Sew sew sew - holiday sewing

Using up some indigo print charm squares that I've had since I began quilting, so over 10 years old. I had a number in three tone prints, only thirteen, and each star block calls for eight. And today, for the life of me, I couldn't find more to round up my numbers. The problem with keeping things for so long. But buried in my stash were a few other bits I was able to work in to solve the issue. The red background fabric came from a fabric binge in Sydney last year. Using it up is helping with my buyer's guilt.
I also modified the pattern, increasing the square to 6 inches. I think I could end up with two cushion sized blocks.

Finished

Backing and Binding

Sebastian's Quilt is Quilted

Finished!

Well, all except the binding. I have to make the binding now. I have kept all the leftover strips from piecing the quilt top, so I have strips already cut to sew together. I do like the scrap-look so I don't have a problem with creating binding out of these pieces. Mind you, I also have some blue fabrics left too, so I'll have a play and see what's best for the quilt.

First hitch I ran into with quilting the top was the thread colour I chose. I used the dark navy blue I had onhand to ditch and when I'd finished that I noticed that it wasn't perfect choice. I really should have found a dusty medium blue thread which would have worked better with the lighter fabrics.

And to this calamity, my godmother came to the rescue with her Aladdin's Cave of threads. She shared a fantastic variegated red-white-blue-green-yellow thread which I used to finish quilting the top. If I had continued using the dark navy blue it really would have ruined the whole quilt. As it is there are some VERY wavy diagonal lines throughout the quilt top and I'm just going to live with them. After all, it's for a boy and it will be used not preserved, so the wavy lines are my perfectionist hangups to get over.

The second issue I encountered was after ditching and straight stitching the inner border I went to start free-motion quilting the outer border and found my machine wouldn't keep a stitch in the fabric. The top thread frayed apart after two loops. Disaster! 

I haven't free motioned in a long while so I wondered if I'd remembered everything correctly. Was I causing the problem myself? What tension should the machine be set at? Was it the variegated thread? What was causing the issue? The machine has just been serviced and I wasn't looking forward to taking it back and saying you've broken my machine, did you change it so I couldn't quilt anymore? So I quickly jumped online to search for an answer.

And low and behold there was the answer halfway through a post from Don't Call Me Betsy's blog. That's two weeks in a row she's helped me out. Change the needle. I couldn't remember when I'd changed the needle, but I did it anyway and tested it out on my scrap of fabric, and immediately I was at last free motion quilting. Phew! Thank you Elizabeth!

So I finished free-motioning the outer border and trimmed the excess wadding and backing fabric away and so I'm ready to get binding and then embroider my nephew's name on the back.

Weathervane block

So, I was browsing the web Sunday afternoon for free bag patterns to spark my interest and then I found some great free quilt patterns which I decided to download and in the process discovered a great new stitching blog. Don't call me Betsy. 

Specifically, I found her post about the Weathervane Block and the little experiment she tried out which she made into a tutorial. And it looked easy enough to follow as well as being a bit challenging. So I gave it a go!

I'm a fan of traditional straight edged blocks and I like playing with fabric colours and patterns to see what happens. I've loved this yellow paisley fabric since I bought in Sydney last April and the gelato striped fabric I think came to me as a scrap from my Great-Aunt M's stash. I've had a terrible experience with striped fabric in the past so I needed to try again. And the soft green teacup fabric I bought in a great store in St Charles Missouri in 2005 and I've been dying to use it in something fun. 

I'm really impressed with the pattern and how easy it was to pull together, though I'm not a fan of pressed open seams.

I thought that I could use this as practice piece for machine quilting designs being small enough to be a manageable quilting piece on the machine, but also have the scope to try quilting around shapes and filling in spaces with different patterns rather than free motion stippling. I haven't really progressed past the basic beginner level of quilting so I need to make an effort to practice these aspects. And I'm better when there's a product at the end of a task rather than quilting blank space on scraps. The waste kinda gets to me. What do I do with the quilted scraps? Hence, the mini-quilt quilting project idea inspired by Don't Call Me Betsy's weathervane block tutorial.

BTW - I totally get the Betsy thing, cos I'm the same about being called Ellie instead of Elle. Urgh!

Diversion - Vintage Stylin'

So, I ran into a hitch with my nephews' quilt quilting. Basically, I was using the wrong coloured thread and thereby ruining the look of the patchwork top. 

Here's a quilt I had started quilting many years ago. It was made quickly from a grey vintage cotton fabric I found in my thrifting along with some great 30style red flower print and complementing green and yellow prints. And since then it's been languishing and being moved around the sewing room. 

Rather than put everything away I decided to quilt my old project. So far its tricky and I'm wishing I knew more about quilting patterns rather than ditching everything.

Let the quilting commence!