glue basting – No Idle hands here

Noah’s quilt – finished

Glue basting the quilt, went easily and quickly.Simple quilting, shadowing the shapes and quilting straight lines. I’ve been experimenting with rulers. Like everything in life – it takes a lot of practice, I am getting better at this. Of course there is no reason for perfection.Very pleased with this quilt, graphic, bright and colorful.Here is an example of the straight lines, not bad.Hand embroidered label. Also, since this is a baby quilt, it has been machine washed and dried. Who knows what will happen, it’s going to a baby after all. It needs to be easy to care for. Having been washed and dried, Mom needn’t worry about throwing this in the laundry.

And now, off to the post office and off to NY it goes, luckily all the holiday lines at the post office are over!

Leah

Quilting

After months of sewing the hexagons together, I needed to think about the quilting. I knew I wanted some overall quilting that would hold things together well, but would’t overwhelm or underwhelm the quilt.

Lucky for me I had signed up for a great Craftsy class. Creative quilting with your walking foot. Jacquie Gering is an excellent teacher. Most important lesson, it’s a walking foot, not a running foot. Don’t try and sew fast. I made the quilt sandwich and practiced. I’ve had the fabric on the left for about 5 years, Yes, I did use some of it amongst the hexies, but this is just one of those fabrics I don’t know what to do with. Perfect for practice, since my quilt top is very busy. I like the way this is looking.I am using Aurifil thread, no. 40 in a non distcript grey tone. I don’t want the quilting lines to stand out. I want a fluid flowing feeling to the quilt. Something that will soften the hexagon grid. Of course it is easier to see the quilting on the larger patches of the back.Close up of the quilting. The other very nice thing is, since I am not quilting on a solid fabric, my many imperfections are invisible.Wow, this is going so fast! In comparison to the hand sewing. It isn’t easy maneuvering through the machine. Since I am using a walking foot I can only sew forward – no reverse like free motion quilting. I’m about 2/3 done here and I really like what I’m seeing, or not really seeing.The area closest to the camera is unquilted. I like the texture, I also like that the colors and the hexies are still the stars here.Same thing on the back. Sometimes the quilting is meant to be the star. In this case, I need dense quilting but I want it to fade into the background. Many of my hexies had a very scant 1/4″ seam allowance. I need to anchor it all in place. This isn’t a show piece, this will be my cuddle up quilt on the couch.

As I quilt along I’m smelling the starch, not a bad smell at all. Also as I wrangle it through the machine, the stiffness of the starch is abating, but I haven’t had any problem with the glue basting shifting or coming loose! I think I’ve got a winner here in my basting technique!

Leah

Basting the quilt

I’ve been trying to find the best way to baste a quilt – preferably using spray glue. I’ve come to the conclusion that whenever a new product appears on the market (basting glue, frixon pens) the naysayers come out and loudly proclaim that ‘we don’t know how this will affect our quilts in the long run!’. To that I say, I have no idea how long my quilts will be around and I’d really like to use these labor saving tools.

There are so many wonderful tutorials on youtube, time to do my research. First of all, starch both front and back – with real starch, not sizing or replacement product.The starch fills in the spaces between the fibers, sounds good to me. I also, ironed the batting, since there are creases and folds.Here they are, ironed, firm and ready to go.

I’ve tried different methods of spray gluing. My first big mistake, working on the floor! That is just too back-braking, I have a large yard, I have folding tables – why was I making my life difficult?

One method that I have been reading about is using two boards to hold the fabric. When we moved into our house I was a little upset at all the garbage leftover in the garage. But now I discover the perfect 3×1 boards and I’m happy.It’s a little hard to see, but I’ve rolled the top and bottom on the boards, I gradually unroll and spray the batting in in small segments.And it’s done, maybe two hours tops, for the ironing, the rolling and the gluing and no aching back! I’m sold. Now on to the actual quilting.

Leah