Former UFO

I finally finished my Floating Dresdens quilt!  

I really hate binding.  I haven't figured out a way to make it look great by machine, and hand binding takes forever.  I know some people machine sew the front and hand sew the back, but that doesn't seem easier than hand sewing the whole thing.  I have another quilt that's on hold because all that's left is to hand sew the binding and I just hate doing that.  I'll do it at my local quilt guild's next sew day.

Anyway, I bound this one with my Singer model 27...

...by flipping the backing fabric over the front, folding it, and sewing it down.  Cheating!

Finishing a quilt is a little anticlimactic because after all these months of work it just winds up getting tossed onto the rocking chair in my living room, or stuffed into the basket where we keep our quilts.  But over the next weeks I'll see my husband and kids wrap themselves in it, build forts with it, and take it to bed with them to keep them warm all night.  That makes the work worth it.

This former UFO is finally done.

Background quilting done!

I finished the background quilting on my Floating Dresdens quilt!

Long flowing lines?  Check!

Now I just have to quilt around the circles, and it'll be ready to be trimmed and bound.  I'm thinking of just doing cheater binding (flipping the backing fabric up over the front, folding it, and sewing it down) by machine for the sake of getting it done.  We'll see.

UFO Sunday #4

I think today will be my last UFO Sunday because after today, my Floating Dresdens quilt will just be a regular work in progress.

I got lots of good advice last week about how to quilt my big quilt, but the advice I decided to take came from the author of the Mariner's Compass Quilting Project, who suggested dividing the quilt into parts and quilting one part at a time.

So this evening I grabbed a blue fabric pencil and (after testing it on a scrap to make sure it would wash out - what a nightmare that would be if it didn't!) marked out the lines for my quilt...the flowing lines I wanted, going from one corner to the other.

I also made the decision not to quilt the lines through the circles, and instead to quilt the circles by stitching around the perimeter.  This broke up the longest diagonal lines into little segments that ran between the circles.  Not too intimidating at all.

This evening I started quilting around the circles like Leah recommended, and it was a pretty low-stress way to put the first few stitches into a quilt that had been intimidating me for a while.  I'm still pretty new to using my Singer 115 treadle machine, but it performed beautifully and I have no concerns about finishing the quilt with it.

Now that I have some stitches in it's no longer a scary project lurking in the back of my craft space.  Instead it's a quilt that I'm eager to finish and see my kids snuggling under.

 

UFO Sunday #3

I really thought that last Sunday would be my last linking up with UFO Sundays at the Free Motion Quilting Project.  My list of projects that are undone or ongoing is relatively short, so after I finished my mug rug and trashed my wall hanging I figured I'd be done.

But, to be honest, I have one more UFO.  This.

My Floating Dresdens quilt.  I basted it nearly three weeks ago, and then rolled it up and haven't touched it since.  I know three weeks isn't long, but usually when I baste a quilt I'm on it the next day, quilting it up.  Not this time.

I could say that I was busy getting acquainted with my Singer 115.  I could say I was trying to get the tension just perfect on that machine before I quilted with it.  I could say I was trying to make headway on my double slice quilt, or that I was tired from returning to work for the new school year, or any number of things.  They'd all have a bit of truth to them, but the real reason is, I'm nervous about quilting this thing.

When I got background fabric I decided I didn't want a seam running down the middle of it, so I just got 90" wide backing fabric.  Dumb move.  That fabric is flimsy and I fear that it won't withstand sewing, then ripping out, then more sewing.  I want to get it right the first time, instead of making mistakes, ripping them out, and having a quilt that looks mangled and punctured.  I've drawn quilting patterns on top of a picture of it (Procreate is a great app for that) but I'm not sure it'll really look the same when done in thread.

I'm just going to do loose, slightly wavy lines going from the upper left corner to the lower right.  I think.  I don't know!

Last night I figured I need to just sew a seam in this and get on with it.  Living with a mistake would be easier than agonizing over an unfinished quilt.  So I unrolled it and put it on my machine.  I sewed about twelve inches and snapped my thread twice.  Stupid cheap thread!  I wanted to keep going but that was the only white thread I had (how the heck did I run out of WHITE?) so I shelved it again.

However, in that time I got a little preview of how challenging it would be to quilt a nearly queen-size quilt with lines that would flow across its entire length.  It would mean wrestling with the quilt a lot.  When I quilt with smaller designs it means making little movements and only shifting the entire quilt once in a while.  It would also mean having to stop to take out pins (I pin baste since I'm allergic to some chemicals and would hate to put chemical-laden spray baste on something I'll be cuddling with), which might affect the flow of the quilting.

I'll have to do some reading and planning, but it feels good to start addressing the issues on this quilt instead of just letting it sit on a shelf.

Appliqué done!

I'm finally done with the applique portion of my Dresden block quilt!  I wound up sewing the middles on by hand.  When I sewed the big circles on I had to rotate the entire quilt to keep the edge I was sewing under the needle.  I wasn't sure if I could turn the quilt enough to make a circle with a smaller radius.

I don't like hand sewing, but I parked myself on the couch and fired up my Netflix and just did it.

I'm pleased with it so far.  It's really imperfect, but I'm proud for my first attempt.

I used this tutorial to make the circles in the middle.  They didn't come out perfectly - I got the impression that it's easier with bigger circles - but they're good enough.

So now it's on to basting and quilting.  It feels weird to have two quilts in the quilting stage.  I also need to figure out how to quilt this thing...I was thinking about just doing loose, curved lines to suggest wind.  I'll have to think about it.

First round of applique done!

Tonight I finished my first round of applique - I got all of the circles onto my background fabric.  Next I have to applique all of the middles on.

I still have to trim the background fabric to be an exact fit for the circles - I wanted them to go from one corner to the other, so there's some trimming to do.  Here's a poorly lit iPod photo of my progress:

Appliqueing the circles made me wonder how on earth I'm going to quilt this thing.  I've never quilted a quilt this large.  I did make a queen sized quilt once, but I tied it instead of quilting it.  I'll figure it out...generations of women before me quilted on the machines I have in my basement.  Also, I appliqued using my Kenmore 52, which has a smaller harp than my Singers.  The bigger harp space might help too.

I'm getting ahead of myself, though.  First I have another round of applique to do along with basting...then I'll worry about the quilting part.

Continuing the applique

At this point I've appliqued (that doesn't look right) four of the eleven circles.  If I keep going at this rate I'll be able to finish the initial applique by mid-week!  Then all I have to do is:

1. Cut and make the circles for the middles
2.  Applique the circles
3.  Baste
4. Quilt
5.  Bind
6.  SNUGGLE

I can do that!

I didn't get a chance to quilt my double slice quilt this evening, but I have been working on it a little and I think I'm getting the hang of it.  I'll post pictures tomorrow if my good progress continues. 

My husband works the next two nights so I hope to get lots of sewing time in.  Not that I don't enjoy having him at home during his nights off, but...hey, silver lining for the nights he does work.  I can get a lot done in the two hours between when the kids go to sleep and when he comes home.  I hope to have all the applique done on this quilt before I go back to work on the 29th.  We'll see if it happens.

Foray into appliqué

I went to the Milwaukee Modern Quilt Guild sew day for a couple of hours today and was pretty productive.  I finished all but one of my Dresden plate blocks.  When I got home I quickly cranked out the last one.

This quilt is going to be big - the top, without borders, is 77" x 90" - so I couldn't get a picture of the whole thing.  Here's most of it:

Now here's where I run into trouble: I don't know how to applique.  I'm going to try to do it by hand, but I generally hate hand sewing so we'll see how it goes.  I might break down and try it on the machine, not that I know how to do that either.  We'll see!

Carrying on

I'm letting the Double Slice quilt sit while I try to figure out how to finish it. In the meantime I'm carrying on with the Dresden plate quilt.  I'm going to make fifteen circles.  So far, I've made three.

They look a little busy, but when you put a circle over the middle it helps. 

Now I just need to make twelve more.  If my kids are cooperative and go to bed at their appointed time, I can make one before I get to sleepy to keep sewing.  So, in theory, I could be done with the piecing in under two weeks.

In theory.  We'll see.

Planning the Dresden quilt

I'm not a very good planner when it comes to quilts.  I usually just make something and then add borders until it's the size I want.  But because this Dresden plate quilt is going to be big, I wanted to get an idea of how much fabric I'd need.

Most of the time Dresden plate quilts have the circles laid out in a grid shape.  But I wanted mine to look like bubbles or flowers or something drifting across the quilt.  So this is roughly how it's going to be laid out.  The circles are to scale...the scale is one square = 5.5".

Then it was easy to count up how much fabric I'd need to use as a background for the design.  I think I did the math right.  I think.

 

At Jo-Ann's they sell wide fabric that's made for backing quilts...I think it's something like 108 or 110 inches wide.  To have enough for the front and back of the quilt I'll need 5 yards.  Luckily that's only one cut of fabric.  I'm going to wait until I have a 50% coupon and get it then.  They'll give you half off one cut of fabric, even if that fabric is 108" wide and 5 yards long.  Awesome. 

First attempt

My first attempt at a Dresden plate block. The middle is wonky, but otherwise I think it's okay.