Friendship Quilt Near Disaster

When I spritzed the quilt to remove the blue wash out marker I didn’t know I would have a problem until the next morning when I looked at the quilt and noticed this red friendship star bleading….wowzer!  It bled into the yellow and really looked hideous.

Tried washing it with mild soap but it was not budging the stain.  I remembered using this other product once and it worked to remove another bleed so decided to use it on this quilt too.  It is Carbona Color Run Remover.  I do want to caution you right now that it will remove a color run but much more too so be warned!I followed the directions, except the part that says to test it as I didn’t have any of the red star fabric here to test and figured it would be just fine.  Ha! It removed the stain and while it was wet looked perfect, just what I wanted, but the next morning after it was dry I was shocked to see this red star and another one that had a bit of bleed were really faded, almost to an orange/brown color.  The one purple square close to this red star was also faded to a pale pinky lavender too.  It may have changed the dark blue a bit but that was not really as noticeable.  I was sick. Permanent marker to the rescue.  I used a  Pigma brush marker in a red color to carefully color in the red stars and a purple to color in the purple square.  The color of the red stars did not come back to what they were before the mishap but are so much better than the orange/brown look to them.  The purple fabric was variegated so just darkened the darkest area but this created another problem with the purple.  The purple marker also colored the yellow quilting thread in that purple square so I ripped it out and re-stitched it.  I left the dark blue fabric alone. What would any of you done to remove the color?  What works for you?  I had the Shout color sheets for the wash but since this was already stained and dry I didn’t think that would work to remove the red stain from the yellow.

There is just a bit of color run left next to this red star and the red stars will never look like they did but I am not touching it with anything else and not trying to do anything else with it....ever.  I will get used to the "new reds" and after a while I probably won't even notice it.

Live and learn,
Lynn 

Binding Friendship Quilt

It is finished!  I bound it in a curvy stripe that I cut on the cross grain.  I don’t know who the manufacture of this binding fabric is as I purchased it many years ago and barely had enough to bind the quilt.  I had to cut and use single fold binding to have enough and only have a small piece left over.  I prefer using double the width, folded in half and pressed strips for binding.  I like the extra weight this gives to the very outside edge of my quilts.
Until later,
Lynn

Quilting Friendship Part 4 and Piping

The outside border I decided needed the grid quilting again to balance it out.  I stitched the piped strips on first then chalked the grid.  Why you might ask did I do it in this order?  I wanted the grid quilting to stop at the edge of the piping and not sneak under the edge of it.  I could have measured and drawn a line but knowing myself I knew I would be ripping off the piping to get the grid to look perfect on the edge so put it on first.  Do you notice an undulating line indention on that gridded border?  I free motion basted the border to the batting and backing to keep it flat while I stitched on the piping then removed the basting and marked the grid. To make and apply the piping I followed the directions from Susan K Cleveland on YouTube.  There is a part 1 and part 2 so be sure to watch the second one.  They are fabulous videos of this method which will not add bulk in the corners like other piping methods I have tried.All quilted and no more ripping those squiggles even though the lines are not so straight in places.  It is good enough and the overall look is good.

Last step is to bind it and add a label so come back again and maybe I will have this quilt finished.

Until later,
Lynn

Quilting Friendship–Part 3

Quilting borders is next and wouldn’t you know, I decided on grid quilting again.  What is wrong with me?  I persevered and free motioned them and left the squiggles in the stitching….wouldn’t you say this adds character?  These lines I did mark with chalk and if you notice the grid in the yellow parallelograms they were marked too with a blue water removable marker.  I found that it was easer for me to free motion straight lines that were marked rather than going from dot to dot marking.Feathers again on the triangle border.  Have you noticed I am quilting some parts of the quilt with red thread and some with yellow thread?

Quilting Friendship–Part 3 VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

The wide border has an undulating feather quilting design.  This one was fun to quilt as there weren’t so many traveling spots like the small feather motifs.  On this border I just marked the center spine and started quilting, hoping the feathers would stay somewhat the same size and shape.  I did practice on paper again to see how many feathers I wanted in each dip of the spine and to practice I wanted to do the corners.Until Later,
Lynn

Quilting Friendship–Part 2

The friendship stars were fun to quilt and the feathers make them look like they are spinning.  No marking the feathers this time either but again I marked the sections with a chalk line to keep my motifs where I wanted them.  I don’t want you to think I just started quilting these feathers without practicing or knowing where they were going.  I drew out the 3” friendship stars on paper and practiced with a pencil and refined the motif until I liked it then drew it several more times to give me some memory of the motif.  I also would glance at my drawing occasionally as I was stitching them to make sure I remembered.  Drawing quilting motifs helps me figure out the path I need when I stitch too.  The yellow parallelograms I free motion quilted the lines that were sometimes straight and sometimes not.  They were shorter lines than the ones I tried quilting in the square so were a bit easier…maybe.   I did decide to leave them just the way I quilted them; trying not to be such a perfectionist is hard.

In the tiny 1” light blue triangles I quilted 3 loops, another pseudo feather or part of a daisy, and sometimes they are nice and smooth loops and sometimes a bit wobbly, sometimes fat and sometimes skinny.  You would think free motion quilting on a small scale would be easier than quilting large but you have to make your movements small too and sometimes that is difficult.  I decided not to rip any of them out unless they were really bad and like a lot of things when you are not looking close up and concentrating on how even they are they don’t look so bad.

The side triangles and corner triangles I treated like the framed squares with the feather motifs.  This quilt, although not too large is taking quite a bit of time since I am quilting it so heavily but I am enjoying the process and like the results.

Until later,
Lynn

Quilting Friendship–Part 1

I love feathers…I can say that again…..I love feathers!  Every quilt I make it seems like I just have to quilt feathers in it then struggle with the parts that don’t have feathers. 

As you can see I struggled with free hand stitching the grid.  I ripped it out several times before giving up and changing the quilting plan.  Straight line stitching on a domestic machine can be challenging without the use of a walking foot or regular foot, at least for me it is.Back to my old standby… pseudo-feathers.  This was much easier to quilt and went a lot faster as well.  These were stitched free motion with only a chalked line drawn on the diagonals to help me keep each quarter of feathers contained.  The blue border around each of these squares has fat feathers that encircle the center square.  Making the corners turn flawlessly was a challenge too so I ended up drawing each corner feather and eyeballed the ones between as I quilted them.

Until later,
Lynn

Piecing Friendship Part 3

After searching through my stash I found a blue fabric the same color, shade, etc. that blended well with the other blue fabric with the stars so stitched it in the spot where I ripped out the other one.  I also changed out the light blue corner squares on the triangle border – a better look I think.  Still unsure that the quilt was finished after I added that last starred border so auditioned a piece of the other blue on the outside and liked the look so set to work to make one more border on the very outside.
I don’t know about you but I like to have fabrics or colors repeated in a quilt.  I feel it just looks planned out that way and not telling the world you ran out of fabric...OK, I know that is my perfectionism coming out again.

Until later,
Lynn

Heart Quilt–Happy Valentines Day

Today is Valentines day so you get to see a couple of doll beds from my collection that have hearts on them.  As you can tell from the photo they are very tiny as that is a regular sized thimble sitting on the table with them.  To read the blog post where I wrote about how I made them just click on the link here.

Have a great day!
Lynn

Piecing Friendship Part 2

For the first border I pieced a repeat of the triangle shapes that are in the stars.  I used the same fabrics from the setting squares as I didn’t have any of the fabrics my friend used in the stars.  The problem is this border is too big to fit the pieced interior.  I needed a 3/4” border between the two to make it fit.Ideally I wanted to use the dark blue with the tiny bright colored stars but that was not going to happen.  I didn’t have enough for that border plus another planned border on the outside of the pieced border.  I love challenges like this so had to put my thinking cap on.

I chose to use the light blue with the bright stars for the 3/4” border and for the corner squares in the pieced triangle border.  It is Ok but it bothered me for some reason and I think it was the value - not enough contrast between it and the light yellow.This border just didn’t thrill me but I didn’t have enough of the dark blue with the stars for it and the one I planned to stitch outside the triangle border.  I thought of another idea – add a skinny 1/4” border of the dark blue.I appliqued it down by machine using clear thread and a tiny buttonhole stitch as I didn't want to try piecing it or ripping out the light blue.  Here it is stitched down and the quilt laying on the dark blue fabric to simulate the last border then a couple of skinny strips to maybe simulate binding and a corded strip.  Looks OK but……I still don’t like it.I kept looking at it and looking at it trying to convince myself it was wonderful, great or maybe just OK but the more I looked the more I disliked that border.  Now what?  Well it was back to my stash and see what I could come up with.  After pulling many fabrics I settled on a dark blue the same shade as the one with the tiny stars.   It took me a while but I finally got the offending border ripped off and replaced with the new fabric.  A much better look.  Also replaced those corner blocks with the yellow fabric and I like that look better too.Since this is the only time this fabric was used in the quilt I decided to add another border clear on the outside to repeat the fabric.  Now I like it!Quilting is next so must start planning it now.

Until later,
Lynn

Piecing Friendship Part 1

My first idea was to set the friendship blocks on point and piece an alternate block of a bright colored fabric square surrounded by dark blue fabric.  I only had this much planned out but liked it so stitched it together in diagonal rows.I chose bright colored fabrics to coordinate with the friendship blocks I received for my alternate blocks.  I wanted the star blocks to stand out but a solid fabric in that space was just too much color if I used the bright fabrics or too dark if I used all dark blue so split the difference and used both.  The photo makes it look skewed but that is just the angle I took the photo I guess because it really is square at this point.  I started piecing this quilt the end of August working slowly as it has taken me months to get it finished.  This has been one of those quilts that I have thoroughly enjoyed working on, planning and contemplating each step of this quilt.

Until later,
Lynn

A Friend Indeed

• A year or so ago a very good friend mailed me a couple 3” friendship blocks each week.  They were such a nice thing to look forward to when I was dealing with treatments for a health issue.  It was so nice to get the special envelopes with the blocks as they really gave me a boost.  They are cute little things aren’t they?It took me a year to come up with an idea on how to put them into a quilt.  I know, that is maybe a way of saying I am just slow, but I really did want the right design to show off the blocks.  I will reveal the design later on another blog post but first I will show you what I did to the blocks.  I decided to reduce the yellow a bit on each of the brightly colored Friendship Star blocks.  I added the triangles of the light blue fabric with the tiny bright stars to each of the corners and did it the easy way by starting with squares.

Adding corners to blocks VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

The squares needed to be cut 1 1/2” to fit the corner.  I pressed each square in half diagonally then stitched along the fold line after they had been laid on each corner like in the photo.  The next step was to press the square back over the corner then trimmed the underneath block and excess light blue fabric away to get rid of the extra bulk those layers of fabric added. All 16 blocks had the corners added and were ready to set into the design.  Come back again to see what is next.

Until Later,
Lynn

Links List #5

Link time again…As you remember I gather these links for the editor of our guild newsletter starting a couple of years ago.  If you find a broken link you can either abandon that search or do a search of your own using the name of the webpage in the link.

http://www.thequiltshow.com/os/gammill_videos.php videos by Gammil for long arm quilters but domestic machine quilters can pick up tips on these videos too
http://www.thequiltshow.com/os/blog.php/blog_id/5348 Using tracing paper or vellum for paper piecing
http://themodernquiltguild.com/2012/01/08/100-days-week-of-shapes-tutorial/ half rectangle triangle tutorial
http://themodernquiltguild.com/2012/04/01/100-days-week-of-tools-cutting-simple-shapes-tutorial/ cutting simple shapes tutorial
http://www.thequiltshow.com/os/zoom.php close up views of award winning quilts
http://seehowwesew.wordpress.com/free-patterns/ free patterns
http://doyoueq.com/blog/2012/12/free-holiday-blocks/ free holiday blocks
http://waynekollingersquiltblog.blogspot.com/2012_11_20_archive.html Nov 20 -27th lessons to make pieced alphabet
http://video.wpt2.org/program/sewing-nancy/ watch full episodes of Nancy's Notions
http://www.studiokatdesigns.com/9-ways-to-maintain-your-creative-momentum 9 ways to maintain your creative momentum
http://seehowwesew.wordpress.com/free-patterns/ paper pieced angel block
http://blog.jwdpublishing.com/2012/11/28/great-quilts-using-the-tone-scale-playing-with-color-series-by-joen-wolfrom/ - more-3864 using the tone scale by Joen Wolfrom
http://frantastic-stitchwitchery.blogspot.com/2012/11/fast-hanging-sleeve.html fast hanging sleeve tutorial
http://thequiltrat.blogspot.com/2012/11/quiltingfree-motion.html free motion quilting tutorial
http://erinrussek.typepad.com/one-piece-at-a-time/2012/11/glorious-autumn-block-party.html fall applique block
http://singers-and-featherweights.blogspot.nl/2012/11/singer-201-de-transporteur-laten.html maintain your antique singer - will need to translate site with a free translator
http://www.ted.com/ inspirational talks by remarkable people
http://craftyjournal.com/warm-fingerless-mitts/ fingerless mitts from fleece
http://www.supermomnocape.com/2012/11/10/coin-purse-tutorial-and-free-pattern/ coin purse tutorial
http://vickiwelsh.typepad.com/field_trips_in_fiber/2012/11/button-tree-christmas-postcards-with-tutorial.html button Christmas tree
http://www.mccallsquilting.com/mccallsquilting/articles/Quilt_Binding___Joining_the_Strips joining the strips on binding - video
http://www.mccallsquilting.com/mccallsquilting/articles/Quilt_Binding___Sewing_Binding_to_Quilt sewing binding to quilt - video
http://www.mccallsquilting.com/mccallsquilting/articles/Quilt_Binding___Joining_the_Ends binding - joining the ends video
http://www.mccallsquilting.com/mccallsquilting/articles/Quilt_Binding___Turning_and_Handstitching binding - turning and hand stitching - video
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B1Kl0ZR2l2lDNzhmMzA1MTQtOTAwZi00NmE0LTg3OGMtOTczMzEzMmQxZmYz/edit?pli=1 sun printing tutorial

Enjoy browsing the internet with these links!

Until Later,
Lynn