As usual, it’s been a while since I’ve shared here at the blog. Frankly – pesky social media sites – it’s always easy to toss up a quick photo on Instagram or Facebook, which is a bit like posting to the world on January 1st that you’ve resolved to lose twenty pounds. Somehow, proclaiming it diminishes the urgency to actually follow through. I always mean to write a blog post to share completed projects, but if I share it on social media first – the blog post tends not to happen.
So – other than a few ‘in progress’ photos I shared of my newest Sea Holly quilt, I’ve saved my ‘finish’ post for here there I could toss out a few helpful hints I thought you might find useful.
For instance, this quilt required a whole boatload of triangles sewn together. Sometimes, if I’m not careful, I invariably sew down the wrong edge and wind up with a whole boatload of seam ripping to do. To avoid this, I lay out all my pieces on a portable something I can carry from my cutting mat to my sewing machine so that the edge that needs to be sewn faces my machine exactly as it will sit beneath my presser foot.
Then I can just pick each piece up, sew all at once in a daisy chain which I can then cut apart and press once I’ve carried it back to my table.
Aside from preparing all my pieces for what I planned on being an ‘assembly over time’ sort of process, I took a much needed step away from quilting to create a new bunny friend.
In all honesty, I expected this quilt to take me a whole lot longer than it did, so I intended to just do bits every day.
But after I got everything organized (with Caroline’s help), I found that everything went together so quickly, I couldn’t stop!
Before I knew it, and coincidentally right before a weekend, I had the entire quilt top assembled.
Since I’ve made up my mind not to shelf a quilt top for any period of time (else it tends to think it now LIVES there forever, unfinished), I sandwiched it on Friday night for a fresh start to machine quilting on Saturday morning.
Yep, I could have and probably should have done some straight line quilting to showcase the lovely pinwheels on this quilt. However, I find Stevie Wonder-style swirly/meandering in an all-over stipple stitch to be relaxing as heck! Also, my new favorite Aurifil thread shade lately has been 2410 – Pale Pink. I used it for my Love Quilt below too (which admittedly, I posted on social media but not here)…
For both quilts, the Pale Pink Aurifil for machine quilting made especially good sense because I used this same gorgeous Art Gallery fabric for the backing…
It’s called Sublime Stitchery Spring and is from the Bijoux line by Bari J. We have a few yards left in our shop (and it’s even on sale) here Sublime Stitchery Spring fabric
As you can see above, I couldn’t help but piece the binding since there is quite a bit leftover of the fabrics showcased in the quilt.
Ultimately, my main draw to this quilt design in particular (aside from being completely in love with the Retro colorway of the Sea Holly collection), is that the finished quilt is 58″ square, and I have a frequent need for multiple square quilts…
Above is the ottoman that lives in our living room. Emma and her gal pals, Ruby, Tess and Ivy tend to spend quality time on said ottoman, playing with toys, chewing on tiny tennis balls, eating treats, and occasionally throwing up those treats all over whatever quilt happens to be beneath their sweet little schnauzer bodies at the time. Lest I mention another reeeeally good reason to choose premium quality fabric: it launders beautifully and fades SO MUCH LESS than discount fabrics.
Lastly, I mentioned social media here and there throughout this post. I guess the point is that even though my preference is to blog about the things I make so I can share a bit more detail, it’s not always possible to find the time. With that said, if you are a social media bug, you can find more of my daily goings on at the following locations:
and my ESPECIALLY NEW favorite: Ello
Happy Quilting, Friends 🙂
Pam 🙂
I’m the same way about taking a quilt from start to finish. I put one on hold recently to hit a deadline on another one and it bugged me enough to speed up so I could stay on top of the first project.
Totally agree! I used to regard the piecing as a finish of sorts, until I started to remind myself that until that binding is on and one of my kids is flopped beneath it on the sofa (or dog is chewing a treat on top of it), it’s not done! Having a mid-arm quilting machine has helped tremendously too because it’s tons quicker than machine quilting with my standard machine.
I used to think binding was the last step…until I realized quilts create threads out of nowhere that have to be clipped before I call it finished – haha! I have a Sweet Sixteen and really like it!
Right – those little threads need clipping! I have a Tiara II, which I think is exactly the same as the Sweet Sixteen…twinsies 🙂