It’s been a while since I did a general “in my sewing room” update — the last one was right after I got back from QuiltCon! But as usual, I’ve been working steadily on various projects. I’m in a fairly good pace right now in terms of having plenty of things to work on but not feeling overwhelmed or stressed by deadlines. I’ll make sure to enjoy that while it lasts!
My 100 day project to use my fabric scraps is going well since making a tweak after the first week. I should finish in July with 100 monochromatic blocks (each block is one color, but I switch from block to block). Then I’ll arrange them, probably in some sort of rainbow order, and turn them into a ~45″ square quilt. I’m not going to use the first 8 or so blocks that I made prior to nailing down my more-cohesive color plan, which means I’ll remake those at some point. I don’t know exactly how the end result will turn out, which is a new place to be for me.
I have been working hard on another project for my guild‘s Alison Glass-themed challenge. The photo above is a poorly lit view of the back when I was about halfway done with the quilting. I’m wrapping up the last bits of sewing and quilting right now, and then it’s on to binding. The deadline is Sunday and I’ll make it just in time.
I’m REALLY REALLY excited about it. I wanted to make something different, and try a couple new-to-me techniques, and I’m doing that — and amazingly, it’s coming out exactly as I hoped! I haven’t shared much of it since part of the challenge is to surprise everyone at our meeting, but I will definitely be sharing it (or oversharing it) next week once the guild challenge is done.
Over the next week I’ll also be finishing up the onesie quilt I mentioned a few weeks ago. I finished the top not long after I wrote about it, but then gave it to a guild member to do some embroidery before I quilt it. My friend/client came up with the idea for the embroidery, which was to have her boys’ names and birthdays in 3 of the corners, and “The — Family” in the final corner. It turned out so cute! Now that I have the top back, it needs to be basted, quilted, and finished off.
I had originally been thinking of a simple diagonal cross hatch quilting pattern, but now I’m having second thoughts — if I do that, the quilting lines will cross right through the middles of a lot of the onesie details and appliques. I could use invisible thread, and that would help, but I’d planned to use my standard gray 50 wt Aurifil since I don’t have any experience using the invisible thread on quilts that will be used and washed…and I don’t want to risk something happening with this one.
My other option is to just quilt along the seam lines instead — not in the ditch, but a quarter inch or so on either side. That won’t interfere with anything except the 4 “double wide” blocks, and I don’t think it’ll be too distracting.
I’d love to hear any other quilting suggestions if you’ve got some good ideas!
I look forward to getting to see your guild challenge quilt! The quilting alone has me very intrigued. I think your plan for the quilting just offset from the seams of the memory quilt sounds like a really good idea.
I’m excited to share it! Hopefully my guild will think it’s as cool as I do. Lol!