The Trip is Finished!

Well, here it is, finished at last:  my Around the World Quilt.  The final step was the binding, and I had some trouble with it.  I trimmed the backing and batting to 1/2 in. bigger than the quilt top, and I usually do a quarter inch.  I recommend the quarter inch.  I had backing fabric and batting folded over and sticking out of the binding on the back side of the quilt.  I had to redo a number of sections.  But it was worth it, because it is finished and it is beautiful!  Now, who should I give it to???

Quilting in progress

I have been working on quilting the Around the World Quilt.  This is done via free-motion quilting on my sewing machine, not on a long-arm machine.  I do it myself.  I always have trouble deciding how to quilt the quilts, but this one just seemed to naturally call for circles.  My brain saw circles right away, and since it's "A-Round" the World quilt, it's a perfect fit!  It's really easy to do, too, although some of my circles are a little wobbly.  I'm getting better at this free motion stuff, and not so leary of it either.  I have learned that a little faster is better than little slower.  Going to slow gives me too big of stitches.  I am finding a very comfortable speed for my movements with the quilt.  Practice makes perfect!   (If you click on the pictures, you can see a enlarged photo of it.)

Front

Back

Rip and Flip

I should have named this Blog "Vicki's Quilting MISTAKES!"  Sigh.  My Around the World quilt was looking beautiful, and I was all set to back it and bind it.  One final check before I started revealed a startling truth!  Some of the white squares were sewn in upside down!  16 to be exact.  Ohhhh I was heartsick!  So much work had to be redone.

It wasn't very noticeable, but I knew it and had to fix it.  My seam ripper got a good workout, and each upside down square was carefully ripped out and flipped over.  Ironed and re-sewn.  I was worry that now the edges would be stretched, or the corners wouldn't match, but that was all for naught.  It looked perfect again after it was fixed, but it was VERY time consuming

I hope people who read this will learn from my mistakes and save themselves some trouble.
Today's lesson:  Beware of fabrics where it is hard to tell the front from the back!   PAY ATTENTION!  My only consolation is that I discovered this error BEFORE I  bound and quilted the quilt!  Ripping seams is bad enough, but ripping out quilting, binding and then seams, unthinkable!

Perfect? NOT!

Well, LIVE AND LEARN!  My "perfect" backing for the Dinos on Parade quilt has some real logistic problems.  First off, I bought just enough fabric to back the quilt.  ALWAYS BUY EXTRA!!  I measured the quilt (measure twice, cut once, ok. I did that.)  I cut the fabric into 2 halves, now sew them together, backing is done!  WRONG!!  What did I forget in that scenario????  MATCHING THE PATTERN!  The backing fabric has large dinosaurs.  When I cut the fabric, aligned the edges, ready to sew, I noticed the discrepancy.  OHHHH!  Yeah, it'll be WAY BETTER to match the pattern, it will be much less noticeable that the backing was pieced.  Ok, I matched the pattern, but there was about a 6 inch jog in the fabric now, and since I had bought JUST ENOUGH, that 6 in jog at the top and bottom made the backing too short.  Six lousy inches too short! Booo hooo hooo!

  

Still plenty of width though, so I tried putting the quilt on sideways with the seam running horizontal instead of vertical.  IT FIT!!  with about an inch to spare at the top and bottom.   Whew!  BUT....  Geez,  The dinosaur pattern has one dinosaur that only faces one way. (It's the T-Rex, too.  We can't have the T-Rex laying on it's back, can we?!!)  All the others have some facing up, or down, or left, or right, so they could be oriented in either way.  But the T-Rex should be oriented only in one direction, or he would appear sideways on the backing.  What to do????  Here are my choices:

1. Give up.  (no)
2. Buy more fabric!  (no.)
3. Don't match the backing (no)
4. Fussy cut dinosaurs squares from the excess on the sides to match the pattern on the bottom and sew them on.  (Possibile, but I think that would look tacky.)
5. Put the quilt top on with the horizontal seam and hope no one notices the sideways dinosaurs. Would a kid notice? Probably not.  It's the BACK of the quilt, after all.  (Possible)
6. Cut the backing into large asymmetrical sections and join them again with strips of leftover fabric from the quilt front. (hmmmm....!) (no.)
7. Who says the quilt has to run with the grain of the fabric?   What if you "cocked" the quilt top on the background?  Wouldn't it look the the T-rex was just "leaning"?  Hard to envision this... (especially in the picture below, the quilt top should be at the other end...)  (well, no.  The seam would run at a diagonal and look goofy on the back.)

Another problem here is I don't know how to join the two pieces of fabric so that the seam from the back exactly attaches the pieces of dinosaurs.  I could match them up and TOPSTITCH them together, but then I'd have a line of thread running right down the middle of the dinosaurs.  The purpose of matching the pattern is to make is LESS noticeable.  So here's how I finally did it:

I over lapped the pieces, aligning the matching design.  Then I pressed about a 1/2 inch seam allowance under  on the top piece of fabric, and rematched the design. I pinned as close to the seam edge as possible.  I flipped the fabric over, and found that seam allowance underneath, and now pinned that down too.  Going back to the front, I removed the first set of pins which were very close to the seam.  Now I found the pinned seam allowance underneath again, and found the crease of that seam allowance.  I sewed right in the crease.  The larger seam allowance allowed me to sew right past the pins.  It wasn't perfect, but still not that noticeable in the long run.

I have decided to go with choice #5.  Sew it on sideways and who cares if the T-Rexes are sideways.  My guess is that few people will notice.  If you flip a corner over to look at the back, the T-Rex would be standing upright! 

 Let's get it done!

Deer Quilt

The Deer Quilt is a kit that I bought.  All the fabric is flannel, so this quilt will be especially snuggily!  Kits are a really nice way to do a quilt, especially for a beginner.  All the fabric is included, along with directions.  This kit also included a center Panel, so it went together really fast.  The "Flying Geese" in the border are not real flying geese (3 triangles).  Instead, they are made of 2 sets of  half-square triangles which made it really easy.     All the pieces in this quilt are larger, also ideal for a beginner.  The trickiest part of this quilt was getting the pieced borders just right to fit around the panel.  Also sewing the Flying  Geese sections so the points just touch the seam.  A good learning experience!  This will be a great quilt to cuddle up with in front of the TV on a cold winter day.

Backing for Dinos on Parade

I found a really cool fabric for my Dinos on Parade Quilt.  I LOVE fabric stores!  So many choices, but sometimes you find what you want right away.  Its a navy blue background with orange/yellow, lime green/white, green/yellow, blue/light blue, aqua/light aqua dinosaurs on it.  Same colors as on the top!  Perfect!  Can't wait to put it together now!

              Front                                                                             Back

Around the World top is finished.

Well, I have finished the Around the World quilt top.  I need to get backing fabric yet. (YAY!!  A trip to the fabric store!)  I chose an orange stripe for the inner border because 3 of the fabrics I used have this exact shade of orange/peach in it.  I think it makes a nice frame.  I will be using the dark blue with the orange floral design as the binding fabric.  That'll also bring the orange out to the edges.  For a quilt I wasn't crazy about, it sure turned out nice.  This is the first quilt I have done that measured what the pattern said it would when it was finished!  My quarter inch seams must be right on target now!