Border Blocks are done!

The border blocks for the Scrappy Double Irish Chain are made!  I only needed a small amount of the white fabric, thank goodness, because I only had a bit left!  The white that I'm using was given to me.  It has some manufacturing defects in it, but I was able to work around them.  I wasn't sure if I'd have enough or not, but figured that I could always make the quilt a bit smaller if I need to, or I'd find more or use something very close. 

I took a little break from quilting tonight and worked on something else downstairs.  I have a friend who is interested in a bracelet made out of spoon handles.  This requires cutting and bending.  Dad let me borrow his Dremmel.  That did a good job cutting off the spoon bowl, as long as I used a decent cut off wheel.  It also did a good job cleaning up the silver.  The torch and pliers were a bit trickier.  The second spoon got too hot in a spot and broke.  There are also some tool marks from the pliers from using too much force to bend the spoon.  I bought several spoons that were the same, so we have several to experiment with!

Now let's see, the quilt lay out is 11 blocks x 12 blocks.  I'll do the long sides first, so my side borders need to have 12 blocks.  I need to keep the white squares facing the quilt.  I'll start with  the border blocks that contain the white squares.  I'll sew the border squares together alternating the two types, keeping the white square facing in (right for one border, left for the other).  That will be my next step, but that step will need to wait. 

Borders on the Scrappy Double Irish Chain

I got the Scrappy Double Irish Chain sewn together and pressed this evening.  I auditioned several different borders.  The dark blue one was just too plain.  The one with reds and purple was only okay.  I tried white and then 4-patches.  Not quite right.  Playing with the 4-patch units, we sort of filled in the outside edge while placing a white square in the center of every other block.  That did it!  Here's the quilt sewn together...

And here's a black and white rendering of how the border will look.  I need 726 more 2" squares.  Of those, 23 are white.  I have only a very small bit of white left.  I hope I have enough!

The border is actually 3 squares deep.  The block matrix looks like this:

DLDLD

LDLDL

DLDLD

Alternating with:

LDWDL

DLDLD

LDLDL

And the corners:

DLD

LDL

DLD

And:

LDL
DLD
LDL

Twenty three of the first 2 and 2 of the second 2.

Double Irish Chain - #10

Double Irish Chain

I pieced this green Double Irish Chain quite a while ago.  It has been in the quilt top stage for a long time, waiting for me to get my long arm.  Don't worry, it had plenty of company!

Close up of the quilting.  There is quite a bit of quilting in it.  The pattern is Bayside by Lorien Quilting (Hermione Agee).  This provides nice texture and a good amount of the design shows up on the light areas.  One of the things I like about this design is that is isn't particularly feminine.  This quilt is very gender neutral.  I did have some difficulty quilting this design.  As I quilted out to the top of the arcs, the machine wanted to track straight.  I had flat tops and some arcs that looked more like squares.

Because of this difficulty, I decided to purchase new wheels.  I bought Edge Rider wheels from A Touch of Thread.  I went to the National Quilting Association's show in Columbus last week.  I was hoping to find the wheels there, but really didn't expect to.  I was a happy, but tired, quilter when I came home.  I finished quilting the quilt Saturday so the new wheels could be installed.  Sunday was Fathers' Day, so tonight was Wheel Night!

Ta Da!!!!!  New Wheels!  I think I am thrilled with them.  There is no play at all and they move very smoothly.  I bought new clamps too and installed them tonight too.  All is good except one little problem...

The new wheels don't fit on the carriage.  You can see them on the machine, but not the carriage.  The machine rolls very smoothly on the carriage.  But, the carriage is still wobbly on the long tracks.  Even still, I'm anxious to try this new set up.  I have 50% of my movement much improved!  I imagine that I'll just get a new carriage and put the fancy wheels on it.  Brad said it perfectly tonight as he was test driving the new wheels:  "This way is like a Mercedes, this way is like a Chevrolet"

String Pieced Sashings

Tonight, I finished the 80 string pieced sashings.  I pieced these on phonebook pages.  I like using phonebook pages for the foundations.  The lines and columns make it easy to keep the fabrics lined up and the paper tears away so easily.  I had some already pieced, but getting them to 6 1/2" long caused some problems.  Most of my strings are very narrow, so much so that cutting one in half and allowing a seam allowance didn't leave any fabric!  I was doing more ripping and strategically adding strings than I was obtaining 6 1/2" units.  So, I decided to just cut foundations at 3 1/2" x 6 1/2".  That went very well and the last 40 sashing pieces went together quickly. 

Here's a preview of what the quilt will look like when it's done.  It's designed to come out to about 63" x 76".  I will decide on borders once the quilt it together.  I'd like something that will keep it gender neutral.  And if it something that I have in my stash, all the better!

I still have the green Double Irish Chain on the long arm and I haven't finished assembling the scrappy Double Irish Chain yet.  I need to be able to lay out the quilt and then pick it up and bring it to the machine to sew the rows together uninterrupted.  I don't have a lot of sewing time on weeknights, so those bigger projects are better for weekends. 

I think I zigged and should have zagged!

Usually, when I sew blocks together, I lay them out first, then pick up all of the blocks in rows after flipping the second row onto the first one.  I didn't do that with the Scrappy Double Irish Chain.  It is only two blocks!  I guess that would have been okay if I had gone ahead and made one stack of blocks rather that working from two.

However, I didn't.  I took me until I got to the last row to see what I had done.  I layed the quilt on the floor in the media room.  I don't know how, but Cooper heard me!  I did manage to keep him off of it!  Yep, sure enough, there was a mistake.  Lucky for me though, the entire row was off.  That's great news because that means that nothing is wrong.  The rows aren't sewn together yet.  I'll just snip the chain piecing threads and put the quilt together in two halfs, then sew the two together.

I ended up having to lay this out downstairs as it doesn't quite fit in the media room.  The quilt is 83" x 90" without borders.  I'm not sure what I'm going to do yet for borders.  Any suggestions?

So Many Projects

I've been bouncing between projects lately.  I have still have the Double Irish Chain on the longarm.  I'm piecing another Double Irish Chain.  This one is made from 2" squares.  I'm finally making a dent in the box of 2" squares!  The quilt will have 132 blocks in it.  18 of them can be seen on the design wall.

Next to it are some pieced borders.  This is for a not-quite-finished project.  Actually, they go with a quilt that is finished.  The piecing is finished, the quilting isn't.  I'll most likely work on this again once the quilt is quilted.  Or once I find a better brown that what I have.  I took these off the design wall today.



And yesterday we did some dyeing.  We used many different techniques.  The blacks, yellows and some of the blues were done with regular low water immersion.  Other techniques included painting, spray bottle, salt shaker and layering.  The one on the bottom left is done with black dye powder.

And this is one of my new projects.  Not only was my 2" square bin full, but so was my string bin.  The burgundy and the cornerstone fabrics are from my stash.  The background blocks are cut at 6 1/2" and the string sashings are cut at 3 1/2" x 6 1/2".  It will be larger than this.  Probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 76" x 63".  I'm quite pleased with the way this is turning out.  The solid burgundy tames the wild strings and the cornerstones are very muted and help tie it together.  I'l decide on borders once the top is sewn together.  This will be another good quilt to practice with on the long arm.

Happy Memorial Day!



Quilt #10 - Double Irish Chain

Double Irish Chain - Loaded!

I had a wonderful day yesterday quilting with two special friends.  They each quilted a quilt on my long arm.  That was quilt number 8 and number 9 for the Gammil.  Today, I loaded one of my quilts.  This Double Irish Chain has been pieced for quite a while.  I recently added the borders.  I found that the quilt was a "generous" queen size.  "Gererous" in that it was just a bit too big for any backing and batting that I had.  I made a trip to the local fabric store and found a backing.  The background of the quilt is a very pale yellow tonal. The backing is an unbleached muslin.  It looks good with the quilt and is very soft.  Hopefully, it will hold up okay.  With the quilt being 88" x 108", I needed a King sized batt.  I took one out of the closet that I've had for many, many years. 

So today, I loaded it.  I thought about yesterday and having friends over.  I even thought about the fact that it wouldn't have taken me nearly so long loading it with another set of hands or two!  I should have thought of that yesterday!  I wound six bobbins and threaded the machine in a off-white thread.  I set up the pantograph and set the quilt position.  I though about floating it, but the hopping foot just got caught in the batting.  I've stitched the first three rows.  The design moves faster than I though it would.  Although my quilting leaves a lot to be desired, I'm pleased with the way the first three rows look.