Monday, September 24, 2007

Directions? -- Update #1

I decided to go easy on myself and assemble the strips into units -- one brown strip with either a green or orange one on top and stitched with a decorative stitch. I thought that the top strips were too overpowering with their plainness. Here they are laid out one more time.

So, how to attach them to the quilt top? I could measure and pin carefully and then stitch them down. Instead, I put fusible hemming tape on the back of each one

And did a lot of them.

I ironed them in place by eyeballing where I thought they needed to go, sort of straight, and pressed them down. First I ironed and sewed all the strips going in one direction, then ironed and sewed the ones going in the other direction. And, much to my surprise, remembered to leave space for the green strips.

And here are the green strips sewn in place, forming the tartan effect I was going for. It sort of looks woven even though it isn't.

And a close-up shot which shows where my sophisticated joining technique isn't quite as invisible as I'd hoped. I'm sure that the Quilt Police will just love that.

Best of all, it's already quilted. I made up the sandwich using 2 layers of felt instead of wadding, pinned it for machine quilting and put on the walking foot. As I sewed down the strips, I quilted it at the same time. Pretty clever, eh?

Binding is up next and I'm trying to decide: proper binding or my cheater binding?

2 comments:

Michelle Watters said...

I love this. I want to do one. You need to run a workshop.

MG Quilts said...

Do you mean a workshop on how not to follow directions and make it up as you go along? I can do that ... it's one of my best things!