It felt like a binding day

I knew today would be a binding day today. For some reason this batik has always been one of my favorites. It is from at least 12 years ago and I think longer than that. I had originally thought that I was going to bind this quilt with strips from a lot of different batiks, but when I started looking I found this one and knew it was going to work with both the front and the back.

I only got one side hand sewn and started a second side and then I knew I was done for the day.

A few more stripe pieces

I was gone most of the day yesterday so I sewed a few more stripes last night. The blocks on the right aren't sewn; they are just triangles on the design wall. I mixed the new batch into the squares that were already on the wall. I was trying to alternate the reds and blues as outside borders but I see I have one red one in a blue square. I guess that proves it really doesn't matter because I didn't see it until I saw it on the computer monitor.The blocks on the left are cut with the lengthwise stripe and the ones on the right on the crosswise grain so I don't have enough of a lot of the fabrics to do the blocks on the left.

I hope I can stay home today and cut the binding for the argyle quilt. I also have to move a few things in the basement. I have one of only 30 homes in town that still has a gas meter on the inside of the house. They are finally going to get them all moved to the outside by July so someone is coming to inspect my meter tomorrow to see if it is in good condition. That happens to be the corner of the basement that my Jewel machine is in so I hope they give me plenty of notice what day they are actually going to move the meter.

Playing with stripes

I just didn't feel like binding a quilt yesterday so I played a little with my stripes. I have the beginnings of 2 projects here.Here is my inspiration for the one on the right. It is from Kaffe Fassett's book "Glorious Patchwork". I have always wanted to make this quilt but I can see my contrast is way higher than his so mine will just be inspired by his, but will be my own. I have a lot more stripes to cut yet.

Here are the first three finishes in January all together on the design wall so you can get a perspective of their sizes. The one on the left is 30.25" x 44.25". The top right piece is 31" x 24.75" and the plaid/stripe one is 24" square. In my bin of pieces and parts are these 2 plaid crazy pieced patchworks that I think I will use on some journal covers. They are made with some of the leftovers of the New York Beauty above. I think that was about 4-5 years ago that I made all 3 pieces.It was -6 degrees yesterday morning but got all the way up to 16 degrees by bedtime last night. Two more days and it will be above freezing if they read the weather charts right. I would like to see a little of the snow melt but I doubt it will stay warm long enough for that.

#3 done, #4 needs binding

I haven't come up with a name for this one yet, so it is just purple and coral right now. I finished the binding at 11:30 last night. I left the picture a little bigger this time so when you click on it you might be able to see the quilting.The back, showing the back of the double needle stitching. A close up picture is next.

The back of double needle stitching looks like a zig zag. The reason I didn't get the binding done earlier is because I quilted a twin size quilt in the afternoon. In less time than it would take to baste it, I loaded it and quilted it in one direction, then took it off, and turned it the other direction and quilted it some more.

Here is some more of the wavy line, with and without loops. On my tombstone it will probably say "She couldn't quilt a straight line" but it is really "she wouldn't quilt a straight line". Here is another close up. This picture was taken after I quilted one of the cross lines. I only did the cross lines across the 4 patches, not through the plain squares so it made rectangles. I will take a picture when I get the binding sewn on. If you want to see the completed top, it is on this post.

Experimental quilting

I had all of the ditch quilting done, hadn't decided how to quilt the borders, and then decided to use a double needle and 2 different colors of purple thread. After I quilted the borders I decided to just experiment with the double needle stitching in other places. When I finished I was sure I had ruined it and then I took it to the ironing board and steam pressed from the back. Well now it was not too bad, certainly not a winner in anyone's book but passable.I quilted in a spiral formation in this block.

I stitched through the narrow bands in the piecing in 2 different directions.

I have started hand stitching the binding (bottom of top picture). I'll show the whole picture tomorrow when the binding is done.

I got the back of a twin size quilt sewn together yesterday and will quilt that today. We're back in the deep freeze outside so it will be a good day to quilt.

First full week of Jan. - 2.5 finishes

The binding is on, the hanging sleeve and label are on. It is an official finish.Yesterday morning I took a photo with the light from the window coming across it so you can see the quilting better. I found about 3 places I still needed to quilt when I did this.

I flipped it over and took a picture of the back. I wish I had used a busier plaid on the back now. All of the little tie offs show when I was using a different color thread on top. I had over 50 tie offs on this one so I wasn't going to tie by hand and bury the threads. In fact I rarely do that. I think that should be reserved for show quilts. (Just my opinion. I know some of you do it ALL of the time.)

Here are my 2.5 finishes piled on the sewing cabinet. I figure if I get my 4 finishes for the month done in the first 10 days, then I have 21 days to start a couple new projects (the stripe blocks are first!) and maybe get borders sewn onto some of the tops that were on hangers in previously posted pictures. I know there are all kinds of theories on whether you should do the hardest/longest project first and then everything that follows is easier and faster OR get some instant gratification and do the small projects first. With a short attention span I chose the second choice. It gets me motivated to see several things done instead of just one thing.

For all of you H's out there

Here is a tutorial for the H blocks. I do not prewash the fabric. I cut 2" strips of the fabric; 2 contrasting fabrics needed for each set of 2 blocks.
I am showing the cutting of 2 sets of fabric here. I would usually be cutting 5 sets at the same time for time efficiency. I always put the dark fabric on the bottom and the lighter one on top. You can see your cuts on the lighter fabric.

I trim just the smallest amount off at the selvage. Then I make two 8" cuts and one 3.5" cut.

Take the little piece that is leftover at the fold end, unfold it and cut one 2" piece from it.

This makes one dark background block and one light background block from each pair of strips.

If you make an H quilt please email me and show it to me. I would love to see all of the variety of fabric choices.