Twenty year old quilt made by my sweet and patient mother-in-law |
That said, the quilt we had been using for many years (pictured above) needs to be replaced. It was made by my very sweet and talented mother-in-law. She started quilting after she retired from banking and has made many quilts over the years. Most have been given to her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She pieces both by hand and machine, but prefers to hand quilt and does beautiful work. She made the quilt that has graced our bed for the past twenty years and gave it to us just before the birth of our first child. We snuggled all three babies under it, moved it to several homes and enjoyed it so much it actually hurts a little to retire it. It is starting to shred, however, so with a little sadness, I have washed and line-dried it for the last time and will put it away.
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Starting the squares |
After we moved to the old house, I needed a project and knew we needed a new quilt. Most of my sewing things were packed away, but I had kept out some things and a sewing machine. So sometime in August or September 2018, we made the 90 mile trip to the nearest JoAnns to buy fabric.
I chose the log cabin pattern due to the ease of sewing and over the course of the next year, made 42 14" squares. I prefer to use the Quilt-as-you-go technique as I also like machine quilting, but hate wrangling a large quilt under my machine.
Quilt as you go |
Each seam line was quilted using one of the quilting stitches on my Pfaff machines. This got me into trouble later when I went to join the squares into the quilt.
Quilting |
As you can see in the above picture, I stitched all the way to the end of the seam. Because I didn't want to use sashing (narrow strips used to join the blocks), which is standard with quilt-as-you-go quilting, I had to unpick a 1/2" or so of each of the seams that came right to the edge so I had enough seam allowance to join the blocks. A 1/4" of unpicking wasn't enough to give the presser foot enough room to slide through. While most of my seams matched, there are a few that didn't quite line up.
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Machine embroidered corner and boarders |
I learned a lot. Mostly, I learned I never want to make a quilt that large again. If I need another queen or larger quilt, I will piece it and take it somewhere to be quilted. I also learned that there is a reason most people use sashing between blocks on QAYG quilts, especially if you want quilting to go all the way to the end. I may make smaller quilts in the future, but they will either be quilted on the embroidery machine or have sashing between the blocks.
I started the project in September 2018 and finished in March 2020, so I have improved on my speed a bit. In my defense, we also had construction going on as well as all of the Diva's medical issues, so sewing has not been a priority for the past year. It feels really good to have this project done. It is not my best work, but it is warm and pretty and brightens up my room.
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Face mask, almost finished |
Please take care of your selves and your loved ones during this time.
2 comments:
I struggled woith making my first mask to day and it took me for ever Ilike yoyr face mask pattern, how big was the first square ad length of elastic.
Pat, this is the pattern that I am using because it is the one that the local hospital has requested. It is pretty easy, though making the pleats can be a little fiddly.
https://www.hcchospital.org/Uploads/Files/News/Face%20Mask%20Pattern%5B1%5D.pdf
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