Quilted Scraps

If I haven't been hand sewing for an extended period of time, I get antsy.

But what I always have on hand is plenty of fabric scraps.  Some of these are from a hexi quilt that has been pieced and is still being quilted.  Some prints were specially purchased to make a rag rug.  

Whatever the source, there were a lot of scraps, some handily stashed away in a single bag which made finding them easy.  So when I needed a hand sewing project, I thought that it would be fun to start another English Paper Piecing project, just not a full sized quilt because I still have one of those to actually quilt!

The obvious choice was placemats.  I have been using a set that has pops of red, and my downstairs is very cool color themed.  Not to mention the fact that the rugs that I made are being used downstairs, so using scraps from those projects makes everything very color coordinated. 

I went searching for a design other than hexagons, and came across this pattern on Etsy.  The different shapes seemed like they would be fun, and make it possible to use even the really small scraps.

I wasn't entirely sure how to finish the pieced design when I began.   In the end, I just applied the pieced section to a piece of cotton before making my quilt sandwich.

At this point, I wasn't sure if the final placemat would be rectangular or some other shape, but at least the quilting could begin!

I ended up cutting a shape that I was hoping would work out of some packing paper to test the size.

Once I was sure about the shape and size, I basted around the edges, and cut off the excess.

The edges were then bound with a contrasting color.

Since the rest of the project was hand stitched, I went ahead and applied the binding by hand as well.

With what I had cut out and pieced, there were enough motifs to make three placemats.

The most tedious part was removing the papers from the smaller triangles and diamond shapes.  Who knew?!

I ended up using a pin to get under and pull up one edge of the paper so it could be removed.

That was the placemats.  But I did have a few poppies leftover and I didn't want to waste them or let them be relegated to the land of abandoned projects.

They were almost too large for a coaster, but that seemed like the logical thing to make to match back to the placemats.

So now I have two little mini placemats, or coasters, or hot pads on hand.

This project was a lot of fun.  My fingertips may not agree (still haven't learned to use a thimble properly) but the joys of hand sewing got me through.

And I enjoy these placemats so much more than what I was using previously.

Which makes for a successful project!

A Cozy Quilt

This quilt really was a labor of love.  I cannot remember exactly when I started piecing (probably around 2013), but I am very proud to say that this is the first quilt that I have managed to finish! Well, except for that square that I noticed the other day that I somehow missed - whoops, will have to go back and fix that when I get a minute.

And each and every stitch was done by hand, which is exactly the way I wanted it.

I actually say down at the machine after cutting my binding to stitch the lengths together, only to laugh at myself when I realized what I was about to do.  After hundreds of hours, I almost machine stitched a few inches of bias binding!  Normally when I create bias binding, it's for a garment project that is being machine stitched.  Well, I caught myself before machine stitching this final bit of my quilt.

After all of the hand quilting, it was a bit terrifying trimming everything down, but it went as smoothly as could be expected.

And while I am still thousands of hours away from being a hand quilting expert, I certainly know how to hand stitch layers of fabric together. 

Not only that, it is probably my favorite thing to do!

According to the experts, a double layer of bias binding works nicely for binding a quilt, so that is what I did.

This step was actually a bit of a relief after having some moments of frustration with the hand quilting.  But this is only my first quilting experience, and I hope to improve the size and consistency of my stitches on my next quilt!

The final step of the project was the quilt label.  I have seen all sorts of options, but since this entire quilt was hand stitched, it seemed like the proper thing to do was to hand stitch the label.

After deciding what information I wanted to include, I typed up different versions in a few different fonts.

The information was transferred to my fabric with a heat erasable pen by holding it against a window in the daylight.  It's an antiquated way to transfer markings, but it works!

I pulled out my stash of embroidery floss and decided on a color that I liked, and got back to my sewing roots with a bit of hand embroidery.

The finished label was ironed (which makes the ink markings disappear), and it was stitched to a corner of the quilt.

And that means that my very first hand quilting saga has come to an end.  The quilt is completely finished!

This has been a rather humbling experience, but I do have to say that I am hooked.

I am a bit obsessed with quilts these days, and I can't wait to start piecing another.

My hexi quilt has been getting a bit of attention lately.  It may only be for a short amount of time each day, but it feels good to be making progress across the expanse of the quilt.  And for the time being, I have this lovely patchwork quilt to snuggle beneath.  I am going to give myself a flexible deadline to finish the hexi quilt by the end of the year, but we will see how that goes!

Scrappy

Today, we have the case of the never-ending scrappy quilt.  I suppose most larger quilt projects take a fair amount of time, but this one has been going on for YEARS!  I started hand piecing the quilt top somewhere around 2013, which may account for why it has taken so very long - there are no sewing machines involved in the making of this quilt.  That, and I often get distracted by all of the other creative projects that run amuck in my home.

While I love this quilt because it has so many leftover scraps of old projects, it is not my absolute favorite quilt top.  I think that my hexi quilt probably holds that title at the moment.  But I didn't think that it was a good idea to learn how to hand quilt using my favorite quilt top.  Because while I feel pretty darn confident with my hand sewing, this is a horse of a different color!

It has actually been rather frustrating, in many ways.  The process feels like re-learning how to hand sew, because it has very little to do with what I consider to be hand sewing.

But I am sticking with it!  

I am not sure exactly what I was expecting.  It wasn't a logical mind that thought that I would have perfectly even tiny stitches from the get-go with a technique that is entirely new to me.  But somehow my stitches look enormous and nothing like the vintage quilts I have seen.

But I came up with a basic idea for the quilt design and jumped in.

Some of the blocks have an outline stitch around each square, while other have a diagonal line running through them.

Of course, I never thought about the fact that crossing through the seam allowance at those corner joins might not be such a great idea.  So those stitches are even more uneven than the others due to the added thickness.  I have also been struggling with thimbles, and what to do with the finger that feels for the needle underneath the quilt.  I tried using just my finger, but that didn't last long.  Next up, I tried using a variety of thimbles (even though they are not suited to the task).  I found a plastic one that did an okay job, but as you can see from the photo below, it didn't survive the journey.  But it's a process, and I am slowly learning what works and, perhaps more importantly, what doesn't.

My practice scrap came in handy when I reached the binding stage.

It often feels tedious to take the extra time, but I figured I might as well make sure that I liked the width and double layer method of binding before attempting a queen/almost king sized quilt.  I got lucky the first time around with this one.

Methodically stitching down a binding by hand is my idea of heaven, so this portion of the quilt felt like coming home after struggling through the quilting.

This will never get old for me.  I know it bores some people, but basic hand stitching is so very relaxing to me.

Quiltmaking by Hand by Jinny Beyer was a great resource.  This book is so beautiful!

Because of the size of this quilt, I also had a few more hand sewing opportunities while piecing the back layer together.  And my goodness, it is challenging to find 9 yards of a quilting cotton that I like.  I spent hours at a quilt store and most of my bolt choices did not have enough yardage.  I didn't feel like risking an online purchase only to find that the cotton was stiff, seeing as I would be hand quilting through it.  This particular print was not my first choice, but I have come to the conclusion that it was meant to be.

I had previously purchased a different backing without taking photos of my quilt along for comparison, and was disappointed to discover that the nine yards of fabric just didn't play well with the quilt top.  But since those nine yards turned into a beautiful dress, the folly was rewarded.

The ironing stage was a bit of an adventure, mostly because of the size.  Why exactly did I choose such a massive quilt for my first project?!

But eventually, I got there!

Many of these fabrics are from previous projects, so it really is a trip down memory lane to look at the quilt top.

Next, it was time for the quilt sandwich.  I struggled with my choice of batting for some time, and finally settled on wool, specifically, Hobbs Heirloom Wool Batting.

I knew that I wanted something that would needle easily.  And while there is a multitude of information on quilting out there, the majority relates to machine quilting.  Finding information specific to hand quilting is challenging, and most of what is out there is basic overviews, not in depth knowledge.

I decided to splurge on the wool because I heard that it was lovely to hand quilt.  And it was, for the most part, although the batting is perhaps slightly more lofty than I anticipated.

A few thousand stitches later, and there are still miles to go!