Another Finish

The baby quilt is finished. I sewed the binding on yesterday, using my usual method of stitching to the front and turning to the back. I use thin strips of Wonder Under to fuse the binding down before I stitch it from the front.
For baby or kids quilts I usually stitch with the serpentine stitch. For other quilts I stitch in the ditch along the binding. You can see the front and back in the photo. I forgot to change the bobbing to variegated thread, which I used on the front. I doesn't show the color well in the pictures. It is a very pale pastel that shows up more in real life.

To go with the placemats I finished this week, I made these two hexie hot pads. I found the tutorial here on "sewshecan"  blog; they measure 7 x 10. I used some of the fabrics from the bundle that I didn't use for the placemats. I have more fabric from the bundle and the extra yardage I bought for the backing so I will be making something else before I add the rest to the scrap basket.

2 Finishes

 I was almost finished with this the other day but I was contemplating what to do with the hexagons. I decided to quilt across them in 2 directions. Here is a picture showing the quilting. It is enough! My previous post shows the whole  table topper.







I got the 2013 Diva Jellyroll Race quilt layered up last Saturday and I  finished it up yesterday with Kona Bone for the binding.

On the right is a  close up showing the wavy line grid quilting. Quilting across was  easy; I just stayed between the seam lines. Length wise, I had to mark lines 2 inches apart to stay between. I knew I would end up with my seams drifting off to one side as I went along.  I started with masking tape which didn't work  too well. then I tried my old pizza cutter/pseudo Hera marker and it didn't show up very well. I think it works better with Warm and Natural batting. I went out and bought a Sewline mechanical pencil and ended up not using that for this either. I just marked with blackboard chalk in the end as I didn't need a fine line only guidelines to sew between.

I like the Sewline markers and I used both the white chalk mechanical pencil and the air/water erasable one, that I bought last week, to mark my straight lines through the hexagons. Maybe with my new markers I will  get back to doing some work  on MY BIG UFO.  I have not done anything with it since the day after our commitment meeting 2 months ago.

 

 

A Finish

I have a finish (maybe). Yesterday after Jack's appointment with the eye doctor we stopped at the quilt shop and I got border fabric for my Honeycomb  table topper. When we got home I layered it up and quilted it and added the binding; I machine finished the binding this morning. For the backing, I was able to use fabric leftover from piecing the backing for my Jellyroll Race quilt that I will layer up tomorrow at the group meeting at the church.

I used Kona bone for the binding it finished the edge off better than the red fabric would have. After I stitched the binding to the front I pressed it away from the border and then turned it and pressed it, shaping the corners and pressing them in place. I used a washable glue stick to hold the binding and I stitched in the ditch on the front along the binding. It turned out pretty good.
I am not sure whether to call this finished or add some quilting in the hexagons. There are three options I am considering.

1. Rows of stitching point to point across the hexagons just in one direction
going the length of the row. That would be 6 rows.

2. Rows of stitching point to point in both diagonal directions. That would be 16 rows.

3. Hand stitch a smaller hexagon  one inch from the seam in all 34 hexagons.

I already discarded the option of point to point across both the length and the diagonals and I am still considering no more quilting at all.

For all my concern about not cutting the triangles exactly right to fit the odd size of the hexagons, this squared up perfectly. Maybe I should say it hexed up perfectly. Anyway, when I fold it in half, all of the points (corners?) line up exactly.   All those bias edges can be very friendly if they are handled with reasonable care.

Honeycomb

I have been working on the Honeycomb pack and it is coming together slowly. It is a bit fussy and I am taking lots of breaks.

I thought that I would sew 6 rows with 6 hexagons but after looking at it for a couple of days and trying to figure out a way to have straight edges on the outside edges I realized that 5 rows, with the center row longer and the other rows shorter by one hexie at both ends of each row, would work much better and give me pointed ends to make a good table runner.

The photos on the left show how I had the hexies up on the wall when I was just looking at them and the lower one is the arrangement I am using. The top three rows are sewed together and the bottom 2 rows are still just hexies and triangles sewed together to make  diamonds.

I figured out what size to make my triangles and how to trim them without losing the dog ears. That meant that I pressed to the hexagon and trimmed then I pressed the seams open.  Pressing this way and that way is  an extra step but when I sew anything that has an angle I have better results when matching when the seams are pressed open and that extra step kept the dog ears intact which helped in matching the points.

When I match the points, I match up the dog ears so they are lined up exactly, one on top of the other (top left). I place a pin exactly where the seams will cross, checking on the back to make sure it is exactly at the seam crossing point (top center and right). The bottom left photo shows that same seam after stitching. The other bottom photo shows another area with more matching points. There are a few other places where the points are not perfect but they are good, remembering that the enemy of good is perfect; I am not going to mess around aiming for perfection.
I have to sew the last 2 rows together before I can add them and then I will have to go back to the quilt shop to get something for the borders. I am leaning toward a red, probably the floral red but I will see what is in the shop. I am not going to run all over trying to find something I have set my mind on; I am leaving the options open.

Hexagons

I was excited about the Honeycomb pack from Moda but I am a little disappointed. The hexagons are laser cut to an odd size.



They measure 6 inches point to opposite point but  flat edge to opposite flat edge they measure a little more than 5 1/8 but not quite 5 1/4. It would not make it easy to cut a few more hexagons to match the size from my own fabric with a hexagon ruler.












Of course, I could use the template that comes in the pack to cut more hexagons. I would do it by marking the fabric around the template and cutting on the lines using a straight ruler and my rotary cutter. The template is ordinary template plastic and I would not want to shave it with my rotary cutter. This photo shows the template on the hexagon from the pack, it is sized perfectly and the patches are all cut exactly.

What I want is to cut triangles to sew to 2 opposite edges and therein is another problem. The size triangle to cut is a size that also falls between the lines. If I make it a little bit larger and trim, it fits, but I lose the dog ears that help me line up the points.






This photo shows all  the hexagons up on my wall but not in the order that I will  put them together.
I am cutting a few more from my own fabric to replace some of the very light prints and I have worked out the size triangles I need.
 This is getting to be more fussing around that I want to do if I am buying precuts.

If I were going to only sew the hexagons from the pack together with each other or another Honeycomb pack, there would be no problem. I could also use my hexagon ruler to cut each hexagon down to the next uniform size on the ruler (4 1/2 inches), so I might buy a Honeycomb pack again for the variety.  I think that a hexagon ruler and triangle ruler or maybe the "Hex and More" ruler are probably the way I would go and either buy a fat quarter pack or a Dessert roll for the variety. Maybe after I put this all together I will decide that I was expecting a problem where none existed.

We'll see!

Shopping on the 4th

I had a minor episode of vertigo last evening and ended up going to bed very early and slept soundly until about 9AM. Today I am feeling quite well and fit. Fit enough to go to J Ellen's quilt shop and take advantage of her sale of red, white or blue fabric for $6 a yard.
I bought the red and white print on the left for the back of the  quilt I made in January at the 2nd annual Basement Diva Jelly Roll Race. The Jelly roll was Blitzen and I didn't get any fabric from that line while it was still to be found so today I was on a quest for a red backing fabric. I found several to choose from and this is the one that came home with me. I am ready to layer and quilt.


When I was in the shop last week I caught sight of the  Moda Honeycomb
packs, something new to me. I thought about it for the next few days and today one of them found it's was into my bag. I also discovered Moda Dessert Rolls but I didn't buy any  today. My stash is on a diet.

I spread out a few, but not all of them to look at. In the pack there is also a piece of template plastic the exact size of the hexagons and it has holes in all the corners for making a quarter inch dot for machine sewing; how nice is that.




I used to bypass the precuts, thinking they were a waste of money. Not anymore, I do not want to add anything to my stash. My goal is to have almost no stash except scraps and to buy what I need when I need it. Precut is perfect for that. Leftovers are small and can be counted as scraps. It is too soon to say how well this is going to work for me. I do think I will allow fat quarters for impulse buying if it will be appropriate for whatever color palette I am working on at the time.

We'll see.