Tag: Preparation

Learning Never Stops

Joel Dewberry Notting Hill Pristine Poppy (midnight)
Joel Dewberry Notting Hill Pristine Poppy (midnight)

I hate to shatter your illusions, but on many things I am no expert 😉 and can always learn something. Recently I bought some home dec fabric to make a bag (or a couple of bags, really). I got it and realized I didn’t know how to deal with it.

I always pre-wash. I even pre-wash Jelly Rolls and Layer Cakes. The smell of the chemicals from the fabric when I iron unwashed fabric makes me break out in a rash. I am not ranting or proselytizing; I am not telling you what I do. There are no quilt police on this blog. I encourage you to do whatever you want that allows you to make many, many quilts.

I have made accessories and small items with home dec fabric before, but it wasn’t yardage. Mostly I used scraps from various sources, such as FabMo. I almost never buy home dec yardage so the question of pre-washing has never come up. Most of the home dec fabric I have used doesn’t smell (off gassing) by the time I get it, is in relatively small quantities and is made from specialty fibers so I don’t think of pre-washing.

However, with the bags I want to make, I am going to be pressing a lot and don’t really want to wear a mask while I make the bag, thus the question of pre-washing came up. I contacted Lindsay and Charlie over at Hawthorne Threads and they pointed me to a post on Make It Love It.com. It talks generally about pre-washing, but not specifically about home dec fabric.

I am using home dec fabric for the bag, because I want the added body and strength beyond quilt weight fabric. Will the finishes wash off and leave me with a limp mess? Can I replace the body/finishes with Mary Ellen’s Best Press?

Do you have any ideas, thoughts, wisdom to share? By the time you read this I might have already washed it.

Patches I Cut

2010 Patches
2010 Patches

You all know that I cut a patch from each piece of fabric I buy in a given year. You also know that I do this in order to decide if I like the fabric so I can buy more before it goes out of style. These are my Fabric of the Year (FOTY) patches and this year I am cutting diamonds. In addition to my FOTY patches, there are other patches I cut from other pieces of fabric. Lately I have been cutting from both new and old, but it depends on the project.

First, in the upper left hand corner are the 6.5″ blue squares. Some blue green snuck in as well. These are for a quilt I am making for someone who reads this blog, so I can’t tell you any more until I get it done.

Next, upper right, are the 4×4″ squares. These are for TFQ, because she cheerfully cuts many, many patches of almost any size and shape I ask. I am cutting these from any fabric that I get out of my fabric closet and all new ones.

Third, lower left corner, are the Tumblers for Julie. Her quilt is king-sized, so until I see her put the thing together and get it quilted, I keep cutting. Mostly these are from new fabrics, but I hauled out a bunch of blues lately, so this stack happens to be blue.

Fourth, in the lower middle, are Eye Spy hexagons for my SIL’s Eye Spy project. I buy very few conversationals, so I don’t cut many of them yet. I don’t know if she has started cutting from her own stash yet. These are fun to fussy cut. The exercise makes me look at my fabrics differently.

Last are the blue rectangles (2.5″x4.5″). I am in deep love with that rectangle shape I used for FOTY 2008. I look at the quilt every day at work and adore it, so I decided I wanted to make another out of blues. It takes a lot of cutting, so it will be here for awhile. After starting to sew the Blue Quilt together I am thinking that a blue rectangle quilt might not have been such a great idea.

Not pictured are the food fabric squares, 6.5″, I am cutting for my mom. She is making a replacement quilt for her step grandson, whose quilt was burned up in a fire. I will probably help her with it. We are seriously considering the Corner Store pattern from Pretty Little Mini Quilts, which is like M Dugan’s version on Flickr. I may try this quilt out myself, too. Back to my mom, though. I hope we do get to work on it together. I think it would be fun.

I also cut 2×2″ squares and make four patches as warm-ups.

Multitasking
Multitasking

I often press and cut fabric while I am on the phone. I am not much of a phone person, so there are only a few people to whom I speak on the phone for extended periods of time. On a recent conversation with TFQ, I was amazed to see how much I cut. I am not a fast presser or cutter, so I was pleased.

I hope this preparation doesn’t seem terribly schizophrenic. Sometimes it does feel that way, but I am so glad when I have enough of one patch and can just start sewing. I don’t like to do all my cutting at once and this is a good way for me to do it incrementally.

Sandy talked about scraps and what she cuts for scrap quilts on a recent podcast, so I don’t feel quite as crazy. It was interesting to hear what she said about the pieces she cut.