Lansdowne Life

4. Quilting

5. Binding

Monday, May 14, 2012

Twin quilt progress report: Binding

Are you ready? This is my last "progress report." The quilt is complete and I'll have all the "beauty" shots in the next post. I hope all of you non-quilters have enjoyed this peek into my world as a novice quilter. And I hope any experienced quilters out there didn't laugh too hard at my beginner-level skills.

But there's one last step: binding the quilt. I really love how binding finishes everything off. It's like a frame around the quilt.

First, I took a few minutes to trim up the edges, making sure everything was straight and square. Then it was time to create the binding.

It took 15-20 minutes to cut the fabric strips and then about an hour to sew them all together and press the long strip in half.

When all was done, I had a long, nearly 10-yard strip of pretty binding ready to sew onto the quilt.

It took about 50 minutes to attach the binding along the edges of the quilt with the sewing machine. Then I wrapped the binding around the raw edge and broke out the needle and thread to finish the binding by hand on the other side. Those barrette looking things are called binding clips and they help hold everything in place while stitching.

Finishing by hand takes a super long time, but it's something you can pick up and drop at anytime. It took eight hours to hand stitch the binding around the perimeter of the quilt (a total distance of about 8.25 yards).

As I was adding up all of the little bits of time I had jotted down, I realized it seems absolutely crazy to spend eight hours on finishing the binding alone. That's more time than I spent on the quilt top!

BUT, two things:

On my previous two quilts, I spent a LOT of time ripping out sloppy machine stitches from finishing the binding with the machine. For my last baby quilt, I actually started with the machine and then ripped out the machine stitches and switched to finishing the whole thing by hand. I'm learning. Doing things and re-doing them is definitely not an efficient use of time.
Hand sewing is something you can do mindlessly while watching TV. And it's sort of therapeutic / meditative. In this case, it helped me decompress from frustrating days of potty training boot camp. (Ugh.)

Total time spent: About 27-28 hours.
Next up: The big reveal!

-------------------

Other posts in this series:

4. Quilting

5. Binding

Monday, May 7, 2012

Twin quilt progress report: Quilting

With the quilt top and back both done, I was ready to transform these pieces into an actual quilt. And that means making a quilt sandwich. That is layering the quilt back, then batting, then the quilt top.

This has to be my least favorite part of the process. I find it difficult to get everything as smooth and flat as I'd like it to be. Since I find it frustrating, I forgot to take photos of this step. Sorry.

Basically, you find a big flat space (i.e. the floor, if it's too big to lay on a table) and layer everything and smooth it. Then you secure all the layers together with a bunch of curved safety pins. It took me between an hour and two hours to put together this large quilt sandwich.

With that step done, it was time to turn this blanket into a quilt.

Up until now, I've been using the normal foot on my sewing machine. But now I'm switching to the walking foot for the remainder of the project. The walking foot is just a special foot that helps feed thick or heavy things through the machine. My machine came with one, but they are only around $20 if you have to buy one separately.

My sewing space in our basement office was just too cramped for this project, so I brought my machine upstairs. I used the large flat surface of the dining room table to support the quilt and it made all the difference.

I kept the actual quilting very simple. One, because I'm still very much a beginner and two, it's somewhat of a challege, wrangling, rearranging and wrestling something this size through the machine. Even if you've never quilted anything, just imagine having a twin size blanket bunched up in front of you, spilling onto your lap, while pushing it through the machine, trying to keep everything straight and smooth. Not easy.

I sewed long straight lines across the width of the quilt on either side of the seams. It took almost four hours to do all of the quilting, but I imagine a fair amount of that time was actually just re-positioning the quilt, smoothing and lining it up to go through the machine. This isn't quick stitching.

I missed my arbitrary completion deadline of Elise's birthday, but that's OK. I'm in the home stretch!

Total time spent so far: About 18-19 hours.

Next step: Binding!

-------------------

Other posts in this series:

4. Quilting

5. Binding

Monday, April 23, 2012

Twin quilt progress report: Assembling the quilt back

I'm done with the quilt back! It's quite a bit simpler than the quilt top, but because this quilt is so large, I didn't have the luxury of just using a single piece of fabric (as can be done with baby quilts).

Those two wide swaths at the top are each 36" tall and almost two yards wide. Big pieces. The rest of it was using up pieces left over from the quilt top.

I also wanted to include something special. Elise kept telling me she wanted a "house" quilt, but what that really means is anyone's guess. Still, I thought I'd honor that with... you guessed it, a house!

It took me about an hour and 15 minutes to cut the pieces for the back, but I was also trying to design that house bit at the same time. So it took longer than it would have if I had a clear plan.

After everything was cut, it all went together in about two hours. Again, it took longer because I had to adjust the patchy part. I guess I didn't do my math correctly, and I had to add in some extra pieces to make up the width.

You can see I need help with sewing triangles. Haven't learned those tricks yet.

This house "block" pretty much confirmed that I am not ready for fancy piecing yet. Good thing I much prefer simpler patterns. I accidentally sliced off part of my seam allowance (on the left) so the tip of my triangle was compromised. And the top never had a chance. I always throw in a couple of mistakes to make sure I don't think I'm some kind of superstar.

All in all, the back took about 3 hours, 15 minutes.

Total time spent so far: About 13 hours.
Next step: Making the quilt sandwich (yum!) & quilting

-------------------

Other posts in this series:

3. Assembling the quilt back

4. Quilting

5. Binding

Monday, April 16, 2012

Twin quilt progress report: Assembling the quilt top

I'm making good progress on the twin-size quilt I'm making for Elise. The quilt top is complete!

I'm trying to keep close track of the time I'm spending on it. (You know, just for fun.) It's easy to say quilting is time consuming, and it is, but I wouldn't want that statement alone to be daunting to anyone. It's completely possible to work an hour or so a day and have a finished quilt in a month. (Much less if you have larger pieces or are making a small quilt.)

That said, it took me about six hours to put this quilt top together. I worked for about an hour at a time, first piecing together the patchwork rows. With my six-inch squares, I made pairs, then quartets, and then I pieced the three quartets together to make a row of 12 squares. In my experience, this process is about equal parts ironing, pinning and sewing.

After I had my patchwork rows finished, I sewed a solid white strip beneath all but the last row. And then I pieced those rows together in pairs, then quartets, then all together.

And then I was done! I showed it to Elise, who didn't seem to care much, but I'm not taking it personally. Yet.

Total time spent so far: About 9-10 hours.
Next step: assembling the quilt back.

-------------------

Other posts in this series:

2. Assembling the quilt top

4. Quilting

5. Binding

Monday, April 9, 2012

Twin quilt progress report: Planning and cutting

I finally started on the twin size quilt I'm making for Elise. I'm still very much a beginner, but I thought it might be fun to document the progress here, breaking it all down for anyone interested in the quilt-making process.

It took me a long time to figure out what sort of design I was doing, but I think I was mostly putting too much pressure on myself to make the perfect choice. Once I let go of that, things got rolling. I decided on a stripey design of alternating patchwork and solid rows. I'd show you my sketch, but it's literally a drawing of horizontal stripes.

I cut 120 six-inch squares for my patchwork rows, many from the fabrics I showed you before, but I also added a few more prints from a recent trip to a cute new local fabric shop (Fabric Nosherie in Webster Groves) and my fabric stash to round out the color palette. I got all of the pieces cut for the top (including some solid strips not shown here) in about 3-4 hours.

And then it took about an hour to lay all the patterns out in a way I liked. There will be solid strips between the patched rows, but I plotted everything out without them. And that was when I realized the quilt is going to be freaking huge. I mean, I know it's a twin size and I know the final dimensions, but seeing what I had laid out on the floor and knowing it was only going to be bigger was kind of intimidating.

So that's where I'm at now. Next step: assembling the quilt top.

I set myself an artificial deadline of April 26 (Elise's birthday) for completing the whole thing, but I'm not sure how realistic that really is with everything else I have in the works. I might not make it! Stay tuned.

-------------------

Other posts in this series:

1. Planning and cutting

4. Quilting

5. Binding