Last week, I gave you a quick free-motion quilting tip to find a more efficient path to quilt the sashing and cornerstones on your next quilt.
This week, on my current quilt project, the sashing and cornerstones have been quilted, and I'm turning my attention to quilting each block.
A little bit of quilting to de-puffify the center of each block and more dense quilting on each block border to create texture.
In the block borders I am quilting wavy diagonal lines that alternate direction from one block to its neighbor. So I don't lose focus and accidentally quilt two adjacent blocks with lines in the same direction, I am completing one block at a time along the diagonal.
In the photo below, the lower left corner blocks aren't quilted yet.
So, if the upper right corner block diagonal lines follow a Northeast/Southwest direction, then the block to the left and the one below will follow a Northwest/Southeast direction. And so on.
(That sounds confusing!)
Anyway, I have ten more blocks to quilt, then I'm in the home stretch of the border quilting.
I have no plan for them yet, and I'm waiting for inspiration.
. . . .
. . . .
Still waiting. . .
. . . .
. . . .
This might take a while. . . .
. . . .
Pin Cushion #22, Shut-down Series
A small handful of the pin cushion parts include tops that are 'technically' four patch blocks, but not. This week's purple batik pin cushion finish has a four-patch of nine-patches for the top. The nine patch pieces each finish to 1" square. Everything else about the construction is the same as the plain four-patch variation. This is the only one made from such small pieces. I have a handful of pin cushion parts that have half-square triangle tops.
17 to go! I counted them this week. At this rate, I should finish up right around the end of the year. Hmm. What to do with all these puffies? Still contemplating.
Make your own four-patch pin cushions. For the step-by-step tutorial, jump over to the blog and scroll down to the first Puffy Fours post from March 5. That's when I started, about the same time the world was shutting down to contain COVID 19. And that'll bring you to the beginning of the four-part tutorial.
Happy Stitching!
Wash your hands!
Joan Ford
Head Hummingbird
So sad about Dave’s pumpkins. I’ve had the same problem with squash. It looks like squash vine borers. They lay eggs in the base of the plant, when they hatch they bore into the vine and feed off the plant. You will see a hole and something that looks like sawdust around it. If you catch it early enough you can dig them out and kill them, then cover the area over with dirt. Keeping the emerging stem covered with mulch is a deterrent as is dusting early with an insecticide or BT. Destroy the vine and do not plant in same spot next year. They overwinter in the soil so tilling in the fall is also recommended. Hope this is helpful for next year.
I don’t know when I first started getting your newsletter but am just now having a go at making a pin cushion. Yours are simply elegant. What is the significance of the number of cushions you plan to make?
Hi Christine,
Thank you for your nice comments! I don’t consider them elegant. . . and the funny thing is I don’t consider surface embroidery my favorite thing at all! And if you look closely, my stitches are far from perfect. But the overall effect makes them special, I think.
Several people have asked me that question about the number. There is ZERO significance to the number of pin cushions I’m making. That’s the short answer to your question. The longer answer is: This ‘project’ started years ago as a way to use up ‘orphan’ 3″ (finished) four-patches. I started making the pin cushions, start-to-finish, then I started making the parts using matching fabrics and orphans and I finished them occasionally. The finish pile didn’t keep up with the ‘parts’ pile and then the project sorta faded with so much else going on. I hate clutter, but I have plenty of it in my sewing, and earlier this year when we all started staying home to stay healthy, I targeted the stack of parts focusing on eliminating a tiny fraction of the clutter (but every little bit helps!) and decided to finish them, one per week, until they were done. I never really counted them until I got curious about how many were in the parts stack.