Sounds a little like the title for a horror movie doesn't it . . . . THE FINISHING . . . . but of course you know this is music to the ears of any overly enthused quilt maker with dozens of UFQ's in her possession.
Here's my basket sampler all quilted and draped over the clothesline to be sure it's completely dried from the blocking process. The only thing left to do is bury all the thread tails and apply the binding!
I was grateful for a sunny pleasant day so I could sit outside and work at burying the thread tails -- it made them so much easier to locate. I do try to mark all of them as I'm quilting with a safety pin but there are always a few that are forgotten.
While I was doing it, I organized the following close-up pictures for the benefit of students who are a bit puzzled by this process. The amazing Sue Nickels put me onto these self-threading needles. (If you've never seen them, I stock them and will have them at the Streetsboro Guild's Quilt Show this weekend.)
I insert the needle at the end of the stitching line and if the threads are long enough, I wrap them around the needle once as if to make a knot.
Then I carefully pop the thread into the eye of the needle.
Before beginning to pull the needle through, I adjust the thread so there is a loop between the surface of the quilt and the eye of the needle.
If I don't do that, the thread often pulls out of the needle on it's way under the surface of the quilt meaning I have to start over.
Then I pull the needle through and once the eye of the needle has cleared and I'm sure the thread has come all the way through, I give the thread a little tug to pull the little knot under the surface.
Finally, the thread can be clipped off carefully.
The piecing of the backing was designed to easily identify the sections I divided the quilt into for quilting. I did the center of the quilt in three section beginning with the diagonal band from corner to corner. Then I added the large upper right triangular section, then the lower left. The four borders were added last.
More about that another day.
The quilt is bound and has been submitted to the quilt show committee. Today is judging day!
The weather forecast for Northeast Ohio on Friday and Saturday is rainy -- good weather to come to the quilt show! It takes place from 10 to 6 on Friday and 10 to 4 on Saturday. The location is the Faith Baptist Church, 9890 St. Rt. 43 (corner of Rt. 43 and Frost Rd.) in Streetsboro, Ohio. I'll be vending with all Marti Michell's tools and preview samples for my new workshops for the Lake Farmpark Quilt Show in March, 2015. And I'll have my DVD, Set-in Piecing Simplified, playing along with demonstrating the basics of the technique.
If you come to the show, be sure to stop and introduce yourself!!
Oh, and the cookies are excellent!!
Linking up over at Freshly Pieced today -- don't you love seeing all the projects quilters are working on?!?
Mary Huey
www.maryhueyquilts.com
Can the self threading needles be used for sewing on bindings? I have been using straw needles, but it's getting more difficult to see the small eyes!! Do you have a blog post on blocking?
ReplyDeleteDarlene -- I used the self-threading needles to baste some hexies last evening and they worked just like regular needles. They are not a "fine" needle so there might be some applications where they don't work as well, but for stitching the binding down, I think they would be fine.
DeleteThe self-threading needles are designed for regular sewing so I would think so -- I'll thread one up this evening and do some stitching and see what happens? I have not blogged about blocking -- not sure I'm qualified -- haven't done it too often -- basically, I lay it out flat on top of a sheet, get a bunch of towels damp and lay them on top of the quilt and let them set for a while. There must be some thing written up out there about it with more detail.
ReplyDelete