A few weekends ago, I made myself a pincushion.
Easy, I took 2 rectangles cut them in half, rotated them so all the large ends were close together, and sewed them together.
I had a heck of a time with the bottom, had to rip part of the seam & sew it with orange thread.
The little walnut shells fill this up nicely.
I have a handle on the top for easy grabbing.
Only problem is that the smaller section is shorter than my pins.
The days are blurring by faster & faster every day now!
I really have to say I love football season for many reasons, one of which is that it’s one time I actually sit down & do some handwork of some kind.
So I’ve been working a little bit on my periodic spiral quilt in between football plays.
I will post some progress pictures here, some of which you’ve seen, some you haven’t.
I have 1 whole section to sew together yet, and one section that is still in rows.
Progress as of today Oct 9th, 2011:
The green section is still in rows, I have to admit sewing the rows to each other is my least favorite part.
Actually all the major colored sections are not sewn to each other either, it’s easier to transport when the thing is still in larger pieces.
This is still a pretty small quilt. The size of the grey fabric you see in the picture is the size of a television tray, so this is going on the front of my studio door when completed.
The grey fabric will be cut down to ‘mock’ the shape of the spiral & the whole thing will rest on some black/blue hexagon batik fabric purchased in February.
Also, was considering writing the symbols on the quilt in silver pen, and this I may not do now – have not decided for or against it yet.
Here’s some (reverse) progress as I’ve gone along with this quilt.
A few days ago – Oct 5th:
September 10th:
August 21st:
July 20th:
July 14th:
June 26th:
March 17th:
DESIGN (sometime this year or end of last year <Dec2010-Jan2011>):
Today was Saturday, but it really is Tuesday in real life, but my ‘Saturday’ from work. While I love it this time of the week, guess which day of the week I’m not so happy about the whole thing?
Anyway, over the past several days my computer, iTunes, browser just was behaving badly. Which in turn, leads either to TV / movies, or sewing, sewing, sewing, (or house cleaning, but none of that today, thank you very much), ore shopping, shopping.
In my sewing, I have been pretty much addicted, don’t really wanna stop. I worked on borders, after thinking about the borders/loss of borders on my exothermic quilt, I had borders on my mind.
Card Trick Borders
First I sewed together my card trick and got the inner border on.
Looks very spiffy as it is. Now I am going to put borders on the outside that are the same plain background with blocks either only in the corners or in the corners and sides both.
Corners
Corners & Sides
This quilt sat for several hours on the floor like this. I think just for difference sake (several other quilts have corner blocks), I need to bring in the blocks onto the sides.
I almost wish I had not cut my borders already for this quilt and could put them on point. But what can you do now after this I have hardly any of the background left?
Disappearing Four Patch Borders
And then, I decided to go ahead with a black & white border plan for my disappearing 4 patch quilt. I don’t think I shared, but it involved a high print fabric as a wider inner border and black & white checkerboard.
I purchased the high print border today, I don’t generally buy a lot of high print fabric.
This is meant to be 4 inch border around the middle but as the fabric is not washed yet, then I can’t spread out the fabric any more for the audition.
So the inner border is NOT yet done on this quilt. And the border corners are just going to be simple blocks of the same high print fabric.
There is quite a bit of blue-green in the border, which is not really present in the quilt, but I (so far) think that’s okay due to the scrappy nature of this quilt, hopefully that will tie everything together.
Also, serendipitously, I made the black and white border the same size as the patches in my D4P (Disappearing Four Patch) block, they are 4 inch finished.
Which makes the math really easy to work out for the inner borders, they have to be 4 inches in size each to fit as well.
Not all quilt math has to be hard.
Ten Minute Teal Borders
I have my ten minute blocks all packed away into rows (with post-it notes & pins) after laying them out on the floor on Sunday morning.
I hadn’t really thought about borders for this quilt until shopping this afternoon, and I saw a teally/purple batik that I really liked (not exactly quilt shop quality, but hey, I liked it).
The picture above also shows some of the other work done over the weekend on preparing the cathedral window quilt.
I have only pressed 1 row (5 blocks) with the iron, and only “cathedraled” that one row with pins, so not too much preparing. And I decided that only some of the blocks will get the fancy grey center.
All my pieces are cut for this quilt, and no I am not going to ‘cathedral / ten-minute block’ in between each of the blocks, even though I can. This quilt already has a lot of work ahead of it, especially for being a ‘last minute bonus type of quilt’.
Piano Key Giveaway Borders
A few posts ago was my 200′th post. And in honor of that, I had a surprise idea (even to myself) of giving away a mini quilt.
I said I was going to put borders on it & quilt it, so the weekend of borders, behold, it has borders now.
So now it’s roughly 17 X 34 unquilted in size. I plan to quilt this with FMQ (not sure what yet to do, but something other than Stitch in the Ditch).
It’s a mini quilt that’s not quite so mini.
I plan to use a mulitcolor, multi-strip binding bringing in some of the purples & burgundies & greens that are found in the center of the quilt, staying away from the teal I already have in the rest of the borders.
I only had 4 people comment on that post, so if now this quilt appeals more to you, let me know by sending a comment on Strip Sorting Surprise.
I would love to be able to give it away to someone once complete.
Currently I am not planning on putting a sleeve on the quilt, mostly due to time, but one can always pin a sleeve on the back for a wall hanging.
Unless …. someone has a fast & easy sleeve method they would like to share. I don’t really like the hand sewing down the sleeve to the back of the quilt.
… Or I could sew little holders into the binding that could become visible holders, that I may do, but that may determine horizontal or vertical which I don’t necessarily want to do (this quilt works both ways I think).
Those are my thoughts today on quilt borders. Maybe I should put this and a few more ideas into quilt border podcast episode since I’m currently stuck on my other episode (don’t ask, my bad on that one).
Ugg. I love / hate the design process.
Here’s a short version of a story I’d like to tell more elongatedly.
I made a weaving, rectangular, quilt design in February that matches current decor perfectly.
“Eh it’s boring”. That quilt is still in pieces, ready to be put into rows, ready for me to decide a clever weaving border for it.
… Then there’s been my recent smaller square quilts that I’ve been doing … in addition to the hurricane quilt that hasn’t been touched since I’ve been trying to baste it to remove the oil stain on it (might not remove it all the way, it’s starting to add more character to the hurricane story I’m building around this quilt).
and more … “eh, squares are really just not my thing”, “I’m not digging that color”, “can’t you put in some more exciting blocks” ….
hmm …. okaaayyyy ….
So I was working on the alternate blocks on electric quilt for my latest quilt, Exothermic Wonders, current version that you’ve seen below.
This is what I started with. the variation I liked the most of what people also liked the most.
But I ran out of black & so did the store. So I got some lower contrast, darker orange /red-orange fabrics for alternate blocks, and I finally put the fabrics into EQ7 this weekend, thinking as long as the blocks are fairly low contrast, there is still the main design.
Here’s one version:
But here’s the version I liked even better that that one:
I was working out how much fabric would I need for the alternate blocks as I was designing them, so I removed the outer borders from the electric quilt design, which, I have had completed for at least a month or two.
And finally, from over my shoulder:
“Hey, I like that!” “I could see that quilt if you take out the pink ones because they’re too distracting, but I like that.”
And this was said without the borders, so I quick put the picture above on the screen and say, you mean this one?
“No. I don’t like the borders.” “Do it without the borders.” “Well, it’s your quilt, and you can do it how you want, but I like it without the borders – too distracting.” “This new design is simple – more symmetrical.” “The borders look too much like the quilt on the inside, same style”.
So if I listen to this request, I get a quilt that is ACTUALLY wanted, but then … not large enough.
So I need to make more of the middle blocks (that are done & have been sewn together since July, & cut since April), and then, what the heck do I do with all the borders that are also already done? I suppose I could do the back with them, or have a bonus quilt from it?
That, and to do the alternate blocks the way they are, I require more fabric anyway. But I DO like the stability of the alternate blocks as they are. (Actually slightly lower contrast than what’s shown here also)
So here’s my new design, assuming I don’t revert back to the border one.
Which I do admit, I like (right now). But this means a lot of paper piecing for the alternate blocks. Hopefully I’ll like the end result.
Tried putting the borders as alternate blocks, and I almost liked it too, less work, but more scrappy, and I do like how non-scrappy these alternate blocks are.
(sorry about the poor quality, it looks better before I post the design, don’t know what’s going on with that).
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