Feathers and Rulers

When I load a quilt on the frame, it takes me some time to get going.  I struggle with design and the inner demon that I am not good enough and will f*ck things up.  Then, I get into it and and enjoy myself until I am ready to be finished.  Now that I have finished, I miss it.

 Feathers and rulers. The ruler work was hard on my left thumb.  I use it to stabilize the ruler and the residual arthritis or ligament damage from the fracture in 2012 flared.  I could only work about 90 minutes at a stretch when I first started.  Today, I just had to finish it.  Company comes next week and as I said before, we need this room for one guest.  A small guest who won't take up much room at all.  Just the same I wanted to be able to remove the backing bar and gain a bit more space.  Thus, the marathon quilting session today.  It took longer than I anticipated. 

As usual there is a boat load of finishing work.  Threads need to be tied and nestled and then the binding.  I  have not added the quilting hours up.  I did enough to warrant oiling and changing the needle.  It could be as many as 12. 

WHAT THE HECK

This quilt is a gift and, as such, I want it to look nice.  Just the same, I don't want to take out stitching to that end.     I drew a chalk line as a guide. (By the way, this is the same triangle in which I had stitched that creature.  Spritzing is magical)

I stitched the spine right to left and then made the feather left to right.   I doubled back on the spine and stitched the top part of the feather.  It will have to do.

THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK

Oh dear.  I tried, I really did.  I thought that I could carry a theme across the quilt.  In one corner I had used the ruler to stitch an elliptic pattern.  I rather liked it.

Using the ruler, I recreated the pattern in the neighboring triangle, upside down.  Then I thought I would add some echoing and more curly Qs.  As I tried to make it look better, all I did was make it more hideous.  In the end it reminded me of one of the creatures in the bar in one of the Star Wars films.  The ones from forty years ago, not this past Christmas.

I vowed not to rip it all out but couldn't stop laughing every time I looked at it.  I might have to try to re-create it on a sample and hang it up in the studio.  Hideous, yes, but I would cast this creature as a benevolent intergalactic ally.  I might name him Bernie.

I spritzed the quilt and it is as good as new now.  OK, almost as good as new.  I certainly will be able to quilt over this with a different pattern.  Back to feathers, I think.

Design Decisions

I finished piecing this quilt quite some time ago but did not feel confident enough to quilt it at that time.  It is a gift and I do want it to look nice.  It has been on the frame since well before Christmas.   My first excuse: no matching thread.  The thread arrived three days after I ordered it.  Lousy excuse.

I knew that I wanted to quilt feathers in the border.  When I finally got to it this morning, I decided that I could not quilt both borders the same.  I rode my VITA MASTER, walked the dogs and had more coffee.  On the walk I decided to just go with a meander and decided on the curly Q.  I like it,  but wish I were more skilled.  The good news?  I am getting better at SID (Stitch in the Ditch). 

The color matches perfectly (Signature Cotton Azure) so that mistakes aren't so noticeable.  Once again I must turn off the lights in the room and on the machine in order to see as I quilt.  No night time quilting for me.

I plan to avoid ruler work as much as possible.  I will not SID all of the HST and squares.  Instead I hope I can stitch straight lines using the seams as quides in each block.  It might be tedious but not as tedious as SID and will likely look better.  All that negative space between blocks lends itself to large loopy feathers.  We shall see.

BORDER BOREDOM

Borders bore me.  They must be done but I am always amazed at how long it takes to sew them. 

I considered piecing a border for the SWRQ to accent the blocks.  Yesterday I even constructed a sample block to see how it would go.  Sure it would have meade the quilt a lot more interesting.  Maybe.  I considered how I would quilt a pieced border and decided that straight borders would be best.

In order to have a nice drop at the edge of the bed, I wanted to add 12 inches to each side.  Twelve inches is a whole lot of negative space.  Sure I could add interest with quilting.  I am not confident enough to tackle that.

Instead I decided to divide up the twelve inches with a one inch strip of the darker blue.  Sounds simple enough.  Two six in strips with a one inch strip in the middle.  Not so.

In the past I have cut my strips to the correct width and just added them on the each side, trimmed them off and added the border top and bottom.  This time I followed the directions from my One Block wonder book. 

She measures the center of her quilt tops, cuts the border that length and stitches them to fit.  If the edge of the quilt is a bit longer, she eases the border to fit.

That worked well for the first two borders.  I went back to the 201-1D for the long seams.  The machine is so quiet and sews so straight.  The 301 is FAST but the 201 is straighter.  I am thinking that the 301 needs some feed dog adjustment  It certainly needs some motor lube  It is starting to whine, just occasionally.

I had had enough of horsing the quilt around.  It was getting bigger and bigger with each border addition. 

For the last two borders,  I measured the center of the quilt and sewed the two borders to each
other before sewing to the quilt.  That worked great for the sides.  (I did pin this before stitching)

But something happened when I cut the top and bottom border.  I was off by an inch.

Looking back, I see that I measured correctly.  You might not be able to see in this photo, but the measurement is supposedly 42.5 ( the quilt edge starts at 1 inch on the dumb end).  Forty two and one half times two equals eight five.  I made my top and bottom border pieces eighty five. 

I could not make them fit.  An inch is just too much to fudge.  The borders are cut on the straight grain so there is no give. I think, likely, that there was too much room for error by the time the quilt got this big.

 I fixed it by making a square in each corner.

 It took an additional hour but I like the look.  It will look just fine draping at the corner of the bed.  You can't really see it here but you can see the one inch strip.  I think it is less boring that twelve inches of the light green.  I am less intimidated by the narrow strips when I consider the quilting design 

I am pleased to be finished with the quilt top.  I truly would like to piece a bit of the back.  I might try to make a couple of the blocks with the dark blue and the backing fabric.  I won't position them opposite the top blocks.  That would be too much bulk.  But one or two strategically placed on the back might be nice.  Plus I could practice my HST piecing. 

One more thing.  In my quest for the perfect ergonomic cutter, I found the Martelli.   Linda had mentioned it. I bought one.   I rather like it. 

I am able to use it comfortably with my wrist brace.

It doesn't require a special ruler as does the Grace Rotary cutter.

There is a left handed one too.  I think I might just get one of those, too.