Sunday, November 19, 2017

My Thread Stash and a Finish

Back in August, I took a two day design workshop with Jacquie Gering.  You can read my blogpost about the workshop here. 

If you went back to the post, you would have read that I had the quilt pin basted shortly after the workshop--I just needed to find the right colour of thread.  I had lots of colours in my thread stash, but not the right colour. (Here is a picture of my thread drawer--the colour I used in the quilt is in the picture.)




Jacquie had suggested a lighter colour of thread for the quilting of this project and I did not have any suitable colours in my thread drawer.  Every time I was in a sewing store, I checked to see if they had Aurifil thread and if they did, I searched for a light colour that would work for my quilt.  Finally, I found this light peach colour.  This was one of the colours that Jacquie had suggested. 


I have saved my empty spooks in a basket in my sewing room for several years.  You can see that I have gone used lots of thread since I started sawing the spools.  Each orange spool represents a kilometre of thread--half a kilometre of sewing if you consider that half the thread gets used in the bobbin. 


Now, back to my quilt...

I used a quilting idea from Jacquie's book "Walk".  If you don't already have this wonderful book, go out and buy it or drop subtle hints to Santa...  I used my Hera marker to draw two gently curved lines diagonally across my quilt, intersecting them in the centre. Then, I echo quilted each quadrant, using the edge of my presser foot as my guide. 


The lines of quilting are 3/8" apart  and by the time I finished all of the quilting, the quilt would not lay flat.  Jacquie had told us about how she blocks her quilts by spraying them with water and stretching them out to flatten them after quilting and before trimming and binding.  I decided to give this a try, but first I had to buy a clean spray bottle.  This took a while because I kept forgetting to look for a bottle when I was at a hardware store.  Finally, my husband picked one up for me when he was out one day.  I sprayed my quilt, stretched it out and pinned it to the carpet in my family room.  I sprayed it one more time and left it to dry overnight.  In the morning, it was flat!!!  I trimmed it and made binding with some navy fabric leftover from making the quilt.



This week, I sewing the binding on first by machine and then finished it off by hand last night.



I had this bicycle print in my stash and since the front of the quilt spins, I thought it was appropriate.


Here is a close up of the quilting.


And... here is the finished quilt:


When I first made the label, I called this quilt "clockwise"...then, I realized that it if actually spinning counter clockwise, so I had to change the label to reflect this name change.

I will be linking up with Kathy and the other slow stitchers.  Go and take a look at what everyone is up to. I hope to have some more hand stitching time later today.

13 comments:

  1. Great job, Gail! Turned out fantastic! Thanks for sharing your process. Looks like if was a wonderful class!

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  2. it looks great. I have used the pinned to the floor method and spray bottle to straighten something out too and it works!I do not have her book but I have two of her classes on Craftsy

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  3. That was a worthwhile workshop. Thanks for sharing on how you blocked your quilt. Yay for a great finish!

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  4. I was drooling over that lovely collection of Aurifil thread!
    I don't think I've blocked a quilt before, but I have blocked lots of rugs that I've made.

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  5. What a fabulous quilt,you must be thrilled! I'm lusting after your box of threads, such gorgeous, yummy colours!

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  6. I just love your quilt! I don't know if you mentioned it in a previous post but the design kind of reminds me of those things that go in the center of a 45 record. Anyway, it's beautiful!

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  7. Unique quilt pattern and quilting design. Very lovely and creative. Like your choice of thread.

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  8. I love the pattern of this quilt and the quilting is perfect. I like the "blocking" idea.

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  9. Thank you for explaining the history of your quilt. It is stunning.

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  10. Your quilting really makes the piecing pop--love it! And your backing is too fun!!

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  11. Looks like it was a fantastic workshop and the resulting quilt is so good! Love the color of thread you chose to go with the black and white.

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