Sunday, July 08, 2018

"Small House Problems"

Like: trying to lay out a quilt so you can arrange the blocks optimally. (I also don't really have space for a design wall, and don't quite have the werewithal to make a folding one, even if I had a place to store it).

So I moved a few things (couldn't move the piano) and wetmopped the living room floor to do this.

I finished all the blocks for the "Hello, Garden" quilt (March/April 2017 Quilty) and decided to lay them out. I'm STILL not convinced I love the pink background but am hoping that once it's sewn together (and quilted) I will like it better:

"Hello Garden" quilt

Yeah, that's a lot of pink, even for me. This is supposed to be about 48" by 54" when finished, so more of a lap/put across the bottom of the bed when your feet need more warmth type quilt

I also figured, since I was crawling around on the floor, I might as well lay out another big stack of  blocks. This is based on a block pattern in an old issue of "Generation Q" (which I am not even sure is still published; I haven't seen it with the quilting magazines recently). The pattern was called "Orchid Orchestration" and was originally done with shades of purple and a grey sashing, all solid colors. I thought it resembled brick garden paths, so I used floral prints with it:

This is the left-hand side:

left half, flower garden

And this is the right:

right half, flower garden

I made 25 blocks rather than the 16 called for, so if the blocks are true to size, that should be an 80" by 80" finished quilt. (I have a v. large piece of a small pink calico that was bought AGES ago by my mother to make bedroom curtains for me - actually, I think at the house in Ohio! - and never used, and I think it would make a good backing, and I think there's probably enough (I have 6+ yards of it). (And again: good to get something out of the stash).

Not sure which quilt I will take in next to be quilted - perhaps the "donut holes" one I made most recently. I almost want to hand quilt the floral one but hand quilting seems to take me forever to do.

(Someday, I want to get a walking foot for my machine for straight-line type quilting; I could see doing that on the floral quilt - maybe even stitching in the ditch along the "paths" and one row down the middle of each floral).

1 comment:

Judy said...

On the Hello Garden quilt have you considered a one-inch sashing with or without, maybe, pink cornerstones. The sashing might help make it more pleasing to your eye.

You don't 'need' a walking foot to quilt on a domestic machine. I do it all the time. I also don't stipple. Typically, I either stitch-n-ditch or draw a quilting design on the top; then I pin the line I'm quilting as I'm quilting it to keep any tucks from forming on the backing. Every quilt you see on my blog, that I have quilted, is done this way. Heavy pinning is your friend.