Back to HRTs

 

Back to actual sewing happening today! Finally! Woohoo! But of course I had to re-teach, re-view, and re-learn how to do the rest of the HRTs with the Bloc Loc Rulers that I cut out for the Lupine Mystery Quilt.

I referred back to the kinda tutorial I'd made for myself way back in June. This is a sort of update to that, with a big deal note to begin with: Both fabrics are right side up when you cut the pairs. Very Important for prints especially.

Flip one of the triangles, right sides together, offset the triangle tips, sew together.

Press seams to the purple.

Make sure you're using the B ruler with the B units, pay attention to which side the seam allowance is on. Trim on two sides.

Keeping the ruler locked onto the seam, spin ruler 180°, slide down to the final measurement of 2"w x 3.5"h.

Repeat with the A ruler and A units.

Okay, one set all done!

There it is, an actual thing that I sewed, and ironed and trimmed.

And then I cut and sewed a whole bunch more, but they haven't been pressed or trimmed yet.

Community Giving Binding and Tutorial

 

This is a combination of a post about getting the quilt binding done for the BAMQ Community Giving quilt AND a tutorial on how to join the ends of the binding using the The Binding Tool by TQM. This is mostly for me, so that I don't have to go watch the instruction video each time. I'm pretty sure I picked this tool up on the Free Table at a BAMQ Sew Day.

You sew on a 2.5" wide quilt binding leaving a 12" gap between your starting and ending points. And I mean as close to exactly 12" as possible. (this is one point I wasn't always the best at). If you don't measure this, it's hit or miss on whether the binding will end up being the right length.

The printing on the tool is ALWAYS face-up. The square end of the tool butts up against the spot where the stitching ends on the left, and you mark the binding with the "MARK HERE" line on the tool.

Unfold and open up the binding flat, right-side up, place the tool on the binding and align the "MARK HERE" line with the line you've marked. The binding fabric they use in the tutorial is a solid, so it's a little hard to tell which side is up so I wanted to note that mainly for myself.

Trim the binding using the angled side of the ruler. Okay, that's the left-hand side of the binding cut and ready to sew together, now moving on to the right-hand side.

Turn the ruler around, but don't turn it over, **Remember it stays Printed Side up**. Butt up the square end of the ruler to the stitching ending point. Mark the binding using the "Mark Here" line.

Spread open the binding, right side up. This is the point I've messed up so pay attention: Align the small angled edge of the ruler with the line you've marked.

Trim off using the angle of the ruler. 

It's pretty standard from here out, pin the two ends together, aligning the snub nosed ends.

Sew with a 1/4" seam. Press open.

Sew down the binding over the 12" gap you had left. You're done/

And then, when you flip over the binding, if you've got a label, don't forget to add it in. For a quilt that's going to be used and washed a lot, I don't hand-sew the binding.

There it is, all done! No gaps, no lumps, no tears or un-sewing.

I made the binding out of some of the quilt's own excess backing fabric (the green one) and a piece of fabric left from the backing of one of my quilts (the yellow one).

I hope that tutorial helps me in the future, and maybe you too if you happen to have this tool in your ruler stash.

120° Degrees

 

This is mostly for me, but here's how I did the 120° corners on the mini quilt/tablerunner. Mark a diagonal line at the corner and stop stitching on or just shy of that point. Make sure and backstitch.

This step is where we see the biggest difference in applying binding to 90° corners, when you fold the binding back over itself- align the raw-edge bottom of the binding straight with the bottom edge of the next section around the corner you're working on of the item being bound.

The next step is to fold the binding down back over itself,  and then pinning down that fold. 

Start stitching (and backstitch) on that same point where you stopped before, at the center diagonal of the corner and 1/4" away from the raw edge.

Repeat those steps with all the corners, join your binding ends as per usual.

I sewed the binding down from the front by machine as this is going to be a frequently machine washed item. The trick to this is to go more slowly than usual, and take your time folding the binding on the corners.

Some closeups of how the binding looks.

I like how a new word is suggested because of the piecing, It looks like "dictrum" maybe?

More views of the words fabric and the quilting.

This turned out to be a fun project, and now I don't have these pieced triangles sitting around.

Here's how the corner binding looks, I did a needle-down pivot and stitched into the binding join at each corner a few stitches and then back stitched, pivoted in the next direction and .

It seems to make it a little flatter.

Pretty pleased with how this turned out.

Squares & Circles

 I was given this wood block (wall treatment I think) sample by Bron, from one of the recent FabMo distributions.  I thought it would make an interesting surface to do some ShivaPaintStik experiments with.  Consider this a bit of a tutorial on playing with PaintStiks.

 When working with the paintstiks, I always try to remember to cover up most of the surface I'm working on as they tend to smear and get pretty messy.  As an aside: I have been re-using the same white pieces of butcher paper for a while now for this purpose as well as fabric painting and some of them are getting pretty interesting looking all on their own...
So, I started out with ironed flat pieces of plain white pima cotton.  I've found that you really want the fabric flat if you want the image you're trying to capture by rubbing to come out clearly.  If you don't care, then go for the wrinkly look and see how it looks!

 I didn't tape down the fabric to the surface just held the edges taut with two fingers as I ran the first color of paintstik over the surface.  If you want to tape the fabric down use that blue painter's tape or cheapie masking tape, both work pretty well for that. 
When you first use a paintstik you have to rub off the dried skin that forms on the exposed area, I just use a paper towel for this, twist gently and it peels off very easily.  And keep those paper towels around, because you'll need them to wipe your fingertips off on as you keep working.

I found that it was a bit hard to keep the fabric in the exact same place, but I liked how the slight shifts looked with the additional color.  If I was aiming for perfectly lined up shapes I would definitely bothered to do some taping down.

 Moving the fabric around to get the surface covered with marks and trying out various color combinations.  The overlapping colors make great combinations and when the paintstik color hasn't dried you can smear it together with your fingertips to soften the edges of the marks and blend to make new combined colors.

 I like the overlapping areas and the not exactly lining up of the squares.  As you work with a paintstik and start using it up, you'll have to peel off bits of the paper sleeves (just like with crayons!).  Don't do the whole thing or too much because it will just dry out and be unusable.

 Flipping over the wood block, hey surprise, surprise, there are circles instead of squares. A two for the price of one tool, gotta love it!

 I like how the circles side looks a lot, especially how some of the circles get filled in slightly with color as the fabric gaps down a bit over the larger holes in the surface allowing the paintstik to make a mark.

 Changing direction with color to escape the grid.

 Two experiments on one piece of fabric. Rows of color and filling in most of the surface with color.  That green line down the middle was made with some fingertip smearing of a bit that broke off the green paintstik.  Didn't want to throw it out, so I used it up by adding an additional mark of color to the surface.

 Instead of a regular grid pattern, I shifted the fabric slightly over the wood block as I went over each column of shapes.  I like the more random look and the combination of circles and squares in one piece.  I could see a dress made out of this fabric with the circles on the bodice and the squares in the skirt....  With this piece of fabric I guess I could make that dress, for a Barbie doll maybe.

All the fabrics up on the wall together.  Very interesting and fun experiments all in all.  I think next time I'll try using some already colored fabric to not end up with so much contrast with the white background.
After several months of curing, the smell has finally gone away enough so that the fabrics are usable for me.  I don't know if I'm extra sensitive to the smell of the paintstiks, but I have a hard time using fabrics I've done right away, especially if they are in a piece that I'm ironing a lot.  Seems to release a lot of the carrier oil smell. 
What do you think? Have you tried these Paintstiks yet?  

A Banner Of Thanks

 After a year of looking at a stack of large triangles I cut out last year (right before I had hand surgery) for this banner, it was time to actually make the Thankful Banner. 
The size of the triangles I cut out was 10.25" at the base and 13.75" tall.
Since this is to be a double-sided banner, I cut out the number of triangles I needed to spell out GIVE THANKS twice, including one for the space inbetween the two words, which worked out to 22.
Each triangle was cut from a different fall fabric, leaves, greens, browns, corn, trees, pumpkins, etc. 
I had to choose some fabrics to use for the letters.  I decided to go with oranges and yellows so they would show up against the fall colors

 I chose a font that I really liked  the look of (Lucida Handwriting) and printed the letters out in a huge size (350pt).  About two letter per page printed out.  I wanted lots of room around the letter on each triangle.  For this type of project you want a fairly simple letter shape that isn't going to kill you cutting it out and sewing it down. 

 Whoops, I should have printed them out reversed since I was doing the fusible tracing thing. 

 So instead of wasting paper,  I quickly traced around the back of each letter in sharpie pen, so that I could then do the next step.  Learn from my mistake if you do this *print in reverse*.

Traced the (now backwards) letters onto fusible web (Steam a Seam 2). 

 Rough cut out the fusible letters, then fused them to the back of the letter fabrics. 

 Cut alllll those letters out of the now-fused fabric.

Next step was to fuse the letters down onto each triangle.  I decided I wanted them to be in roughly the same spot on each triangle so some measuring was required. Take into account seam allowances and the top inch which will be folding over the ribbon or cord.  Also be sure that the letter fabric shows up well enough from your background fabric. I had a few that I had to switch around to make it work well.

I used a tearaway iron-on stabilizer (Tearaway Magic) which I ironed to the back of each triangle covering the area where the letter was to be sewn down.

Stitched in a zig-zag around each letter.  I was going to do a satin stitch but decided I liked how this looked, and the banner won't be something that I'm washing all the time, so the edges should hold up pretty well.

Here's how the back of the triangle looks after I've sewn down the letter S.

After all the letters were sewn down I matched each triangle up with their mates.  This part can be tricky if you want your banner to be spelled correctly on both sides. So check your work several times. 

Sew the two triangles together right sides together starting about an inch down from the top edge. 

Cut the tips seam allowances down like the picture above.  

Turn the piece right-side out, use a chopstick to poke out the pointy tip and smooth out the seams, press. 

Press in the seam allowance on the remaining 1" up the top edge. 

Fold in about 1/2" and press the two top edges,  to make a casing.

Sew across the top edge and also about 1" down from the top edge.

Do a final press, string onto cord or ribbon. And There it is! Done and hanging in our house!

Too many banners? Yep, adding one to the usual two that are hung in our house did muddy the waters a bit.  Maybe next year I'll just have one up there at a time.