How Many Hours?

The rule book for the quilting entries at our local fall fair states to write down on the tag "how many hours did it take to make this quilt". (Actually, I'm sure I read this somewhere, as I've been thinking about this a lot, but now of course I can't find that rule - I'll figure it out anyway, just to be sure I have it available).

How many hours.....wow, have you ever kept track? I guess if you quilt on commission you might, but the best I can do right now is guesstimate.

So, first up is Folk Art Finery -
9 blocks, machine appliqued - 20 minutes prep each, 15 minutes sewing each - so, about 1/2 hour each block....4 1/2 hours? I'm sure it took much longer than that!
machine appliqued border swags - 14 total, about 10 minutes prep, 10 minutes sewing, 20 x 14 is about 4 hours
yo yos - 1 hour
quilting - days and days!! I guess I could say to myself that I did an average of an hour a day total, for about two weeks, so about 14 hours?
binding - lets just say about 15 minutes for each third long side and half short side, so about 2 and half hours

This has got me laughing - as I could never sit and do anything for longer than a half hour at a time, I really have no way to know if it really might be possible to do any of the above in the amount of time I've come up with.

The total hours at this point in the game would be 35 1/2 hours. One full work week! Is this at all a realistic estimate?

Tomorrow, I'll do the math on At Home and Away, and see if I can come up with some numbers I think might be reasonable.

They're Done!

The quilts that I plan to enter in the local fair later this month are finally all done -
binding done, washed, and safely put away.

Folk Art Finery, designed by Lydia Quigley (The Rabbit Factory); machine piecing and applique; machine quilting

At Home and Away, designed on EQ6, machine pieced and quilted.

At Home and Away - ready for binding

I finished the tying of At Home and Away. I'm also done quilting the centre of Folk Art Finery, and have a good plan on how to quilt the borders, so I might have that done by the end of the weekend. Then its miles and miles of binding - my fingers are sore just at the thought. The At Home and Away top was finished about a year ago. It has two final vertical borders of pinwheels - I remember when piecing this quilt that I designed, struggling with what to put on those last two borders. I think I spent weeks designing on EQ, laying blocks and the top on the floor, test sewing. I think I must have been pretty fed up by the time I got to actually piecing those pinwheels. While I was tying the first long border (93") - I'm thinking, gee this is sloppy - crossed points, blunted points, straight seams that didn't line up. I'm trying to hide them with my knots, but I'm getting madder and madder, 'cause all I can think is that the centre is just about perfect, but the pinwheels are like some one else sewed them. So on to the second side, about a third way through, there was some major cursing and stomping of feet as I realized that this just wasn't making me happy. The whole quilt risked being seen as poor sewing quality, all because of these darn pinwheels. I ended up ripping out the tying, and the two long borders.

The picture above shows a section of the pinwheels - yes, I might be being picky but up close the piecing "mistakes" do show more obviously. I've saved these long rows as they would make into a border or part of a strippy quilt.

I'm not sure I'm happy with the resulting "balance" of the quilt, but it was better than including yucky piecing. Here's an EQ drawing of the resulting design -

The quilt is now about 93 x 67 - odd size because the two long borders are gone - but the rules do say "tied bed quilt - any size". :)

The other odd thing about tying this quilt, is I have no idea what the judges might be looking for in a tied quilt. Do they ties have to be evenly spaced (mine aren't - its a sampler quilt so I put them as close together or as far apart depending on the design area I was covering). Do they all have to be cut the exact same length? (I tried here, but no, they aren't). I do think its important to do the quilt in a way that will make you happy, first, and the judges second. I hand basted the edges to prepare for the binding - without the security of quilting nearer to the edges, I wanted to be sure there wasn't going to be any rippling or sliding of the backing while I sewed on the binding.

Here's a picture of a section of the tied quilt, where maybe you can see how the ties are evenly spaced within a type of block, but each type of block has its own spacing -

Tomorrow I'll have some pictures and stories about the Folk Art Finery quilting - I've learned a lot from this adventure.

Tying a quilt

I finally got started on tying At Home and Away. I decided on using a blue cotton embroidery floss that comes as six strands, that I've divided into three strands.

I used a continuous tying method on the only other quilt I've tied - here is the method and some pictures.

When beginning, insert the needle from the front to the back, then from the back to the front, about 1/8" away from each other. Pull up all the thread, leaving about an inch tail on one end, poking out the front. Tie that short tail and your long still threaded thread together with a knot - right over left, left underneath, left over right, right underneath. Anyone did brownies or girl guides when they were little?

Now move your needle ahead about 4" or to the next decided on spot. Insert the needle front to back, then back to front, always about 1/8" - 1/4" away from each other. Now the next part -
insert your needle under the long stitch you just made by going from the first spot to the next -

Then, put your needle and thread through that loop formed by going under the long stitch -

Repeat, under and through, pull, and there's your knot. Continue going, re-thread when necessary, and when you're done, just clip the long stitches between the knots.

A little rant about supplies

Yesterday morning I thought I was all set to start tying At Home and Away. I have several different types of yarn, perle cotton, tatting thread, heavy thread, and floss - here they are all lined up.

So I chose a few of these and experimented with using each to tie a sample sandwich. I began to feel like Goldilocks visiting the three bears - the yarn was too easily breakable with a good pull, and I could not thread it through a needle, even if I pulled it apart to two strands; the light blue perle cotton was too light, it felt that it wouldn't hold the knot, the red "thread" was perfect - but no label remained on it so I didn't know what it was.


Now here comes the rant - I'm only able to drive myself about ten minutes from home, as I have to account for the time spent at the destination, and then the return drive home. That leaves me with all of two places to do any kind of live in person shopping for quilting/sewing supplies - Walmart and Michaels. Walmart is discontinuing all their fabric - which I used to rely on for emergency, tests, and ideas; their notions and patterns are slowing shrinking as well. When Michaels move into the neighbourhood, I thought well maybe this will help me out.

I live near the centre of an old town with a main street - I'm sure that once there was a needlecraft shop there, but the town has grown into suburbs and big box stores.

I had already had a good look at possible tying yarn/threads at Walmart - that's where I got the yarn. That's it - that was pretty much my only choice.

Off to Michael's yesterday with my little practice in hand, knowing I'm looking for something the same weight and feel of what worked. Well, of course they too have limited colours, limited weights of floss, cotton crochet yarn, and tatting thread. Not just limited weights, but limited colours too. In the cotton crochet yarn, I got to choose between a 3 weight and a 10 weight - one way too fine, the other I suspect too thick, but brought home a navy (not my first choice) #3 weight anyway.

The navy was thin enough for me to thread a large embroidery needle, but then I couldn't get the needle pulled through the sandwich with a pair of pliers! Not good.

So back to mail order for me. I ordered some perle cotton size 5 from Herrschners.ca - and I sit and wait, again. I'm also waiting for a box from Connecting Threads with some batting and backing fabrics to start quilting Folk Art Finery, and a couple of others that are ready to go.


Basket Applique

Now that I'm waiting to start tying, I got another basket block ready. I think what was wrong with the first block was that the greens were too light, maybe....so I've tried a brighter green on this one.

Here are pictures of the back and the front of the block, with the leaves basted in place. This block may not be the best example, and best use, of the back basting technique as there isn't a very set pattern, but I'm still going to work with the technique. Lots and lots of small berries on this one, marked with an x - which I will do entirely by needleturn, not prepping them at the ironing board first.

Basket Block

I actually completed an entire applique block and stuck with the colours I chose - this one is a basket from a pattern by Kim Diehl in her book "Simple Blessings". I really like how Kim drew these baskets and "bloomers", using the stems as representation for the basket handles.

Here are pictures of the front and the reverse of the block while in the basting and sewing stage

.




And the finished block:

I think the background might be too busy, but I do like it. I'm using mostly the Magic Vine fabrics from Eleanor Burns. I got a selection of half yards on a great sale price back in January - I like the bright colours of 30s and 40s fabrics, but I don't much like the novelty prints in these lines. The Magic Vine line has the colours, but more subtle prints. I used the fabrics in the Sally Post applique quilt, but I'm fairly sure that quilt will be donated to my church, so I've decided to use the remainder in a quilt for our family - or maybe as a gift to my niece who will soon be in her own first apartment.

I finally got up the gumption to baste the At Home and Away quilt, so now its time to start tying it. Now that I've finally got the applique pattern/fabrics/technique figured out, it looks like I might have to put it aside for a while.