Cleaning up and Clearing Out

Cleaning up and clearing out!  We all need to do that now and then.  My sewing room turned into a disaster as I flung fabric bits all over during the construction of a pillow.  Not even a quilt...just a pillow!  It was pieced and quilted... as if that might be an excuse.  I will fly with with the pillow cover to where my granddaughter's shower is, buy the pillow form there and hand stitch the last seam.  No room in my suitcase for an 18 inch pillow.   I also made a stuffed puppy for my new great-grandson, which was left resting as I waited for Amazon to deliver the stuffing.  Now all is done.

"Puppy Dog Pete" designed by Pauline McArthur
(kit purchased from AQS)

I spent two hours sorting material ready to put some away.  The rest is tidied up ready for anticipated use in the near future.  There were also numerous spools and cones of thread to return to their respective boxes.

Now what?  Next I hemmed my dress for the wedding.  It is the weirdest material.  There is no hem...it is just cut off.  That makes it easy.  I will have to hem the lining however, but I can do that by machine.  The best part of the dress is that is doesn't wrinkle.  I bought it in CA and packed it into my suitcase very squished.  Not a wrinkle when I got home.

Originally I wrote this during great sewing weather.  We were hit by a major snow storm with over a foot of snow.  It was gorgeous.  Some places near us were pummeled with 90 mph wind, but for some reason we escaped that part of the storm.  I couldn't walk the dog when there was so much ice on the roads, but we had fun romping through the deep snow in the yard.

Our magnificent icicles.

I have finally returned to quilting my quilt.  Endless, but fun all at the same time.

Sew some happy seams this week.  I wish you time to enjoy the outdoors as well as time to sew.

Walking Foot Quilting

I began quilting my star pillow cover with light colored thread and a fancy design.  Three hours of quilting and it looked awful.  Three more hours to pick it all out listening to a good audiobook.  OK.  Now what?  Clearly fancy, special quilting was not doing anything for the pillow cover.  Neither was the light colored thread.

TIP:  Sometimes fancy quilting is not the best way to quilt.

Fancy quilting is so beautiful on negative space.  It is stunning on a whole cloth quilt.  It doesn't work so well on fabrics with a busy design.

I threw my hands up and decided I didn't want to spend inordinate amounts of time on this project so I dug out my dual feed foot.  If you don't have one of those, a walking foot will do the same thing.  I have read that people do 1/4 inch lines with these feet, but on my foot the front tips curl up and I didn't think I would be able to gauge it right with my eyes since the tips are not flat on the fabric.  However, a red line runs down the foot 1/4 inch from the needle so I decided to give it a try.  Awesome!  It works.  My eyes adjusted to the spatial variation with no problem.  I didn't have to mark anything.

See how the tips curl up.  See the red guidelines.

I did yards and yards of straight-line, perfect quarter inch stitching, and do you know what?  It looks great.  It didn't even take very long. There is texture around the star, but it accentuates the star instead of fighting with it.   You don't want to fight with the stars!  (Scroll down to last week's post to see the whole block.)

Finished quilting
(pardon the fuzz - I was stuffing a puppy toy at photo time)

Sew some happy seams this week.  I wish you a trial with your special feet.  They can be fun.

Prepping and Planning

Back to sewing.  Life is still happening and getting in the way a bit, but I was able to spend time on the wedding shower pillow and I think it is going to fully cover the foam form.  For the back of the pillow I used mostly the same fabrics as the front to create a star, which I paper pieced.  It is always gratifying when all those pieces are nice and crisp and the seams go together well.  The seams can be problematic as they cannot be pressed in opposite directions to nest at the meeting place.

TIP:  [As you read this you must realize that I have cork board under my canvas ironing cover.]  I have two triangles that have been paper pieced.  I need to sew them together matching several seams.  Lay the triangles right side together and put a pin through all paper and fabric at the exact junction of the seam and the seam allowance line.  Carefully lift the top seam allowance and make sure that the seams align perfectly.  Then put a short line of glue in the seam allowance to hold the fabric in place.  Press. Sew.  Usually the seams line up without a problem.  If they don't I redo and sew the seam from the other direction.

Paper pattern with fabric sewn on to the reverse
(the other triangle is underneath so right sides are together)

I discovered in the process of making the triangles that the star didn't show up if I used the busy parts of the fabric next to it, and the yellow bands at the corners disappeared.

TIP:  Put a mirror next to the edges to get an idea of what it will look like when sewn to the next piece.

First edition.

There wasn't enough fabric to fussy cut so I cut the pieces so that the black areas mostly bordered the star and the yellow bands.  I also used a lighter color fabric for the outer layer of the star.  This made a nice contrast so those features now stand out.  The floral fabric retreated to the background.

Below is the completed star block with all seams stitched-in-the-ditch.

Sew some happy seams this week.  I wish you success in matching seams and happiness with the end product.