Quilt Basting Spray

Most of you probably know that JoAnn's has closed and that Michaels has taken over the fabric lines.  Some of the thigs that I liked about JoAnn's were the coupons for the basics that I needed.  Their coupons were valid at other stores too!  I could find large rolls of batting, quilt basting spray, cutting mats, etc.

The other day, I ran out of my 505 Quilt Basting Spray and headed over the Michael's.  They didn't carry that brand, but they had their alternate.  It's called "Spray & Bond" Basting Adhesive.  So, I bought their brand.

It's not the same at all!  I spray basted two quilts with it and it didn't hold they layers secure through the quilting process.  The first quilt was the hand quilted big stitch green scrap quilt.  I ended up with huge tucks in the back and mushy areas in the top as well.  I attributed it to my poor quilting preparation and efforts.  The second quilt was the "Skinny It Up: green scrap quilt.  I also ended up with tucks in the backing and too much movement between the layers during quilting.  It finally donned on my that my usual basting with 505 basting spray/safety pins never failed.  And that these recent failures were primarily due to the off brand of quilt basting spray.  

Well, you know what I did!  I tossed the off brand into the garbage can and headed over to my local Quilt Store, and bought 2 cans of my favorite quilt basting spray.  I should just keep going to my local Quilt Store for my quilting needs!  

I hope you have success using whatever metho you use for basting.  

Hand Quilting with the big Stitch - "Hip Surgery Recovery and World Series"

I kept working on the lap quilt with the big stitch quilting.  Although working in the slow mode while recovering from hip surgery kept me busy, I kept thinking that I could have machine quilted this quilt in a couple of days.  We were also watching all of the baseball playoff games and the World Series.  Well, it was worth the effort to make a new lap quilt for myself anyway.  

I'm not so sure that I will keep doing hand quilting with the big stitches.  In fact, I made every rookie mistake with this piece.  I chose the wrong batting for hand quilting, I chose blocks that had gobs of seams which made it really difficult to stitch through, I didn't baste it enough, resulting in huge tucks in the backing, I didn't start from the center and work myself towards the edges, etc.  

Oh, and the dog ate one whole ball of the blue thread that I bought in Hawaii!  I had only 35 inches left on the second ball when I was done!  Yes, this is really one of those times when The Dog really did eat it!

I'm not even sure that I can wash it because it has all kinds of materials in it, including ribbon, silk, painted color catchers, and an indeterminant rayon-like fabric.  After it was quilted, I added a bright lime green binding.

Here is the finished quilt.  It measures 48" w x 64" h.  I named it "Hip Surgery Recovery and World Series".  

I hope you like it, because I can't say that I do.  

Green scrap quilt - inserting skinny brown lines

I finally got back into doing some sewing, 4 weeks after my hip replacement surgery.  I had enough confidence to go up the stairs by myself and sew with my leg that has the new hip.

I still had a pile of green fabrics and scraps from the previous 2 quilts,  so I kept sewing the scraps and strips together.  This time, I decided to make 6-1/2" x 9-1/2" rectangles.  I started with a pile of strips cut at varying widths.

I sewed pieces together by adding them to the strips, then cutting them apart.

Until I had the sizes that I needed.  Each time that I trimmed, I got more small pieces, so I just kept going.

I had the idea to place them in rows that alternated direction.  And while I was placing them on the design wall, I got the idea to insert skinny strips that would be placed vertically in the rows.   Here is the start of the skinny strips inserting process.

I knew that the angle of the skinny strips would be different on the blocks.  I sketched the angle out on a piece of graph paper to see what angle I could live with.  On some of the blocks, I offset the start and end of the strip at 2-1/4" in from the edge.  And on the alternating row of blocks. I offset the start and end of the strip at 1-1/2" in from the edge.  Here are my graph paper sketches.

Here is how the block  was cut apart

Here is a progress picture of 5 rows of the skinny strips, showing the alternating angles.

I hope you like it so far!