Category: Quilting

Dog Rescue T-Shirt Quilt

June 4, 2012

Finished quilt size:  Approximately 62″ square

Enger’s heavily involved with pet rescue efforts at the Etowah Valley Humane Society in Cartersville, Georgia.  She also runs the homeless pet club at our school.  The t-shirts in the quilt are some of her favorites from a variety of past dog rescue activities.  It was a pleasure to work with colored t-shirts instead of the usual white or gray.  Judging from the big smile on her face and the interest from her 3 canine children (Shadow, Macy and Tinkerbell), I’d say I have a satisfied customer!

The finished t-shirt block size is 14″.  This meant that I had to add borders around three of the t-shirts to get them to the correct size.  The t-shirts were cut 12-1/2″ square and then 2″ borders were added all the way around.  The sewn blocks were then trimmed to 14-1/2″ before adding sashing and cornerstones. Enger specifically requested a “drapey” quilt and didn’t want a lot of quilting that would make her quilt “stiff.”   I used Pellon cotton batting with a 10″ wide quilting space and ditch quilted the blocks, followed by some quilting around the logo designs or merely a big X through the block.  I also changed the top thread color to match the t-shirt.  The binding was attached and finished by machine.

The quilt police are probably pulling their hair out with the fact that I didn’t finish the binding by hand.  This quilt is going to be washed and well-loved over time.  In my opinion, machine stitching the binding is the way to go for durability.  It also took less than an hour to glue baste the attached binding with Elmer’s washable glue, heat set and machine stitch it down.  I stitched s-l-o-w-l-y with my open toe walking foot.  I was extremely pleased with the finished result.  It also helped that my backing and binding matched and were a busy all-over print.  Machine binding also kept the quilt within her budget.

I liked working with the Pellon batting as I typically use Warm & Natural batting in my quilts.  It does have more “hand” than the Warm & Natural – almost as much as the bamboo batting I love to use (when I can get it on sale).

As usual, I learned something this on this project:  (1) the gluing method I learned in the applique class works quite well for temporarily holding the binding in place while you stitch it down by machine, and (2) if I use Pellon batting again with a wide border, I need to machine quilt at least 2 rows of stitching evenly spaced down the middle of the border if I do not do an all-over E2E design.

Grandmother’s Flower Garden – Binding Options

March 9, 2012

BROKEN VIDEO LINK UPDATED 3/20/2012

Before Christmas, a coworker asked me to finish a Grandmother’s Flower Garden Quilt that had been quilted at least three decades earlier, but had never been bound because the family didn’t know how to handle the hexie edges of the quilt.  I was handed a rolled up quilt sandwich exactly as it was taken from the quilt rack or when it left the quilter ages ago. Neither the backing, nor the batting had been trimmed away. The story goes that the quilt top was a wedding gift to the current owner’s great grandmother. The quilt was quilted at a later date and stored away. The current owner remembers the bundle sitting on a shelf in the closet when she was a small child  (owner is now in her 30’s).  My AQS fabric dating books pegged the majority of the fabrics to be 1930’s-1940’s with a few from the 50-60’s perhaps. After binding the quilt, I have a strong suspicion that at least two different people made the blocks for the quilt. The “curves” of the quilt are noticeably deeper in some places than others.

Here’s a picture of the back with the finished facing:

My first task was to figure out how to bind the darned thing.  I took it to a quilt guild meeting to garner the collective wisdom of those much more experienced than me. A quilt appraiser happened to be there that evening and STRONGLY urged me to maintain the integrity of the quilt, including leaving the stains and the hexie edges (if at all possible) since the quilt was in such good shape.

    • This meant doing a traditional bias binding on the edges, a facing or a knife edge finish.
    • The next option was to “round” the hexie edges on the inner curves and do a pseudo scallop binding.
    • The least desirable option was to trim whack the quilt to a rectangular shape and bind the edges the usual way.

I tried the traditional bias binding with inner and outer mitered corners.  I dutifully cut the binding on the bias at 2″.  I machine stitched and took that out.  I hand stitched. It looked like  $%^ awful.  A quilting board suggested using this video as a guide to make a facing for the quilt.  Thank goodness for YouTube.  This is the method I used.  I won’t kid you in that it was as tedious as all get out to pivot & turn every 1-1/2″ but I think the results were well worth it.  It is simply a wider traditional French fold binding. You measure the depth from the outermost point to the innermost curve.  Add 1-2″ to this measurement plus desired seam allowances.  Double this measurement.  Cut strips this width and prepare just as you would traditional 2-1/2″ binding strips.  My strips were cut 8 1/2″ wide and folded in half.  I sewed the wider strip exactly as I would a traditional binding strip, following the edges of the hexagons.  I did not miter the corners the traditional way.  I did a version of a mitered border (looks like a picture frame with 45 degree angles in the orders).  Snip, trim, fold and poke out.  Press lightly along the edge. Stitch by hand. The picture below shows the stitching process.  It looks weird, yet you line up the raw edges with the outermost points and pin securely.  Then stitch 1/4″ away from the raw edge of the quilt.  I had to watch the video 3x before I finally understood.  It does work and my friend was so happy to finally have her family heirloom in a usable condition.

Random musings

January 15, 2012

This morning, I packed up my SUV and headed south 1-1/2 hours to McDonough.  Today was Allison’s 5th birthday party at a jump and play place right across the parking lot from A Scarlet Thread.   Although my immediate family all lives within the toll-free dialing area, we are so spread out it takes 1-1/2 to 2 hours each way just to go visit.

Allison requested spring clothes for her birthday present.  Sugar Mama definitely appreciated the quilt I made her for Christmas.  This picture is my absolute favorite of all that were taken that day:

I unearthed my kid clothes patterns and fabric, but unfortunately I didn’t have time to whip up anything on such short notice.  I’m also knee deep in another project that needs to be finished by Monday.  Allison will get some spring clothes from Aunt ‘Resa a little later on.

My visit to A Scarlet Thread was productive.  I found the wide backing fabric I needed and enjoyed looking around the store.  However, if one more person had asked me if I needed help, I would’ve probably screamed.   I was in my full-out creative zone, looking at fabrics and patterns for inspiration.  (You know what I mean!)  Every time I reached out to touch or pull something off the shelf, an employee was there to offer assistance.  I really, really appreciate the friendly staff.  But when I’m in the zone, please, please please, leave me alone!  Believe me, I’ll ask for help if I want it.

The Janome 6500/6600/7700 Yahoo Group has been a wonderful resource in learning all about Jewel.  If you have one of these machines, I highly encourage you to join the group.  Be warned that this is an active group.  I finally had to change my email settings to “daily digest” because my in-box overflowed with messages from this list-serv.