Binding and Thimbles

This past month has been my busy season for making t-shirt quilts and long arming for customers. In two months I have made 6 t-shirt quilts start to finish-  prepared the shirts, graft the patterns, sew it all together, long arm quilted it and added binding that is hand stitched, then long armed three large quilts and bound three more quilts. All this to say I have not blogged anything for quite awhile. Now I need to sort and clean my sewing areas so I can dive into some of my own projects.

This is a longarm pattern board with a stylus. I also use paper patterns and do custom freehand quilting.

Here is the quilt using the circle pattern that the customer chose.

I don't wear a traditional thimble when I'm binding a quilt. When I try to use a thimble, what ever finger does not have a thimble is the one I use, so the thimble is worthless for me. I also hold my finger with a lot of stress to keep the thimble in place, so I use a "ThimblePad" by Colonial Needle Company. It is that leather dot on my finger. They come in a pack of 12 with a pretty strong re-usable adhesive.

Giesha

Sharing projects and ideas are part of what makes my monthly group of ladies so much fun. We bring whatever we like and want to share. Of course not everyone in the group loves everything but it is always interesting never the less. A few months back Joan shared this quilt. She had researched it but found nothing about who made it or any patterns that were similar. We still don't know much about it. I decided to draft a pattern of it and share it with the ladies. Now I am not usually attracted to these kinds of patterns, but this is just a very unique one. It is "Big Stitch" appliqued on, like needle turn applique, only stitched down using floss and a big running stitch that really shows and is meant to be seen. It is much quicker to stitch this way.

 

Below is the sketched out  pattern I drafted. As I was working on this I just kept thinking that the unfinished hat was too big but after stitching it down it is just right.

What makes this so interesting to me is that the block is 16"X11", which is an unusually tall rectangle of a block. The original block didn't use asian style fabrics but I decided to. A friend in my group has a lot of asian fabrics so we are swapping fabric for longarm quilting time. Oh, the benefits of friends who quilt!

 The embroidery makes this so pretty. Can you see the big running stitch? Just turn under the edge and stitch it down. I plan on using different floss colors- just whatever I think contrasts well with each block.

To Buy or Not to Buy

I came across a new fabric line called "Plum Sweet" by Blackbird Designs from Moda. I just love it. It is so sweet and I thought it might make an "oh so cute" little girl quilt for one of the granddaughters in the future.

I am pretty project oriented, which means I only buy when I have a plan for the fabric. The plan may be for far off in the future, but there is usually a project plan.  The thing is, manufacturers often do one run of a fabric and when it is sold out it is gone. Forever. 

That isn't a big problem unless you finally get to the project many years in the future and find you have not bought enough of your favorite fabric and now you can't find it anywhere. You can try to add other fabric lines to it and that can work, but it is still sad to not have enough of your favorite fabric. 

So after seeing the Plum Sweet line, I needed a project to really justify the fabric. I found one at Bunny Hill- just enough "I have a project!" to justify the purchase in my mind.

 I ordered my 32- fat quarter Bundle from Stash Addict Quilts. This was my first order with them, and when the package arrived I found  a few small extras included. That was a happy surprise and coupled with fast shipping made for some great customer service.