After wasting many hours trying to make this border tickle me pink, I gave up and decided to call it good enough. It makes me happy to throw in the towel. You know what they say... Finished is better than perfect!
The picture above is a bit deceiving. Let's take a closer look. See the gazillion pins? Two days of my life was wasted pinning on the border, unpinning the border, trying different applique and pinning again and again and again.
The only way for me to know if I like the border is to see each little piece in its place. Thank goodness I stockpile quilting supplies because I had to dig into the pin stash. Hundreds of pins were needed. About 200 pins, maybe more. I didn't count how many I already had in the magnetic pin holder.
It took another day and a half to glue the applique into place using Elmer's washable glue in an old Roxanne's basting glue bottle. I like the fine tip on the Roxanne's bottle. It puts the perfect amount of glue on the applique every time. To dry the glue quickly I set the iron on the silk setting. The lower temperature setting will dry the glue with scorching it or the fabric.
For the next few days I'll be stitching the applique to the quilt top using the invisible machine applique technique. My go to thread for this technique is Superior Threads Monopoly for the top and bobbin. I say it all the time...I love this thread for applique.
A tiny little blanket stitch is perfect for hiding the stitching. Once the quilt is washed, the stitches will be...INVISIBLE!
I'm linking up this post at the following blogs. Hop over to each link and be inspired!
Big hugs to all my quilting friends. The weekend didn't produce as much as I had planned but at least there was some progress on the Sugar and Spice quilt Blocks. Machine stitching the dresden's and yo-yo's made this so much easier. It was a little tricky on the yo-yo's but with a slow and steady pace they came together quicker than I thought they would.
As usual I used Superior Threads Mono-Poly Invisible Monofilament thread. It is second to none in my opinion. After years of trying other clear threads I was so leery about trying another but I'm so glad I did. It was a game changer. It's stronger, finer, not as glossy and the most heat resistant clear thread I've ever used.
Each spool comes with this handy dandy little thread/spool net. Other brands do not. Superior knows their product and how it will unspool itself for whatever reason. Yes I've tried to use it without the thread net and it was a nightmare. Lesson learned the hard way.
Not sure why I was so unwilling to leave it on the spool. Just my rebel nature I suppose. You would think I would be over that at my age.
The name isn't the best. I'm considering writing the company to let them know it should be called angel hair from heaven. Yes it's heavenly. But as you all know there's a good and a bad side to everything. So here' the negatives.
1. I barely see it! 2. My auto needle threader hates it, and since I can't see it, it makes it hard to thread the needle. I can't tell if it's through the eye, I can't tell if I'm even holding it. 3. My auto cutter hates it as well. Have you ever tried to cut a thread you can't see or feel? These aren't complaints I expect anyone to fix. If the company were to make it larger and harder so I could see it, it wouldn't be invisible, would it? And that means I wouldn't use it. I'm just letting you know so you can prepare for the frustration if you decide to give her a try.
Just look how well it blends into the fabrics. I've used this in many quilts and after its washed you REALLY have to look for the stitching.
I'm so happy with how the blocks turned out. The best thing is I applique better than I piece blocks. With piecing there's always a little unpiecing. There was very little distortion of the blocks that can happen sometimes when doing applique.
....And here's the sometime distortion. It looks worse than it is. The block still finishes at the correct size. So I'm not picking out the stitches. The fullness in the applique can be quilted out of sight. I know exactly how it happened. Experimenting with the order of stitching down the applique. My first block was stitch in the following order. Outside of dresden blades, outside of the yo-yo's and then inside the yo-yo's last. It came out perfect. But I thought.....we quilt from the center out maybe I should applique from the center out. But the problem was all my dredsen blades were already stitched down 2 years ago. The only thing I did differently on this block was to stitch the inside of the yo-yo's first and then the outside of them. Not sure why it would cause them to look like a map of the Appalachian Mountains but it did.
All 15 dresden's are completed. I couldn't help but giggle at this image. If this picture above is a mountain range then this is a volcano. Mount Yo-yo is about to erupt and spew technicolor confetti all over my Studio! HA! Yes I'm a little goofy sometimes.
I made this video for those of you who would like to see how I stitched down the yo-yo's. I've shown this before but you never know if someone new is lurking around Podunk. Click the link. https://youtu.be/8JO6QTbIvmY
Another day of MOO-ving things along. My word of the year. More about it here.
Happy Hump Day sweet friends! It's quilt till you wilt time. I'm working hard to finish up this by the weekend.
Some of you may remember this quilt from a couple years ago. I named her Patriotic Picnic. You can see more of the quilt here.
The applique on this quilt is quite large but was really quick and easy using invisible machine applique. You can see more about how I did the machine applique here.
Finding the backing fabric for this quilt was a two week ordeal but was so worth the hours of searching. I wanted a wide backing but after being let down with the wrong size or color I found this super cute little bird fabric at Donna's Lavender Nest Etsy Shop. Bet you can guess the manufacturer....yep....Lakehouse Drygoods! Of course there wasn't enough of this one either but I'm in love with it so I must have it! I pulled 2 more fabrics from the stash to add with the cute little birdies for a scrappy backing.
Happy Monday Morning quilting friends! It's time for block #3 of the Jacquelynne Steves I Love Home Block of the Month. You can find this months free block on Jacquelynne's blog here.
Every month I'm trying to use at least one of the fancy stitches on my sewing machine or some type of embellishment, sometimes both.
My applique templates were made using freezer paper. A tutorial for freezer paper applique can be found here if you'd like to give it try. The template in this tutorial is large but the same technique was used to make the small pieces for these quilt blocks.
Using Superior Threads MonoPoly Clear Thread and a tiny blanket stitch I machine appliqued the applique in place. You can read more about this technique on last months block here. The little leaves on the flower were made using one of those fancy stitches on my sewing machine. Normally I don't use interfacing on my quilt blocks but this stitch wanted to pull and pucker my fabric. So I used a Sulky Self Adhesive Tear Away interfacing on the back side of my block.
To test my leaf stitch before stitching them to the block I used a scrap piece of fabric and interfacing, adjusting the length and width of the stitches to find what I thought was the best look for my block. And in all honesty I had to use the book to learn to sew a button by machine. I normally do buttons by hand.
What a fun block and I learned so much. This was also the first time that I can remember making HRT(half rectangle triangles). Jacquelynne has made a video for those of us that are new to this technique. The video can be found here. It was quick and easy and worked perfectly! Below is all my blocks so far. You can find more block inspiration on the Pinterest Board and the Facebook Group.
Don't forget to visit all the participants in the blog hop for inspiration and a more chances at the giveaway.
While putting the recently finished Quilt Doodle Design 2017 BOM quilt blocks on the design wall this week I noticed some fabric shadowing in my blocks. What's that? It's when the darker fabrics show through the lighter fabrics on the front of the block. Let's hang one on the window so we can get a better look. You really can't see it at a distance.
So let's get up close and personal with my blocks. The green arrow is pointing to the white seam allowance, which is good. The red arrow is pointing to the colored fabric that extends past the normal seam allowance, which is bad. The excess seam allowance should have been dealt with before attaching to the background fabric. No need crying over spilled milk, all I can do is get inside the back and fix the problem.
Most quilters these days think if you can't see it from a galloping horse then don't worry about it. Honestly most of the time I think the same thing. But I've put far to much time and effort into these appliqued blocks to let the finished quilt be ruined with something that can easily be fixed in an afternoon. There was a time back when I first started quilting that it was standard practice when doing applique to cut away the excess fabric on the back. This would reduce the amount of fabric when hand quilting. Once you had the back cut away you could fix any shadowing. Most quilters no longer hand quilt so this technique has been eliminated. And I personally think there's a little marketing going on here also. You can buy products to sew or iron into your project in advance to help with shadowing, but it adds more bulk and cost. And most designers just don't worry about how it looks, its all about selling more fabric and patterns and meeting tight deadlines. Where do you think the galloping horse statement originated? Now let me say, I altered this pattern which caused the shadowing. In the original pattern the center was to be curved pieced and with proper seam allowance there would be no shadowing. So the above statements do not apply to Cindy's wonderful free pattern. With that being said let's open this baby up!
I used my sharpest pointy scissors to poke a hole and start cutting.
Snip, snip, snip...it was not hard and went pretty quick.
Now that I'm in here there's two options. Option one is to cut a large circle of fabric and slide it behind the seam allowance. I'm using paper for demonstration purposes...I'm cheap!
It would be tucked up under the seam allowance and be carefully tacked into place.
The second option and the option I chose is the old fashion way of dealing with shadowing. Just cut away the excess. I snipped a few of the stitches between two of the dresden blades to make it easier to start cutting away the excess.
This really is the fastest, easiest and cheapest way to deal with an unsightly little issue of shadowing.
TADA! Finished all twelve blocks while I watched the noon news.
This will look so much better in the finished quilt.
And I won't need to borrow the neighbors horse to look a my quilt and be happy with it.
The best thing about fixing the shadowing is now I have some pretty low volume scrap to add to the scrap bin. A happy mistake indeed!
Happy Monday Sweet Quilting Friends! Did you get in some quality sewing time this weekend? I love it when I can spend an entire day in my Studio. It recharges me for whatever lies ahead for a few days. This weekend I made the July blocks for the Quilt Doodle Designs Mystery BOM 2017. While I've enjoyed making all the blocks so far, these two are my favorite.(I think I say that every month)
The theme for the Quilt Doodle BOM is Grandma's House. So each block brings back so many good memories of both of my Grannies and the simple pleasures of years ago.
A few changes were made to the pattern again. The main reason for changing most of the patterns is.... the pattern calls for raw edge applique which is much easier to make. Since I'm doing turned edge applique I sometimes need to alter the pattern to make the process of making the block a little easier on me. Take for instance the fence. The original pattern calls for a few more pickets and the fence also covered the front door, it was all one big applique piece. My fence has fewer pickets and 10 small pieces.
After making all the tiny pickets I was searching for ways to simplify the rest of the block. The window applique template was cut and ready to use when an epiphany hit. As you can see below the fancy stitches on my machine are finally being used. A simple scallop stitch to dress up my double stitched windows. And since the entire door is exposed a doorknob was added by using another sewing machine fancy stitch.
The next change was the smoke stack. Both my grandparents heated their homes with wood, so adding a little puff of smoke seemed like a good way to make this block a little more personal, it also added a touch of whimsy, don't you think?
The Singer sewing machine block really opened up a flood gate of memories. The Podunk Pretties Studio has many old machines. Not just any old machines but machines that belong to my mom, both grannies, and a great aunt. There's been several machines passed down to me over the years. Not all could stay, some have been donated and re-gifted. My aunts, cousins, and a best friends machines have also passed through my studio. And allof them have been Singers. So when I saw the Singer logo on the applique...adorable! Again some modifications were made to suit my applique technique. The original pattern has 6 applique pieces, mine has 3.
The Singer Logo was a challenge to do by machine. It probably would have been quicker by hand or embroidery machine, but I was at the sewing machine so I went with it. The little buttons are part of the original pattern. My button color choices aren't sitting well with me. Might need dig a little deeper in the button stash.
Can you believe it, I'm almost caught up on this mystery? All that's left to do is stitch the dresdens to the background fabric. The plan is to get that done today, but it's so sunny outside and there's blackberries to pick. See that is why I get behind. Oh well whatever happens...happens. Are you doing the Quilt Doodle Mystery? If not, it's not to late to join in the fun. You can get all the information about these two blocks and the previous months by clicking right here.
