Tuesday, 17 February 2004

I finished another block for my brother's quilt. I think it is the best yet.

I like the contrast and the way the colors work together -- but best of all, I like the way the heart in the yellow fabric is so nicely centered. It just turned out that way -- I didn't even try to cut it that way. In fact, I read the design in the yellow fabric as leaves rather than hearts until I saw this finished block.

It's appropriate for a wedding gift, don't you think?

Ooo... the way that heart worked out in the center is definitely very cool. :)

      Quilty comment by Lyn/Uncorked on 18 February 2004

I agree-a subtle bonus indeed...perfect for expressing love...

      Quilty comment by Cher on 18 February 2004

Tonight I watched A Video Guide to Quilting by the New England Quilters Guild. I found the video at my public library and thought it might be interesting.

It was produced in 1987, and I think a lot of the techniques demonstrated in the video are old-fashioned, traditional (but largely 20th century) methods of quilting. But that's ok -- I like knowing about old-fashioned handwork techniques, even if I choose to use more modern methods.

The one thing I noticed immeadiately was that there wasn't a single rotary cutter in sight -- all the cutting was done with scissors with templates. I know the rotary cutter has been around for a while, but I don't remember seeing them in fabric shops as a child so I'm guessing that their widespread use is a recent development. I could be wrong -- perhaps the New England Quilters Guild just likes doing things the lo-tech way.

In any case, there appear to be some advantages to not using a rotary cutter. The templates did not include a seam allowance; the allowance was added on by guesstimating while cutting. I first thought this absurd until they demonstrated that the line drawn around the templates served as a sewing line -- the seam allowance did not have to be exact because the sewing line was. It's an interesting idea that I'm going to keep in mind. It seems like it might be useful someday.

The sections on design, fabric selection and piecing were straightforward and not all that different from what I have seen in books, however I did appreciate the demonstration of hand-piecing. I can now understand how it might be very satisfying.

The most useful and interesting sections of the video were on creating the quilt sandwich, quilting, and binding. The sandwich section demonstrated how to make the sandwich without creating puckers or bunches in the fabric, using techniques I can use in my small apartment (where I have to work on the floor). The quilting section was limited to hand-quilting only -- but like the hand-piecing demonstration, I could sense the appeal of it.

The binding section demonstrated a single-fold technique for creating a two-layer binding (the same number of layers created by the double-fold technique used on the page Uncorked posted a few days ago). Unfortunately, they didn't name the technique, and it's not one I've seen in books. I think I might try it on my brother's quilt.

The video ended with several of the women who had appeared in it displaying and discussing their favorite quilts. It was great fun to not only see their gorgeous work but to hear them talking about the meaning the patterns, the fabrics and the quilting designs had for them. I found this section quite inspirational.

Overall, I think this was a worthwhile video to watch, although it was somewhat uneven. I'll probably watch some of the sections a few more times before I return it to the library.

"The sandwich section demonstrated how to make the sandwich without creating puckers or bunches in the fabric, using techniques I can use in my small apartment (where I have to work on the floor"

K -- can you say more about this someday? I am completely at a loss when it comes to making the sandwich and all of my quilts suffer from it. I don't have a good space to use that's not carpetted and even when I think I've got the backing taut, it ends up bunched and wrinkled.

      Quilty comment by Lyn/Uncorked on 11 March 2004

Basically, they spread the backing out on a large table (but they said you could use the floor) and used duct tape to tack it down in every corner. Then they did the same with the batting and the top.

Then they used thread to baste it. This is the hard part of working on a carpeted floor -- I did this about a week ago with a small baby quilt that I hand-tied (which I haven't posted about because it is going to be a gift). The hand-tying was a challenge -- I had to slip my hand underneath to make sure I didn't sew the quilt to the floor.

If you were basting with safety pins, I imagine it would be much simpler, and if you did accidentally pin it to the floor, at least it would be easy to fix.

This upcoming weekend, I'm going to make the sandwich for my brother's quilt. I'm going to tape everything to the floor as described above, but I'm using fusible batting, so I will then just iron it. I'll post about the process.

      Quilty comment by Katxena on 15 March 2004