Two down

Hooray!  I finished stitching the binding on the Very Hungry Caterpillar baby quilt last night. My plan for tomorrow is to hunt up a box the right size, buy a baby card, and send it on its way. When I laid it out on the bed for the photograph, I was worried I might have wavy borders, but luckily I seem to have followed the directions well enough. Blessings on Cindy for suggesting I watch a video, and on Aimee for making the video!

Hopefully my friend doesn't read this blog to ruin the surprise. I don't think she does- mainly I seem to be popular in Australia and Germany right now, according to my stats. (Herzliche Grüße! Ich spreche ein bisschen Deutsch, weil meine Oma Wienerin war. Ich lese Patchwork Blogs, mein Deutsch zu verbessern. Meine Lieblingsbücher sind Harry Potter auf Deutsch und Liebe geht durch alle Zeiten. Davon ist mein Wortschatz ziemlich seltsam.)

I'm making candied orange peel this evening, so we will see how much quilting I can get done on the Irish Chain quilt. I'm not optimistic. Perhaps tomorrow...

Bible Studies quilt progress report

I'm actually managing to keep up with this quilt-along! (Mark your calendars with a star...) I didn't get around to posting my block from last week, but here it is. It represents Joshua:

Here is the one I made for this week, representing Judges:

When I think of the Book of Judges I always remember the rhymes they used to teach us in Sunday School to remember the books of the Bible in order. The only part I can remember is "Joshua Judges Ruth." It rolls off the tongue, I suppose. Once again, the two outer light steps photographed more gray than blue. I've known about "non-photo blue" color since my days ages ago in drafting class, but I wonder if non-photo blue applies to fabrics as well?  I pieced this one as a foundation paper block, after drafting the pattern in Visio. I've posted the foundation paper pattern here.

The blue fabric in the center of the steps is new. I went out during a break in the storm on Saturday to Quilter's Loft to look for some more blues to coordinate with my fabrics. I started out with just enough for the blocks, but not enough for the borders. I found the blue in the center for one of my borders, and they helped me find just the right cream to go as sashing. I am still missing one additional color for the border, but this quilt-along is a year long, so I have a while to keep hunting. I got a bit more than I needed, so that I can work the new blue fabric in occasionally so that it isn't abrupt.

I have a long weekend because of the President's Day holiday, so I've been working on finishing up the baby quilt for my friend. I got it back from the long-arm-quilter a week ago, and I am very happy with how she quilted it! Here is a view of the infamous slice and dice back:

She made an all-over stippling design in white thread. She asked me whether I know about squaring up the borders of a quilt to avoid wavy binding. I told her, "Of course I do!"

Then I stopped to think that maybe there was more to it than I might think, and given how the whole project was going, I could use a (another?) lesson in squaring up the borders. I did a Google search on squaring up a quilt, and picked the first video that came up. It was this one, by Aimee Griffin of OverallQuilter.com

I was so excited when I saw it was Aimee because I knew then I would at least understand what she was telling me. (I'm beginning to lose so much sewing self-confidence on this "quick" baby quilt project that I am wondering if I am even qualified for a "Quilting for Dummies" book. I need "Quilting for the Hopelessly Scatterbrained and Clueless.") Her suggestion of using two different rulers (a square and a long ruler) was very helpful. I also had not thought of lining up the ruler with the interior border, before. I am so glad I found this video, because Aimee is an excellent teacher. I took her foundation strip paper piecing class based on the Peggy Martin technique a year or so ago. Hopefully now I won't have a wavy binding. I think I may have been so clueless before Cindy's suggestion to find a video that wavy binding wasn't even something I had ever noticed.

I even made a cute little label out of muslin and purple rick-rack, based on the tutorial I found at the Etsy How-Tuesday blog. For future projects, I may put the rick-rack on later in the creative process. This time I attached the rick rack to the muslin first, and then whip-stitched it to the back. It was hard to peel back the rick-rack and avoid stitching through it. I also tried their freezer-paper stiffener trick. I recommend this technique, but only if you are using a single thickness of fabric attached to the freezer paper. I had a double thickness, and it kept jumping around and moving as I wrote on the top. Also, be careful peeling the freezer paper off the back, because the edges frayed a tiny bit when I peeled a little too vigorously.

But wait, there's more!

Last night I cut out the bias binding strips. This time I made them 2.25" wide instead of 2" wide. I carefully stitched the strips together and sewed it onto the quilt. I even got the binding ends joined together with a minimum of effort. "I'm really getting the hang of this," I thought. Pride goes before the fall, right? I went to press the seam and pulled the binding around to the back. I couldn't figure out why it went so far around, why the fabric sandwich didn't fill out the binding. Suddenly, I realized that I meant to do double-fold binding, but had, instead, only sewn it as if it were single-fold binding. At that point I gave up and went to bed.

This morning, after a night of reflection followed by a consultation with my mother, I did not pick off the binding. I am carefully folding the edges and then stitching over top of it again. My DH pointed out that this "quick" project is taking me more effort and time than the birth of my friend's child will probably take. I swear this project is cursed. I am wondering if I should take the dratted thing down to church and ask one of the priests to bless it for me. Can quilts be blessed? Do they need exorcisms? But what if it is cursed with an inept sewist, not demons? 

Miscellaneous musings

The other week, I got to travel to a convention and work the booth for my company. A couple booths down from us were the fine folks from Sanborn Mapping. As a serial UFO creator, I am always in the market for tote bags to store UFOs or carry my items to quilt club meetings. My eye fell on their display of promotional goods, and I knew that this would be perfect for club toting. (I've included the Keepsake catalog for size comparison.)

I must admit, I did not follow proper booth etiquette to get it. Proper booth etiquette is that you only get promotional items if you talk to the representatives first about their product and then ask for it. Instead, I simply asked the representative for a bag. Perhaps he was astonished at my freshness, but he let me have one. So, thank you again, Sanborn Mapping!

I had a little baby quilt, the edge was so off-grain

Have you ever heard the folk song, or read the book by Simms Taback, "Joseph had a little overcoat?" In the story, the protagonist starts out with an overcoat. It gets worn around the edges, so he cuts off the bottom and makes a vest. The plot proceeds to carve away at the coat until it is nothing but a cloth button.

I feel like I am at that point with the Very Hungry Caterpillar quilt. I received an email from the long-suffering woman who is long-arm-quilting the top, and apparently I messed up again, and didn't even realize it. I was not aware that when you are giving a top to a long-arm-quilter, the sides have to be perfect 90-degree angles. Not only is the fabric printed off-grain, but apparently the back is 3.5" inches off on one side. Not only did I not check, it wasn't right. I am going to have her square it up into something vaguely resembling a rectangle, and chalk this up to experience and a newbie mistake. Granted, I don't know that I could have fixed it even if I had noticed, the way everything is going. I dassn't touch it again myself. My DH reminded me of the overcoat song and said that if all else fails, I can send my friend a bow-tie or a fabric button.

Progress Check

I made my list on January the 2nd, so I thought I'd post my progress. The whole accountability thing is going slightly better. I'm still sadly lacking in prayer time, and even though I have three accountability partners for my diet, I still blow my calorie limits more days than I make it. On the bright side, I think I am doing better at staying off social media and computer games when I'm at home. I'm still having trouble with compulsively checking social media during the day, though. My time at home has paid off. I have wiped out one UFO, and made progress on two others.

Today I finished pinning the teal Irish Chain quilt. I had pinned it earlier this week, but the back got all lumpy and crooked. I spent last night and this afternoon repinning it to get the wrinkles out. The backing is still somewhat crooked, but I am NOT going to pin it a third time. The second time around I at least used some sense and put it on our miniscule dining room table and didn't have to crawl around on the floor of the room where I do my sewing. I really wish I could use the conference table at work, which is huge..... Perhaps I can start on the quilting tomorrow while the football game is on. I am thinking of making a circular feather design in the white space, and I haven't quite decided what to do about the 9-patch areas.

Quilts in Progress, as of February 2, 2013
1. Women's Voices of American History quilt (Finished!)
2. Very Hungry Caterpillar baby quilt (at the long-arm-quilter's house)
3. Teal Single Irish Chain (sandwiched, need to quilt it)
4. Champions of the West (blocks finished, but not stitched together- I got creative block when it came to the border)
5. Civil War Sampler "cot" quilt (haven't finished all the blocks yet)
6. Liberty of Londons sampler quilt (I honestly can't remember where this is in the process, but I definitely haven't got the quilt top finished)
7. Golden's Journal quilt (haven't finished all the blocks yet)
8. Peggy Martin-technique sampler quilt (ditto)
9. Crazy quilt (not your usual crazy quilt, but it is crazy! Quilt top finished, but needs sandwiching/quilting/binding)
10. Roses for Shiloh quilt by Painted Pony 'n Quilts (haven't finished all the blocks yet)
11. Amish with a Twist (haven't finished all the blocks yet)
12. Space left here in case I've forgotten something, kinda like setting an empty chair at dinner for a possible stranger to show up. It's possible as I excavate down through my stash, that I may find more quilts I didn't know about. We are proud members of Old Salem, and one of the side benefits of membership is getting a new tote bag each year. The past few years they've been marvelous gigantic bags, perfect for filling with accumulated projects. A new year, another Old Salem bag with an unfinished quilt!
13. Not quilting, but alter my dirndl to fit my new, smaller, self, and finish the heart-ruching trim for it.

Quilts in the "Some Day" Stage, as of February 2, 2013
1. Olivia the piglet quilt
2. A Baltimore Album quilt
3. A hexagon quilt
4. A chintz panel quilt
5. A quilt with the Metro Blues fabrics that I got in New Braunfels and Belleville
6. Various Rosemary Youngs Civil War Diary and Civil War Anniversary quilts
7. Barbara Brackman's Civil War Sampler
8. Barbara Brackman's Grandmother's Choice women's suffrage sampler
9. A botanical album quilt that I've had designed in my head for a long time
10. Mill Girls by Nancy Rink
10b. Away from Home by Nancy Rink (postponed indefinitely)
11. Mimi's Bloomers quilt by Erin Russek
12. Just Takes Two quilt by Sentimental Stitches
13. The Hazel Ilene quilts by Prairie Moon Quilts
14. Path to the Civil War: Aurelia's Journey Quilt
15. A Dear Jane quilt
16. A bed-runner designed by one of my kids