Honoring the Pledge

I know that this follow-up to my previous quilting post has been a long-time coming. But I was busy! So here it is, Part 2 of the Disappearing Nine Quilt Process.

After creating all of my blocks, my next step was to figure out where each block would go. I started by randomly laying each block on the floor, side-by-side. I tried not to ever let any two seams line up with one another.  Sometimes it happened, but not often. By alternating where the seams are, it makes the quilt stronger.  I stood back and stared at the "quilt" and walked away and came back.  I swapped a few blocks to try and evenly disperse all of the concentrated areas of color. If I felt like there were too many splotches of green in one area, I would try to move it to another section and replace it with something orange or red. In the end, I didn't stress over it too much because every time I moved a block, it was tricky to find another one that would be more suitable, but also not violate my "no two seams together" rule.

Once I finalized the layout, I labeled each row by pinning a number to the first block on the left. This way I would be able to maintain the layout even after I disassembled everything to sew it together.

I was very careful to make sure that my corners were squared up before I sewed anything together. I knew that precision now would be important later in the process.

After sewing the blocks into rows, I ironed the seams in alternating directions. Even-numbered rows got ironed to the right, and odd-numbered rows got ironed to the left. Again, this helps to minimize the amount of bulk that has to be quilted over later on. Here is a picture of my rows, sewn together:

Now I was ready to sew the rows together. Last time I made a quilt, this is where I had the most trouble. This is where it matters whether or not you were precise in your cutting and sewing. This is where you try to match up all of the corners! Thank goodness I had picked up an invaluable piece of advice from S. She wisely clued me into the fact that fabric stretches (duh!) so if corners weren't slated to line-up, I could just stretch something to force the corners to align. Yay! There's also this technique called "nesting." Because the seams were ironed in alternating directions, they can be "nested" together to assure that the corners will be lined up. Check out this picture to see what I mean:

And here (though it's hard to tell from a picture) I've stretched the top layer of fabric to force it to line up properly with the bottom layer. I'm pinching the two together with my thumb and forefinger.

The finished quilt top measured 7 squares by 9 squares. It wasn't quite as big as I wanted it to be, so I decided to add a border.

I hadn't yet bought any border fabric, so I packed up my quilt top and headed back to the fabric store. Luckily my good friend S (another S!) was able to join me and help in my quest for the perfect border fabric. This was no easy task. Some fabrics weren't quite the right hue, while others didn't match the modern vibe. I had fully expected to buy a raspberry-colored print--something that would give your eyes a place to rest since the rest of the quilt was so busy. Surprisingly, I instead fell in love with a neon-red print with silver-dollar-sized circles on it. I bought 2 yards with which to make the border and binding. For the border I cut seven strips, each 6 1/2" x 40". For the binding I cut eight strips 2 1/4" by 40".

I sewed two strips of border to each other so that I had long enough pieces for each side. Then I sewed the border to the top and bottom of the quilt. After I sewed them on, I used my rotary cutter to trip the edges to match the width of the quilt. Then I sewed the remaining pieces of border to the two sides of the quilt.

The next step was to figure out the backing. I decided to use a twin-sized sheet because it would save me the trouble of having to sew together strips of store-bought fabric (which are not as wide as my quilt). An added bonus is that Ikea sells twin sheets separately and for only $4.50! I never could have bought the necessary 3 yards of fabric for that bargain price.

Again, I went to the store expecting to buy a raspberry-colored piece of fabric. I had it in my mind that it would be a soothing color to balance the vibrancy of the front. Unfortunately for me, that plan failed. Ikea didn't have that color. The two best options were red or dark blue. I considered the red since it matched the border perfectly. However, I reminded myself that I was looking for something to bring some sense of calm to the quilt. This was, after all, a present for my grandma, not a 7-year-old girl. I settled on the dark blue, even though there wasn't a lick of blue anywhere on the quilt.

I had saved some scraps of fabric from my twelve original prints, and I wanted to incorporate them on the back of the quilt. I think it's prettier when quilts have some pizazz on the back. S had used her scraps to make a strip with alternating pieces of colors and backing. Hers was beautiful and I was inspired! Here's the end result:

From the above picture, you can also see how I decided to use horizontal lines to quilt the fabric. I hoped that the vertical lines, sewn with the neon red thread, would enhance the modern feel of the quilt. In order to make the lines straight, I used a washable fabric pen and my ruler to draw lines on the front of the quilt at 2" intervals. I made sure to line up the quilting lines with the seams in the blocks. Quilting over top of seams that are already there is called "stitching in the ditch."

With the quilting out of the way, the last step was to first machine stitch the binding to the front of the quilt and then hand-stitch the binding to the back of the quilt.

Hand-stitching was something that I was dreading. DREADING with a capital 'D'! I decided that the best thing I could do for myself was to research some tips to help make the process a little easier. THANK YOU to Mal at Turning*Turning. Her "Mamma-Jamma Knot" and tutorial on the "Ladder Step Stitch" were invaluable to me.

With just days to go before I had to give the quilt away, I spent several hours each night working on the hand-stitching (I'm not a very fast sewer, and I kept stabbing my thumb--ouch! I'm definitely going to invest in one of those leather thumb-protectors before I work on my next quilt).

When all was said and done, I was very pleased with the quilt. In fact, it was hard to give it away. That is, until I saw my grandmother's reaction.

It was truly a labor of love.