Monday, November 21, 2011

triangles galore

The fibers were flying in the sewing room when I got started on cutting a few triangles for a new project--


Those triangles evolved into blocks like this:


Which turned into something like this:

This picture was taken while I was working on rearranging the colors on the design wall. The finished product will be a couple days off, I'm working on sewing the rows together. Some of the seams require careful matching and pinning to get the corners and points to line up correctly. That's something I require of myself and try to teach in my classes without becoming abrasive because I have come to realize that others often have a better tolerance for mismatches than I do! I mainly want people to enjoy the process of sewing, and if that means doing it the way I do it, or varying from that somewhat, then so be it. There is room at the sewing machine for all!
Back to this quilt--it is a pattern from a book titled Strip Smart Quilts by Kathy Brown. It is cut using a special Creative Grids ruler called the Double Strip 90 Degree Triangle ruler. The fabrics are designed by Denyse Schmidt and are called Hope Valley. This is all in preparation for a class/demo that I will be teaching at Bear Patch Quilting sometime this winter--schedule not yet determined!

And here's an image of another quilt that I worked on for a customer. The fabrics she used were all similar shades of off-white. The backing was a "corduroy" plush fabric.


This type of backing can be a little tricky to work with, mostly because they are stretchy. Mounting the selvage edges to the rollers and keeping the backing slack prevented any puckers/distortion. And a loose, curvy stitching design was needed. Close quilting and points would not have worked well. The customer was happy, and she is taking it to Baltimore for Thanksgiving to give to her lucky family there. And that's what it's all about!

Here's a chuckle from the Mark-B-Gone fabric pen that I have:
"Please try with a waste cloth cutting before use. Please take off a cap with hands, not with a mouth."
Important words to remember!

2 comments:

MissesStitches said...

I recently noticed that directive on a marking pen, too! I thought it was hilarious! Do we really need to be warned about that ?!?!

Pam said...

Well, I guess the warning served its purpose because I have taken off the cap with hands, not with a mouth.