Monday, December 7, 2015

A Charity Finish: Freeform Scrappy Thread Orange Peel and Curved Corner Finish

I have a finish!  The new things I practiced were curved corners different thread orange peel, applying the binding to the front.

Curved Corners and Binding

I hadn't planned on curved corners, but I goofed when doing the miter corner so it the only way I could think to repair was to trim the corners so I could work around the corner.  (I still only have the darning foot and the stitches were too small to remove.)  The corner makes a nice finish.  When I was reading up on how to do the curved corner the blogs I found said I would need to use a bias binding, but since mine was already cut and partly applied and stuck with what I had.  Other than the one corner where I had originally messed up though I did not find that I had trouble applying this straight of grain binding so I will try that again.

I did cut the binding strips at 2.5 inches, next time I'm going to try 2.25 inch strips as the line of stitching could have been closer with this kind of batting.

I did sew the binding to the front and then wrapped it to the back to sew the final stitching.  This I will do again.

Freeform and Scrappy Thread FMQing

I did an free form orange peel design and used up some of the thread I had that is in different colors. I like the way it looks - reminded me of leaves when I sewing, but then a firework when the different colors met at the intersections.  Since it's a scrap quilt, it made sense to me to also be scrappy with the thread.  Pink, red, blue, black, grey.  I will do this again.





Edges of Quilting

I didn't remember to be consistent at the edges with the orange peel design until the very end...  So many of the points are lost under the binding.  In fact I had intending on wrapping the back to the front to make the binding.  However, because I was inconsistent had to cover up those endings.  So I trimmed the quilt up and cut the binding from the backing fabric.  Next time I hope to remember to be consistent so the points aren't lost!  I could simply stay stitch all four sides of the project and use that to guide my FMQing.


Mitered Corner Error

My mistake on the corner.
I think I will make up some mug rugs to practice binding....


For the Future

I'm interested in different ways I can FMQ using consistently sized blocks to guide my stitching.


History

Looks like I started these charity quilts the end of January 2015...
Blogged here:  http://quiltquest.blogspot.com/2015/01/20150130-final-border-on-green-qfk.html

8 comments:

  1. Congratulations on a finished quilt June. Both sides are beautiful. Love the rounded corners - that is something I want to do but haven't done. I have done the orange peel quilting and really enjoyed it. Mine wasn't nearly as neat as yours. I like the idea of using a lot of different threads. So far, I have been too lazy to switch the thread that often, but it does make a big difference so that might be something I will use in the future too.

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    1. Thank you for coming by!
      The rounded corners were easy. I just turned a cereal bowl upside down and used the rotary cutter to cut it off. Then I used the left over backing that I had cut off to go around. The only little funky area was the corner I had already started doing the binding. I took an extra piece of binding and put that down and then just flipped it over. No doubt there is a better way to do, but unless I point it out, not really noticeable.
      I had several spools with just a little thread so I just made a bobbin and sewed until it ran out! Would be nice to plan where the colors go for a more planned look, but it looks good in person. I'm going to do it again in a project - until I run out of the bits of colored thread!
      : )

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  2. Congratulations on your finish. I love the rounded corners - they give the quilt a completely different feel somehow: sort of softer.

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  3. Love this. The rounded corners give such a soft look. I use them in the dozens of flannel receiving blankets I donate to charity at a time, but haven't tried them on a quilt..now I will keep this in mind!

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    1. Thank you for coming Michele! I bet you have completed hundreds of projects. I can never catch up, but I'm hoping to get a lot more sewing in for 2016 and beyond!

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  4. PS: I see you are still showing the liberated alt webring badge. You need to pull it as it has been defunct for a year now. Neither of our liberated web rings are working anymore due to going belly up. Clare never let us know but Cher told me..and yep, sadly she was correct.

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