I have spent a lot of time behind the machine the past few days. After making all 324 HST's it was time to start assembling the quilt. Do any of you watch Bonnie Hunter's quilt cam or follow her blog. She is such a great promoter of quilting. I find most of her advice is spot on. She assembles her quilt using a method calling webbing. I thought it might be helpful to web this quilt as it is crucial to get all the blocks the right direction and since it is a scrappy quilt I didn't want to mix up the rows as I added them to the quilt. It would have been very helpful to have a design wall, but again the design floor is what I used.
After I laid out all the HST's it was just a matter of picking up a row and stitching each HST to the one to it's left in the quilt. You end up with vertical rows that are webbed together by thread. Once this completed you just pin the intersections in the other direction and stitch each horizontal row. It went quite well but I wondered if it had been easier if I would have done a quarter of the quilt at a time, but after thinking about it I probably would have turned something the wrong way.
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Nesting seams as I go!
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Next I nested the seams to get the horizontal seams stitched. The rows really lined up well and I feel my accuracy has improved. Not there is perfection, after all I am a realist! So the machine quilting can begin. I want to add a few rows of big stitching to this one, so I ordered some perle thread #12 to try in two different colors. Not sure if that is what will happen as time will tell.
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| Pin basted and ready for some quilting! |
Wow, I love it!! What a lovely scrappy wonderful quilt!
ReplyDeleteJust a bunch of HST's! I think it will look really wonderful draped over my DIL's patio set!
DeleteLove Bonnie Hunter's quilt cams... I too learn something interesting about quilting in each quilt cam! Love your webbing... I use that method as well... what fabric line did you use for this patriotic chevron or is it all your own scraps? Love how it turned out... just enough red white blue and cream to make it very cute! Can't wait to see how you quilt it too :) Glad your machine time is done and your are back to hand quilting then! Kathi
ReplyDeleteKathi, it is from a line by Moda Red, White and Free by Sandy Gervais! I agree about the colors and the prints really nice!
DeleteFun quilt! I don't have a design wall either, but I just figure it is the only way to make me clean my floors!
ReplyDeleteThat is funny! A little bending never hurt anyone! LOL
DeleteI use the design floor all the time! I figure I get some steps in from laying it out on the living room floor and walking back and forth to the sewing room =) I have not tried the webbing.... I'll have to give it a shot on the next one.
ReplyDeleteI have to use the great room too! Tomorrow I need to doodle a bit and see what I can come up for a machine quilting design to use on the negative chevrons!
DeleteHST 's have such potential. I love this
ReplyDeleteYeah it is amazing what you can do with them
DeleteI have a design floor, too ... in the great room (sewing room is way too small). I get in plenty of exercise when putting blocks together. I'm looking forward to seeing how you decide to quilt that.
ReplyDeleteYeah the bending didn't hurt me none, especially since it's raining so much I haven't gotten many walks. My son and his family are visiting for the weekend so I hope to start quilting it next week. Not sure what I am doing and need to do a little playing first.
DeleteIt looks wonderful! :)
ReplyDeleteThanks Deb! Now to figure out how to add the machine quilting and hopefully some big stitches!
DeleteI do have a design wall which I use a lot but before that, it was a design bed, design floor, design table, etc.! I struggle with the webbing technique. Last time I used it, I ended up with a tangled mess and had to cut it apart. Then I tried doing one quarter of the quilt at a time which worked so I'm thinking I was dealing with too much fabric?
ReplyDeleteYeah a whole quilt is a bit much!
DeleteLooks great! I am lucky to have a very large design wall, but sometimes the floor is "closer". Your quilt is wonderful.
ReplyDeleteI have ten foot ceilings and a blank wall I really need to get some builders styrofoam and cover it , maybe someday.
DeleteThat was fast and the HSTs look great.
ReplyDeleteNo, no design wall here either. If I need a layout I lay it out on the floor. Then I pin the row number to the first block in each row. Then I stack the blocks in the row on top of each other and use a clip clothespin to keep them together. I sew the rows together using that webbing technique but I don't do all rows at a time because they get tangled up and because I usually get bored sewing them together and because I like to iron little sections as I go too. I'm working on one with 16 rows right now and so I sew together four rows at a time and iron. If I keep the row number pinned to the already sewn and ironed squares nothing usually ever gets out of sequence when I go to sew another four rows. If I'm making a lot of blocks at one time I also use webbing to chain piece blocks.
I read Bonnie's blog when I have time but never have watched quilt cam. I like just plain silence and the marbles rattling around in my head when I sew.
Did you find a good place to purchase the perle?
I order mine from Piece O Cake Designs cause they carry #16 and #12 and it comes in some nice colors. I prefer the thinner perle to #8, although the pickledish could carry the #8 off. I can get white/black #8 at the local JoAnn's
DeleteOh and I agree about the pressing! It makes that difficult and I wish I had done vertical rows and pressed them individually! Thanks
DeleteHst's are so terrible for me to get super precise! Yours are amazing. I've tried the webbing thing before and got so confused. I think I'd have to see it in person to understand.:)
ReplyDeleteI have a few that probably should have been unpicked and redone. But then I think that by the time it is washed and shrinks up they are not bad enough to stick out like a sore thumb so they are what they are! I know before I started quilting I would look at old quilts and a seam not lining up perfectly never bothered me! I was just amazed that someone could figure out how to sew those small pieces of fabric together!
DeleteYumm .... love your quilt!
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