Crossed Canoes Congratulations

Detail of the back.

Last time I mentioned the Crossed Canoes quilt, it was the end of May and I had just finished all the quilting. What a happy day that was! But it was a classic example of a job seeming so huge, but becoming quite nothing if I just worked on it steadily.

If you look closely, there are some jogs in the quilting, but that happened less and less with practice and getting beyond the centre area. Doing the second half of the quilting where I was just running between two previous lines of sewing was a lot easier, plus I wasn't stopping to remove pins. In any case, the quilting gives the general effect that I wanted (concentric circles; ripples, if you will) and that's the main point.

In order to do the next step of binding, I had to trim the edges of the quilt even. This turned out to be easier than I anticipated. Since the border seams were running pretty straight (I checked them with a laser level!), I just lined up my 6" ruler with the edge of the border and cut all the way around the quilt.

I didn't have as much excess as I thought in some areas, but I had 6 inches so I guess that's all that counts.

Next I had to make yards and yards of binding. Ready-to-use bindings are never in very good colours so I always make mine from fabric I buy to match. (Or you can use a border fabric if you want it to disappear. I probably would have done that in this case if I had had enough.)

I use a method where you cut a square on the diagonal and then sew the pieces back together. Then you mark lines however wide you want your binding strips to be. Then you sew the pieces together again to make a tube. Then you cut and cut and cut on the line, which is now a spiral. You don't have to start with a very big square, and it seems like you cut forever!

I bought the binding fabric long after any of the other fabrics in the quilt. (There's some rule floating around "out there" that border and binding fabrics have to be one of the fabrics that you used in the main part of the quilt or it looks like you ran out and "tacked it on." I say "RUBBISH." I seldom buy borders and never buy binding until the quilt is together so I can see what it looks like and what it needs. Each to their own, though.)

In this case, by the time I got this top quilted, batiks had become all the rage. I'm not normally a fan of mixing batiks and prints, (it's hard to do well) but I went with it. It was the best fabric choice I had and I liked having some blues out in the border.

Some of the greens really do not match the green border (or backing), but other shades in the fabric are spot on. So I can live with that.

Ready for some full views?

Here is the quilt on a bed so you can see how it will lie:

It is a square quilt (about 85" square, I think). Here is the back:

You may recall that I used two different pieces of fabric because the quilt shop said they didn't have or weren't getting more of the green. (They were wrong; I saw more there the next month.) But I found some of the same fabric in tan and I went for it. I'm very glad because I really like the checkerboard back.

Final step in making a quilt (these days) is the label. Some people hand- or machine-embroider elaborate labels. I've done one with the alphabet tool on my machine, but didn't want to do that this time. I wanted simple.

So I went to the fabric store and bought a fabric marker. I wrote out what I wanted to say on a piece of paper with the marker. I could then lay a piece of white cotton over the paper and trace the letters. This was a very good way of making sure everything was centred. After each line, I could shift the paper a little left or right as needed. Easy peasy. I then bordered the white cotton with some leftover fabric from the back and sewed it to the back. (Unbelievably, I gave the quilt away without taking a picture of the final label!!)

Here is a full view:

Hindsight is 20/20, I know, but I definitely would lay this quilt out differently if I had a chance. As it is, the dark and light canoes make zig zag lines across the quilt. Every other row of canoes should be turned so that the dark canoes make large "circles" and then the light canoes would make interlocking circles. That way your eye would have a way to travel around the quilt. I'm happy with the balance and overall look of the colours in the quilt, but I find the light/dark movement jarring. Live and learn! (Or should I say, "Quilt and learn"?)

And not to leave you wondering who got the quilt,

I gave it to Troy's son Isaac to celebrate his gradation from high school.

I think he looks like he likes it, no?

The Sewing Machine's been a-Humming

I've been bit with a sewing/quilting bug and its effects have had some results!

First is a little pretty gift that I can't show you yet:

But doesn't it look sweet? I got so excited when I found this pink and brown elephant fabric; almost made me wish I had a nursery to decorate! I'll show you more of this package after it's been gifted.

Second, I worked on the final "T" squares of my Big T quilt. I did a lot of assembly line sewing to make up the parts of the squares.

Now I just have to assemble the nine patches to finish the last six blocks. That will give me 20 of them. I have the fabric for the setting blocks so once I get these last blocks done, the rest should go pretty quickly.

And last, I've been doing a lot of work on my Crossed Canoes quilt. Final thing tonight was making my own continuous bias binding:

Miles and miles and miles of it. (At least that's what it felt like.)

I finished the quilting yesterday and was super excited. It came out pretty much like I wanted. You have to wait to get a closer look because it's resting on the spare bed right now...

Rednecking

Last time I mentioned my Crossed Canoes quilt, I said it was time for some quilting. And I was right!

A couple weekends ago, I got myself set up and started stitching on the centre circle I had drawn:

At first I used my walking foot (above). Then when I wanted to use my quilting guide (You can see a picture of one here. It's the L-shaped bar with the bent tip attached to the back of the presser foot.), I had to switch to my regular foot. It doesn't fit on the walking foot. (Very bad design oversight.) But I quickly realized that the arm of the guide hits the fabric too far ahead of the needle and really doesn't work for curved lines. I needed something that would line up beside the needle.

Not having something like that, after each circle I completed, I drew dashed lines to mark the next circle two inches further out. It was somewhat tedious, but since I was still working near the centre of the quilt, it was manageable.

By the end of the session, I had four circles done:

Unfortunately, I also had quite a few jogs in my sewing:

Not pretty. And I was realizing that hand marking each circle was quickly becoming less practical.

As I was discussing the problem with Troy, we somehow came to the conclusion that I needed a laser pointer attached to my machine, which would shine down exactly two inches from the needle. We can't remember who first voiced it out loud (probably Troy), but it was a brilliant idea.

A brilliant idea I had to try. (I haven't been married to Troy for 11+ years without his certain brand of DIY rubbing off on me!)

So this weekend, I took the laser pointer Troy had and "rednecked" a solution.

I know, it looks really pretty, doesn't it! Troy says it's not really rednecking if it's not duct tape, but I can live without the extra-strength tape residue on my machine.

I had to mount the pointer on an angle since it actually had to light up a spot under the top of the machine. And the second clothes pin is just to keep the light on--it's got a button that has to be held down for the light to stay on. (I don't know if it's allowed in rednecking, but I think I love clothespins more than duct tape.)

I carefully aligned the light so that it was two inches from the needle:

And look at this:

When I put the fabric under the needle, I could line the previous stitching up with the laser and off I went, with my walking foot.

I did five more rounds in about an hour and they're all a lot neater. This is the back:

The green bobbin thread shows up best on the tan fabric. But I have a trick I'm going to play...I'm going to be quilting the whole thing again between these circles with tan thread in the bobbin. Then those lines will show up on the green and it will give the impression of full circles. Can't wait to see it!

And here is a bit of the front:

With such busy piecing, the quilting doesn't show up as much on the front, but I'm still looking forward to seeing the total overall effect.

Spring Quilting

I have a quilt I want to give away for a graduation present, so it really is time to get on it. Because when I say I have a quilt, I really mean that I have a backing, a batting, and a top. Those are the ingredients to a quilt, but not yet a quilt.

Time to put down the knitting (when I'm at home anyway), and work on some quilting...

First up is basting. I had a hard time gearing myself up for this last night, but I was able to get all army sergeant on my own ass and get going.

Since my living room has been rearranged, I had room to lay out this roughly queen sized quilt. First the backing.

I taped it down at the edges so that it wouldn't shift as I added new layers.

Then I added the batting.

I think this must be a new kind or variety, or at least something I haven't used before. It's from Warm and Natural and it's needle punched cotton. It feels soo soft. While I was smoothing it into position, I thought that maybe I could just wrap up the batting and give it as a blanket. So cozy soft! But no, that wouldn't do...

Finally, I added the pieced top:

This was a little trickier as I wanted to make sure that the center lines matched up. Since the backing was pieced, it would make a difference if it wasn't centered properly. This actually went more easily than I anticipated because I could just make out the seam line through the batting. (And I didn't worry about being exactly exact.)

And the final step of it all is to pin the whole thing. That was more than two hours of finger breaking work!!

But once I figured out where to place pins relative to the pattern, it became rather mindless and not so bad. I ran out of pins for the edges of last two sides, but I will get them later.

If you don't know this trick, try using a spoon next time you have a lot of pinning. You use it instead of your fingers to "catch" and push up the pointy end when it's coming through the quilt:

It saves your hand a lot of pain. That makes it easier to focus on your other hand which gets sore from pushing on the pins! ;) It's even better if you find one with a comfortable handle. I use an old "camping" spoon and after two hours, the handle is not my best friend. I'll have to keep an eye out for a better one. (You don't want to use your good cutlery as the pins will leave scratch marks.)

As a final step before I cleaned it off the floor and gained back the use of my living room, I marked a circle in the center to get me started:

Next up...actual quilting!