Quilt surgery

After piecing together some diamonds for a Lone Star quilt, I decided one of the fabrics was not working well.  Four small diamonds of this fabric were already in place, so it would take some surgery to replace them.  I wasn't thrilled about tackling this -- I was afraid it could go really badly -- but I felt I would not be happy with the quilt if I did not take this step.

The process would require exposing some bias edges, so I added some stay stitching along these edges before unpicking the seams.

The gray/aqua batik is the one to be replaced.  (I continued the stay stitching across this piece just to avoid some starts and stops.  And looking at this photo, I realize the stitches on the right should have extended up one more diamond.)

I also added stay stitches to the new fabric, before sub-cutting the strip.

After unpicking the seams, I was left with this hole:

I stitched in the new diamond, working in reverse order from how the seams were unpicked, so I attached the top and bottom edges first:

Then I sewed the side seams and removed the stay stitches:

It's not a perfect alignment, but it's no worse than the original.

The process was tedious, but not particularly difficult.  Here is the center with all four replacement diamonds in place:

I had begun work on some outer diamonds using the same "bad" fabric.  I ended up discarding one strip set and remaking it (since I had already sub-cut that strip set); for the few remaining strip sets I just had to replace the one strip.

I'm pleased with how the diamonds are looking now; I think this was a worthwhile step.

I'm linking up with Lee for WIP Wednesday.

Starting a Lone Star project

I'm starting something new:

It's a Lone Star type design, with a semi-scrappy approach inspired by Edyta Sitar's Sunset Star quilt (from Scrappy Firework Quilts).

I've assembled the main star, but I have more diamonds to make (I'm using a "broken star" configuration).  More strip sets ready to be sewn:

After looking at the finished star for a few days, I've decided one of the fabrics is not working for me.  I'm thinking of doing some surgery and replacing four of the small diamonds (a crazy step, I know).  Here's one option:

And here is another:

And here is the original for reference:

I'm leaning towards option A, as it seems to blend best with the other aquas, although I do like the print design of option B.  Which do you prefer?

I'm linking up with Lee for WIP Wednesday.

Pickle Dish

I first posted about this project about eight months ago -- and it is finally complete!

I used the Pickle Dish pattern from Kaffe Fassett's Quilt Romance.  The pattern is featured on the cover of the book, and my original color inspiration came from the photo on the back of the book:

Obviously I strayed a bit from that original thought, but I did keep mostly to turquoise blue and bright pink, adding navy centers and a spring green background.

The pattern recommends strong contrast for the fabrics in the arcs.  I learned as I went along that some fabrics did not provide the contrast I had hoped; some of the "in-between" fabrics worked better for darks than lights, and vice versa, so I adapted my plans a few times.  I wanted less contrast in the four-patch units, to draw less attention, so I kept them in the medium to dark range.  I preferred "busier" prints in these squares too.

This pink arc with the flamingos is one of the lightest arcs on the quilt, but I couldn't resist using it:

I collected enough different fabrics for this quilt that I didn't really need more than a quarter yard of any of them (other than the background and border, etc.).  I bought most of the fabric in half-yard increments, though, so for the quilt back I cut 17" squares from 30 of the prints and pieced them together with half-inch seams.

One mistake I made was cutting too many small rectangles for the arcs, including cutting up entire half-yard cuts of some of my favorites.  I had quite a few of the rectangles left over (I used some for the border of this mini, and for this pincushion).

For quilting the arcs, I chose a simple straight-line design.  I had trouble quilting these free-hand, so I purchased a long-arm ruler to try.  It worked out pretty well, even though my hopping foot is not circular:

The shape of the foot restricted the angles I could use, and caused some variability in the distance from the ruler to the needle.  I wasn't always able to line up the destination point just right; I eventually decided it was OK if the quilting didn't line up exactly with the piecing.  This picture shows how I estimated the end point:

I also had to be careful not to apply too much lateral pressure against the hopping foot.  The foot is flexible enough that a couple of times I pushed the flange over underneath the needle.  I broke three needles on this quilt!

The ruler I used has a thin strip of Velcro on the bottom, which keeps it from slipping; it also helps to guide the quilt sandwich under the machine.  The ruler also has a couple of posts to use as handles.  Note how they barely clear the threading lever!

I tried to keep the quilting on this one simpler and less dense than I often do, to allow the piecing to shine.  I got a little carried away with feathers in the background pieces, though.

I followed the example of the pattern and used a stripe in the border.  I used the ruler again to quilt diagonal lines.  The binding is an Amy Butler fabric which has most of the colors used in the quilt.

I had more trouble with puckers on the back of this quilt than I've experienced before.  I don't know if I didn't baste very well (I use basting spray plus scattered pins), or if I tugged on it too much as I was doing ditch quilting around the arcs, or if it was the way I used the ruler.  Once I realized it was happening, I added safety pins to the center footballs, then free-motion stitched around them before quilting the diagonal lines.  I don't know how much that helped, but I did not have any more puckers after that.  I repaired the worst of the puckers by redoing the quilting in those spots, with additional basting from needle and thread.

My projects tend to alternate between bright fabrics and more muted tones.  I'm pretty sure my next quilt will not be as bright as this!

I'm glad to have this done in time for the Blogger's Quilt Festival over at Amy's Creative Side.  I'm also linking up with crazy mom quilts for Finish It Up Friday.

Previous posts about this quilt:
    Football Season
    Background Selection
    More background musings
    Pickle Dish Progress
    Pickled Leftovers
    Some Pickle Dish pointers

Some Pickle Dish pointers

I've got my pickle dish top assembled, and hope to have it basted soon.  I put it together a little differently than called for by the pattern, so I thought I'd share a little of what I've learned.

I was inspired by Rebecca Bryan to keep each background piece as a single unit, rather than piecing them as quarters.  I made a template for the quarter-piece using the pattern from the book, and used that to cut from a twice-folded piece of background fabric by aligning the straight seam lines on the template with the folds of the fabric.  By carefully planning my folds and cuts, I was able to cut all the background from 2 yards of fabric (although I'd recommend having a half-yard or more extra in case of mistakes).

The images below show how I pieced the "melons" to the background pieces, and also how I pressed the seams.  It took some trial and error to come up with a plan for pressing the seams that was workable.  What I'll share is not exactly how I put mine together, but how I would approach it if I were to start again.  (Please excuse my rough illustrations.  I'm more familiar with photo editing than with vector drawing.)

I started by assembling "squircles" of four melons and a background piece.  For each unit, I started with the lower left and upper right melons, and pressed the seams away from the melons.  At this point, I still had all the foundation paper still in place.

I then added the upper left and lower right melons.  After sewing these seams, I removed the papers from the inner arcs of the newly-added melons, and pressed these seams toward the melons.

Here's a photo of the intersection of the arcs from the back.  Sewing this part was a little tricky, but it did not take long to get the hang of it.

This photo shows how the seams of adjacent arcs are pressed in opposite directions:

Once the "squircles" were all complete (with "half-squircles" at the top and bottom), I assembled the top along the diagonals.

This time, though, the assembly proceeded from upper left to lower right.  The first seams were again pressed away from the arcs.  When the diagonal rows were joined together, these seams were pressed toward the arcs, as shown by the arrows in this diagram:

This assembly illustration makes it appear that I used long continuous seams, but in reality I used partial seams and multiple starts and stops, so I could keep the concave portion on top as I sewed each arc.

The red circles in the diagram show some of the spots where the seams change directions.  I "pinwheeled" the seams at these points.  This was not necessary in the left- and right-most columns, thanks to the way I added the outside border pieces.

The purple circles above indicate another tricky situation.  These are border areas where the seam needs to be pressed towards the arc, but the square gets in the way.  I ended up unpicking a couple of inches between the square and the arc at these locations before sewing the background.  Then, after pressing this seam towards the arc, I re-stitched the square to the arc.  I'm sorry I did not get photos of this process, but here is how the end result looks from the back (after adding the border):

I hope to be quilting soon!  I'm linking up with Lee for WIP Wednesday.

Pickled Leftovers

I'm still working on my pickle dish quilt.  I made a few extra blocks to give myself some flexibility in layout, so I decided to use them to make a mini-quilt.

I used this to practice sewing the curves to the central background piece.  The pattern calls for piecing this center in quarters, but I wanted to try keeping it as a single unit.  It came together pretty well, and I learned a few things that will be helpful as I start adding the background to the full quilt.

I also wanted to practice some quilting ideas.  I used a feather motif in the central background piece:

I borrowed the idea for straight lines in the arcs from this quilt.  At first I tried to free-hand these lines, but that did not work well at all.  After ripping out my first attempt, I tried using a ruler.  I ended up taping two small rulers together to get the thickness I need.  I'm mostly pleased with the results, but I will be shopping for a proper ruler for use with my domestic machine.

I'm hoping I can use these same quilting designs in the full quilt (I'm a little worried about using a ruler while maneuvering a large quilt).

Here's a shot of the back.  Somehow I got my directionality mixed up -- I wanted the darker fabric running up and down -- but that's not a big deal.  These are a couple of fabrics I had purchased for the top but ended up not using.

For wall hangings I usually put a couple of large triangle pockets in the top back corners, but for larger pieces like this they can get a bit floppy.  For this mini, I used smaller triangles and added a couple of straps near the center.

I had purchased a small cut of an Amy Butler fabric from an online store for the purpose of auditioning it for use as background in the larger quilt.  I decided against using it there, but I'm happy with it here.  The border is all made from leftovers from the quilt.

We had a rare snow overnight, so I couldn't resist getting a few shots of my snowman wall hanging too.

I have two Friday finishes in a row!

Snowbird Snowman

As we were putting away Christmas decorations, my wife remarked that we did not have a suitable wall hanging for January (we have one for just about any other season).  She likes snowmen, so I found this pattern from Laundry Basket Quilts.  I adapted the pattern by squaring the background and adding a border of 2-inch squares.

I used a couple of charm packs from the Snowbird collection (one prints and one batiks), and a little bit of yardage.  I liked this fabric from the time it was released, and this seemed a suitable project for it.

Is it possible to strip piece with charm squares?  I cut a bunch of squares in half, then stitched groups of 8 rectangles together to form six 5" x 16.5" strips.  I cut these in half lengthwise, then stitched some in a loop to rotate them scrappy-trip style.  With the addition of a few squares for the corners, I used these to make the borders, going for a random placement.

I couldn't quilt any two snowflakes alike.  I think they might have shown up better if I had used a tighter and more regular background quilting design.

I used a trapunto technique to add a second layer of batting under the snowman.  This involved using water-soluble thread, so I knew I would need to wash this piece.  I didn't really want to quilt the snowman pieces, but I was afraid his body would puff up too much after washing.  A friend suggested quilting along the snowflake designs in the batik fabric.

I used a polka dot fabric for the binding.  I didn't want the dots to line up too much, which ruled out straight cuts.  A true bias-cut binding would have had the dots lined up too, so I cut it at just a slight angle.

I finished this in time to surprise my wife for Valentines Day; it is hanging on our wall now, although I'm ready for warmer weather to arrive.

I'm linking up with crazy mom quilts for Finish It Up Friday.

Legacy Hexie Garden

About a year ago, I won a fat quarter bundle of Angela Walters' Legacy fabric (thanks Amy!).  I mixed in some other fabrics with the bundle and made a quilt using Atkinson Designs' "Hexie Garden" pattern.

I was attracted to this pattern by the hint of transparency at the contrasting triangles, and by the stars in the secondary design.  I'd also been wanting to give hexagons a try.  I followed the pattern fairly closely, although I did use various solids for the contrasting triangles, whereas the pattern calls for a single fabric for these.

I used Julie Herman's Hex N More ruler to cut the hexagons and the triangles.  The pattern did not call for this ruler specifically, but it worked perfectly.

Each "flower" used less than a fat quarter, and for some of the fabrics I purchased half-yard cuts.  I used some of the extra fabric in the back, along with a couple of yards of a Heather Bailey fabric I found on sale.  I thought the colors in the Heather Bailey fabric were perfect for this quilt, but I was afraid the scale of the design would not work well in the hexagons -- hence the use on the back.

I chose the additional fabrics for this quilt at about the time the "radiant orchid" challenge was taking place.  I knew I'd not finish this in time for the challenge, but it did inspire me to add in some orchid fabrics.

For the quilting, I did a point-to-point design in the secondary stars, and added some "ghost" stars in the border.  My goal for the remainder of the border was to quilt a dense design that would contrast with the stars.  I don't think I achieved the goal completely; I believe I could improve on my density.

I quilted the center of each "flower" with the same design, but I used various designs in the prints.  Here are a few photos:

 

For the binding, I used a Joel Dewberry print also used in the hexagons.  I had originally chosen a different fabric, but when I saw this print in person I really liked the design and the way the colors played with the other prints.



At the risk of photo overload, here are some more shots...



...including more of the quilting in the blocks...

I'm linking up with crazy mom quilts for Finish It Up Friday.

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