Thank You, The Border, Thank You

THANK YOU #1

I want to thank everyone for voicing their experiences with quilting an applique project. I truly appreciate all the feed back I recieved in my last posting about how to approach the poofiness in the unquilted applique areas. I kept a tally of the responses and found that:

1. It is a split decision on whether to cut away the background fabric behind the applique. Of all the comments, Janet's spoke to me most clearly: As far as cutting away the background I have heard that it was usually not cut away. If the applique pieces lift at some point in the future it is a lot easier to repair if the background is still whole. Who knows, in a hundred years someone will need to "fix" this quilt and after commenting to her friends that the circles are mostly wonky...she will be sad that I cut the background away.

2. Everyone said to go ahead and quilt in the applique areas....good because this poofy stuff really bugs me :0)

3. As for color of thread to use, most said to go ahead and use color thread. Many mentioned that on antique quilts, the maker used the same color (white) throughout the quilt, but as nice as my quilting stitches are, I think the white would be distracting in the darker colors. If I had actually thought this through before I started quilting, I would have used a multi-colored backing instead of muslin.

Again, thank you for all the feed back.

THE BORDER

It took me 2 days and a lot of looking through my quilting motif books to decide how I was going to quilt the borders. I really wanted to do radiating arcs and wanted to have them flowing outward but it just didn't look right. It would have been perfect if I took the borders off and turned the pattern the other way but that was NEVER going to happen so I decided to just keep doing the grid....boring but workable.

So all day Saturday, between shoveling snow and playing Word Whomp on the computer, I got the grid all drawn on. Ignore the color differences in the background fabrics. I used many different white on white fabrics and in real light there isn't a big difference in color. However, I will NEVER do this again. Some of these fabrics turned yellowish as they aged, another learning experience :0)

I showed, a couple of posts ago, that I use the Crayola Fine Tip Washable Markers to mark my lines for quilting. As you can see in this "blurry" picture, the color does kinda rub off (an understatement) onto your hands while drawing but rinses right off.

It also gets all over my ruler. Note: Do NOT wash your rulers with hot water, cold works just fine.

So doing the grid on the border equates to doing about 6 more blocks. Another month or so of working on this quilt, but I am making progress LOL.

THANK YOU #2 AND 3

I have a couple of very sweet friends that named me to recieve some bloggy awards. The Lemonade Stand, I recieved from Sunshine at The Cutting Edge Quilt. She called me quirky but that's ok, because I am LOL. Go on over and visit her, she's such a sweetie :0)

The Beautiful Blogger award I received from my long time on-line friend Kim at Live Well, Love Much, Laugh and Quilt Often. Kim is an artist in her approach to quilting and also does some beautiful beaded jewelry.

I'm suppose to write 7 things about me and for the life of me, can't think of a darn thing. Besides the snow plow just went by and I have to dig out the driveway so I can get to work. Also, as many of you know, I don't nominate people for awards. If I read your blog, it's because I love them...and you...and can't just name a few. So if you like 'em, please grab 'em and display 'em proudly on your blog...you deserve them.

Crispy

Need Some Opinions

As you know I'm using a 1/2" grid to quilt my Baltimore. However, I'm really not happy with the lack of quilting in the applique pieces, they look so poofy, especially on the back. For pieced quilts I try to keep the amount of quilting consistant through out the quilt and I must admit this is bugging me, but I'm not sure if quilting is traditionally done in the appliqued pieces (no one ever shows the back of Baltimores and I've never seen one in person).

So what I would like to know is if I should quilt the larger pieces of the applique (these are 16" blocks)? I would be using red, green and yellow threads and just some echoing quilting or veins in the larger leaves. Have you even done this?? I know that the back will look goofy, with different colored threads, but that part doesn't really bother me.

I cut away the background fabric from behind the appliqued pieces, it's what I read I should do, way back when. This is causing the red and green to really shadow through and I believe it's adding to the poofy thing. I can live with that but am curious if you cut away the background?? I won't be doing that on the Aunt Millie, as I want to see the difference.

I only have 1/4 of the last block to quilt then on to the border. I still haven't decided if I will echo or continue the grid....I'm leaning to echoing.

Thanks in advance for any and all opinions :0)

Crispy

PS - I know I'm not posting very often, but who wants to keep seeing the same ol' thing every day LOL. As long as I'm in the hand quilting mode, I won't be posting very often, but you all know I'm keeping up with your blogs :0)

Bean Bags

I finished up needle turning the block from yesterday. Dang, the circle is a little flat on one side...I may or may not fix it LOL. Also, I do not recommend using a white on white fabric for needle turn, it does not give you smooth edges.

I really do prefer needle turn over reverse applique. I'm really looking forward to trying this new to me method of piece placement on an Aunt Millie block. I'm still working the legistics out in my head.

I'm going back to hand quilting on the Baltimore now that my fingers are feeling so much better.

Better go shovel out my walkway again then I can settle down to sew for a couple of hours before work. I will love it when the wind stops howling and causing these blizzard conditions.

Crispy

5 Days Off - A Long Post

What can you get "done" when you have 5 days off and can't do what you had planned? You get to sew on lots of different things. Now the word "done" is a bit of a misnomer, as I rarely get anything "done", but I do make a "little" progress. I was going to hang with the SIS group on Thursday and attend a quilt show on Friday or Saturday but thanks to Mother Nature, I was home bound (I don't drive if there is a threat of freezing rain). So this is what I did:

I spent the first two days hand quilting on the Baltimore and only have two of the seven blocks left to do. Sewing a 1/2" grid on 16" blocks takes a lot of time and thread. I can't believe it's taken almost a whole spool for 5 blocks. Since I have been doing a lot of hand quilting lately, I decided to give my poor fingers a break and went looking to see what else I could work on.

Remember when I said I was tossing that Aunt Millie's block? Well my blogger buddy Terri asked if I would send it to her. Luckily I tossed it in the fabric/paper waste basket instead of in the kitchen garbage. I rummaged it out, sewed down one leaf and am sending it off to her on Monday.

I had preped some Dutch Treat blocks a long while ago and thought I would play with those and the Dear Jane blocks that go with them. This is the Dear Jane block I got made, A-13.

The idea behind this project is to make one Dutch Treat Block and then a Dear Jane block in the same fabric. I'm picking blocks from each book that appeal to me and will all end up in one quilt. This is what I have done so far...it's a pick up/put down project.


So I decide I'm going to make one of the Dutch Treat blocks. I start appliqueing and realized that I truly hate doing reverse applique, if I don't really have to. Since this block, Bean Bags, is a simple design, I picked apart what I had done so I could do normal needle turn and got this brain storm. I usually use a vinyl overlay for piece placement but did this instead:

I printed out the entire block onto freezer paper and cut out the pattern sections, ironed the template to the white fabric, traced around the shapes and cut them out. I didn't decide to document with photos until after I did this part.

I then ironed the template to the background fabric.

Next I pinned the pieces on top of the open spaces on the template. See how the red shadows through? This made lining up the pieces very easy. I could feel the edge of the template, through the piece, so that helped too.


Here they are all pinned down.

This is the cool part. I just peeled off the template and the pieces just popped through the holes.

Here it is, all pieces where they need to be...no fuss....no muss.

I don't know how this will work with a more complicated block, but I think I will be playing with this when I pick up my Aunt Millie's again. I suppose you can either thread baste or glue the pieces but I don't do either of those so can't say for sure.

So today I will stitch down this block, do laundry, shovel some more snow (ick), do laundry and basically be a bum all day :0)

Crispy