the long weekend

Most of my free time this weekend was spent working on quilts.

First, I did some hand-quilting on the Dozen Roses quilt, which is the one currently in the frame. I'm now up to working on the border - the inner (peach colored) border is just going to have a line down its middle; the outer border has a pattern of very simple teardrop-shaped mice connected nose-to-tail. (I'll take a picture once I get further along). It will take a little while to complete the border, as each mouse takes a little while, because there's some reversing and going back and there are the little ears and eyes you have to do.

Still, I'm close enough to being done that I can contemplate what quilt is going in NEXT.

I have several candidates but right now the strongest one, I think, is what I've been calling the Plus-sign Quilt (picture is at end of the post). I even found a backing I want to use in my stash - black background with vintage buttons printed on it. I think it must have been a purchase at one of the Sewing Studio's New Year's Day sales; I usually get big pieces to hang on to for backings there. (They will sell out past-seasons' quilt fabric at good prices. Some years back you could find fabrics for as little as $3 a yard - for topquality quilt fabric. This year, the cheapest price was $5.50 a yard, which is still pretty good). I even bought thread over the weekend for it, a sort of ecru. I like matching the thread to the theme or colors of the quilt - the current top I am doing with pink.


I also put the binding on the Taking Turns top. I'll photograph it when I get a chance and the sun is out. (I handsewed the very last bit of the binding late yesterday evening). I used a yellow binding on this one, which seems a little odd, maybe, but it works. (I just started trying fabrics against the quilt, and found a small piece of bright yellow - I think it was left from binding the Post and Beam quilt, coincidentally also shown in the linked post)


I also did some sewing on the "current" quilt top - which I have been working on since September, I think. Part of the problem is that this is one of those Jelly Roll friendly quilts, where you have to make lots and lots of "strip sets" (sewing 42" long strips of fabric together) before you can even think about subcutting them into blocks. (But once I get all the blocks cut, it will be fast to put them together). I got all the strip sets as directed by the pattern done and cut, and then I looked at the layout of the size I was making, and said "Wait."

The pattern had directed me to make 36 of the biggest block, and 36 of the spacer block....but when I counted the blocks in the drawing of the layout, it required 42 of each.

So I stopped and thought: do I make the quilt one column narrower (reducing it from 62" to 52" wide, but keeping it 90" long) and call it a "napping quilt" rather than a "twin size," or do I do two more strip sets of each type of block and make up all the blocks I will need? Or do I say "forget it" and just make it lap size and have a ton of leftover blocks?

Well, I measured the fabric I had, and decided that if I didn't use the "contrast fabric" for the binding at the very end, I'd have enough of it to cut the sashing AND the couple of strips needed for the strip sets. So I did that. (I can always find another fabric for binding). So I sewed up the last few strip sets but at that point didn't feel like pressing them off (pressing these strip sets is kind of a pain) and cutting them. But I'm almost to the point of being able to start putting the top together.

I was mildly irritated at the error in the pattern, but I would have been far more irritated if I had just started sewing the blocks together without counting them in the layout first.

I also decided on a NEXT quilt top to make: in searching through my stacks of fabric I ran across a packet of fat quarters I bought a long time ago from Connecting Threads. I don't remember the name of the line but several of the fabrics are printed with cupcakes or macarons, and the color scheme is heavily pink/brown/turquoise. I even have a big piece of solid pink I set aside for sashing, and I have the pattern I want to use tucked into the fabric. The current quilt top is darker/neutral colors, so it will be fun to do a girly quilt top for a change.