Decisions, Decisions!

I have started quilting the Indigo and Lace quilt.  The quilt has been stabilized by stitching in the ditch on both sides of all the sashing.  For the decorative part, for most of the quilt, I know what I want to do:  This!

Sew on the arches and triangles that are there on the front. MAYBE outline the "fluer de lis" in the corner.  (I tried it out on one square just to see if I'd like it, and I do.)  I'll be free motion quilting this quilt. Easy.   But for those big empty areas in the center and the corners.... I'm stymied!  It's such a big big area of nothingness!  I've been looking at it for days, searching other quilts on the Internet to see what I could do.  I took the pins out, picked up my chalk pencil and started sketching some ideas, right on the fabric:

I kept washing it off, and trying again.  Finally, I just had to STOP!  I started sketching on paper instead!

I know that I want to keep the corner-to-corner arch.  That ties it in with the rest of the quilt.  I've been studying how to sew feathers, but I don't want to use feathers here.  I don't want the center to be all cluttered up either.  Something simple.  I want some triangles too.. maybe around the edges?  I'm still in the thinking stage here, but the quilt won't get done till I figure it out.  I can't even get it started!!  Talk about Brain Freeze!

Summary of Quilts

I thought I'd like to have a post to put the pictures of all the quilts I've done so far.  So here they are, my quilts (or finished quilt tops) in chronological order:

Split Rail, 2010

Bob's Cowboy Quilt, 2011

Linda's Sampler Quilt, 2011

Jeff's Blue Star Quilt, 2011

Baby Stauffacher Quilt, 2011

Alayna's Rosebud Quilt, 2012

Kaylyn's Cubed Kaleidoscope Quilt, 2012

Mya's Pink String Quilt, 2012

Joe and Braden's X-Marks-the Spot Wedding Quilt, 2012

Brady's Dinosaur Quilt, 2012

Luke and Maggie's Deer Quilt, 2012

Kathy and Dan's Around the World Wedding Quilt, 2013

Dianne's MoonGlow Quilt, 2012

Anna's Butterfly Quilt, 2013

The Harry Potter Quilt, 2013

Jacob McGuire's Baby Quilt,2013

Jase McGuire's Baby Quilt. 2013

Doug and Gina's
Four Winds Quilt, 2013

Indigo and Lace Quilt, 2013

Birthday Blocks from Quilt Guild, 2014

Ringed Kalaidoscope Quilt, 2014

Dragon

I have been working hard on my dragon, and am quite pleased with it.  It is finished now!  Here it is:  the only thing I might do differently next time (!) is give the horns and tail spikes more color.  They don't show up very well against my light background.  I did switch out some of my other fabrics.  The body of the dragon is an olive green with yellow flecks now.  My original fabric was too too too dark.  Hardly any contrast between the body and legs/arms/face.  This works much better.  I also switched out the book fabric from tan to a bright orange.  I want to put a title on the book yet: "Dragon Fire!  Don't Get Burned!"  It measures 10.5 x 20.5.  It was a little larger,but I trimmed it to these measurements.  It was fun to do, and a special thanks to Jennifer for allowing me to be in her test group.

Horntail Dragon

I must be a hyperactive quilter.  I have so many projects in the works!  My newly pinned quilt awaits, but I have set it aside for yet another new project!

Let me explain!  I belong to a Facebook group called the Project of Doom.  This group posts pictures and comments about the Harry Potter BOOKCASE quilt.  I have been working on the Harry Potter CASTLE quilt, but have been posting my pics in the PoD group.  I was politely asked not to post these pics in this group and several other groups were suggested to me as a means of sharing the castle quilt blocks.  So I stopped posting my pics.  But it was noted that "I do nice work."  Shortly after this, I received an invitation to join another group.  A PATTERN TESTING group.  This lady designed a beautiful dragon pattern and wanted people to test the pattern, identifying any errors, making note of how much fabric is used, etc.  How could I turn that down!???  Of course, I couldn't!

So!  Now I am sewing a Harry Potter Horntailed dragon!  It will fit in with my second Harry Potter bookcase quilt, so I will be able to use the block, which will measure 20" x 10" when finished.  It's a very detailed pattern, LOTS of sections, but I am very excited about it.  Here's what it will look like when it is finished:  (This is Jennifer's version.)

Here are my chosen fabrics:  

My dragon will be greenish. The colors don't show true in this picture.  The center fabric looks purple-ish here but is a brown/black batik.  The left fabric is more of a dark green/olive batik.  The bottom fabric is for the book the dragon stands on.  Brown for "leather."






I got started right away and you can see my dragon-wing here.  So far so good, not hard at all.  I think the tricky part will come when trying to join the head section together, all those seams coming to a point.  We'll see!  I'm not that far yet.  This should take me a few days (or more?)

Finally Pinned

My Indigo and Lace quilt is FINALLY pinned to my satisfaction.  Last Monday I took it in to the Quilt Guild meeting an hour and a half early and some ladies in my guild met me there and we pinned the quilt together.  It got done really quickly and I am so grateful for the 4 ladies that showed up to help me.  One lady said "I don't do floors" so we laid out the layers on 3 big tables.  I regret that I didn't take a picture.  Anyway, we were done before the meeting started and I was happy.

Indigo and Lace, All Pinned, Ready to Sew

Now, the thing I did differently this time was that I used POLYESTER batting.  NEVER BUY THAT STUFF!!  Always get the cotton batting (I typically use the 80/20.)  When I started to actually quilt the quilt, the pinning was so loose.  I tightened up the pins, smoothing it out and it looked good on the front, but when I flipped it over, the back was so loose and horrible.  Wrinkles and creases everywhere.  So I smoothed out the back and repinned.  This was the third pinning, and that should have done it right?  NO!  Now the front was a mess!  I tried to smooth it out as I quartered the quilt, thinking if I just got started, I could smooth it out as I went.  NO!  That polyester batting did not stick to either the backing or the quilt top, just slid around in the middle causing havoc.  HAVOC!

Finally, I had enough!  After 3 days of fighting this quilt, I knew it wasn't going to get any better!  Last night I removed all the pins, ripped out my quilt stitches, and un-layered my sandwich.  I was starting over!  Today, I made the sandwich on my kitchen floor, using 80/20 cotton batting! It pinned beautifully, and I could tell the difference immediately!  I flipped it over when I was done, the back is nice and tight, ready to sew!  I'll give myself a couple hours to recover (Advil!) and then start sewing again!  I feel so much better about this now.  The quilt measures 98 x 98 and this is about as big as I can go!  No room to spare, as you can see in the picture!

Let me reiterate the lesson I learned:  Polyester batting belongs in a doll or the garbage, not in a quilt!

The Sorting Hat

Another one done.  The Sorting Hat:

These little blocks take as much time as the big ones do!

Deathly Hallows

Here is the Deathly Hallows symbol.  It was a pain to make because the pattern had an error in it.  This was not obvious until you sewed the 2 halves together.  There is should be a center yellow line on both inner sections of each half.  This only shows on one of the pattern pieces.  So the peak of the triangle didn't match up and was off center.  Looked goofy.  I ripped the two halves apart and added in the second yellow strip, but it didn't help the off-centeredness.  I ended up ripping out lots of sections.  My paper disintegrated, I had pieces of thread sticking out everywhere.  I fixed and re-fixed.  I could have sewed a whole new block in the time it took me to get this looking decent.  At any rate, here it is:

the Deathly Hallows

The Dementor

I have finished the borders on my Birthday Guilt Guild quilt, and so now it's back to the fun stuff!  Here is my Dementor!  It's "face" is supposed to be black. (Does the Dementor even have an actual face?)  I made it a dark purple because if I made it black, you wouldn't even see it!  I like how this turned out.

the Dementor!

Birthday Block Quilt

I have set aside the paper piecing of the castle quilt for awhile to work on the Birthday Block Quilt Guild Quilt.  I'm not really liking this one so much.  I don't like all of these blocks, but feel obligated to use them.  It was a headache to "edit" these blocks to get them all to 10 1/2".  Some of these blocks I like a LOT, and I appreciate the efforts of the ladies who made them, but I don't feel the look of the quilt is as unified as I would have liked.  I have the top finished, minus the borders.  Maybe when I get the border on it'll "feel" better to me.  I'm going to use that black focus fabric as the border.  Here it is:

Mazes

I have pieced a maze for the castle quilt, but I didn't like it.  There wasn't enough contrast between the colors of the walls.  So, I redid it.  MUCH BETTER!  Take a look:

First Maze 

Second Maze

I think the problem laid in the patterns of the fabric design, which tended to blur the edges of the walls.  Also, with the first maze, the pattern was a 6" pattern, finishing off to a 5 1/2 inch sq.  Too big!  This is what I get for not measuring the pattern after it was printed!  I ripped apart some of the pieces and cut them down (notice the front walls are shorter....)  A lot of work, and I still won't use the block!  Here's a tip!  To shrink a 6" block pattern to a 5 1/2" block pattern, shrink it by 91% !!  I experimented with that a little after doing the math, and 92% was a little too big, but 91% was the key!  I'll remember to check the size of the patterns from now on!  Lesson learned!

Paper Piecing Tutorial

This is for you, Dianne!  :)

Here is why paper piecing is so nice!  Take a look at these two sections of my "Birthday Block" Quilt Guild quilt.

The quilt pattern I am using for "sashing" would need 80 long skinny rectangles where you have to cut off the corners at a 45 degree angle and sew on a 2.5 inch triangle.  Later you will sew two of these sections (as in the top half of the picture) together to form a sort of squished hexagon,  You hope your triangles aren't gonna turn out too small or lopsided, and you hope the points don't get squared off when you sew them to the blocks.  You COULD make larger triangles, but then you'd have the extra step of squaring the strips ( x 80!)

OR!

You can make a paper piece pattern (which is what I did), and combine the two strips into one piece with 4 corners.  Your paper piece will give you PERFECT points, with PERFECT quarter inch seam allowances AND you only need 40 of them.  And there's not a seam down the center of the white.  I think it's a no-brainer!  No wonder I love paper piecing!  Down at the bottom of this tutorial, you will see my quilt-in-progress using these paper pieced "blocks" as the sashing.  It looks good too!

So, let's start.  Here is the paper piece pattern that I designed to make life easier for me.  It is 4.5 x 10.5 and will finish to 4 x 10.  You will need to make one paper pattern for every block.  I copied off 40 of them.

Here is what I need.  40 pattern papers, 40 large (white) rectangles, 160 triangles, and a postcard.  The "postcard" can be any cardstock weight paper.  A birthday card, a cereal box, etc.  A rotary cutter too, of course, and a cutting mat, and pins, and a sewing machine.  Your fabric will need to be at least a quarter inch larger than the section it will cover.  In paper piecing, larger is better.  The directions (for the strips) said to use a 2.5 inch square, cut diagonally in half.  I used a  3.25" square cut in half.  Better to have some "wiggle room" in paper piecing!  My white "squished hexagon" needed to be at least 10.5 x 4.5. (including the corners).   I cut my white fabric rectangles into 5.25 x 11.25" rectangles.

Sew the sections in order.

All paper piecing patterns are numbered to show you the order in which to add the pieces.  This is very important because each new piece added covers and sews over seam allowances and raw edges of the previous pieces.  If you do the pieces out of order, it'll be a mess!  Sometimes, if 2 pieces don't over lap, the order is not as important.  In my simple pattern, the diagonal corners don't overlap, so it doesn't matter which you do first.  In fact, since NONE of them overlap, you could do any corner at any time for this pattern.  Generally though, follow the numbers, and sew in order.  In my pattern, the #1 piece MUST be added first.  Since it is so large, and since I made my fabric rectangle larger than the paper, I just put the fabric on the mat and the paper on top of it.  The important thing to remember is that the BACK OF THE FABRIC GOES AGAINST THE BACK OF THE PAPER.  For the FIRST PIECE ONLY, when you hold the paper against the fabric, you should have the pattern showing on one side, and the pretty side of the fabric showing on the other.  After that, ALL other pieces will go "right sides together" when added.

Pins keep the fabric from shifting.

Because this is a larger piece, I add pins to help hold it.  After I sew a couple of lines, I can remove the pins.  The flat headed "flower pins" (yes, that is what they are really called!) are nice for this because you can put a postcard or ruler over them and everything still lies nice and flat.





Alright!  Ready to make the first cut?  First we need to cut off the white corners so we can add the orange ones.  Place your postcard against the line between sections 1 and 2.  (I did not number my sections, just choose any corner!)  Fold the paper over the postcard.

Now, put the quarter inch line of your ruler on the fold.  That quarter inch is the seam allowance you will need for your next piece.  Cut off the white corner along the edge of your ruler.

Next, flip your pattern piece to the back side.  Take your next piece and align the raw edges together and you are ready to sew!  As usual, be sure that your fabrics are RIGHT SIDES TOGETHER.

  

You can pin the new piece if it is large, or just hold it in place to sew it.  Flip the piece so that you can see the pattern, and sew on the line between the 2 pieces of fabric, starting and stopping a few stitches from the sewing line.  You will sew over these stitches later with another piece or block to secure them.  

 

For paper piecing, you will want to use a very small stitch.  This is so the paper is perforated so that it can be removed easily.  If you are sewing a piece with lots of seams really close together, or you want to be sure things are aligned well before you sew, you can sew with a very large stitch to sort of baste it in place first. If it looks ok, then re-sew with the small stitches.  You want to get it right the first time if possible because those little stitches are hard to rip out. Here is an example of "normal" quilt stitches, and the tinier "paper piecing" stitches.

After sewing, check to make sure all the area you wanted to cover IS actually covered!  You can hold your piece up to a light, or a window to see through the paper and see where your fabric is on the other side. Sometimes the fabric might shift as you sew and you end up with a part not covered.  If it's in the seam allowance, I usually leave it if  the space uncovered is less than an eighth of an inch.  If it's more than that, or if it's part of the actual block that is not covered, sadly, you should rip it out and re-sew.

This corner is completely covered.

 If all is well, iron the seam.

You can now repeat this process for each of the other pieces: 

1.  Postcard on the line

2.  Fold paper over the postcard.

3.  Put ruler with quarter inch line on the fold.

4.  Cut with rotary cutter along edge of ruler.

5.  Flip over, align raw edge of next piece to raw edge of previous (just cut) piece, right sides together .

6.  (Pin if necessary.) Sew.

7.  Check against the light.

8. Iron

 

When all the new pieces have been added, flip the block over to the front side (side with the pattern) to trim it to size.  DON'T CUT OFF THE SEAM ALLOWANCE!!  (I have done this and it renders the block useless!)

All done!

  Here's how they look so far in my quilt:

I hope I didn't confuse you!  I wanted to show you the PROCESS.  Here are links to a couple of other tutorials that might help too.

Tutorial 1

The girl in this short (9 min) video sews first and then trims.  Paper piecing can be done either way.  Trim first (as I do) then sew, or sew first, then trim.  Actually I do it both ways in more complicated blocks.

For a longer (38 min), more comprehensive tutorial, try this one:

Tutorial 2

It shows how to make a fairly complicated block.