Thursday, March 24, 2011

Start of the "Spicy Spiral Table Runner"




Okay, finally got the strips cut out yesterday. Turns out the little 9 inch wedge ruler that I had bought was a 9 inch mini and not long enough to cut some of the wedge strips I needed.  Went to my master quilter friend W's place and she not only had the right sized wedge ruler, she helped me to cut all the wedges out. Worked well too because she's left handed so she cut all the left sides of the wedges and I cut all the right sides and the ends...  :)


First I had to lay 2 of the eight fabric strip sets (called strata) together, both strata face up, but one had the dark fabric strip at the top and the other was the reverse with the dark strip at the bottom.

You definitely need the directions for the cutting job since each wedge is 3/4 inch shorter than the last. The wedges varied in size from 20 inches long down to 1 inch in size...




Then you start sewing the wedges together, starting with the smallest and working your way up in size, bigger and bigger and bigger.  The wedges will produce a curve as you can see above....

Above photo is how far I got today but I still have about 8 strips left to do on each one.  The colors on the wedges will continue to change and eventually they will blend together. When you're done sewing on the wedges, you will have 2 halves completed and that's when you sew one (yellow/ orange) to the other (browns/ rusts).   Next you take your cutting wheel and curve the edges.

After that you layer the batting, backing fabric and the spiral and 'envelope' it together.  (More on that next time. ) And last, machine quilt it, either free motion or 'in the ditch'....

More photos to follow. :)

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Saturday, March 19, 2011

Oh Where, Oh Where Can You Be?

Have been without my sewing machine for over a month now. Major trauma!  The only good part is that we have been away on vacation for 3 of those weeks so it's not as bad as it sounds. :)

I'm hoping to get my Pfaff back on Monday.... ( X fingers crossed! :)   In the meantime, I'm going to start cutting the fabric that I bought while on vacation in Sedona, Arizona, mostly brown, gold, green batik fat quarters.  I'm planning to make a spiral shaped table runner. I recently bought a 9 inch wedge shaped ruler which is required to do this pattern. Not sure how it will all turn out, but I have a master quilter friend who gave me a copy of the pattern and who has made it  herself (and taught a class to others,) so I have someone to call if I run into trouble...


There are 8 different fat quarters involved and each of them is cut into 4 strips. Each of the 8 fat quarters are different sized strips, though, so that means reading the directions CAREFULLY before cutting.

My daughter's Singer machine is here and was just newly cleaned and repaired so I might use it to sew the strips together for now. Only problem is, I can't seem to get the back stitch button to work.... :(  
But because I'll be using the wedge ruler to cut wedges out of the strip sets, I don't think it's necessary to back stitch the strips together anyway.

Okay, time to stop talking and get these strips ironed to get at it! :)