Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Quilts, Quilts, Quilts!

It's been a really long time since I posted anything - but I have been busy, just not very good at this blogging thing yet. But I wil get the hang of it.

What have I been doing the last six months or so well . . .

I have sewn a few more quilts. The first one I sewed was for my niece in Maryland. It is another family quilt with pictures. If I continue doing them maybe it will my signature quilt. I still have to get the bugs worked out of the process though. I would like to make them washable, I have a couple of products (Retayne and a dye fixative) to see if I can solve the problem. If anyone has any suggestions please let me know.


The second quilt was for my niece in Cleveland, celebrating the birth of her daughter Meyani Marie. It is a Disney character quilt courtesy of my new toy actually by the time of this posting I have two new toys. Brother SE350 and Brother 750D embroidery machines. They are cool machines. Watching them sew is something else. My friend Carole who turns me on to the new and exciting allowed me to use hers - then I was HOOKED!







NEXT! I went to the annual quilt show here in January. There was lots of wonderful fabrics, machines and anything you even thought you needed for sewing, embroidery and general crafting. I bought a lot of fabric, sewing machine feet and a Accu-cut GO (more on that later). I also bought a pattern for a quilt, well the technique actually. The object of this quilt is sort of quilt as you go. You never have to bind this quilt because you are in essence binding it all along. It's kind of hard to explain without seeing it demonstrated. But you cut out squares of the front and the back of the fabric and also the batting. Sew the three pieces together in a circle (leaving a slit for turning. Once the circle is cut out and turned that "block" is complete, you can then quilt the block, I chose not to. To finish the quilt simply join the blocks. That is really a simple explanation of the technique, there is a little more to it, included in the kit are templates and instructions to help you cut and sew the same size circles and how to join the blocks, which is very important because the if you are off, you will be able to notice it in the finished quilt.


This was my first attempt, I'm really happy with it. There are some mistakes, lessons I learned for the next one. I used some of my African fabric scraps. I purchased a swatch book from Homeland Fabrics years ago when we owned an art gallery and have been holding on to it because the fabric was just to pretty to throw away. Well I think I have finally used most of it up.

1 comment:

Carole Beath said...

The photos of this quilt are great, but there is nothing like seeing them in person as I have. Wonderful stuff, Yvonne.