July Monthly Mini and other things

So... what happened to all this free time I'm supposed to be having? I'm retired, I can't go anywhere, I don't have kids or grandkids ... yet it seems like I still exhaust myself just trying to keep up with what needs to be done around the house and yard. (Granted, there's a LOT that needs doing.) That, and simply keeping in touch with everyone, whether by phone, text, or zoom. Good grief.

I did manage to make a mini.

I'm calling this Pineapple Squares, because the blocks were supposed to be pineapple blocks, but ended up looking more like square-in-a-square. Some of them are pretty off-kilter, one of them actually has a hole in it (I just noticed when taking the pictures).

Oops. See the hole? Apparently my chosen scrap wasn't long enough. Must repair ...

I recently purchased Barb's fan stencil (available here) and tried it out  on this little quilt. It was pretty easy, and I like how it turned out.

My friend Joanne described to me how you can backtrack over the previously quilted fan to start a  new line, thus avoiding all those starts and stops. You can see here the backtracking is well hidden, helped no doubt by the busy fabrics, the crinkling, and the very thin thread.

Yes I know, some of those black triangles are pretty darned cockeyed. Who cares. Overall effect - think galloping horse - it all looks good.

For the back I used a piece of this versatile toile, which my friend Shauna gave me an entire bold of ( !! ).

Please visit The Constant Quilter, hosted by Wendy, to see more of this month's mini quilts, which are always delightful!

On to "other things" ...

I'm almost finished quilting my "Little Orphan Scrappy" from said pattern by Lynn Wilder (Sewin' Wild Oaks). Simple grid, because I could not come up with anything else  wanted something uncomplicated.

I also went ahead and marked one corner of my Summer Sampler.

I've realized I was deluding myself thinking I could hand quilt this. Too many obstacles. For instance, I don't have a frame, hand-held or otherwise, that would accommodate a single one of those fans. And the fact that my hand quilting would disappear right into that dull blue with the white dots makes all that work kind of pointless. I'll save the stress on my hands for something that gives me more bang for the buck. Now that I know the overlap trick, I'm confident I can machine quilt this easily.

That's it for the quilting part of this post.

a couple of notes -

Comments:  I am no longer able to sign in to Google on my ipad, which means I have not been able to leave comments using that device. That's what I use to read the blogs, and I'm not often motivated to get out of my recliner (or bed where I do much of my reading) and go in the other room and turn on the computer.  I ordered a new ipad a week ago, but its delivery has been delayed. I'm hoping to be back in business soon. I have a lot of catching up to do!

Blogger:   I don't know if I am using the new blogger or the old one. I did not select "legacy blogger" when I began this post, so I assumed I was using the new one. I did not experience any problems, in fact there were only a few little differences, such as not being able to resize pictures. We'll se what happens next time. I'll admit I am not very sophisticated.

love,

Sandy

here goes nothin'

This is my experiment post using the new Blogger.
First I'll try to upload a photo.

my "Summer Sampler" from TQC sew-along

OK, that worked! I had the option of choosing a photo from my blog, so that was easy. Have we always had this option? I don't remember.

Now to import from my desktop.

antique "inspiration" quilt

That still works. Cool! OK, let's move on.

I finished my Summer Sampler top several weeks ago. I prepared the backing and batting, even made the binding, so its ready to quilt. Except ... I'm not sure how I want to quilt it. Ideally I'd like something traditional, and probably overall as I want it to be flat, but I don't want the quilting to be incongruous with the designs of the pieced blocks. 

I considered a grid, but ruled it out as too disruptive within the blocks, and too boring on those wide borders.

Last night I hung the top back up on my design wall, and meditated on it. I asked myself, what would be the ideal quilting for this quilt? The answer came pretty easily: Baptist Fans. However there are roadblocks with this pattern, which is why I was trying to find something else easier/faster. Pattern-wise though, I think the Baptist Fans might be perfect.

Now the first question (assuming I go with the fans) would be whether to quilt by hand or machine. Machine would be faster and in some ways easier, but the difficulty lies with all those starts and stops.  My thread of choice for machine quilting would be Microquilter 100 wt poly, which is super thin and ideal for going over a variety of different colors, but the deal breaker is, it doesn't want to knot. Hand knotting after the fact is a non-starter, as there would be hundreds of these. And I'm not confident even those would hold. I could use a thin cotton thread such as Aurofil, but I'm afraid it might look too "heavy" and detract from the pieced blocks. And what color would I use?   

So that leaves hand quilting. That I can do, but only in small increments, so I'd have to accept that it would take a very long time to complete. That's ok, I'm not in any hurry. I'm thinking that to hand quilt this, I'm going to have to sew a wide "border" around the entire quilt (and probably the backing) in order to be able to center each bit of the quilt, including the very edges, in my hand held PVC frame. Also doable, just more work. In any event, I'll need a Baptist Fan stencil, which I think I can order from Barb. I'm wondering if pin basting will work, or do I need to thread baste. More work again, and kind of a pain. Or ... have any of you tried hand quilting through basting spray, such as 505? That would save a lot of time.

Anyway, that's my conundrum for the moment. In writing this post, I already answered most of my own questions, so that's progress, I guess! I welcome any comments or suggestions, or advice on any of the above. Thanks!

love,
Sandy

ps Turns out I forgot to "choose" the New Blogger (I thought it had become the default) so no surprise that everything worked as normal, lol!