My first finish of 2023! Yippee! We know this quilt as The Hummingbird or Periwinkle but I'm calling mine Pocketful of Starlight.
The name comes from a song my dad used to sing when I was little. I'm sure most of you know the song.
🎵Catch a falling star and put it in your pocket....Never let it fade away.🎵
If you've never heard it, I've got you covered just click on image below. It's a catchy little tune that makes my little ole heart go pitter pat.
Okay... dance yourself over here and take a look at this quilting. The quilting is why this quilt became a UFO. At the time, way back in 2014, quilting on a frame was fairly new to me. My free motion skills were not great so this was all ruler work which takes FOREVER. Fast forward today, and I finished this with the arcs being free motion and the straight lines where ruler work. It was still pretty intense but went much faster than in 2014. If you would like to see the original post about this quilt as it was constructed you can find them here and here and here is the finished top
Overall it turned out pretty good except for a couple things. Take a look at this big ole drip of sewing machine oil. BooHoo! What are the chances of this coming out? It's been setting in there since 2014.
Oh but that's not all of the issues. See those faint brownish lines? My dear friends this is what happens when you(meaning I) don't wash a quilt after using blue water soluble markers. Spraying with water does not remove the chemicals it just makes the blue disappear until you bring it out years later. No worries, I have Google on my side.
So...option one without google is Dawn blue and color catchers for those bright reds. Dawn cleans everything. If you have never used it on your windows it's a must. I love it. No streaking!
Well it didn't work. That's okay because as you know google has many answers. Most of which have absolutely nothing to do with my problems at hand. Who is charge of the algorithm these days? On page one of my search for "blue water soluble marker turned brown on fabric"
And Google answers...
3 ways to erase old marks off a dry erase board
and
how to remove permanent ink from skin
They got even stranger the farther I dug into google.
On the bright side the fabrics didn't bleed much, that's a win to me. I recently read that color catchers can be reused, did you know this? Let's give it a try.
Back to Google and my goodness I found 1 article about blue water soluble markers leaving brown marks. You can find it here. It's short and sweet and to the point, unlike the current blog post your reading. LOL! To save you the time I'll let you in on her secret...white vinegar, an entire gallon on an already wet quilt. She didn't say how long to let it set on the quilt or whether or not to add detergent. So I poured it on the quilt in the washer, smooshed it a bit then let it set while I fixed a pot of decaf coffee. About 5 minutes later I went back and started a small load wash, warm water, no detergents but I did add the color catchers.
And would you take a look at this! Happy Dancing to Pocketful of Starlight! The brown lines are gone! No trace of them at all. Thank you Shannon!
As for that spot of dirty sewing machine oil. It faded but it's still there. I'll take it, no big deal. I'm chalking this one up as a win. One little spot is better than brown lines all over the pretty white background.
Into the dryer she goes and TADA, we have a finish with little vintage looking crinkle to the fabrics.
The oil spot is hard to find. The old girl turned out pretty cute if I do say so myself.
The fabrics in this quilt are a mash of quilt shop quality, Joann's, Walmart, bedding and cloths I cut up.
I'm not tickled with the backing fabric. But it was all I had at the time. It's a older print from an estate sale. Maybe dates to the 80's or 90's.
If you like this quilt and would like to make one of your own I got you covered. Mine was made with a free pattern(paper piecing template) that no longer exists. Well it does but it now cost $4 for the PDF template. If you want to pay for it you can get it here in the Red Pepper Quilts shop on Etsy.
If you want a freebie I found one that is the exact same size as mine but free. The free pattern is for what you see below. This is (4) 5" Periwinkle blocks. Putting 4 of them together it's called Mill and Stars.
The only difference is the background fabrics which you will see when you go to this link, click here.
Mine was constructed using the paperless paper piecing method. So I used templates that looked like the image below. The link I provided above has this option or traditional templates that are also free.
If you are not familiar with paperless paper piecing the video below is for this method. I prefer this method because I do not like ripping papers off the back of my blocks. I'm lazy!
Until next time....
I hope you find time to stitch up something sweet!
Here's a quick little video I made for Facebook back in November when the quilting was complete.
Starlight is beautiful! I love the vibrant colors and white vinegar was a good save! Your quilting is beautiful! It's just as well you didn't finish it years ago, your quilting skills have grown. Happy stitching!
ReplyDeleteBy the way, when I was in junior high, we sang that song in choir. It was a fun song to sing.
What a beautiful finish to start the year. Your quilting adds so much to an already pretty quilt. Thank you for the info on getting the brown stains out of the fabric. (If this is the second comment for me, I inadvertently sent the first comment before I was finished.)
ReplyDeleteStarlight looks like a beautiful antique quilt -- Love how it turned out!!
ReplyDeleteWow that’s a beautiful finish!!!
ReplyDeleteI love this pattern and it is such a tribute to the original pattern , My great gran always sang that song as she picked her dandeline leaves for making tea (and remedy syrup - aka hooch)
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