The process - Tutorial part 1

I received some lovely comments about the improv quilt that I just finished last week. Thru those comments I had someone that said they would enjoy seeing the process I used to make the blocks in that quilt. I think I will go a little farther and show my whole process of making a quilt from beginning to end. I am going to be making baby quilts and not a queen sized one as I document what I do.
I went shopping in my stash and came up with these fabrics - Red Letter Day by Lizzy House (the striped fabric), Essex cotton/linen look, and Jane Sassaman Prairie Gothic. I will be using Kona snow for my background. Conservative choices for me, but I think it will make a pretty quilt.



The piece I am using for the center was cut roughly 12' x 12' - no ruler was used as you can see - I just cut a chunk of fabric. Same for the Kona snow - I just cut some strips. Now the decision is how wide. Right now I am cutting 3-4 inches wide. The strips can be cut any width. For this initial tutorial I am going with 3 - 5 inches in width for all the strips. As I continue to explore this technique in future process posts, I will vary the widths to see what happens.


Layer the edge of center square with the first strip. I pat the fabrics down to get the layers to stick together a bit.


I then double cut the fabric - meaning I cut both layers at the same time. You need a sharp rotary cutter and I take my time. I don't cut it in one swift motion. I find the layers move so I cut using a very short motion where I just nip foward 1/2 - 3/4" at a time. I will hold down the fabric behind the rotary cutter especially keeping a fingernail into the waste piece. Please be careful and don't get distracted! I find if I try to double cut in one big motion the fabric moves too much. Once I have completed my cut I trim the end where I am going to start sewing so that when I flip the strip on top of the center square I can match up the starting spot for sewing. After sewing I gently press - not iron - the strip. With this technique you are not going to have a perfect straight of grain so you have to be careful not to stretch the fabric out of shape. I press each log as I go since the block has to be flat as possible to make your next cut when adding another log.


Here is the block with the second piece/log of the first round done. I have chosen to added the logs in a circular pattern, but you could do a courthouse steps version by adding the logs on the east and west sides then do the north and south sides. I finished the Kona snow round and then added the Essex in the same manner.

This is a picture of the back of the block. I am showing this because this is where you really see someone's technique and quality of workmanship. It was drilled into my head when I was in 4-H that the inside of a garment needs to look as good as the outside. I know that no one will ever see the backside of the top of a quilt since it is layered and quilted, but I know what it looked like. Besides if you keep your work neat and clean of ramdom threads as you go along there is less of a chance that you would get one of those ramdon dark threads caught between the layers under a light piece of fabric.

I went ahead and cut the strips for the next two rounds. The third round being the Kona snow and the fourth the stripe. I will add these two rounds just like I did the first two. The only difference is that the block gets bigger.
Let me know if you have any question or if something doesn't make sense. I will post again on Monday the next phase in this process.

Saturday night my nephew's band is playing at one of the local sports bars and will have a special guest - Nikki Storm who plays in several bands including the Godz. It ought to be a fun time. Have a great weekend.

Playing, but not in the snow.

This is my front yard when I got to the house after work yesterday afternoon. It continued to snow and we ended up with 2 - 3 inches. The snow didn't stick to the streets until later that evening when it got colder. I am ready for it to stop snowing and get into the 50's.



So I didn't play in the snow last evening, but played in the studio. Here are the stamps and stencils I made last evening. I had taken the ball bat and glove stamps and enlarged them on the copier. These are the images I want to put on the backing for the baseball t-shirt quilt.



The top image is stencil with ink and the bottom is a stamped image with ink. They both look pretty much the same.



This is the stencil and ink



This is using the stamp with fabric paint that was way to thick.


I think I am going to go with using the stencil method. It is going to be easy to place the image where I want it. My stamps are thin and it takes too long to carefully place the ink or paint on the stamp.

Back for baseball t-shirt quilt

I was looking thru my rubber stamps and remembered I had some with baseball images. I think I want to stamp the backing of the baseball quilt with these images, but the glove and baseball bat are way too small in relation to the size of the baseball. I am going to enlarge the glove and bat stamps on the copier and make a stencil of each. I can use my new ink pad to stencil the designs on.

Goodies from the weekend

I bought a kit one of the vendors had with this ink pad, daubers, and a couple of stencils. The ink is for fabric or paper. It is long lasting (about 10 years - that's what the lady said) and permanent. I bought the pad rather than the seperate bottles of ink.


Now this is some cool stuff. Instead of using bleach to discharge color there was a demonstration on how to use this product. This product will not damage fabric like bleach will. After you dry the product, which you can apply an image by using a stencil or brushing it on, you then hit it with heat and the color of the fabric is removed. But the coolest part is that she had the discharge paste in colors. This means that the color of the fabric is removed and then is replaced with the color of the discharge paste all in the same step! I mean this was so cool I could not believe it. I can't wait to play with this. The colored discharge paste came in a bunch of colors. The three pack of colors was $20.00 and the clear discharge paste was $8.00. I have lots of ideas floating around in my head.

A busy weekend

Friday was the bus trip to Sewing and Quilting Expo in Cleveland, Ohio. We had 6 hours to check it out. There was a lot of machine embroidery booths and I mean a lot. I missed going back to the booth that a contestant from Project Runway had. I had gone by it early in the day and she had not arrived yet. My big purchase was this iron. I used it all day Saturday and Sunday afternoon. I had a funny smell on Saturday - that new smell that I don't like - but Sunday after I turned it on I did not notice it. So far I am very happy with performance. I bought a few more items that once I get play with them I will post.


Saturday was alterations day - hemmed the sleeves of two lined jackets, hemmed two pairs of pants - one lined and the other cuffed, took in a lined skirt, and stitched the hem back into one leg of a pair of pants that had fallen out.


Here are the 270 bowls that a local pottery company made and donated to the fundraiser for one of the local food banks. For $25.00 you got a bowl of your choice and three bowls of soup. The soup was donated by local resturants and there was also bread donated by a local baker. I worked checking in guests on Sunday and was gifted a ticket for a bowl by one of the guests. The soup was so good and it was a sold out event.


After the soup event I finished putting this top together. I also got the binding cut out. I think the baseball binding adds the right touch.

Making plans

I spent some time last evening mentally regrouping where I was six weeks ago before the Improv quilt was thrust into my life. I think I will start out this weekend by finishing the top for this t-shirt quilt. It has been hanging on the design wall for a couple of months.


The other two projects that need to happen in the next couple of months are a t-shirt quilt for a niece who is graduating from high school - I don't have the t-shirts yet - and a quilt for a nephew who is getting married June 8th. Here is a picture of the vintage Fench linen I bought on ebay for the wedding quilt. I wanted to make something really special for him. I bought two pieces of this linen and they are each 108" x 108". Once I find my inspiration for this quilt I may dye some of the linen.


Tomorrow is my trip to Cleveland to the IX Center for the Sewing and Quilting Expo. I am interested in looking for quilting thread and inspiration.

Sixth finish of 2011

Stick a fork in me I am done!