Wine Gums

The Values quilt is finished, and I love it!  Can words express how in love with this quilt I am?  The name of this quilt is Wine Gums, since that's what those darker diamonds remind me of.  Let me just show you some photos.


The Amy Butler flannel (Paradise Garden in wine, from the Love line) was glorious to work with.  Contrary to my expectations, it didn't fuzz up too much or fray or cause any quilting problems.  I sprayed it with Mary Ellen sizing before assembling, but I don't really think that made too much difference.  I had planned to use spray starch, but forgot to buy any.  The flannel does add to the weight of the quilt, in a delicious way once it's finished, but it did make the quilting process a bit more challenging on my domestic machine.

I quilted it with two colours of King Tut red cotton, in a kind of spiral pattern over each diamond and a weird kind of poorly thought out swaggy thing on the edges.  It quilted up fast that way.

For the first time ever, I sewed the binding on by machine.  It's not perfect, but it's not bad, either.  I had a look at Rita's tutorial, and did it more or less like she suggests, but with basting instead of pinning and without all the zigzagging.  I find the zigzagging to stabilize the edge isn't necessary if you sew the binding to the raw edge of the quilt before you trim the excess batting and backing.  I saw this technique in a Fons and Porter show on PBS, and have done it this way ever since.  I find I get a fatter bound edge, which has a satisfying feel to me.  Anyway, I think the ditch-stitching on the front is about 90% hidden and I caught the back edge properly about 85% of the time (had to finish up those holes by hand).  But I'm pleased with it.  AND (drumroll, please) all four of the mitred corners are perfect!  That is a definite first for me!

Many thanks to Katie, who as the leader of this quiltalong, is the godmother of the Wine Gums quilt. And, as I said in a previous post, this quilt is for my daughter, who is usually too blase to be interested in my quilting, but was uncharacteristically enthusiastic about this one.  She likes it, and I do, too.  Now, over to Amy's to see the other Sew-n-Tell goodness!

Edited to add info about wine gums: I had forgotten that I didn't know what they were before I moved to Canada and perhaps other Americans are also unfamiliar with them. They are like much more resistant jelly beans, without the sugar coating, and a bit less sweet. They contain no wine or other alcohol, despite their name. They look like this:

And Maynard's is the archetypal brand, at least in Canada.

LOVE that flannel!

Flannel backing for values quilt, originally uploaded by Shadrach Meshach & Abednego.

Look what came yesterday: five yards of flannel for the back of the Values quilt. This is called Paradise Garden in the wine colourway, from Amy Butler's line Love. I couldn't wait to get it home and wash it to see how it softened up. Oh my! Words fail to express how soft and luscious it is. I just wanted to wrap myself up in it then and there.  I plan to use a regular cotton/bamboo batt for this, since it's destined for my daughter's bed. She's off to university in a couple of years (kineahora) so I want it to be a low-maintenance quilt: machine wash and dry without batting an eye. I'm itching to get starting on the quilting - bring on the weekend!  I'm ever so slightly nervous about quilting it, since I've never used flannel as a backing before. As expected, it's got quite a bit more give in it than regular woven cotton. I've read in several places that I should fairly dowse it in spray starch before assembly to keep the flannel from puckering. I'll ask the ladies at the LQS when I go buy my batting, but what about you?  Do you have any tips for me on working with flannel?

Blowin' in the Wind

I find Sew-n-Tell Fridays so motivating!  Last night I finished piecing my Values quilt top so that I could post over on Amy's this morning.  It was a shlep, actually, since the quilt turned out larger than I expected, too big for my McGyvered design wall.  So I laid it out on the floor.  But look what happened.

This was actually kind of cute.  Susie has always been a lie-on - she makes a bed out of whatever she finds on the floor.  But when she started to make a nest, she had to be booted off.  Fortunately, most of these blocks were already sewn into 4 x 16 panels.  These inside-at-night photos are pretty bad - they're all taken without the flash - please forgive.





It rained all night and was overcast this morning when I hung the quilt top on the line, but the colours still come through, I think.

My daughter loves this quilt.  When she saw all the layouts up on the design wall, she absolutely rhapsodized over this one, and began begging me to let her have it.  I made the Blue Meanies for her, but she doesn't like it nearly as much as she likes this one.  I also love it, and particularly I love how many different layouts are possible, each one giving a completely different look.  I've resolved that all my future projects will contribute a 6" square of fabric, so that I can start to build up scraps for more of these great quilts.  Thanks to Katie for leading this quiltalong - I don't think I would have considered doing it otherwise, and now I'm hooked!  I've not yet decided what I want to do about the back.  Eve put the kibosh on my idea of having a pieced back with some 12" diamonds in the same light-dark pattern as on the front.  There is some danger in letting your teenage daughter have any decision making power - they only want more and more!

Thought I'd leave you with a little video which inspired the title of this post.  When I hung the quilt out on the line for a photo, the wind picked it up and blew it around.  I find that such a compelling, almost hypnotic sight.

In other news, SewTakeaHike is hosting a Flea Market Fancy giveaway until the end of the month.

And the Incredible Shrinking Quilters' Bee is fully subscribed!  Woot!  You'll be seeing a lot less of me in the coming year, with the blessing.  And I mean that literally, as the twelve of us will be working towards reducing, as well as making awesome quilts for each other!
Have a great weekend, everyone, and don't forget to go over to Amy's and cheer on the other Friday finishers!

Slogging Along

VAlues blocks, originally uploaded by Shadrach Meshach & Abednego.

Boo hoo - it's Friday and I have nothing to share over at Amy's Sew-n-Tell sisterhood. But rather than not post at all, I couldn't resist laying out some of my blocks for the Values quilt, because they are all trimmed and ready to be pieced, and because the colours are so pretty. These are just a few of the blocks - this quilt is going to be bigger than I realized - not massive, but fairly substantially sized.  Katie, the brainchild behind this quiltalong, calls hers "Mine, All Mine", and I can completely relate to that, since I have all kinds of scraps in here from quilts that have been gifted.  It's a nice reminder of all that work that I did.  This was completely unstudied - whatever blocks came to hand.  I think I can do a better job of matching blocks to emphasize the dark/light contrast.  And this probably will not be the layout that I go with (but who knows). However, I just wanted to post something to show that I'm still slogging along!  Fingers crossed, I'll have something more substantial to show next week.

Update:  Seriously, what the heck?  Today before noon, three of the blogs on my feed reader make reference to French General's Rouenneries line.  I have been steadfastly resisting succumbing to this drop-dead gorgeous line of fabrics, but clearly, this is an omen, a message to me: "Get thee to the online fabric store."  Who am I to argue with a message from the beyond?

Update re: update:  I ordered one layer cake and two charm packs of Rouenneries from Hancocks of Paducah, and then saw that they had Erin McMorris' Wildwood line on sale for $5 a yard.  Here in Canada we pay at least double that.  After a brief struggle with my conscience, I convinced myself that I already do plenty to keep my LQS in business.  Woe is my credit card.