Kaffe Fassett Quilt Finished (Strangely Mirroring my Tenure)

I'm going to do things a little different and do the big reveal first.

Here it is! My most recently finished quilt!

The quilt is 11x11 blocks that were 7" before quilting and washing. So I'd say the final quilt is about 72" square. Batting is cotton because that's what I used at the time I started it.

It was started in 2010, inspired simply by the fabrics I found:

I believe it was the first time I had seen Kaffe Fassett fabrics in real life. I think I dreamed up the (simple) idea for this quilt while perusing the one short shelf of Fassett prints.

I remember piecing it in the mornings before work. I had just changed jobs and suddenly not only had a 30-40 minute shorter commute, I also started an hour later! That was a lot of time in the morning I wasn't used to having. (Of course, by now I am sleeping as late as I can and have no time in the morning. Also, I recently told them I would be leaving after this season is finished. It can only be a coincidence, right? I'm sure it has nothing to do with this quilt being done.)

I laid out the squares on my "design wall" which was a flannel sheet hanging in front of the window in our dining room. While we were still finishing the drywall, apparently.

With this simple design (and all that time in the morning) it didn't take long to have the top together.

If you look closely, you'll see that not all the seams are sewn. I pieced the top in three strips so that I could try quilting in sections for the first time. I think I had just been to a talk by Marti Michell, who wrote the great book Machine Quilting in Sections (which I promptly purchased).

Here is the center section being layered on the counter. That's when we had our kitchen space laid out in the dining room. (Proof that although we make slow progress on the house, we do make progress. The kitchen is in the kitchen again and has been for a while.)

I took choosing a quilting design very seriously. It didn't take long to decide to sew big circles around the red squares, but what to do between them? Here's a practice mock-up square I did:

Don't worry -- it's a square lying on top of the quilt. I didn't practice on the actual quilt! (I eventually turned it into a pot holder for my sister's orange and yellow kitchen.)

After seeing it on the fabric, I loved the look of the design and texture created by the heavy quilting, but didn't like how the design looked on the fabric. They competed with each other instead of complementing each other. I ended up simplifying the quilting and let the design on the fabric determine the quilting. I also used matching thread instead of contrasting. Enough of the texture, none of the distraction.

Four of the practice squares got turned into this pillow:

Since then, it was damaged by a mouse digging into the centre looking for bedding (or food or who knows what). Now that the quilt's done, I may have to dig it out and see if it can be repaired or patched. But the pillow confirmed my decision to use a dark intense blue for the binding. I love how it looks as a border flange on the pillow.

Then it was time to start quilting the quilt.

I have pictures from 2010 and 2011 but then they stop. I don't think I have worked on this quilt at all since then.

It has lived on my UFO list on the Ravelry quilting group since I joined in Spring 2013. For whatever reason, this quarter it rose to the top and was the one I got out to work on.

And I did! A couple weeks ago, I had the idea that I could possibly get it done by the time of my sister's visit at the end of October. The quilt had nothing to do with her, but I thought it would be a fun surprise to have it finished without telling her. She's also a quilter so I knew she would share the pleasure of a finished quilt and enjoy the honour of being the first to sleep under it!

One by one, I pulled out the strips and finished the quilting. They weren't as far along as I thought, but I got them done:

I laid it out to make sure I had the diagonal stripes lined up correctly and then put in safety pins to make sure I got the right corners together while sewing.

I used a code to match corners. Either one safety pin or two
and either lined up horizontally or vertically.

Then it was time to put the pieces together -- something I had never done before. I pulled out Marti's book and reread the various options. (I think she explains six.) None of them really matched what I had, so I made up my own variation. Actually two.

For the first seam, I cut away the batting as close as I could to the stitching. Ideally, it would be right at the finished size. Then I trimmed the back and front on one side to 1/4 inch wider than the finished size. On the other side, I trimmed the front, but not the back. I left the backing fabric oversized.

Then I pinned the two sides together with the fronts facing each other and sewed a 1/4 inch seam, holding the oversized backing fabric out of the way and sewing through all the other layers.

Here's the back of the quilt showing the sewn seam:

I ironed the seam open as best I could. I had quilted to the edge so in some places I had to undo the quilting stitches a bit and in others, I just couldn't quite open the seam. I trimmed the backing fabric to about an inch. (I didn't measure.)

Next, I folded the raw edge of the backing fabric so it met the seam line:

Then I folded the backing fabric over the seam so it was flat, with the raw edge folded under:

Pin it in place and then sew it down the same way you would sew a binding:

For the second seam, I tried a little different method because I didn't want to have to pick out some of the quilting stitches. I cut a long strip of fabric (it was one of the pieces I trimmed off the quilt edge). I put the two sides of the quilt together with right sides together and then laid the long strip on the back of one side of the quilt with the "right" side down. I then stitched a 1/4 inch seam through all the layers:

 And then, apparently I stopped taking pictures. Hmmm.

Well, once the seam was sewn, I pressed it to one side (away from the facing strip). I folded under the raw edge and brought the facing strip over the seam allowance. Then I pinned it (as above) and sewed it.

Here are the final results:

Method 1

Method 2

Method 1 is a little less noticeable, both on the back where there is only one seam and on the front where the seam is flatter. But you have to leave a margin at the edge where there is no quilting.

Method 2 has two seams to see on the back (both sides of the facing strip) and is bulkier because all of the seam allowance is pressed to one side. But you can quilt however and wherever you want.

Neither one is at all noticeable on the front of the quilt if you don't get close and don't already know what you're looking for. Using all the same fabric on the back may make it less noticeable, but I suspect the seams between two matching fabrics may catch someone's attention more than seams between different fabrics.

I think this just looks like all of the pieced backs that are so popular right now. And really, why am I even concerned about someone seeing that I quilted in sections? It's not like there's something wrong with doing it that way!

Now that the quilt was in one piece, I was ready for the final step...binding. Thankfully I store everything for a project in one box so I didn't have to hunt for the fabric. I cut bias strips 3.25" wide and stitched them together end to end.

I folded the bias strips in half and stitched it to the front. I had trimmed all four sides of the quilt to 3/8" larger than finished size (1/8" past the edge of the top) so that I could have a nice wide binding.

I picked up the method of sewing the mitered corners somewhere online. I stitch to the corner and then turn 1/4" from the end (or however wide your seam is--3/8" in my case) and stitch toward the corner to make the 45 degree angle. Then I break the thread and fold the bias strip to make the corner and start stitching the next side. This works much better than trying to do it all in one pass.

But only recently did I think to apply this to the hand stitching on the back. And I took a few pictures.

Here the binding on the right side has been sewn down on the back of the quilt. I stop stitching at the top and make a few small stitches in the same spot, but don't break the thread.

Then I fold the binding down on the next side, forming the miter and making sure the folded edges meet right at the corner.

I then push the needle to the front and sew the miter angle closed from the inside edge to the outer corner.

Once at the corner, I push the needle to the backside and sew the mitered angle closed from the outer corner to the inside edge. I take a second stabilizing stitch in the same spot and then continue sewing along the new side.

I'm really happy with the result. (I've said it before...I used to really pooh pooh sewing down the miter corner. I mean, it's not like the fabric is going to come out. But it really does look better. Really.)

Here it is on the quilt:

I think the blue is an unexpected choice, but I really like it.

Here are a couple shots of the quilting on the final quilt, front

and back.

So that's one quilt done for this quarter's UFO club on Ravelry. That means I have earned a fat quarter (of fabric) from the other participants. It's also one less project in my craft closet. Of course, the box the supplies were in is already holding stuff for the next project I started. The way it goes....

Farm Girl Vintage Quilt Finished

The quilt--it is finished.

With persistence, all 326 inches of the binding was hand stitched to the back and done before I went home for Easter.

Here is a full view of the quilt:

It contains 44 of the 45 blocks from Lori Holt's Farm Girl Vintage book. (I omitted the "Old Glory" block of the American flag.) The setting is my own invention. It needed to be created to accommodate my combination of 6-inch and 12-inch blocks.

The sashing is proportionally a bit wide, but I wanted the centre of the quilt to cover the top of a queen mattress. I think it also helps to calm the quilt down a bit because that is a lot of busy blocks all together!

Looking at it now, I would have liked the green diamond accents to have been larger and perhaps centred differently. But there were constraints presented by the way the sashing was constructed and the fact that a 12-inch block is not as big as two 6-inch blocks plus a sashing in between.

The corner blocks of the border are also an issue as they don't appear to be centred in the space because the outer triangles match the border fabric. I'll have to research how to do it differently, or just use a different block as cornerstones. (I did consider star blocks but I wanted to keep the borders simple and clean. Maybe I should have used the maple leaf block.)

Don't start thinking that I don't like the quilt because I certainly do. But I can't help but evaluate what I think worked and what I would do differently next time. And this is the place where I record my thoughts.

One thing I am happy with is the look of the blocks. I was going for a low-contrast look and think it worked out. The contrast between the different block pieces isn't really stark but it's not all mush either. You can still easily see what the blocks are.

I don't think I've showed the binding yet:

I ended up having enough of the same brown to make another flange on the outside of the border (with all of 10" leftover!). The binding is a very bland print that I bought a lot of once because I thought it would work for a quilt, but it's never been right. Since I didn't have enough of the blue polka dot for the binding, I am happy with this nondescript colour that doesn't compete with the flange.

I cut the backing and batting about 1/8" past the quilt top so that I could sew the binding on with a 3/8" seam. This way binding will be completely "stuffed" by the batting but you won't end up with a really thin binding on the front.

I basted the flange down first with a zigzag stitch so it would tamp down the outer edge at the same time. I cut the binding at 2.5 inches (worried it might be a bit large) but am very happy I didn't go with 2.25 inches. There ended up being a few spots I had to trim the extra batting and backing down a bit so the binding would fit.

This was the first quilt where I sewed down the mitred corners of the binding. I never really believed it was necessary or made a difference, but dang if it didn't look a lot better!

Sewn on right; not sewn on left.

So now I guess I will be doing that from now on. The good news is that the idea was planted by watching a video of an easy way to do it. (Not so much an easy way, but how to do it while stitching the binding down. I had always thought of it as a separate step and it's not.) So although it is "one more thing", it's not much extra and actually does make a big difference. (This is me eating crow here.)

After the quilt was done and I could sit back and look at it, I was surprised at how well centred the quilting pattern turned out. You can see on the farmhouse that the pattern has loops exactly on both chimneys and first floor windows.

The barn was similarly centered:

Presumably a coincidence of the stitching repeat and the size of the block, but a happy one.

I mentioned that I pieced the back:

The large center piece is the yellow gingham that I had. The rest is made up of fabrics that weren't my favourites and then a few more to make up the difference. I used 10" blocks to fill in the sides, with some 10x20" pieces and one 20x20" piece where I had enough fabric to do so.

The back ended up quite a bit larger than the front, which is good for loading it on the long arm machine, but did result in some funny spots on the back. Like here:

where you can see a 1/4" strip of fabric at the top of the photo. If I had known it would work out like that, I could have shifted the back and gotten rid of that extra seam. But when you load the one end of the quilt on the machine, you don't know exactly how the other end will come out. (And as long as it's not too short, you don't really care!)

On the sides, the outside 10" blocks were cut off to just a few inches:

But again, as long as it's not too short, we don't really care! I did recover all that extra fabric after the backing was cut off and put it all in the box of scraps. So they may resurface on another quilt one day.

One thing I noticed while doing the binding and my nose was just inches from the quilt, was a lot of spots on the back where the batting was pushed through the fabric and where the needle tore through the fabric instead of piercing it cleanly.

You may have to click on the picture to see it in a larger size, but each circle in the picture is a spot where the stitching push through a tuft of batting. (This is called "bearding".) Each line is a thread of the fabric that was pulled because the needle didn't go through cleanly. This didn't happen with the last quilt I did using the same batting, so my current theory is that the needle was too dull. (I have since learned that wool batting can be tough on needles. I don't know exactly why.) Next time I use the long arm machine, I will ask for a fresh needle to be put on and that should take care of it. (I hope.)

While visiting at Easter, I had a little quilt show and tell at my mom's house of my recent quilts. Here is the Farm Girl Vintage on her bed:

And I know you've been waiting for this too...here is Kim's quilt:

The top is in two halves and is not put together or quilted but you can see how her blocks are arranged and how the quilt will look. She also had to get creative with her layout as she had even more 12-inch blocks. Her quilt has such a crisp clean look with the light sashing and the clear contrast in all of her blocks. It looks fantastic.

And here's one more shot of my quilt on the bed we set up for my sister (a different sister) in the construction zone:

That's right, she had the honour of being the first to sleep under the quilt!!

Project stats and facts:

• The quilt is 74x84".
• The project was started in January 2016, and one block was done each week throughout the year as a quilt-along with my sister.
• The blocks are a mix of hand sewn and machine sewn.
• Although I would do it if I had to, I have no desire to work with 1" and 3/4" pieces again!
• I spoke to this sister more in 2016 than any other year of our lives as we Skyped each week to show our blocks.
• Most fabrics were purchased as I decided on a 1930s theme and had none in my stash. (A few stash fabrics that fit in well enough were used.)
• It was the third quilt I have done on a long arm machine. I created the pantograph pattern because I wanted the look of chicken wire.