I'M HERE TO INSPIRE AND BE INSPIRED!

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Quilt Along Wednesday

My Hearts and Feathers whole cloth is finished!!! I am very pleased with it. Blocking was a little more challenging than I thought it would be. In my haste and excitement to get finished, I forgot to measure before I soaked it in water:P OOPS!  I had already blocked it before I realized this, but I hadn't cut it yet. So, I decided to get it wet again, and re-block. This time, I tried to pull it tighter. I tried to stablize the center with pins, and then measure and pull out each side make it as even as possible on each side. Ummm, I was off a bit.

I didn't have any elastic, so I made due with what I had. I used a piece if foam poster board and cut it down to about a 1/2 in. bigger than the cloth. Then used binder clips to hold it. I was unsure of how the paper layer would hold up. It did fine, but the whole board buckled. I had a picture of this, but I lost my camera in my sewing room. I actually at this point, think the camera walked off. I searched high and low. It's gone. IPhone photos will have to do until I get a new camera. :(


I used biased binding. I have not had much luck with straight of grain binding.I didn't use as many pins as Leah, suggested for my binding. I just went slow, and it was fine.I LOVE putting the binding on!! I also put in a lable, and corner holders instead of a sleeve( I'm not sure what they are called, but I have seen them around the blogs.)

After the binding was attached, It was a little wavy on the edges. To fix this I used a squirt bottle of water to wet it. Then laid acrylic rulers on top of it, and put my acrylic extension table on top of it for a little weight. It did the trick. Not quite sure how I would fix a big quilt, though.

Question for Leah: If you forget to measure before soaking the quilt, is all lost. I couldn't seem to get past that, because if I measured from the outer feathers to cut, I wouldn't get a perfect square. If I measured from the center out, to get a square, the distance between the feathers and outer edge was not equal. I opted for the perfect square, since the distance was not to much off.

What I learned. Take your time with blocking and follow directions!! Accept that quilting/blockin/cutting cannot be perfectly accurate and jsut do the best you can;) And don't sweat the small stuff!!

18 comments:

  1. Your wholecloth quilt looks great. I like the binding fabric you choose. I'm still debating whether to go with the same color fabric or something different for binding. I know I'm little behind this week too.

    I also like the alternative for sleeve which you put in. But not sure how you would use it? Any ideas? I would like to try it too.

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  2. on the sleeve alternative,(it's just a square folded in half) I plan on using a paint stick, if thats not long enough, cut down a yard stick, or a dowel rod, and attach a few hooks in the wall.

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  3. Your quilt looks great! I love the binding fabric!

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    1. thank You! I think we all had fun with this one and learned a lot!

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  4. Fanastic...is the corner label just sewn in over the corner as you attach the binding? I have not seen that before and think it looks really good. Could you talk about that a bit more?
    By the way also had issues with wavy edges...no idea why actually and posted a question to Leah as this seems to happen quite regularly.

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    1. Yes! i attached it under the binding. Since you asked....I will do you one better and make a tutorial tomorrow evening. So stay tuned.....LOL.

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  5. What a fabulous finish! The label is terrific addition too!

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  6. Your quilt is wonderful - great binding and label! I'm looking forward to the label tutorial! ~Jeanne

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    1. Thanks! I have my tutorial up! It's a bit generic, but I did my best:)

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  7. Fantastic Danielle~ Looks Great... and the label, well I LOVE it! Great idea!
    Congrats on a beautiful finish!

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  8. Hi Danielle! I have a question. When you do the free motion "writing" do you do anything special to make it bold, or pop, i.e. so that it shows up and the cursive is "thick" and readable? It almost looks like you went over it a few times or made the stitches really close together. I've been thinking about doing this on the back of my quilts. Thanks for sharing!

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    1. NoI didn't really go over it a few times. I did however, do a little traveling a few times like on the F,T,and 2. My stitches were pretty small,too. I was going pretty fast(almost as fast as writing). Thats probably why my stitches were so small. But, you COULD go over it a few times to make it bolder! I still have some practicing to do with this because it's the first time(with my Heart's and Feather's quilt) I have done a label like this. But I was out of computer ink, to make a label , so I figured, why not FMQ it ? :) I really like the corner label because it was quick and easy to make and attatch!!!!

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    2. Also, I did a tutorial on how to do this. Maybe it will help! Its here http://freshoffthespool-danih03.blogspot.com/2012/04/corner-quilt-label-tutorial.html

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  10. to stop the wrinkling I wet before binding, then bind with straight material, it works each time!

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