A Finish

 Jack's drag around quilt is finished and I am pleased with the way it turned out.

I stitched in the ditch along all the the colored patches and it was easy moving from top to bottom along the inside seam on each block and the back up the outside seam. I carefully stitched over some seams to avoid ending and restarting. I can't easily use a hand needle to bury threads so I start and end with tiny stitches in the ditch where it is hard to see. The backing on this quilt makes the overstitched lines invisible. I stitched 2 lines corner to corner across each focus fabric square.

I sewed the binding in my usual way, sewing on the front and turning to the back and fusing the binding with narrow strips of Wonder Under;  I am careful to cover the stitching. I sewed the binding on with red  thread and it was easy to see and cover on the back. I stitch in the ditch from the  front and my stitching catches the edge of the binding on the back. Sometimes the stitches on the back miss the edge a little and I need to do some hand stitching and sometimes the binding on the back is  little wider and the stitching is a bit far in from the edge. Because it has become so difficult for me to do any hand sewing, I paid more attention to my quarter inch seam when stitching the binding to the front. It paid off by the edge of the seam on the back falling in the exact place it needed to be. I have been doing my binding this way for a long time and this is the first time ever that the stitches caught the edge of the binding in the perfect place on the edge of the entire perimeter. 

This is one corner folded back.

This is  what it looks like on he front. probably not he same corner because the photo was an afterthought.

I think a rather long time of no quilting and recognizing that arthritis in my hands it here to stay has forced me to develop better habits. Sometimes you have to search hard to find an up side to an unwelcome change in one's life. There it is and I'll take it.

This quilt will be on it's way next week, along with a little draw string bag of the same fabric for big brother. When they were here Elijah saw the fabric and asked "For me?". Of course, I have to make something to send along for him. The bag is waiting for me to get started.

Jack's Drag Around is Almost Finished

 Jack's quilt is almost finished.

Once I started working on the blocks it went pretty well. After not doing any quilt sewing for a while I seem to have developed some better habits. I have done more planning before jumping in and starting to cut without a solid plan. 

I knew what I wanted to do before I cut anything and I knew what I needed to shop for. One trip to shop for solid fabrics beforehand was way better than starting and then finding I needed something I didn't have and that I had wasted some to my focus fabric.

I knew that not all of the squares would  have one whole recognizable object but I didn't see that as a problem. Partial objects would work if little people where looking for certain things, like signs and  wheels and cranes and the shovels on front end loaders. 

After I cut these 36 squares I tried to sort them but I came to the conclusion that the best way was to put them on a design board in the order they were before cutting. That seemed the best way to avoid the headache of trying to keep from having too many of the same things too close together.

I started laying the squares out by lining up the squares the way they were cut. That went well for the first few rows but then I started a row that didn't line up perfectly with the row above.  I probably got interrupted at some point and maybe misplaced a square or two or maybe a few. I stuck with the plan after only a few shuffles. I knew once I sewed on the solid strips no square was going to line up along the cut lines. I kept all of the squares in this order  and started adding the short strips to the correct side, right, left, top or bottom. As I pinned each solid strip I moved it to my design wall.

This photo is the bottom three rows with the 4 1/2 inch strips pinned to the side where it needed to be sewn on. I saw the pattern of every other strip in the row being in the same position and every other row was the same. I only realized there were 2 only different rows when I got to the third row. I just didn't see it looking at the photo of the whole layout.

This is the printout from EQ that I used to layout the short solid strips. I use these little sign holders with a printout or picture of what I am working on. 

Sometimes I have a printout of the cutting directions

and sometimes a printout of block construction.

In the background you can see some of the mess in my sewing space which is undergoing a redo. Going along slowly but going along. 

This is how I made sure I was looking at the correct row. Masking tape is an essential tool in my sewing room. That square with the short strip pinned on the is the next one that got sewn on. 

Everything went together without a hitch. Well, after I sewed the very first strip to the wrong side on the very first square..

After all the short strips were sewn on, the long strips were fast and easy, in spite of many interruptions. 

When I started sewing the rows together I kept them up on the wall until i was ready to sew any particular  rows. it seems like with only six rows I could just take them down in pairs and sew them together. I have come to recognize that even with only a few things to keep in order I have mixed up the order, even when there have been no interruptions. I accept my shortcomings. The rows went together with on problem.

Here is the finished top. The borders are different that any of my EQ borders, which I only added in EQ as place holders for size. I never make decisions about borders until the body of the quilt is finished, 

unless some times the border is designed first. 

I knew from the beginning, the focus fabric was not going to work for the size border. I knew I would use solid fabric but I didn't know what I would use until I auditioned  the fabric. Yellow seemed the obvious choice. I didn't want the yellow to look chunky in the corners around the yellow blocks. I solved that by adding red strips sewn on at right angles to the yellow border strips.  The binding will be red.

It is layered up and pinned and ready to quilt. I am contemplating the options for quilting while I straight up the sewing space. I have learned that I need to have some sort of order around me as I move from one step of the process to the next.  Otherwise, I am pushing things out of the way and making another mess that gets in the way of everything I do.