I finally figured out what I was cutting during 2022.
This guide details many fewer pieces than previous years. I have a lot of pieces I have cut and need to make into quilts, so I am scaling back.
3 1/2 x 12 1/2 – this piece is for the Half Hexie Star quilt
2 1/2 x 4 1/2 – blue gradation quilt
2 1/2 x 2 1/2 – FOTY 2022
2 1/2 x 2 1/2 -I cut 2 1/2″ squares to have them handy in case I need them. I can’t seem to give it up.
1 1/2 x 2 1/2 – pieces for another Scrap Dash. I am not sure I am cutting all the pieces I need to be ready.
1 1/2 x 1 1/2 – More for another Scrap Dash
I am not sure what happened to cutting charts for 2020 and 2021. Can we blame that on COVID? Based on my 2019 cutting chart, I may need to cut more for the pink gradation quilt. I also need backgrounds for the Spin Wheel quilt, which I’d like to get off my to do list this year.
I finished the first rosette for month 7 and am pleased with how it came out. The ombre fabric looks good. I’ll be interested to see how it looks in the entire piece.
Now I am frantically working on the second rosette.
The notice came that Month 8 will shortly be in the mail so I need to speed along.
I finished the HST Star quilt in time to give it to the community quilts team.
I am pretty pleased with the way it came. A sort of dull charm pack (why did I buy it??) turned into a cheerful quilt top.
HST Star Finished Back
The quilt isn’t very girly and I wanted it to be suitable for boys as well, so I chose an Italian restaurant print I have had for years. It is time to use it and this is a good use of it.
You’d think that basting would be basting. As I mentioned the other day, there are a couple of different kinds of basting. The other day I found that I can improve upon my glue basting.
I have been trying to manage my bunny ears. Until now I have basted so the diamond bunny ears are folded in the same direction. For triangles, I make sure I fold them in all different directions, so all of the bunny ears don’t end up in one location when sewing.
Basting: folding the bunny ears in
Recently, I saw a picture that someone posted of their glue basting and realized I could fold the bunny ears in.
Don’t ask me why I didn’t think of this before. I just didn’t.
I wasn’t quite sure how this would work out and I didn’t realize I could do it until I had only two diamonds and one triangle to fill in.
Basting: bunny ears under control
The overall technique works. There are no bunny ears to manage. (photo right: shows the piece half basted).
The only potential issue I see is that the area where the bunny ears would be are a lot thicker than the other areas. There are also several layers of glue. The triangle points are particularly thick.
We’ll see if that is an issue and I’ll report back.
I made good progress over the weekend on the current donation quilt. I talked about it the other day. Talking about it really made me want to get it done so I could hand it in at the meeting next weekend. It has been a long time since I have made a quilt.
I didn’t know how this was going to shape up as the picture I saw was small and not very attractively styled. I knew that it wouldn’t look hideous regardless, so I stayed the course.
I had sewn a bunch of HSTs from the charm pack I had. To make the legs, I needed to rip off some of the white triangles in order to make the legs. I decided I didn’t want to make giant Flying Geese and would make the legs into giant HSTs.
HST Star – foreground complete
I was able to get the foreground part of the quilt done on Saturday, which was great.
The white brightens up the slightly subdued colors of the charm pack.
I finished the first M7 rosette or so I thought. I wanted to weave the outer pentagons and thought I would wait until Month 8 came to see what Pink Door did about the outer ring.
The outer pentagons use an ombre fabric and Pink Door has leveraged the ombre qualities for those pentagons.
I may want to keep the gradation smooth rather than including the weaving motif I have seen. Stay tuned.
After writing the Hello Pouch pattern review, I couldn’t stop thinking about these pouches. The pattern has a lot of potential and by that I mean the design is good. I think the execution could be better. Regardless, I didn’t want to toss out these pouches even if they aren’t my best work.
Hello Pouch Vinyl Edge
I looked at them and decided that the problem was the vinyl edge. The vinyl edge also included the zipper end, which was fraying like crazy. I didn’t like other parts, but I could live with them. That meant that I needed to get busy on the vinyl edge.
For the zipper edge, a little bit of glue (that dries clear) or Fray Check would be a big help. I cut some fabric strips and installed them over the zipper and down the side of the pouch to cover the vinyl. This did the job, but was a lot of extra work and I wouldn’t want to do it again.
Hello Pouch Vinyl Edge – annotated
If I made this again, I would try to allieviate the things to which the arrows are pointing.
The top arrow points to the edge of the bottom that I quilted. It is much too thick and hard to sew through.
The second arrow points to the vinyl edge and I just dislike the look of uncovered vinyl (naked vinyl).
The edge of the zipper is shown by the third zipper. See how it is fraying? Blech! That looks so terrible. Also, I’m afraid that the zipper would be frayed and falling apart.
Covering the vinyl zipper
What I did was cover the edge with a strip of fabric. This picture shows the vinyl edge covered by the fabric strips. It isn’t a very good picture and you can see the zipper folded down, which I don’t like. While I do like the way they use the zipper, I don’t like the ending. It also inteferes with the way the pouch closes. the only thing I could figure out was for it to fold down on the inside. I think I would rather have the tail of the zipper hanging down like in the Inside Outside Pouch.
Inside of Hello Pouch
There are a lot of good reasons why the design is the way it is. I understand that. I just found the bottom really hard to sew through. You can see how thick and runscheled the inside looks. If I tried this pouch again, I think I would sew a lining to cover the edges instead of using a binding.
The design of this pattern is great. I just think some of the techniques used were unnecessary and overkill.
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I am working on a donation top. I saw a picture in Today’s Quilter and thought it would give some relief to poor Peggy who has been the recipient of a 100 or so HSTs recently.
I started going through my charm packs after Peggy asked for HSTs for donation quilts. I used up 4 charm packs (2 of background) and sent the HSTs to her without making a quilt.
Donation 9 Patch blocks
Finally, I decided that was a little mean and I was inspired by a Sawtooth Star quilt made from HSTs. One day last week on my lunch hour I started sewing the center blocks together. I made three HST 9 patches in about half an hour, which made me very happy on a lot of levels.
Stay tuned for the finish (or another in progress shot.
I like cutting projects out at Sew Day and really struggled with whether I wanted to cut out a new bag or if I wanted to work on La Pass’ basting.
La Pass M7 basted
I ended up cutting and basting the rest of my La Pass M7 pieces during Sew Day. I had cut enough during a couple of work meetings on Monday to sew a bit in the evenings, but I really needed to finish the rest. Since I didn’t have any more of those types of meetings later in the week, I decided to do it at Sew Day.
I am glad I did. I am getting the first of the month 7 rosettes done, which is good.
As an aside, I put my A Place for Everything bag to use, as intended, and it was admired by a few people, which made me feel really good.
I did notice that the papers feel significantly flimsier than the La Pass pieces. Pink Door cuts their own papers. They must use better paper? I wonder if I would notice if I glue basted this project? I might try it.
Regardless, I am happy that I made a little progress.
Before La Pass started, I was determined to thread baste. That is the way I am basting the Half Hexie Star project and it was what I knew. I was also concerned about putting glue on my fabric.
The BOM came with glue. I wasn’t worried since I have a lot of thread suitable for basting. I read through the posts on the Pink Door private group and some people talked about thread basting. I watched various videos on EPP that were recommended and they all talked about glue basting. This was so puzzling to me. Weren’t people worried about the glue on the fabric?
I ended up using the glue and I like it. It is faster and time is of the essence with this project. As you have noticed, the BOMs keep coming and I want to keep up.
Half Hexie Star – thread basted
For the first time, I noticed the differences in basting as I got into the process at Sew Day. As I mentioned, I did a little bit of work on the Half Hexie project while I was waiting for the month 7 installment of La Pass. For the Half Hexie Star project, I am thread basting. For La Pass, I am glue basting. What I noticed is that I like the tightness of the glue basting.
I have used the Half Hexie pieces over and over. I am not sure I could do that if they were glue basted. I haven’t taken out the papers from the La Pass project yet.
La Pass – glue basted
I didn’t think it would make much of a difference, but it really does. It can be difficult to get the needle into the edge, but I really like the way the pieces come together.
This makes me wonder if I should start glue basting for the Half Hexie Star project? I don’t know. Maybe I’ll try it. Do you have any experience?
After finishing the A Place for Everything bag, I decided to work on something fast. Angela and I had been discussing various pouches, including the Hello Pouches from Knot and Thread Design. I bought this pattern at Ocean Waves quilt shop a few weeks before the coronavirus lockdown.
The website and the model I saw in a shop really excited me. I love the look and the way the vinyl is combined with the fabric.
I haven’t made anything from their patterns before, so it was an adventure and an opportunity to find a new designer.
Hello Pouch for me
Sadly, I do not like the pattern. You may have a different experience and I urge you to keep an open min. Remember: I am *bad* at reading directions and that could have affected my experience. All that being said, the two I made look ok.
First, I thought the pattern was incomplete. One of the first things I noticed is that the finished size wasn’t anywhere on the pattern. There are yardage requirements and then a second section of yardage requirements if you are using ombre fabric. This is where finished sizes should be.
The pattern doesn’t say anything about finishing the side seam with fabric. It talks about sewing it closed, but that looks unfinished in my opinion. You can see what I mean by looking at an IG photo. It also affects the way the end of the zipper sits on the bag. I faithfully followed the directions for covering the top and bottom of the vinyl and could have easily done something with the sides at the same time. I didn’t think of it. I am thinking about whether or not to cover it with a piece of binding or some straight of grain fabric.
Also, the pattern does not say how to finish the end of the zipper beyond stitching. Mine is fraying so I have to do something. Since I still have to finish the side seam, I can include the zipper. The pattern doesn’t show a clear picture of the side seam or zipper, so I can’t really see what they have done.
Second, I didn’t like the way it was put together. I felt there was too much work to get a pouch done and some parts made the pouch hard to put together.
One of the first instructions is to quilt the panel that will eventually bottom. The pieces are necessarily cut larger, but 2 inches larger seemed like a waste of fabric and Soft & Stable. Next, the designer has you bind the quilted bottom. This creates a later problem with super thick pieces that need to be sewn and cut. I think a lining could have been created for the bottom and the quilting could have been omitted.
Hello Pouch flaps
The method they use requires sewing over existing lines of stitching. It probably something I need to practice, but this technique never looks good on my bags. Also, binding most of the pieces means that there are flaps of fabric everywhere waiting to get caught on some of the contents at some point.
I could have stitched them down, but that means going over other stitching. See above.
Boxing corners 🙁
The pattern requires boxing corners. The placement of the sewing line across the flattened corner is difficult to get precise, because of the thickness. If I make this pouch again, I would keep the pouch flat, cut a square out of the corner, then sew. The Jane Market Tote is put together this way and it makes more sense.
I made two at once. One was supposed to be a gift. I am not sure I want to give it as a gift, though I will send it regardless. I’ll get some feedback and have a good discussion.
I want to say some good things about this pattern, so I won’t just be a negative Nellie:
I like the half vinyl, half fabric of the design
They have a clever technique for the zipper. You can get two pouches out of one zipper
The pouch will stand up nicely (if I could get the corners to box properly)
I did look for corrections on the website, but didn’t see any. After analyzing my perceived deficiencies of the pattern in this review, I am tempted to try making this pouch again using some of my experience and thoughts on how it could be different. I looked on Instagram and most of the pouches there look a lot better than mine, which means I could have not understood the directions properly. They do show the pouches from the best angle, of course, and I do see that some of them have the zipper problem that I have.
Month 7 of my La Passacaglia finally arrived. It seemed like it took forever. After months of being behind, I caught up with month 6 and month 3, which meant that I was completely caught up. During my La Pass break, I also finished two bindings and wrote a bunch of cards. I really missed the stitching of La Pass while I was waiting. What a change from a few months ago when I was feeling like it was overwhelming me!
La Pass M7 BOM bundle
I unpacked the bundle, washed the fabric and started in on basting. Bleah on basting!, but it is part of the process and I have to do it to get to the stitching.
Pink Door has done a masterful job using the ombre in this month. I am really glad I am doing the BOM.
I don’t get to count the yardage in my 2022 spreadsheet, because I already counted it last year when I got it back from Colleen. I know I should have waited, but I have no self control.
Scrap Dash finished (back)
This will be a gift for one of my SILs. She doesn’t know yet, but I’ll tell her soon. There is a method to the madness of the back of the quilt. The bluer print fabrics on each side of the fish are shells. There is a small piece of red-violet sea urchin fabric at the bottom making this is an ocean themed back. Except for the batik and the tone-on-tone blue, all of the back fabrics are from the Kaffe Fassett Collective. SIL swims quite a bit so I thought having this type of themed back would be entertaining.
I decided I want to make this quilt again, so I am back to cutting super tiny pieces. Of course, I can use the leftovers I didn’t use from this version.
