BLOG 530

 

Blog 530

 

I dislike having a mound of unfinished work lying around in my room so my aim now is to get these projects completed before I move forward creatively. I am starting with the scrap quilt shown below, which I haven’t named yet; perhaps something original will come to mind as I am working on it! This particular quilt is very large and will be a pain to control under my standard sewing machine which is probably another reason I haven’t tackled it yet. I am in the pleasant situation of having loads of fabric but not the large pieces that I need for the backs of quilts, so I need to get imaginative!

 

Scrap quilt

 

The first thing I did was to cut the quilt up into smaller units. I took a deep breath and cut along the middle of the black strips joining the rows together (the remaining pieces will need removing eventually but will be easier to tackle as smaller unit)

 

One section

 

And then I looked at my remaining stash of fabrics, ones which aren’t the Batiks and Bali’s which I prefer. There is a lot of variety and lots of different sizes and they are not co-ordinated at all; so I decided to cut them all up into workable strips. This involved a lot of time at the ironing board and the cutting board but hopefully it will be worth it!

 

Scrap fabric

 

Pressed fabric

 

I cut the fabric into strips of varying widths, namely 3”, 2½”, 2”, 1½” 1”. It took a long while and even after cutting masses of fabric, the basket didn’t look particularly empty!

 

Cut fabric

 

Remaining fabric

 

Another decision I made was to join the strips together to give a continuous length in order to keep the fabrics from creasing and keep them tidy. I prefer to do a diagonal join and this is how it is done. The strips are placed RS together but at right angles to one another with a slight over-lap. They can be pinned and the sewing line can be marked as shown below.

 

 

RS together

 

Marked diagonal

 

If you don’t want to mark all your fabric pieces, and who does, you can mark a guide line on your sewing machine with a permanent marker. This line is drawn in a direct line from the needle towards the edge of the sewing machine and it is invaluable for accuracy. Just let the machine do the sewing whilst you watch the point where the fabrics overlap travel along the line.

 

Joining seam

 

Marked line

 

I used a string-piecing method to save on thread and then I went to sit in front of the log fire to cut the threads and do the trimming with a tray on my lap. So far, so good.

String piecing

 

Completed section

 

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