More Yoga Matt Bags

Here is my latest yoga matt bag. I really love this one. It has two straps and a zipper. My last bag was just a bit too small for the thick pilates matt that I have. It was really hard to get my thick matt in and out of the bag; however, I have a thin yoga matt and it is fine in the other bag.

This is the "Purses Bags & Totes" pattern by Cindy Taylor Oates. I made a few changes to the pattern though. I didn't quilt the bag with batting in it. Instead I lined the bag with nylon windbreaker type material and I made cloth straps to go around the bag instead of webbing. You could easily add a pocket to the outside of the bag if you wanted. The ends of the bag also have a sun embroidery on them.

I got the pattern here from SewThankful and I was really pleased with their service.

The finished quilt!

I'm sorry I haven't blogged in a little while. Those last few posts were pretty intense and I needed a bit of time off.

I was also doing a pilates certification all weekend (it's not finished yet!) so I didn't have much time.

This is a picture of the finished quilt that I did for my Mother. You have seen this quilt in bits and pieces but not the whole thing so here it is! I think that it looks so fresh and spring-like. It is about 86" x 96" big. And yes it was quilted on my regular sewing machine without any problems.

Just a reminder that if you have any questions or comments you can leave them here or you can e-mail me at sunshowerquilts@yahoo.com

Label and turning the binding to the back

Before you turn your binding to the back of the quilt you have a t least one more step. It is now time to add a label to you quilt. I like to enclose my labels into the binding of the quilt on two sides so that I have less hand sewing to do. I write with a Pigma pen on the back of the quilt who the quilt is for, who made , when and where. I always think that I am going to remember when I made something but I rarely do; and, 50 years from now people will wonder about the quilt.
Make sure that you don't sew around the whole corner when you attatch the label or you will sew into your mitre. You will then blind stick the label down on the remaining sides just like an applique.
If you are adding a hanging sleeve to your quilt you would do it at this stage. I will blog about that in a future blog.
The next step is to turn your binding to the back. I like the finish of turing the binding to the back by hand the best. Yes, it does take some time and it is very repetative but I really like the finish.
Lots of quilters use straight pins to hold their binding at the back of their quilts but I really like these cheap barettes that you can get at the dollar store. Quilt stores do sell a "quilt" version of the same thing but these work just as well and cost a lot less. And, they come in cool colours!
Use a blind stitch again and stitch the binding to the back.

When you get to the corners you will mitre them at the back as well. When you fold over the binding at the back make sure that you fold over the opposite side first. If you fold over the same side as the front first your corners will be lumpy. However, if you have it top-bottom bottom-top your corners will be smooth. IE if it is left on the bottom and right on the top then fold over right on the top and left on the bottom so that you will have opposites when you look at it. I hope that you can see what I mean from the picture. Try it and feel the corners and you will see what I mean. Take a couple fo stitches on both sides, stabbing through the corner, of the quilt to stitch down the corner and continue on to the next corner.

I hope that this was all fairly clear for you all! Please feel free to post your comments and questions.

In my binding series of blogs I was thinking of blogging on how to afix a hanging sleeve and how to put a flap or another embelishment into your binding. What do you think? Please let me know here what you would like to see and I will see what I can do.
Happy Quilting!

Double Fold French Binding

Here is the blog on double-fold french binding finally! It's a long one so maybe get a cup of tea or a glass of wine :) I hope that you enjoy it.

I make my binding from cross-grain or length-wise-grain strips unless I need bias strips for rounded edges. I really like length-wise-grain since it is so strong and have very little bend to it.

I usually cut my binding strips 2.5” for large quilts and 2” for small wall-hangings. I find that I don't like the look of a really thick binding on a small wall-hanging.

I join my binding strips on the bias by putting the two strips right-sides together like the picture and sewing them on the diagonal. You can draw a line if you wish Do this until all the strips are joined. Trim the excess fabric off so that you have just a ¼” seam allowance left.

Take your binding to your ironing board and press the seams OPEN to distribute the bulk of the seam-allowance. And, press the binding in half lengthwise so that the wrong sides are together. I generally press the seams open as I go along pressing the binding in half. By pressing your binding in half now you will get a smoother crease in the end and save time while you are machine sewing it on.

Now take your binding and quilt to your sewing machine now and make sure that you have your walking foot on. Start on one of the long sides of your quilt and make sure that you leave a long tail of extra binding so that we can join it latter. Sew your binding on with the correct seam allowance:

• If you cut your binding at 2 ½” sew your binding on at 3/8”

• If you cut your binding at 2” sew your binding on at ¼”

If you sew a 2 ½” binding on at ¼” your binding will either not be “full” when you turn it to the back; or, the binding on the back will be much larger than the binding on the front. You may need to measure this on your machine to make sure that you get the correct measurement. The edge of my O/A foot on my Pfaff machine is a very accurate 3/8” so it is perfect for 2 ½” bindings. After sewing for a few inches turn the binding to the back of the quilt to audition it and make sure that you are sewing it on with the correct seam allowance. Sometimes if you are using thick fabric and thick batting you may have to make this allowance smaller.

When you get to a corner stop about ¼” before it and pivot the quilt so that you can sew directly into the corner. If you sew into the corner your binding will be stronger and it is easier to fold the fabric in the next step. Remove the quilt from the machine and cut your thread.

Fold the fabric directly up so that the raw edges of the binding are in line with your quilt edge and the binding is extending beyond the quilt. Make a good crease in the fabric with your finger-nail.

Next fold the binding straight down. This will form the miter when we fold the binding to the back. This step is so important! Many people just pivot around the corner of the quilt and then not know why they don't get a nice finish in the corners. Take the extra couple of seconds to miter your corners properly. You won't regret it.

Finish the remaining three corners. You will then return to where you started. Stop sewing about 12” before you get to the starting place and take the quilt off the sewing machine. You will have two long tails one at either end. What we are going to do now is join the ends so that we have a seamless finish. You need to overlap the binding ends by whatever your binding is cut at. IE if you cut your binding at 2” overlap the two ends by 2”. I love this little Omingrid 2 ½” square for binding because it is easy to get between the two ends (much easier than a 6” ruler since sometimes you don't have that much space).

Cut off the excess fabric. Notice how the 2 1/2" ruler is just perfect for this job and makes seeing where to cut so much easier. We are now going to sew the strips together just like in the beginning when we made the binding.

Put the ends together at right angels just like we did when we first made the binding. I like to use a pin here to hold the ends together in the right spot since it is a little challenging to hold the ends together sometimes. You may have to bunch up the quilt a bit.

Take the quilt and binding to the sewing machine and sew a diagonal line just like in the beginning. Now let the binding go and make sure that you haven't twisted the binding before sewing or done weird things BEFORE you cut off the seam allowance. The first couple of times you do this you may need to rip this seam out and try again since twisting the fabric or sewing in the wrong place is very common and easy to do.

Cut off the excess fabric. Press the seam open to distribute the bulk. And, it should look just like the rest of your binding. Continue to sew on that last little bit of binding and your finished! This way of ending your binding takes a bit of practice but it gives a seamless finish without any lumps and bumps.

I hope that you enjoyed this blog and I hope that I was able to make sense :)

If you have any comments of suggestions please feel free to comment here and I will try to answer your questions.

Squaring Up a Quilt

I thought that I would do a two or three part blog on squaring up a quilt, after quilting, and doing a double fold french binding. I find that many quilters simply take scissors to the edges of thier quilt and cut along the edge of thier top border; and, I get a lot of questions from fellow quilters on how to sqaure up a quilt properly so this seemed like a good idea to me :)

Step One: Place a large square ruler in the corner of the quilt. Omnigrid makes a new 24" ruler that is wonderful for this but I am using the 14" in the pictures. Line up as many lines as you can along your borders and get the most square and straight lines that you can. You may have to move the quilt a bit to achieve this. I usually cut my final borders 1/4" bigger than I want so that I have lots of room to square up the quilt. After you cut on the two sides you will have a nice 90 degree angle corner so that the rest of your quilt will be square.


Step Two: Continue cutting the edge of your quilt with a regular ruler, matching up one of the lines on your ruler with one of the lines on your boarder or quilt body, until you get to another corner. When you are about 24" from the next corner use your square ruler again and sqaure up the next corner. Hopefully then your lines will meet up without a problem. Sometimes at this point you find out the somehow your borders are different sizes. If this is the case go back and square down to the smallest size.



Once you have squared up three corners you will be coming back to the original corner that you started with. Keep on cutting until you get within one ruler length of the oringinal corner then match up with the original cut. Make the last cut and you are done! :)

As an aside; when I am adding the borders to my quilt top I do this same process after adding each border. I will add a first border then square up the quilt. Etc for additional borders. This prevents corners that take on a life of thier own and growing at wierd angles.

I hope that you enjoyed this and please feel free to comment here on my blog if you liked it. I will show how I bind a quilt next using double-fold-french binding.

Mchine Quilting

Well I spent the day machine quilting! My boys were in school until 3:00pm so I spent the day machine quilting; maybe I should say finally I machine quilted the quilt that I basted ages ago. I had such a great time. I put on some Ella Fitzgerald and just quilted away while singing. I think that I must have been a very funny sight for a while today singing "a tisket a tasket...." while quilting; but, quilting with music is such a great way to quilt. My stiches are better and my quilting is better. I can't imagine quilting in silence. I am not a silent person by any means :)

This is the quilt that you may remember from a previous blog when I basted the quilt top so it is shamefully over-due for me to have finished it.

The quilt is composed of a big block quilt kit. Only, instead of doing all big blocks I did some 4-patches and then 1-patches. The squares all equal 9" finished.

So what do you think? You can leave a comment here on my blog if you like! Miss M. you know that this quilt is for you so what do you think?
Happy Quilting!

Log Cabin Quilting

Hi all! Today's blog is going to be just a couple of short tips on log cabin quilt blocks.

I discovered this tip many years ago when I was making a whole bunch of log cabin blocks. I always had difficulty remebering which side of the block got the next log. then I realized, after the first "round" of logs, that the side that had two seams on it got the next log. Three sides will only have one seam on it and one side will have two. This made making log cabin blocks soooo much easier and faster for me. I hope that it works for you too. You can follow the seams on the log cabin block here to see what I mean.

Also, a tip that I wish I had known when I pieced these blocks, is to always press the block into the centre. If you press them out you will get distortion as the block bow outwards. You can see a bit of this with these blocks.

Well, I hope that these log cabin tips can help you. If you have any comments please feel free to post here on my blog. You can also post anoymously if you don't want to sign in.

Snow Globe Quilt Block

This is my first snow globe quilt block! Isn't it cute?! I really liked doing this block because it was a new technique for me. This is another block for the tinners program at our local quilt guild.

The block has vinyl on top of the globe with snowflakes inside that move around.

Lots of people dosnow globe fabric postcards which I think would be really cute to do. I'd actually like to do a series of them some time in the future.

scrap quilts and sweatshirt jacket

This is a picture of my scrap sweat shirt jacket with the corner of my queen sized scrap Christmas quilt. You can see my short directions on the sweat shirt jacket here. They were both hanging in our local quilt guild show.This is as close as I will get to a postage stamp quilt :) This method of scrap quilting is really quick and easy and best of all it uses up a lot of little pieces that you might be tempted to throw away.

The border treatment for the Christmas quilt was taken from the book “The Border Workbook” by Janet Kime. It was great for a scrap quilt because it uses up lots of small strips.

The pieces were cut at 2” square. Then, instead of using a small scrap of fabric as a lead, or thread saver (whatever you call them) to start and end your piecing with, I put through two 2” squares. At the end of the days sewing I pressed them all to one side. When I had lots of two patches I made 4-patches. Then 8-patches and finally 16-patches. At this point I squared up the blocks to 6 ½” square. Then I put them together. The key to this system is to be consistent with the way that you press. Would you believe that in that queen size Christmas quilt almost every seam butted properly.

If you have any questions please feel free to post them here and I will try to answer them.

More Yoga Mat Bags

I finally got myself a yoga mat (I do pilates) so I made myself a yoga mat bag. You can see the pictures of it. I will post a more indepth pattern for the bag once I refine the pattern a bit more. I want to put some type of nylon liner in the bag so that the matt slides easier into the bag. Because the fabric that I use is cotton it sticks to the sticky matt a bit which is not very good. Other than that I love the bag! I love the fish fabric and the embroidery of the koi on the bottom worked out great. It is the same embroidery that I did on the bottom of my friend's bag but in oranges and reds The word on the pocket is "strength." I hope that you like it!

UPDATE! I got some nylon windbreaker fabric and lined my bag with it this morning. The yoga matt slides much easier through the bag with the nylon lining. I am going to try another bag this week sometime maybe with the nylon sewn directly into the bag the first time. I think that it will really cut down on the fabric required for the bag. I also ordered the other yoga matt bag pattern, that I posted in my first yoga matt bag posting, and I will try it when I get the pattern.

Quilting on the web

I have been making more preemie quilts and more paper dolls for the Smiles for Children Project lately. Please check out the link if you would like more information or you can check out my previous blog on it called "Friday Quilting"
While I am quilting I love to listen to podcasts! If you don't know what a podcast is they are like internet radio. There are podcasts on pretty much everything including quilting. The one that I like best is Annie Smith's podcast "Quilting Stash." It was the first podcast for quilters. You can get to her blog here and find the link to her podcast from there. You can listen to it on your Ipod if you have one but I personally just use itunes on my computer and listen to it while I quilt. I love it becasue she has lots of tips and tricks that she shares and great interviews with other quilters. Jennifer Chiaverini author of the Elm Creek Quilt novels has a blog and podcast about her books and the progress of her new books. She has a great site at http://www.elmcreek.net where you can subscribe to her podcast, download her block patterns and chat with other readers. Alex Anderson also has a podcast now so you can check that out too on itunes if you like.
Another great resource for quilters on the web it Quiltler's News Network or QNN. It is a 24 hour quilting channel on the web. It has lots of great shows that you'll know for TV and some original programing too.
There's so many great resources out there for us now that it is really worth checking out.

back up your files!!

This will be a very short blog just to say back up your files. I mentioned earlier that we had a computer hard drive crash. Well I, me personally, had never backed anything up. But my darling husband actually had. So after the crash I thought that I had lost ALL of my embroidery files. Hundreds of designs that I had downloaded GONE. I felt sick. Anyways, my husband had done a back-up onto our Linux machine and he was able to recover them for me. I felt so thrilled. I will be able to start embroidering for the Smiles for Children project again and just plain get going. Saving your important files to CD is a great option and I plan on doing this with my embroidery files just to get a hard copy of everything but there were patterns and invoices etc that were potentially lost too. So please take my advice and just back everything up at least once a month!!

Machine Quilting

This is my sewing area. You can see my cabinet, my thread storage and you can see a bit of my cutting table on the left behind my sewing cabinet. My stash is under my cutting table in the three-drawer plastic storage units sorted by colour families or novelites.

I love to machine quilt! Many people don't actually like to do it because they think that you can't quilt a large quilt on a domestic or regular sewing machine. I have a Pfaff sewing machine with a regular sized harp (the arm of the sewing machine) and I have machine quilted queen sized quilts. Now there are some things that will make it much easier for you to quilt

• don't use a really thick batting like polyester. It is hard to get all that quilt under the harp. instead use a thinner batting like a cotton. I like the Hobbs 80/20

• use quilting gloves. I like Machingers because they are one piece, thin, and they allow you to thread needles and cut threads with them on.

• PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE. It takes a while before you feel comfortable quilting. Make small practice sandwiches and use those to develop a rhythm and work out the kinks. The last thing that you want is to look back on a project and wish that you had practiced more first.

• Take a good machine quilting class. It is far easier to learn in a classroom rather than trying to teach yourself. You will learn a lot of tips and tricks that will make your life easier.

• If at all possible sink your sewing machine into your table or get an extension table for your sewing machine. You need to increase the bed of your sewing machine. Otherwise you will not be able to quilt the larger motifs. I have included a picture of my set-up. My husband made this cabinet for me; but, Horn of America makes a wonderful cabinet called the Quilter's Dream that is beautiful. Notice the extesion off the left-hand side? This is really important to support the bulk of the quilt. Having this extension makes it easier on your neck and shoulders.

• keep your sewing area clean, mess free and dust free. This will make a big difference with friction. Before I start quilting I also spray my quilting area down with a product called Quilt Glide by Jukebox Quilts http://www.JukeboxQuilts.com to reduce friction. It lasts for about 4 hours and works really well.

• Invest in a good chair without arms. You're going to be spending a lot of time in it so it's better to be comfortable.

• Use good quality thread and the appropriate good quality needle. Many of the frustrations that quilters experience could be eliminated by using good quality thread and the right needle for the job. Oh and change your needles every 6-8 hours of sewing. Needles get dull and won't make a nice stitch if they are dull.

• Listen to music to help you develop and maintain a nice rhythm. This is so important. If you don't maintain a constant rhythm and listen to the rhythm of your machine your stitches will not be even. Quilting in fits and starts will lead to uneven stitches and sharp lines instead of flowing motifs.

• Wind a few bobbins ahead of time so that you don't have to stop and wind bobbins every time you run out of bobbin thread.

• Take care of your machine. Keep it clean and oiled as per your manual. Take it in for check ups at least once a year. Machine quilting is hard on your machine so be nice to it.

If you would like anymore machine quilting tips or have a question please feel free to post a comment here and I will try to answer any questions or comments that you may have.

Preemie Quilts!

Hi everyone!
I know that I haven't posted in a while but we had a hard drive melt-down last week. Blah....

Today my youngest son and I dropped off some preemie quilts at our local hospital. This is such a great project to get involoved in. Our local hospital wants them to be 24" x 24" so that they fit into the incubators well. You can do anything that you want with them and it is a great way to use up your scraps from other baby quilts. Sorry this is such a bad picture but these are the preemie quilts that I did and sent in. Unfortunately since the quilts are now out of the house I can't take another picture.
The next picture is my son Gavin, at the nursery, showing the preemie quilt that he and I made together. Gavin made a very short stay at this NICU after he was born and the quilts make such a huge difference to the parents and to the feel of the nursery. When we went to drop off the quilts he was so disappointed that he didn't get to actually give a baby the quilt so the nurses made an exception for him and brought out a little baby for him to give the quilt to. Wasn't that nice?! He was sooo happy about that. He picked out all the fabrics and we sewed them together and we even quilted it together. He specifically picked out the Harry Potter fabrics :)

Yoga Mat Bags!!

My friend came up this weekend and we spent practically the whole weekend planning and making yoga mat bags for her and another friend. You can see the bags here and the machine embroideries that we did on the bottom of the bags. I think that the embroideries add a really special touch. You can also see the little sun logo that I put on the bags incase I decide to make more. I really love them both and didn't want to give them up when they were finished. The rest of the weekend we spent planning and having a birthday party for my two boys. :)
Basically the bag is a tube with a round bottom on it and a drawstring top. Measure the width of the mat to get the length of the bag and roll up the bag ( I did it loosely) to get the diameter. There is a great free computer program at http://www.wildginger.com/wildthings/ that is a free bag making program. You just type in your needed dimensions and it will give you a pattern. There is also a great pattern book that includes a zippered yoga mat bag by Cindy Taylor Oates called "Purses, Bags and Totes" http://www.sewthankful.com/PursesBagsTotesPatternBook.html I have not made this bag yet but all her bags are great and I want to get this book.
If you want more information on the bags please post a comment here and I will blog on the directions more.

Happy Valentine's Day and Doll Making

Happy Valentine's Day!

I took a great doll course the last two Saturdays from Jacquie Lecuyer of "Off the Floor Designs" and it was really great! She does custom dolls and also sells dolls and patterns off her web site. In the class we made her "Quiet Quilter" Doll. She has a pin cushion for a hat and is holding a needle and quilting hoop. I did her dress in fabric that has two geishas quilting which I thought was pretty neat. I still have to make her shoes but I did get her hair and glasses on. I can't decide if I want to embellish her more or not. We want her to teach meore classes at our local quilt shop and Jacquie said that she would teach "Uma: The Forest Elf From Another World" next. (In this picture you can also see the mess that my sewing room is in right now.)

Here is Jacquie's web site if you would like to take a look http://www.offthefloordolls.com

Sometimes it is really great and rewarding to do something completely different from anything that you have done before to re-energize yourself and your creative impulses. It can really get you going again if you've been in a slump. I really didn't think that I would like doll-making; but, I thought that a nice quilter doll would look great in my studio so I took the course. Now I can't wait to make more dolls! Stepping outside your own personal box is a great thing to do now and again.

Sweat Shirt Jackets

This is one of my sweatshirt jackets that I have made. Some people call them foundation garments as the jacket is made on the base of a sweatshirt. This particular one is my scrap Halloween jacket. I used scraps from various halloween projects including some 4 year old paper-pieced pumpkin blocks. You can see on the sleeve an embroidered skeleton that I think looks great on the sleeve.
Sweatshirt jackets are great because they illiminate cutting a pattern and they fit like a comfy sweatshirt. You can really do a lot of different fun things with them for relatively little cost.
The long and the short of this method is:

1. buy a sweatshirt that is one size too big for you and has set-in sleeves.
2. cut off the ribbing around the sleeves and bottom. I leave on the top until the end.
   
3. cut it apart on the seams and down the cetre of the front.
4. make fabric somehow to cover the sweatshirt pieces.
5. baste the fabric onto the sweatshirt pieces.
   
6. quilt the pieces.
7. trim away the excess top fabric from the sweatshirt pieces.
   
8. sew the sweatshirt back together and over-cast the edges. Make sure that the jacket has a nice fit.
   
9. you can either bind the edges witha bias or turn the fabric to the back and top-stitch.

Would you like more information on this? Please leave a comment here. I have been thinking about doing a pictorial lesson on my blog but I would like to know if there is interest first.
As always please feel free to leave me comments and let me know if there is anything that you would like to see.

Fusible Quilting

Hi all! I had a suggestion to blog on my Pineneedles designs since I have now completed two of the complete arrangements. I have some advice to keep you from having the various problems that I have had. You can also see a list of various notions that McKenna Ryan uses on her site http://www.pineneedles.com/

1. Good quality batik fabric is the easiest to work with, has the most colour variation, and, frays the least. Batik has a higher thread count so when you are cutting the designs out you can get the very intricate detail without all the fraying. On McKenna Ryan's site http://www.pineneedles.com/ you can download a chart with her fabric suggestions on it. They are 99.99% batiks and very helpful if you want to make the exact quilt that she did. I used this for both of my quilts to shop with. She also has her own fabric line out now so that you can get her colours exactly.

2. Use only Steam-A-Seam2 LITE fusible webbing. Regular Steam-A-Seam2 is great for big applique pieces but too heavey for such small pieces. On my first quilt I used a few different brands. Wonder Under just flakes off and makes it impossible to cut and attatch the very small pieces. Heat N'Bond is not something I like either. If you over-heat it it becomes hard and papery. You need to be able to iron the block SEVERAL times as you apply the pieces. Steam-A-Seam2 LITE has an almost plasticy type webbing that stays together.

3. Use a small mini-iron to attatch your pieces. You can't possibly lay down all those small pieces using a big iron. You WILL burn yourself (I know this from experience).

4. You will need some type of applique pressing sheet. Make sure you don't get the brown one as you will need to be able to see through it when you lay the placement diagram undernieth it. You cannot do without this item.

5. Use good sharp right to the point, spring-loaded scissors. I did my first block with regular scissors and my hand ached the next day. You will need good blades on the scissors to get good detail. I really like the fiscars scissors in the picture.

6. Get some iron cleaner to get the fusible webbing off your iron. Everyone has accidents :)

7. I use only Sew Art Invisible Nylon Monofilament thread. It comes in clear and smoke. Use the smoke on the dark areas you are appliqueing and the clear everywhere else. I will not use any other brand of nylon monofilament thread. It is the strongest, has the least shine and is recommended by both McKenna Ryan and Harriet Hargrave (good enough for me). Cheaper brands will yellow and break with age. As for polyester monofilament I use only Sulky or YLI; but, polyester has more shine than nylon so it's not as invisible.

8. Use Microtex 60/8 needles to applique with the monofilament thread. They have a sharp small point and they leave the smallest hole in the applique thus giving a neater finish. If you can't get Microtex Sharpes use Universal 60/8 needles.

9. Always "hollow out" you fusible webbing pieces before you put them onto the back on the fabric. When you are doing this type of design you will have many overlapping pieces and some of them will be very large. If you have multiple solid layers on top of each other your blocks will become stiff and be able to stand up by themselves. I put a sample of a "hollowed out" piece in the picture. You can see the fusible web on the back of the fabric; notice how the fusible only extends about 1/2" to 3/4" into the center of the block? This will make your quilt much softer.

10. Take your time choosing your fabrics!!! Fabric choice is everything in these quilts. There are so many beautiful batiks and hand-dyed fabrics out there that there is no reason to settle for something. Audition many different fabrics and have fun with it. Also, never buy your border fabrics until your quilt top is ready. I have never stayed with my first choice or even McKenna Ryan's choices. :) Let the centre of the quilt tell you what should be on the borders.

11. I quilt the quilt and applique at the same time. Yes I know that sounds daunting; but, What I do is fuse down all the pieces, sew the quilt top together, layer the quilt sandwich and then quilt and appliqe the quilt at the same time. I free-motion quilt 1/16" inside each and every applique piece. I have found that when I applique separately I was quilting over the same lines again and that felt like I was wasting my time. It is a bit harder to maneuver the whole quilt but if you take breaks and don't rush you will be fine.

12. I generally use 50 wt or 60 wt 100% cotton thread in the bobbin. I really like cotton but many people like polyester. The choice is yours.

13. Use machine quilting gloves. I really like Machingers. They give you greater accuracy when you quilt and your fingers won't get as tired.

I hope that you enjoyed this! If you have any questions please feel free to post a comment. I may have forgotten to add something that might help you.

Spray Basted Quilt

This is the quilt that I spray basted today (with 505 Spray and Fix; it is the only one that I will use for quilts). I made the top probably about a month ago. It is a gift for a very good friend of mine. It is really simple but I think that it is nice; just a simple 4-patch 1-patch. It is 72" x 92". I think that I will machine quilt it with some nice undulating feathers. She is coming to visit next weekend so I'd better get cracking if I am going to finish it before she gets here.

Thank you all for your really nice comments about the flying geese quilt. I really love the comments! I am going to try and baste it this weekend and maybe that will make me come up with some ideas about how to quilt it. Any ideas?

Flying Geese Top Finished

Here it is the finished flying geese top!! I went with my original fabric for the sashing (cut on the lengthwise grain) and I think that it worked really well. Notice the corners? This is a great way to finish your quilt borders when you don't have enough border fabric. I cut 2" squares and added a border; then, I cut the remaining border fabric (on the lengthwise grain) then added units of the 2' squares until I had enough to finish the borders. I think that the little 2" cut squares gives the quilt a lot of interest and movement. It is also a great way to use up those little scraps of fabric that get stashed away and we do nothing with. What do you think?
I now have used up most of the fabric I purchsed in this fabric line and I have just enough set aside to bind the two quilts I did out of the remainders. Now if I could just make several more quilts out of my stash I would be really happy! It was one of my New Years resolutions to use up more of what I had and do less "just because" projects. You know, the projects that you buy the fabric and make a quilt just because. . . you bought the fabric :)