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.

Finished mini-quilt

I finished my half-square triangle mini-quilt!  

I bound it by machine to save time, and I don't like how it turned out.  I'll stick with hand binding for now, even though it takes forever.

Now all of the attachments are stitched down and safe against curious fingers.  They are, clockwise from the right, a tucker, a ruffler, a button hole maker, a rolled hem foot, a regular hemmer, and a regular foot. 

I also had a chance to get some more thread (thank you, weekend!) so hopefully I'll have a chance to make some headway on my Floating Dresdens quilt. 

Leaves and Berries

This evening I basted and quilted my mini-quilt.  Since it's just a wall hanging I didn't think it needed heavy quilting, like a quilt that's going to be cuddled, washed, and dragged around would.  I just quilted in the white areas and left the print areas alone.

The print is actually supposed to be leaves, stems, and berries.  You can't tell now that it's chopped up.  But I decided to replicate that in the quilting.

I don't know what all those lines are...maybe it was due to the fluorescent lights we have in the basement.  Anyway, the quilting is not really my taste, but I wanted to show off what the 115 could do.  Also, it was really fun.  I love drawing with thread and fabric.

I need to figure out how to include this more in my quilts.

Hopefully I'll have time to bind it this weekend.  Then, if I can get to the store for some more white thread (yes, that's how busy our lives have been lately, not even time to run to the craft store for thread!) I'll be able to do some work on my Floating Dresdens quilt.

HST mini-quilt

I finished piecing my mini-quilt.  It's just chevrons made with half square triangles.

I always have trouble getting my HSTs to line up exactly at the corners.  I suppose it just takes practice.  There's some pretty obvious places where it doesn't line up. 

YIKES.

I'll just put sewing machine parts over those.

Tomorrow I'll quilt it up and maybe it'll be bound and finished by Sunday night.  I have to go get some more white quilting thread for this and my Floating Dresdens quilt.  I'm not sure how I'll quilt this...the blue fabric is a leaf pattern and I was thinking of quilting leaves into the white parts.  Unfortunately you can't really tell what the blue pattern is since it's all chopped up.  I'll have to think on it.  I really want to do some free motion quilting so I can show off my machines' abilities, but we'll see.

Another excuse to make a quilt

I'm still getting my machines ready for the museum's Collectors Day.  I wanted to bring some of the feet and other attachments to show the visitors, but the museum recommends that if you have small parts that you fasten them to something bigger so they don't get lost or stolen.

I don't know who would want to steal a 90 year old sewing attachment, but I guess you never know.

This evening I started covering a piece of cardboard with fabric with the intention of sewing the attachments onto the fabric.  But then I thought, Why not make a mini quilt instead?  

A little wall hanging-sized quilt would be the right size to sew those pieces to, and it would show off how those old machines sew.  Plus, I could hang it up later in my bedroom.  I've pretty much given up on the idea of doing the Mod in Milwaukee challenge since I just don't think I'll have time now that I'm working again, but I had a spot in my bedroom all picked out for the completed wall hanging.  After the museum show I could just clip off the attachments and hang it up.

So, now it looks like I'm making a quilt too.  This whole project is turning out to be a lot more work than I expected.

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.