never surrender

wensleydale 7 was perfectly behaved until the dreaded outer rectangle. but like all the others, and more so than some of them, it looks so pretty in the end that i've already forgotten and forgiven.

the first corner went on without a hitch. then i had to resew the next corner no less than 5 times! you can see some of the previously unpicked threads still in it to the left of the seam. i was so glad when it was done i took a photo.

then promptly sliced it off because it folded under when i turned the paper over to trim the seam allowance. i was flabbergasted! seriously, how do i manage to do these things? i'm not normally such an incompetent human being as my quilting misadventures would lead one to believe.

i guess the good thing about me is i get back up and move forward, never surrendering. 

on block 8, i had an entirely new situation occur. for the first time in this project one of the pieces wrinkled up after i flipped it over to sew and got runched up in the seam allowance. i was surprised, but not ruffled. i unpicked and went at it again, more careful to hold the piece in place this time. only to have it happen again! it's a nice soft ruby star fabric and i think the drape contributed to the temporary glitch.

and despite my renewed vigilance against this new problem, it happened once in the outer rectangle, again, with a woven fabric. 

but just look how pretty she is in the end.

there are two small tweeks i'd make: the center gingham is a thread or two off center and i got some of the seam allowance in the upper right corner piece, which is a different color and shows. i'm hoping it ends up being a playful quirk in the finished quilt because i'm not fixing it.

i suppose i do surrender to the little quirks, but i never, never, never give up on the whole project.

learning to wensleydale

once i'd made the first wensleydale block i wasn't sure if i'd gotten it out of my system for the moment or not. i calculated that if i did a block a day for two months i'd have a completed top before thanksgiving, but i wasn't committing to that. the first one took so long i couldn't see being able to spend that much time each day. i was definitely thinking i would not be doing much wensleydale-ing right away.

but the next day i found myself pulling out another template sheet and making my next block. i told myself i wanted to see how long a single block took when i wasn't having to teach myself to fpp in the process.

block two turned out pretty well, but it wasn't a quick make either because i had several home ec/learning moments along the way! 

the first round i forgot to fold back the pieces before i trimmed the seam allowance and chopped off two side triangles before looking at the front to see why i had such large trimmings. oh no! one of the leftover pieces was big enough to reuse, but i had to cut a whole new rectanlge cut into triangles to get the one piece i still needed because i didn't know how to just cut the one odd triangle. that was frustrating.

but i got if fixed and moved on, deciding that in the future i would trim each seam allowance after sewing the piece and then press the piece open.

if you've never done fpp before, you might be confused about the process and what i'm saying. here's the basics:

1. place the first piece down, right side up, on the back of the paper/opposite side of the printed template. you hold it up to a light or use a lightbox to make sure you have the piece in place.

2. lay the next piece right side down on top, flip the paper over, and sew down the line between the two pieces on the template, backstitching at the beginning and end.

3. flip over so the fabric is facing down, fold back the paper along the seam line, and trim a 1/4" seam allowance for that seam. unfold the paper.

4. turn back over so the fabric is facing up; press the piece open. lay the next piece on, right side down, and repeat.

so where i went wrong here was i forgot to move the sewn piece, which i had already pressed open, out of the way when i trimmed the seam allowance; hence the chopping off.

this is what it looks like when you do the seam allowance trimming correctly. i folded the paper back along the seam and measured the seam allowance 1/4" away from that.

i was playing with how to get my directional prints to line up better inside their shapes.  if you look at the grey plaid piece in the middle rectangle (either in the first photo or below) you'll see that after i put two triangles in place and they fan out from the triangle rather than look aligned as a rectangle, i tried to get the other two pieces straighter and succeeded. i was glad to get them straighter, but feel it would have been better to have them all angled consistently.

and this brings up one disadvantage of the fpp method over the alternate template construction method for this quilt: template pieces can be cut how they will appear in the quilt but fpp is more risky and requires a lot more thought and care if you want a certain orientation and outcome in your prints, especially the directional ones.

one idea i tried was marking the seam allowance on the back of the piece before i sewed it in place. this helped a little, but since i was putting the piece roughly in place then flipping everything over, there is often slight shifting or i didn't guess well where the piece should go.

(you get a good view of my radiating vs. straight plaid pieces in this photo above.)

the next idea i hit on for better fabric placement was to trim down the finished shape before moving on to the next round of pieces. in this case, that meant trimming the golden floral piece to the seam allowance size it would eventually be before adding the brown checkered print. the way i was doing it, the outer edges of a piece didn't get trimmed down until the next piece was added and then the seam allowance was cut. 

i hadn't seen this extra trimming step suggested in any of my fpp research, but i decided to try it. i folded the paper back along the seam i was about to sew, measured out 1/4", and trimmed. then i could line up the new piece with the seam allowance and everything would be much straighter. 

it worked great!

but then when i flipped over the piece to trim for the seam allowance on the third corner (above), i forgot to measure out 1/4" for the seam allowance and cut right along the seam instead. this was a big ouch. it required me unpicking not only that corner but i had to replace the golden triangle, first unpicking the other brown corner triangle already sewn on its other side, as well. i wasn't sure i would be able to salvage the block at this point.

getting that golden triangle out was no small project. seam ripping with fpp is the worst because the seam size is so small. i finally resorted to hacking the piece out and then removing the little leftover bits.

i did do one good thing here. i realized i didn't have to cut the whole rectangle again to replace the botched corner. i made a rectangle half the starting size and then cut the piece i needed from that so i didn't have 3 larger leftover pieces, but rather just two. i managed to save myself a little fabric there.

that was smart of me, but my next move wasn't. like i say, i can't make this stuff up. i seriously don't know how i manage to bungle things so badly. can you see what i did when adding the triangle? i flipped it completely the wrong way. i put it on the wrong side of the seam allowance. oh, me oh, my.

somehow i still make quilts.

there we go - the golden triangle is all fixed up and i put the adjacent brown corner back in place over it. then i trimmed it correctly, ready for the final corner piece to be added.

now i could place the corner triangle on, lined up with the seam allowance i pretrimmed.

in case you forgot - this is how it all ended. 

yes, half of the grey plaid is straight(ish) and there is still a small hole in the seam of one brown corner triangle where it's supposed to be seam to the golden part (no idea how/why that is, but i'm dealing with it later). all in all, though, i really like the look of this block and am grateful for the lessons it taught me.

i also decided with this block to wait to trim the outside edges until all blocks are done so i don't dull my blade prematurely by trimming through the paper each time. that will all be done in one go before i join the blocks into a top. whenever i do more blocks and get them all done, that is. obviously, i still don't know how long it takes to do a block because this one took way longer than should be necessary due to all my mistakes.

more pinwheel decisions

i'm still refining my fabric combinations for individual pinwheels in my "groovy liberty" quilt. i had the above combo picked out as one of my paler sets, but i needed to swap that bottom print into another set, so i ended up with this combo instead:

this one works, too. actually, looking at these photos they both seem to be good combinations, but i needed the art deco print from the top set in a different place. i needed it here: 

this swapping around of fabric in sets isn't a problem. what was a problem is i cut some of the chambray pieces too small. yikes. 

i discovered this when i sewed it to a tana lawn piece. every now and then i have pieces that don't match in size and i have to pull out a ruler to determine which is the cultprit, the larger or smaller one.

the ruler says it's the chambray. this probably happened because the under layer of fabric wasn't lined up when i was cutting. i do try to be careful, but these things do happen.

i used all the chambray to cut these pieces, so my only option was to make-do the best i could. i unpicked the set and moved the chambray piece over so that there would be a shortage in both seam allowances. spreading it out like this means there won't be a large discrepancy on one side or the other. if i do have a piece that's short in the seam allowance, i usually add another seam just inside the seam allowance for extra security to guard against unravelling.

i had two pieces that turned out this way. all fixed up. this wasn't such a big deal and was easily dealt with. i was having a good time piecing the pinwheels until . . .

i started joining sets the wrong way. oopsie.

apparently i wasn't paying as close attention as i thought to the direction i was sewing pairs together. i had to fix a couple of those. 

this first half of this set looks great.

then i realized i turned half of them the opposite way. and i did some of my test blocks in the opposite orientation, as well. oh, dear. i sized up how many i have going each direction to determine which way was less unpicking. looks like the top pieces are getting redone.

there was a time when i considered doing the dark chambray pieces one direction and the light the opposite direction. but when i completed more blocks and laid them out together, the bigger picture of the secondary pattern emerged and i changed my mind. but then i didn't pay attention to which way i was turning the pinwheels. it's alright. it can all be corrected pretty easily.

here's the last decision i need to make right now. i was considering sashing and cornerstones so the pinwheels could be separated and stay pinwheels. i was thinking of using the "capel" print in black as the sashing and this red "summer blooms" print for the cornerstones. that's been my plan for days.

but i finally laid it out together (before cutting, thank goodness) and i don't think i like it. the chambray background effect is lost and the color story changes. so now i'm rethinking what i could do instead all over again.

this photo shows the sashing/cornerstone look with the fabrics i was considering and the way the different block orientations looks together. yeah, i don't think this is what i'm going for. thank goodness for unpicking and more ideas.

this is one of the challenges of quilting - getting my vision to come alive in fabric. sure, it's frustrating sometimes, but its also fun and rewarding when it works out. when i know what i'm doing, i'll report back.

pressing matters

 

i've had another first - a new mistake i've never made before! this was a bad one that could have been disastrous. my lovely pink oliso iron has feet that retract when you grip the handle. this is to reduce wrist strain by allowing the iron to rest horizontally and not have to be turned upright every time you pick it up. i wasn't sure i liked this feature, but i've gotten used to it. and i do agree it helps with wrist strain.

well, apparently i set it back down unevenly on my pressing surface, which jogs a bit where the pressing top i made is surpassed in length by the ironing board under it. this caused the iron to make contact with the pressing board surface for a little while, long enough to begin scorching it.

it was making a smell when i noticed it, but i actually saw, not smelled it first. yikes! that was a close one. i was completely caught off guard by this. i've never done that before and it was absolutely unexpected. there were a lot of things happening on the board that i was working around, which must be why i set it down in an unusual manner.

while we're on the topic of my iron, i'll comment on my experience with this oliso. i like it! i don't think it's perfect, but it's been a good iron. i've been using it for over 5 years now. i'm not a heavy user of the iron, but it's lasted very well for my purposes. 

pros

• easy on the wrist with the retracting feet
• turns off after extended period of unuse, but not too quickly
• heavy, presses well - i'd give it a B+ or A- for this
• steam option
• gets very hot but not too hot
• pretty colors to choose from

cons

• steam tank is a little hard to reach for filling and emptying
• sometimes the retracting feet are annoying or i want it turned off, which you can do, so i really can't complain about this one. however, the times i've turned it off, i forget not to just set it down, which is a problem. so i just leave it on and get annoyed every once in a while.
• the tip is rounded and the outline jogs a little (see below), which both mean they are less precise for running along an seam edge when pressing my seams open. a sharper point and continuous edge would be better. a sharper tip would be able to get right into a seam whereas this blunt one doesn't really.
• i haven't thought about it in a long time since my pressing habits are better, but there was a time i felt it could be heavier, that that might be helpful. but since i am better at pressing and use my floppy books to help flatten blocks after pressing, this is not really an issue.

this review came to mind because an IG friend recently had her oliso die after two years of use, and was looking for a new iron. however, she contacted the company and they replaced it for free! after my experience with the oliso, i was surprised hers died. hopefully her new one lasts her a good long time.

my former iron was a rowenta, another moderately expensive iron. it began leaking on me after a couple of years. i now know that was because i was just leaving the water in the tank all the time, not emptying after use before periods of unuse. live and learn! i now (usually) empty the tank after i've used water. but most often these days i don't steam at all, but rather use the spray bottle to spritz the fabric.

edna mode

here's a look at my pinky-purple "edna" quilt in the earliest stages. i've had a lot of fun making this quilt even though it's been so labor-intensive, thanks to my own ideas of making it very scrappy with the 16 patch blocks and directional, scrappy stars. "edna" can be quite beautifully simple. maybe next time. this one is anything but simple. there have been soooo many mistakes along the way, but i just keep plugging along.

wrong and correct

 

first, i misunderstood the pattern and made my first star/stripes interface wrong. i mentioned i don't usually use patterns, so i misunderstood the graphic for adding the star points to the ends of the stripes. i think the pattern was attempting to show piece placement 3-dimensionally with seemingly 2d graphics  and i read it as being 2d, so i put the corner square in the wrong place. i thought it was odd and unexpected to put the corner squares where it looked like the pattern said, but i told myself, "trust the process - do it exactly as the pattern shows." and i messed it up. but, i knew how to fix it! and fortunately for me, i was able to use the same stripe pieces, so i only lost two little squares. i turned two of the cut-offs into a tiny hst block, so its okay. and now i know a little more about pattern reading!

i got the first set of 5 with the bird print made and moved on to the strawberry print the next morning. with the first set of bird prints, i was doing everything one at time, which is more laborious. i did it that way because i was figuring it all out. with this second set i got a lot smarter about batch-processing and created a chain-piecing process. this worked great until i realized i forgot to factor in directionality for the strawberries. this wasn't an issue with the bird blocks so it caught me off guard. but with the strawberries, i wanted them all facing the same way throughout the star and i had to figure that out. it's not too hard, once you wrap your head around it. but since the four sides are coming from different directions, i'm going to have to figure it out each time i do another side. maybe i'll share that when i get to it.

since i'm cutting all these corners off, i went ahead and made a second seam so i could make little hsts out of the corners. they're small and very cute, and a bit tedious. it definitely added more time to my making. but i can't waste them, so i went ahead and added those steps to my process. i'll probably incorporate them on the quilt back somehow or put them in another quilt altogether.

once or twice i cut the corner pieces off on the wrong side of the second seam i'd made for the hsts. shoot! i lost those hsts, but at least i didn't ruin the larger piece. i include these mishaps to show that even with constant mistake making, i still make quilts! just gotta keep calm and carry on.

day three, once i had the first two sets of stripes done, i decided to turn my attention to the 16 patch blocks for a change and because i was going to need them in place to start assembly. this is where i got a real headache, a maths headache! i thought i was going to be making 10" blocks, which would me i could use 2.5" squares. then i thought a little more about seam allowances and realized maybe i would need 25 patches at 5x5 squares. i didn't have enough different fabrics for that and it would be a whole lot more work. what else could i do?

somewhere along the way i looked at the cutting instructions for the squares again and realized they were 10" cut (layer cake friendly) and would finish at 9.5" sq. uh, oh! that was entirely different. the real headache of trying to make that work started. i was getting discouraged. should i resize my strips i'd already made? then my brain said, "what are you thinking? you can make the size you need with 2.5" squares. that works out right." so i laughed at myself and got cutting. i cut a whole entire set of rows, 41 squares each of 4 fabrics, and started sewing my rows up.

i was having a great time doing this.

somewhere along the way, after i cut the whole set (using up two of my fabrics completely), i did some more quick math in my head and realized i was so wrong. i was on my way to making 8" finished squares, not 9.5" i just wanted to cry. i turned everything off and left the sewing room for a nap. 

but instead i started looking at "edna" on instagram to see if anyone else had done smaller than four-patches and could help me with my math. i found one! i sent a message to the maker, lydia, and on a whim sent another one to the pattern writer, jennifer, in case she knew how to do it.

jennifer got back to me right away and we began a whole discussion on the topic. we noticed the star points didn't match up in size with the squares, so they weren't 2.5". lydia must have done the crazy math and cut things at 1/8ths of inches. i wasn't up for that.

in the end, i decided to shorten my stripes to fit the 8" blocks. this would simplify my math dilemma, save the fabrics i had already cut, and shrink the quilt a little, which was desirable. it's a generous 64"x77", which is a little larger than i normally make my throw quilts. 

problem solved.

back to work.

my quilt making may feel like this sometimes, but i still get quilts made in the end! it's going to be a while before i'm done with this one. so many small parts and tons of cutting still to do! but i'm up for the process of this one, fussy cutting and directional star points, and all. i'm enjoying the process and making it the way i want to.

 every time i say the name of this quilt pattern - i hear the edna character from the incredibles movie saying her name from this clip in my head. "ed-na mode." that's the mode i'm in!

signature style and a naughty needle

i've been thinking about handquilting signatures/styles. everyone who handquilts seems to have their own unique stitch style, much like a handwriting style. i find this fascinating and intriguing. why do we all differ so much? 

i'm trying to get this liberty courthouse steps quilt's handquilting completed before i go home later this week so i can have it ready for binding. so, i've been spending time pushing and pulling the needle and thread a lot. i took a few photos along the way and even made a short video i posted to instagram demonstrating how my stitching goes. i've learned from other quilters when they share their method and i like watching them do their stitch thing, so i shared mine. 

one of my favorite parts of handquilting is when i'm burying the thread and it goes "pop!" as it snaps through the fabric, as it's about to do above. i find that so satisfying. when a fabric doesn't pop, i'm always unsure if it's worked and have to double check myself. so the pop isn't all visceral pleasure, it also tells me something.

a closeup of my stitching as it appears on tana lawn. the white thread blends a little more here than on the chambray where it really stands out. you can faintly see the hera marker line i score into the fabric to mark my stitching path.

my stitches are pretty small and fairly close together. i've seen other quilters who use these marvelous big stitches with big spaces in between and wonder how they got them that way. joz is a great example of big stitches. here are a few facts about my stitching that likely affect the appearance:

• i don't use a hoop or frame
• i use thin, short needles with a small eye, typically the tulip quilting betweens in the orange box
• i use aurifil 12wt thread
• so far, i only quilt straight lines
• i quilt away from myself, as opposed to left or right
• i tend to rock my needle up and down as i move it through the quilt sandwich
• i rarely use a thimble
• my left hand goes under the quilt and grips it from beneath while i quilt with my right hand
• i pin baste quilts i'm going to handquilt
• i use "warm and natural"100% cotton batting (which i buy on the bolt)

this theo piece is the one i filmed myself stitching. i'm not high tech at all, i just had my daughter stand behind me and hold my phone between my face and my hands to record while i was stitching. admittedly, it was a little awkward! and it affected my stitching slightly. the stitches are a bit further apart than usual. but i did pretty well considering having that thing in my face.

when i started having trouble threading the needle (after a while fluff begins to catch in the eye), i decided it was time to change it out. i grabbed a new bohin quilting needle i recently purchased in a bundle with a new needle threader. i loved how tiny it was. 

but when i tried threading it with the threader, i could not get that thread through! i had replaced my former pretty threaders (also here) with a new plastic red one, which seemed like it would be a little more sturdy than the tin ones that eventually break. 

well, the threader didn't break but the needle bent terribly! i was shocked. i've only ever had machine needles do anything like this. never a hand needle.

 i decided to tug one more time and the darn thing snapped!

i safely disposed of it in the kitchen garbage and searched out another tulip needle. back to business with my trusty standards.

wish me luck getting my stitching done before i leave.

disaster averted

i sat down to work on handbinding "citrus season" this morning and got a nasty shock - there was no needle on my thread. clearly, the thread had snapped and the needle fallen off. uh, oh. big uh, oh!

i quickly thought back over when i last knew the needle was there and where it might have gone. when i was last stitching on it in the car, i had some thread problems and for a second i thought maybe it had broken again as i was finishing up and i'd simply put the needle away. but, no, that wasn't it. so where could the needle be? where should i look?

thinking back, i remembered that when we got home in the evening, i spread the quilt out in an open space in my bedroom to get a look at how much binding was complete. i attempted this a couple of times because my girls (18 & 13) were in a silly sister mood and were bumbling all over my small bedroom, shrieking with laughter, as i tried to spread the quilt out. then i'd folded it up and put it away.

i have a habit of always tucking the needle into the binding or wherever i'm stitching so it doesn't get lost. usually with the binding i also cover it up with a few binding clips so it stays put and so the sharp end is covered, to avoid getting poked. obviously, i hadn't covered it with the clips. as for tucking it in, either i failed to do that this time or it came loose when i was flapping the quilt around and the girls were banging in to me. (in future, i will always cover with clips.)

well, i was in a right panic to know where that needle had gone! i could think of all kinds of bad scenarios with one of us sitting or stepping on it, embedding it fully and deeply in a body part. i had flashbacks to my childhood when my mom would lose her sewing needles or pins in our deep shag carpet all.the.time and we'd end up with one in our foot. (the story of my baby sister getting a needle in her shoe - yikes!) this is one reason i'm always extra cautious with my pins and needles. in 15 years, i've never lost one like this before. my husband always seems to be the one who picks up any missed sharp objects in his feet (like broken glass), so i was especially worried about him. 

i went to the bedroom to begin the search where i'd stored the folded quilt, then got down on my hands and knees and began sweeping the carpet with my hands and eyes for the needle. fortunately, i found it rather quickly without even poking myself. i was sooooo relieved! i was already on my knees and, i kid you not, i just sat there and prayed out loud in gratitude for finding that needle.

this could have been a quilting horror story - blood, a trip to the doctors, who knows what. but thanks to a benevolent providence, i guess it's just a home ec moment and a reason to make the PSA to all of us to remember to securely tuck in your needles when you're not stitching.

needle found (thank you, Lord!), i got on with my handbinding work. my husband happened to be surfing out in front of our house, so i got a show with my view. see those two specks out in the water? that's him and another fellow trying to catch waves. i know heather ross's malibu fabrics have cute kids in swimsuits surfing, but the only surfers i've seen here yet are adults in full black wetsuits. that water is cold! 

we've had another spell of cold-ish days and overcast skies. i'm ready for a little sun again. on the cold days it's hard to get myself out of my cozy clothes and into something else. i'm starting to look like an old sea salt.

speaking of "citrus season," i've recently discovered a new citrus love. having a small orchard of my own citrus at home, i hardly ever buy citrus. but i kept seeing these weird, wrinkly, knobby sumo citrus at the grocery store. i finally broke down and bought some. they're originally from japan, but these are grown here. 

they're amazing! easy to peel, nice size, sweet, and delicious. i haven't had a bad one yet and i'm eating them every day now.