Remember I mentioned I got five books on quilting from the library? That doesn't mean I read five books on quilting. If that were the case I probably wouldn't have stumbled through so many projects, in such a short time. So I have been going back through several of them, to see if there weren't some warnings and tips that might have saved some embarrassment and time. I got bummed and didn't photograph a number of my weirdest flops.
For instance, I used a really cool light blue thread to outline the snub square pattern. It turns out the fleece is so fluffy that the only places you can actually see it is where I got paranoid about unraveling stitching ends and backed up and ran over a few stitches to lock down the ends.
In one of the books (I will give credit when I find it again) there was a tip about not cutting the trailing ends of the quilting process too short, so you can come back thread them up on a needle and dive em back in near where they come out. Then run the needle an inch or through the batting layer, surface and pull the slack to suck the knot under and cut it short. If it's taut at that time, when the mashed fleece (or batting) springs back, it disappears the thread end for good. Duh, no backing up and over-sewing stitch bunches to show! Also less pressure foot skid marks. Ow, I had a few, distressing yes but not horrible.
Machine sewing isn't totally easy, but even a rookie can sew a fleece quilt, if yer patient and hardheaded. My Cairo-fleece baby blanket took about two weeks, from Photoshop to washing machine (remove the blue chalk marks). I doubt I could sell my odd amateurish result, but I don't think I'd do this just for money. This seemed like a kinda tough quilt. Springy, thick, kinda fragile edged, stretchy fabric, but truthfully most sewing is weird. I wouldn't be surprised if most of yer average stitchy types were actually a little smarter than me, still if I wanted something easy to do, I'd probably be watching TV.
No comments:
Post a Comment