Border #3 and Done

 

Border #3 for the Old Town mystery quilt is pieced squares, alternating red and white/neutrals. There are a lot of intersections to try and match up with the four-patches in the second border so I pinned each and every one. 

The majority of the intersections matched up on the first side, so I did the same with the other three sides.

All of them worked, each border fit on pretty much perfectly, I was really happy about that.

A lot of ironing to do.

And then stay-stitching around the entire thing. Gosh, it's hard to sew "not-quite 1/4" after doing this whole quilt concentrating on doing and exactly 1/4". 

And there it is, all done! Now I'm looking for a title and then I'll have some backing and binding to be made. So it doesn't count as a "quilt finish" yet, but it's a quilt top finish and goes into the finishing category for me.

Border #2 Done

 

The second border for the Old Town mystery quilt is comprised of a whole lot of red and neutral/white four-patches.

I didn't have a lot of trouble having these borders fit, which for such a long and pieced border was sort of amazing to me.

Usually I have some hassle with that, but not this time. I guess I followed the directions or something?

Looks pretty good, but needs some ironing.

Definitely time for some ironing!

Yes, good.

There's the whole thing! I love it. I've always enjoyed the look of a checkerboard border, and now I've finally made one, hurray! Okay, on to the final border...

Border #1 Done

 

I got the last two sides of the first border sewed on to the Old Town quilt center, so it was time to iron them.

It's a bit hard to see the border's edge when it's up on the white design wall, but I like the look of the quilt so far. And most of the points stayed pointy which I'm taking as a win. Now on to the other two pieced red and white borders...

Border #1

Time for some Old Town bordering, but first I had to press the sewn together rows that make up the quilt center.then it was on to doing some stay stitching all around the pieced quilt center.

It takes a while to sew allll the way around but I did it. Along the way I noticed some popped seams so I fixed those. Hopefully this step of stay-stitching works to prevent more of that.

There’s the first border sewn on! Now to do the other 3 sides.

All The Borders

 

Well I took my own advice from yesterday and just tried out the sewing of the pieced sashings and cornerstones to the finished blocks. And they went together quite easily. Before I knew it I got one whole column (that's five blocks) done. They're still individuals, not sewn together in a column. I'm going to use the "chunking" technique that friend Jaye uses to put together her quilt tops

But the work on the blocks was not pressed, as it was too hot by then to turn on the iron. That's for this nice cool morning before it starts warming up. The three borders are also hanging up on the right ready to go as well, after some ironing.

Second Border

 

Instead of working on actually assembling the quilt center of the Old Town Mystery (hey, I need a title for my version), I worked on the second of three borders. That would be the checkerboard one, which I was looking forward to. I think I'm hesitating on assembling the quilt center because I'm just a little intimidated by the thought of sewing all those blocks and sashing pieces together. It's silly because I'm the one that has already sewn all those small parts together to make the blocks and sashing.

Maybe I'll just add on the pieced sashing to just one block and see how it goes.

Also to note, I randomly ended up following the checkerboard directions entirely by mistake. Or maybe my subconscious made note of the point that two of the four sides of the quilt sew the red and white four squares together in one of two orientations. Phew I guess? That would have been a whole lot of un-sewing

City Borders

The City Sampler was hanging up on the design wall and I decided it was time to actually put on the borders. All the grey pieces were cut out and the print rectangle borders were ready too.

It is a really huge quilt, a bit hard to manage. It made me clean up the sewing table area so I had enough space and wasn't knocking everything onto the floor.

I really like how this is looking! 

Each corner is going to have one of these long rectangles of the black and white polka dot fabric going out to the edge of the quilt top.

I think it looks good, and it's making the quilt into a size big enough to work well on our bed.

So that's the top and left side border done, now to get the other two on to complete the quilt top.

Print Borders Done

Back into the Tula Prints box for the additional rectangles needed to finish the print border to my City Sampler quilt. These prints ended up in the right hand size print strip seen below.

The print strips on each side kind of sort of track with the colors of the nearby blocks.

Now that the print strips are all the correct lengths it is now time to sew them on to all four sides of the quilt top and then add the final 6.5" wide grey. It's a really monster gigantic size. And no, I am most definitely not quilting this one by myself.

Three Borders

 

I'm working on getting the last of the three borders I have planned for the City Sampler all cut out and assembled. Here is the final 6.5" grey borders that will be on the outside of the quilt top.

I discovered that my previously assembled 3.5" x 6.5" print fabric rectangles were not long enough. So I added some extras I had onto the end of the left hand side. Now it's long enough. But I need to do the same for the other three, which means more cutting out of the 3.5x6.5" rectangles. Good thing I have lots of Tula Pink prints to use.

My little sketch for the border plan kind of shows how things will line up. The grey outside borders are definitely not to scale to each other. There's a black and white print with big colored circles that I've got on the end of each print rectangles border. That will reach out to the very edge of the quilt top once on each side. Clear as mud right?

Back to My City

 

Back to implementing my border plan for My City Sampler top.

First of all a gigantic 6.5" border all around. This matches the block size.

Phew! That took a lot of sewing, but I do like how it looks. 

To the left you can get a little preview of what will be the next border. Stay tuned...

Border Decisions

 

I think I've made my final decision on the City Sampler border. I'm doing an initial border of the grey sashing fabric at 6.5" wide. Then a pieced border of rectangles in the prints used in the quilt top. Then a final border of the same grey sashing fabric at 6.5". That'll give me the size I want for using on our bed.

Here are the four pieced borders.

Instead of a normal rectangular frame border, there will be a piece of the giant polka dot/black&white print that sticks out all the way to the edge of the quilt. I may use that fabric as the binding as well.I really enjoy working with these prints and getting a chance to use them in different shapes. I tried to have the colors kind of track with the colors of the blocks around the edges of the quilt but it won't be exact. I think I'll pin it up on the design wall before I sew it on.

Now for sewing some very very long seams around the outside of this big quilt top several times.

City Sampler Top Done?

 I'm so pleased that the City Sampler quilt top is all together. I won't call it finished yet as I had been planning on doing a pieced border of some kind but I'm still thinking about that. It's pretty big (takes up most of the design wall) already but for it to work as a quilt for our bed it needs to be bigger. It's already at the too big for me to quilt stage, so I don't have to worry about the size as a decision factor. The City Sampler pattern calls for I think a 6" border of the same fabric used in the sashing. which would look really good. If I do the pieced border, I would use a smaller width initial border of the grey sashing fabric to set it off from the quilt top.

Colorful Cornerstones

 

An array of corner stone pieces cut out and ready to sew into the sashing for the quilt I'm making for the BAMQ group exhibit at the San Mateo County Fair. I really love the color palette represented here. I also like seeing the real difference between commercial solids and my hand-dyes.

The final arrangement before stitching.

I got most of the way there and managed to keep the points pointy. That will be more apparent after I press the seams open. Now I'm starting to think about the quilting I want to do on this....circles maybe?

Borders Have Happened

 

Oh borders! The decisions involved in which or whether to add border(s). Here's how Stitch Happens is looking now that I've added a border of 3" squares. All of those are the Tula Pink fabrics that were used in the main part of the quilt. I like it even more, so I guess it worked. The binding is the same purple which will work as a final visual border.

But I wanted to check. I decided to compare it to how it looked without the additional borders that I've added. This is with the first purple border. It really stops the eye and contains the central image.

And here it is without any borders at all. Gosh, it kind of looks naked or unfinished. The bottom section is part of the pattern, meant to represent the table the sewing machine sits on top of.

Fuse On

 

Amazing the difference a small border makes isn't it? To my eye, the border completes the total image in this case and ties together the dark blue pieces in each of the four big blocks. Using a thin dark blue binding around the edge would not have been enough visual weight to have the same effect.

Pieced together some fusible batting to use for this one. Reminder to self, check for threads under the off-white parts of the quilt top before fusing the batting on.

And since this quilt is 51"wide, I had to piece some backing fabric together as well. Now it's all fuse-basted and ready to quilt