It is mid-October and my husband is still waiting for his quilt and the weather is getting cooler and he will need it soon.
The top is finished. I do all my quilt making on my home sewing machine. I don’t have access to a quilting machine system, nor do I think it is the best investment for me as I could never make enough quilts to justify the high cost of such a thing and do not wish to turn it into a business. Besides, I don’t have room for one.
This quilt is a monster and I do not think I can managed machine quilting anything but the outer areas of the border and maybe the pieced strips I added along the top and bottom. Instead, I am going to do my best to get the center panel and surrounding frame hand basted and locked onto my PVC quilt frame that has Q clamps to create a work area of 28 x 39 inches at a time. Once that area is finished, it should, theoretically, be easier to go from there.
My mediocre hand quilting skills will be put the test and hopefully, the practice will make me better at hand quilting. I had a lesson on how to hand quilt years ago, when I first decided to use my decades of sewing to learn how to make quilts. More recently, I have been trying techniques from hand quilters with online instructional videos. I noticed the threads, needles, and thimbles, as well as the techniques each used, varied widely from quilter to quilter. One used #30 thread and another prefers #8 thread. My abilities will not translate well to the thicker, more visible stitches of the #8 thread, so I will be using a thinner thread. I pretty much mastered the quilter’s knot and burying the thread into the batting. But the stitching, is absolutely amateur hour, no matter how much I practice. I even have a book on hand quilting.
Now that the top is finished, it is ready to make the 90 x 64 inch sandwich and I have been procrastinating, out of sheer terror.
I have added pictures of the panel quilt along with my “procrastination quilts” because they were fun and cute and relatively quick and small enough to stitch in the ditch on my machine. And, I can use all the practice I can get!
The cute pumpkin quilt was from a video I watched that was posted by Jenny Doan of Missouri Star Quilt Company. I downloaded the digital pattern and followed Jenny, pausing when I needed to, so I could make with her. She is so much fun and shows the easiest way to make the cutest things. One of her videos taught me how to make perfect straight seam binding every time and it is my binding bible.
The pumpkin quilt is a table cloth for my dining room table to protect it from the warm dishes and unnecessary scratching at meal time. I also decided to make it reversible so I can use until the Christmas holiday season, which will give me time to make one for the holidays. It is just a big star but in the same autumn palette.
The two other procrastination quilts are to protect my sofa from the prolific shedding of my seventeen pound, fifteen year old white and orange cat. The first one, I made too small for his royal highness to stretch out on so I made a second with a cute fat quarter pack I found on Missouri Star Quilt Company’s Daily Deal (the larger quilt made of squares and creamy white sashing.) The smaller one was an Amazon fabric find.
Yes, writing this post is another procrastinating technique of mine. But I have an excuse for it this week. We have contractors cutting holes and installing heat vents into every room of the house, including my quilt room. But they are almost finished and I will absolutely have to get started on that quilt sandwich.
The next update of my husband’s quilt will be the finished product. (I’m hoping!)
Please feel free to post your quilting adventures and comments as I would love to read them, especially if you are a new quilter like me. And if you are a pro at quilt making, I am open to suggestions! Even if you just happened to read this post for no particular reason, please feel free to offer your comments or just say hi.
Thanks for stopping by!
Fran
Fran Beally's Blog 