Weekend in review

The Piedmont Triad was treated to a glorious weekend.  After a wonderful breakfast at the Smith Street Diner on Saturday morning, Jim and I went to the Greensboro Curb Market and then spent the afternoon on the screened porch.  He was reading and I was finishing up the quilting on this African Striped Baby Quilt.  To see more baby quilts, click on Kaffe Fassett or baby quilts or African Striped Baby quilts in the labels.

Since I had finished piecing Henry's new baby quilt, I pieced a back and made bias binding. I'm using the bamboo/cotton blend batting that I got at JoAnn Fabric with my 40% off coupon.

The big table on the screened porch makes a great place to baste.  Here's the back taped down with the centers marked.

The quilt sandwich is made and I am ready to baste. You can see more examples of Denyse Schmidt's "Single Girl" pattern by clicking on that phrase in the labels.

Basting Jim's New Woobie Quilt

Since it was lovely and cool today and the table on the porch is the perfect  size and height, I basted Jim's new woobie quilt. You can search the labels on the right to see other posts about this Denyse Schmidt pattern called "Single Girl."

I use a curved upholstery needle for basting which should be not further apart than the hand.  Miraculously, I didn't stab myself with it this time.  There's an old tradition among quilters that it's good luck to bleed on the quilt you are making.  That should make me a very lucky person.  If you do bleed on the quilt you are working on, your own saliva is the very best stain remover.

This long, thin table is ideal for basting. I tape the back down to the table to keep it still and mark the side centers with pins.  The batting comes next and then the top with the side centers also marked with pins.  I line up the centers, secure with long pins and begin basting.   Starting in the center with the excess resting on the chairs, I use long threads and baste the entire center area, then move the quilt to the two extremes to finish.

I've decided to use the large stippling stencil to quilt this one.  More on that process later.

Baby Quilt Update

Well, now that the orange madness is behind us, back to finishing this baby quilt. The one I made previously was meant to go with the cute monkey nursery decorations that are available now. I found this wonderful backing fabric (again) and it started the color palette. This is a close-up on the label that shows the back. I appliqued one of the monkeys onto the label.

This is a shot of the front. Many times I'll use one of the striped fabrics to make bias tape because I love the stripes on the bias. That's what I did here.

As I mentioned, I pin baste the center and then thread baste the edges. I've done enough of these that I can "eyeball" sewing the diagonals, so I don't mark the center.

Once the center is finished, I do mark the borders beginning with a corner. I follow the diagonal lines out to the edge and add several parallel lines of quilting in the corners maintaining the same distance between lines.

Once the corner is quilted,

I mark across that side to the next corner. I use my see-through ruler so I can keep the quilting lines straight and parallel to one another. You can see the tails of thread that I leave on purpose so I don't have to stop and start so much.

I use my lovely half hoop that I got in Paducah years ago to quilt the edges.

Next time, making bias tape and binding the edges.