a twin-bed sized quilt.)

A few years later, I saw a book about Irish Chains, and that excited me.  You see, for the irish chain quilt, you don't cut lots of little squares.  No, you cut strips and then sew them together, then slice them crosswise to make a whole line of already-sewn little squares.  Change up the colors in each set of sewn strips, and when they're all sliced up and re-combined, they create the larger blocks that make up the irish chain pattern.

Mine is dark red, antique white, and navy blue.  Yes, the red and blue were prints... very typically quilty fabric for the late 1980s when it was made.  Mainstream modern quilters had not yet moved in the direction of solids and brights, and while I feel a more modern aesthetic, my mother had just visited colonial Williamsburg and I thought a vintage-looking red, white and blue quilt would be kind of fun to have, particularly for the summer... Memorial day, Flag day, Independence day and Labor day could also do well with the patriotic feeling decor, so there you go.

There are two blocks to this quilt pattern, and no Y patterns or curves! One of them is centered on the main background color with a patch of the chain color on each corner, and the other block contains an X made of the chain's colors with a small patch of the background color in the middle of each side.  To put the quilt together, you alternate these two blocks like a checkerboard, and the whole chain just magically appears.  I find excitement in the magic.  The two pieces of magic in this one are the fact that you never have to cut a small square, it's all about the strips.  And the second piece of magic in this one is that when the blocks are combined properly they create a pattern that is not obvious when you are just looking at the stack of blocks in front of you.  MAGIC! 

I'll post later on how to create the two types of blocks (the easy way with strips).  But for now, I am just happy to have finished this one.  My next pattern is going to be a log cabin.  Stips are good for this one also.  In my head, I have more ideas for patchwork where the work is in the planning rather than the cutting, and strips and patterns can combine to create different magical patterns.

I love the idea that the magic of this medium can take straight seams and straight cuts, and create an amazing variety of beauty.  So for now, I'm exploring the magic.

I'll be posting photos of the double Irish Chain later.  I'm having a problem downloading it to my computer right now, but I was just so excited to get it done.  I just had to post!  HOORAY!!! Tonight, my new summer quilt will be a topper to my winter blanket and quilt combination.  25 years and finally, it's done!

(P.S. Please send me to have my head examined before I start any new king sized quilts.  As wonderful as they are, it's tough to finish.  I don't have a longarm, I have a hard time entrusting my babies to someone else, so ... for me... at least for now.  Art quilts, crib quilts, lap quilts, pillowcases, table runners, placemats, twin quilts... that's probably as far as I can go.  For now.  I'll save another king sized until AFTER psychiatric intervention.)