There are only 18 strips so I needed a simple design. The blocks finish at 9 inches and I should be able to get 20 blocks out of the strips.
Still working on the Tiffany quilt blocks too.
Looking forward to some cooler weather so I can sit and sew down the binding on some quilts.
I’ve also started to pull other colours from the scrap stash for future blocks. Pink and blue should be okay. Aqua is going to be tricky. I don’t know if I’ll make brown if it’s on the list but I might make a brighter green block. I have enough black. Orange is going to be a problem too.
Let’s wait and see what next month’s colour will be, shall we?
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| March |
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| february |
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| January |
I don’t normally like working with stripes but it’s okay when they are used for binding.
All I need now is some cooler weather so I can sit with these on my lap and sew the binding down.
Summer has lingered this year with day time temperatures still in the high twenties. Autumn should be here soon. Right?
There are several different colourways for this pattern but this one grabbed my attention. Wendy’s pattern calls for fat quarters but I’ve only got a layer cake which I’m determined to make work.
I’m aiming for a square quilt with at least 16 twelve inch blocks. There might be some scrappier versions and maybe the leftover fabric pieces can be used in a border. We’ll have to wait and see.
Joanne at Canuck Quilter has a timely blog post on the Basics of Stitch and Flip. I think I need a finer pencil to mark the diagonals which would help.
Still quilting Ambleside and not long to go before the top is finished and the binding can be stitched on. We have a long weekend for Easter and hopefully there’s time to sit and sew down the binding.
Another project is in its infancy. Thought you might like a sneaky peek.
Happy stitching!
Joining soscrappy’s Rainbow Scrap Challenge for 2024.
Some say it’s the last frontier but when it comes to quilting on a domestic machine, throat space is everything.
This machine was marketed as a quilter’s special. It’s special alright. That’s a 6 inch throat space right there. It means that you can quilt about a quarter to a third of a small quilt before it’s impossible to push anymore quilt through that gap.
I shouldn’t complain as it was a gift from a non-sewing, non-quilting friend and I was most grateful to receive it. It does sew well, has a speed regulator and a nice big extension table. The walking foot is a bit wonky and no amount of persuasion can make it sit fully straight on. No matter.
The sewing machine with the large throat space is set up for free motion & ruler quilting so the plan is to quilt as much as I can and stitch the longer middle section when Ambleside is finished.
Thankfully I have no deadlines on any of these projects. Just pootling along working a little of this and a little of that.
Unlike spray basting glue from a can, you don’t cover the entire fabric. There are plenty of You Tube videos you can watch to see how it’s done. You only use a very thin bead of glue which is applied in a linear or zigzag motion to the quilt batting a section at a time.
Top Tip: No Blobs!
I made a few small blobs on the Ambleside quilt. I put a nice, new sharp quilting needle in the machine and it is sewing through everything. The thread has broken three times on blobs so I was really careful not to make blobs on Jellyroll Roger.
No broken needles yet.
What I like best about this method is that there’s no dreadful smell of the spray glue which gets on everything no matter how careful you are.
Q: Does the glue make the quilt stiff?
No. Both quilts are soft and pliable. Remember you are not using a lot of glue - just enough to hold the layers together.
I’ve glue-basted on a cotton/bamboo batting and a wool/polyester batting. Both have worked just fine. The quilts fold up and I can leave them till I’m ready to work on them.
Some folks use pool noodles with this method. My table isn’t big enough but with the pirate quilt I did use my clamps to stop everything slipping around. Made it easier to smooth out the fabric.
Probably best to trial this method on a small project, maybe a table runner to see if suits you. Since Ambleside is a quilt for me, I was prepared to give it a go and suffer the consequences.
So far, it’s quilting up nicely. In the meantime, I’m prepping the walking foot machine to quilt the pirate quilt.
I saw a YouTube video on basting a quilt using Elmer’s school glue which we can get here nowadays.
You use a fine bead of glue - no blobs please - and smooth out the backing onto the wadding and then the top.
The wadding on this quilt is a cotton bamboo blend.
The glue was drying faster than I could smooth so the back is not as good as it should be but the top worked just fine and it’s holding together for quilting.
So far no issues. Of course if you decide to try this method do a test piece first. I also needed to loosen the glue ever so slightly with about a teaspoon of water.
Once that correction had been made, the quilting flowed better.
Usually I won’t work on another project until the current one is finished but I’m trying something new. I’m working on a couple of projects swapping them out. It will take longer to complete them but there are no deadlines to meet. I can take my time.
It’s out of my comfort zone but let’s give it a try.
This month, red is the colour for Rainbow Scrap Challenge 2024. There were not quite enough red fabrics in the scrap tubs (they’re not really tubs) to make this block. A sewing buddy let me raid her stash for the fabric I needed.
Sewing friends always come through for you.
Did I mention that I’ve decided to name the pirate quilt Jellyroll Roger? Pithy I know.
The pattern sets the blocks on the diagonal and then they are meant to be trimmed back to make a rectangle. Sorry folks, couldn’t bring myself to do that. Decided instead to add triangles at the end of each row.
Since this quilt isn’t for anyone in particular (sometimes it’s good to have a quilt on standby), I thought I’d try the basting method that uses Elmer’s school glue.
Still a bit tricky smoothing out the backing fabric on the batting. I think you need to do more manageable sections and take your time to smooth things out well. A bigger table would be good too.
We’ll see what it’s like to quilt. While I’m waiting for a parcel to arrive in the post, I pulled a jelly roll from the stash to work on. It’s been there a while and it was time to make something with it.
This one only has 23 strips and the pattern I chose Fast Track by a bright corner needs at least 32 strips to make the 42 blocks for the crib size.
So I decided to remove the two middle rows as I only had enough fabric to make 33 blocks. Borders will be added to make it a larger quilt.
Look at me having multiple projects on the go at the same. What is the world coming to?!
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| Garden Path - a Quilt As You Go project |
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| Finished Block size 12 inches |
