Femininity from Scratch: April 2020

Workbasket Post: The Scrappy Patchwork Quilt (Part 2)

April 15, 2020

Hey y'all!

If you missed part 1, it is HERE!

When I last left you, I was in the middle of creating the "Crossing Blocks" which would be in the corners of the Ohio Stars.

I decided to finish all the blocks first before assembling them in their motifs. If anything, it was to get this picture:

All Laid Out!
March 31, 2020
Copyright: Catherine Hawthorn

Now came the tedious task of "squaring" everything up. This is when all the uneven edges are cut down to increase the tidiness.
Now, this absolutely requires a rotary cutter and a cutting mat. Scissors are not nearly narrow enough to do the precise cutting that is required and trying to straighten things out by eye is about impossible. Trust me, I've tried.

This also required more ironing. Wheeeee. Long theological discussions on YouTube are such a blessing in these times.

I tackled it one Ohio Star after another, since they were supposed to be on the edges so to speak. The stripe for the middle would then be next.

Ohio Stars were stitched first
April 1, 2020
Copyright: Catherine Hawthorn

As I'm constructing these things, I notice that I had to do some more piecing. I mean, it was either that or lose over a half an inch of two other blocks and I couldn't afford that.

As I kept constructing this thing, I kept falling more and more in love with it :).

Stars and Stripe Assembled!
April 2, 2020
Copyright: Catherine Hawthorn

So you may notice that the stripe in this picture looks different from the previous pictures. Again, Catherine made yet another math error. As I was sewing some the squares together, I noticed that I had forgotten to calculate in the seam allowances. With a little extra taking, I was able to squeeze in one more block at the bottom.

Which caused another agonizing redesign with some of the discarded blocks. Of course, nearly all the blocks were the wrong pattern - I needed an "O" block and most of all the other blocks were "X" blocks. Go figure right?

Checking through my stash, I found one "X" block with fabric already used in earlier squares, which I could easily convert to an "O" block. After that was done, I changed out one of the "X" blocks for a different colored one to help keep the pattern better.

Once these colored block were assembled, it was time to determine the sashing that would go in between them. I had two choices of fabric: a cream fabric with tiny light salmon dots, or the blue and white willow fabric that I had used for the quilt blocks earlier.

Upon examination though, I found that the latter fabric was just too busy. With all that vibrant color, the quilt needed some stark contrast with the plainer cream. So using the back fabric as my guide, I cut the sashing strips to size and set to work.

Quilt Top Complete!!
April 3, 2020
Copyright: Catherine Hawthorn

Right after I finished the top, I dug out some polyester batting that my mom had stashed in the basement. Normally, I hate using synthetic fibers such as polyester in my sewing. But, natural battings are three times the price of regular and the craft stores are closed anyway. Besides, when is my mother ever going to use batting?

I experimented with one, two and three layers of batting. I finally decided on two to give me some thickness but not be duvet-thick, if that makes sense.

Now, the hard part....the quilting process.

First was the design. I went back and forth between doing a cross-hatch or an Orange Leaf pattern. But something about the beauty of the squares told me that I should not quilt over them. Second was the backing fabric itself:

Remember how I said it was weird?
Copyright: Catherine Hawthorn

In the end, I decided to just outline the sashing, so that it sort of resembled a sort of Jacob's Ladder on the back. I eliminated hand quilting almost immediately because of the timing concerns. So that left me with my machine, which I was okay with.

I then pinned the quilt sandwich together with safety pins. This was a trick that I was taught by my sewing instructor when you didn't have the really long pins that you were supposed to use for these things.

She be pinned and ready to go!
April 7, 2020
Copyright: Catherine Hawthorn

Quilting this thing turned out to be a CHALLENGE. First, the feed dogs were having a devil of a time working that pilled fleece through. If I hadn't had to follow the quilt top, I would have flipped it over to work on it.

Second....somehow or other, the back fabric kept puckering. So much so that it would require me to take out some whole seams, which was frustrating). So, after doing almost half of the seams, I had to repin it in order for the back to lay flat once again. Once that was accomplished, things got easier.

Third - two layers of batting was actually really thick! Which didn't help the feed dogs any. Trying to pull that quilt through was a workout for sure...

All Quilted!
April 8, 2020
Copyright: Catherine Hawthorn

The last step (besides trimming off the excess overlay) was to get some binding and finish off those raw edges. Upon consultation with Lia, I decided to go with a really light blue binding. But, of course, I had no binding in stock, and would have to buy some.

Which was much more of a difficulty than normal because as I mentioned...the craft stores are still closed. And Amazon has a high volume of traffic due to this whole mess, so I didn't bother looking into it.

But Walmart saved the day! Our Walmart still has a craft section, in spite of the fact that many Walmarts were getting rid of theirs. And in that half empty shelve of binding, there was indeed a full spot of light blue binding :)

Can't get much more providential than that, no?

Sewing the binding on
April 11, 2020
Copyright: Catherine Hawthorn

By this time, it is Holy Week - Good Friday to be exact. Pinning and sewing the binding should have probably taken a day at most, but due to problems, I didn't finish the binding until late afternoon on Holy Saturday. Just in time before Lent ended!

All finished!
April 11, 2020
Copyright: Catherine Hawthorn

I could do nothing but stare at the beauty of it for several minutes. Even though the quilt has a lot of "character" as my dear friend Grace Avender says (i.e. mistakes), I'm really really happy at how it turned out!! Not only does it get a long-term project done, it makes use of fabric that was just lying around in my cabinet.

Now that I've babbled on enough, I'd love to hear from you! What sort of projects have you been up to during this quarantine?

Old-fashionably yours,

Catherine

sew: a needle pulling thread

Workbasket Post: The Scrappy Patchwork Quilt (Part 1)

April 03, 2020

Hey y'all!!

Today, I'm going to share with you the story of my Lenten sewing project: a scrappy quilt!

So this project started out as one of those "experiments" that I'm famous for. What I'll do is I'll find out some craft and then attempt to create it. Usually I won't get much further than the first steps.

This particular quilt got it's start a couple of years ago, when I found a book that taught quilting in our craft stash. I decided to raid my mom's scrap bin for some suitable calicos. I simply just grabbed, big ones and little ones. Yellows, reds, purples, blues, greens, and pinks, mostly. I did stick mostly with flowers, but there was one stripey print in there.

I cut out several nine-patch blocks, and even put a couple together. I had a design, made up mostly of nine-patch blocks broken up by triangles. But then I, mysteriously, stopped working on it.

Fast forward to late 2019, when I found the bag of scraps once more when renovating my room. Rather than hiding it again, it got put in a rather prominent place, where I could remember to pick it up again - in my big sewing cabinet.

And it worked, because then I decided to pick it up as a Lenten project this year!

The first was the re-design process. I found a piece of fabric among my own stash, a purple fleece that had a strange texture to it. It was the perfect size for a throw, and I'm sure that it was cut to that purpose (though not by me).

In the blocks that I had assembled earlier, I had a favorite combination - an apple pattern paired with a blue and white flower calico. And so, I decided to feature these. Research into quilt patterns soon brought forth a favorite - the Ohio Star.

With those in mind, I took some measurements and re-created my PatternJam account (which is a quilt design website) to create this design:

Initial Design - with all the horrid colors - Feb 2020

Looks like a mess, doesn't it?

I admit, the fabric section of the design website was not working at that point. But also, I had no idea my scraps would stretch and what the final colors would look like.

In the first week of Lent, I started work on more of the nine-patch blocks. Which, in hindsight, may or may not have been a wise decision.

Following the original design, I came up with this:

Progress - Feb 29, 2020

Now, take a look at how close those bottom those two nine-patches for the Ohio Stars are. I should have taken better note of that.

Anyway, it remained like this for well over two weeks. At that point, I went on vacation and came back to quarantine, so I had a few things to settle before I picked it up again.

By that point, I was starting to realize my mistake in going ahead with the nine patches. It was then also that I started looking hard on design, as I was prepping to make the "Hourglass" blocks that would make up the Ohio Star design.

I took as inspiration the colors of the apple print and make plans for the Hourglasses to be made up of red and yellow fabric. Alas, I was short on the red and so only had enough to make three sets of red and yellow. I had to find another combination and fast.

I decided to go with green as one of the colors, since there was a nice mint green in the original print but what to match it with? Blue didn't seem to be a good option, and to be frank, there wasn't that much blue to offer.

So I decided to go with purple. From here on out, a lot of decisions had to be made on what kind of fabric I had available to me. It turned out, like in the red, that I was short on purple too - more so, actually. And so after much mental agonizing, I had to piece-meal some triangles together to scrape enough out to make the Hourglasses.

March 27

After the Hourglasses were made and set out, I realized with horror that I had miscalculated the number of rows that I would have needed. All of a sudden, about a dozen of those nine-patches became unnecessary. More on that later.

The last thing then that had to be figured out was what to put in the corners of the Ohio Star. I knew that I didn't have enough fabric to have solid blocks like in the original design. And so, it was back to the drawing board.

I found a "crossing" pattern paired with Ohio Stars that I found that I liked, and it would be simple enough to make a nine-patch design of that.

Taking inspiration from the original blocks again, I decided to go with opposite colors to bring out the hidden colors better. For example, on the Stars with the green and purple Hourglasses, I created red and yellow Crossing blocks. Which, ironically, was the other set of blocks that needed a piecemeal occasionally.

The trickier turned out to be the ones for the red and yellow Ohio Stars. Ideally, I would have had blue or purple for all three, but supplies ran short. I tried looking for more scraps but was rather unsuccessful (except in finding more yellow....).

So I went then with a blue for one, a pink and blue for another, and to really mix things up, a green and purple one for the third.

It was at this time too that I finalized the middle stripe. This had caused me a lot of anxiety as I original had an X0X0X0X0X pattern going, and the colors were not blending well. I spent a couple of hours one night just playing with designs.

Finally, on the morning of the 29th, I made my final decision. A couple of the discarded blocks were taken apart, and their pieces used for the "Crossing" blocks - which is why I wanted the design to be finished anyway. Three of the discarded blocks were saved with some of the pieces that I didn't use and will be used for another quilt....eventually.

March 30

I decided then that I would update my design on my Pattern Jam to reflect the changes that had taken place. I must say, even with the rather unorthodox colorations, it doesn't look half bad....