Friendship Quilts Blog Hop

 It's my day for theFriendship Quilts Blog Hop and I have a lot to show you. I compiled all of my photos into mosaics to make it a little easier. Let's get the funny stuff out of the way. My '80's picture!

^^big hair^^

 I was 10-20 years old through the '80's. Here are some of the things I loved in no particular order. Stickers, Michael Jackson, friendship bracelets, friendship pins, Prince, pac-man(Ya, I pretty much had pac-man fever), MTV, Def Leppard, bandana's, Madonna, Metallica, the skating rink, running the streets....shhhhh....don't tell my kids.


Now on to my Friendship quilt.

It's Raining Hexies Friendship Quilt

I'ts a 15 1/4 x 34 1/4 wall hanging. Instead of showing you a total tutorial of how to put this together, I thought I would instead show you how to keep these thin strip pieces from getting crazy wonky on you. Why? BECAUSE IT HAPPENED TO ME!! see?

When I got halfway done, i realized that this goes under the WONKY category. Not what I was going for ...haha!

Let me back up.

I cut my strips of fabric to 1 1/2 inches, sewed them together and cut the sewed strips in to 1 inch strips. This is where it gets delicate.

To correct the WONKINESS of my first try, I stay-stitched along BOTH sides of the newly cut strips. This helped keep the cut strips from coming undone from where I had sewed them together the first time. It locks in those other stitches. Next, I lined each piece up against my ruler, spray startched and ironed. This gets the strips back into straight strips.

I lined the strips into my desired pattern, then sewed them together changing the end that I started from with each strip. This, and the ruler starch trick helped keep everything straight! Once sewed together, it shrunk up quite a bit!

See how these tips make a difference? On the left, I stay-stitched, lined up the strips to the ruler and starched and ironed, and last, I flip-flopped which side I sewed each new strip on. On the right, I did none of these. It might seem like overkill, but had I done this in the beginning, I would not have made two!

Here are a few details. I made a hexi quilt label. I love the binding fabric I found. I thought it was great to find a fabric print that went so well with all of those solids. And I did Double Stippling by Leah Day for the quilting.

And I gave it to my friend Sundy for her birthday. She loved it!We met about 8 years ago at work. We have so much in common. Funny thing is we ran in the same circles when we were younger, but somehow never met earlier. I'm so glad we finally did. She is such a great friend.

If any of you out there have any suggestions on how to keep strip-piecing from going wonky, Let me know! This is how I did it and I hope it helps somebody out!
 

the schedule runs Monday through Friday with weekends open for spotlights and recaps.

 September
3: Friendship Quilts Kick Off! at from blank pages..., Diane!
4: Diane of from blank pages...
5: Whitney of The Peacock Tree
6: January T of Sew Sew Go
7: Melinda of Quirky Granola Girl

10: Courtney of Mon Petit Lyons
11: Jill of Made with Moxie
12: Danielle of Fresh off the Spool<<<ME
13: Kelsey of Kelsey Sews
14: Kristy of Quiet Play

17: Marika of Live, Laugh, Love... Sew
18: Karen of Sew Well Maid
19: Rachael of imagine gnats
20: Katie of There & Back
21: Lori of Lori H. Designs
   - LINKY FOR YOUR PROJECTS OPENS

24: A SURPRISE LINKY PARTY OPENS!!! (You do NOT want to miss this one!)
25: Secret
26: Secret
27: Secret
28: Link up closes for projects
30: Suprise Linky closes
October 1st: at from blank pages...  Judges Picks announced, Random drawing for the rest of the prizes,


And so I don't give it ALL away, here's a list of the great sponsors, but I'm saving their awesome prizes for the Kick Off!! ;)

 

A HUGE thank you to everyone who is participating in this event! And especially to our generous sponsors! You are going to LOVE what they are giving away!

Are you excited?!?! I know I am. ;)