Hi! Although I am not being truly held hostage, I thought I would pop in as a proof of life, LOL! It's summer and life is crazy, ain't it?
As our service project, our local modern quilt guild makes wheelchair quilts for seniors. Wheelchair quilts, are roughly the size of a baby quilt--not so big that they get tangled up in the wheels. I make mine 36"x36" which takes slightly over a yard of fabric to back. That's also nine 12" blocks, which is like a giant nine-patch.
I have made several of these quilts, but had yet to successfully quilt one on my plain little Singer 221 Featherweight. It's a vintage machine that sews only straight stitches and the feed dogs cannot be lowered.
Sounds like a straight-stitched quilt, right? Usually, the feed dogs pull and the fabric puckers. It just looks bad, so I give up.
A bundle of batik big 10" charm squares arrived in the mail yesterday. What in the world I was going to do with more swap square? I can up with and answer: make summery looking quilts for the seniors.
I selected nine rainbow colored squares, evened them up to 9.5"and sewed a light background to each in half square triangles. The top was together in a chevron pattern in no time.
My friend who lets me use her long arm was away, so I decided to give my machine another try. I have had some success quilting small projects that had low-loft polyester craft batting. I tried low-loft cotton this time.
I layered, basted with pins and hoped for the best. I started in the middle and though I had a difficult time with zigzag of the chevron thing, it was working!
I pieced, quilted and bound the whole thing in less than 24-hours. Yes, it's pretty much all I did that day, LOL!
I wash the quilts before giving because I must know how well it's going wash. VOILA! When I got it out of the dryer, I was pleased as punch. The minimal puckers disappeared into those wonderful convolutions of the soft cotton batting.
I am pleased to report that I have one successful--albeit small--straight stitch quilt done at home!
And it feels good!
As our service project, our local modern quilt guild makes wheelchair quilts for seniors. Wheelchair quilts, are roughly the size of a baby quilt--not so big that they get tangled up in the wheels. I make mine 36"x36" which takes slightly over a yard of fabric to back. That's also nine 12" blocks, which is like a giant nine-patch.
I have made several of these quilts, but had yet to successfully quilt one on my plain little Singer 221 Featherweight. It's a vintage machine that sews only straight stitches and the feed dogs cannot be lowered.
Sounds like a straight-stitched quilt, right? Usually, the feed dogs pull and the fabric puckers. It just looks bad, so I give up.
A bundle of batik big 10" charm squares arrived in the mail yesterday. What in the world I was going to do with more swap square? I can up with and answer: make summery looking quilts for the seniors.
I selected nine rainbow colored squares, evened them up to 9.5"and sewed a light background to each in half square triangles. The top was together in a chevron pattern in no time.
My friend who lets me use her long arm was away, so I decided to give my machine another try. I have had some success quilting small projects that had low-loft polyester craft batting. I tried low-loft cotton this time.
I layered, basted with pins and hoped for the best. I started in the middle and though I had a difficult time with zigzag of the chevron thing, it was working!
I pieced, quilted and bound the whole thing in less than 24-hours. Yes, it's pretty much all I did that day, LOL!
I wash the quilts before giving because I must know how well it's going wash. VOILA! When I got it out of the dryer, I was pleased as punch. The minimal puckers disappeared into those wonderful convolutions of the soft cotton batting.
I am pleased to report that I have one successful--albeit small--straight stitch quilt done at home!
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| A rainbow chevron quilt |
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| I was pleased that I found this chevron fabric that has many of the same BG colors |
This came out great!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Moni. I was tired and things seemed to be getting more wonky and hard to sew back and forth with the chevrons. I almost quit. I am glad I didn't!
DeleteI saw your profile on SwapBot and came to check it out. Your Flicker pix are lovely, and I covet those little bird lights!! How fun! This is a lovely quilt, too. I am not good with a sewing machine, and haven't done embroidery in ages, but I always have enjoyed it.
ReplyDeletetm
Thank you so much for your kind words! I am certain you can sew with a machine... I just read a quote that said something like the more you do something, the better you become at it... it's true! My sewing is proof! :D
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