Playing In PTM's Basement

Here it is January second and I was lucky enough to spend several hours playing in the basement at PTM's house today. Of course this was after I spent all day yesterday putting Christmas away. Just had the tree left to do today and DH took that down. There was one ornament that I missed. I always seem to miss one Christmas decoration. It's kind of a family joke. Anyone else do that?

Anyway, I have a baby shower coming up for a dear friend on Thursday. I wanted to make a chenille blanket. I bought the fabric, PTM helped me baste it last Wednesday. Today I needed to sew the lines, take out the basting, cut the lines and square it up. "To the basement!"

The first thing I had to do was put a piece of half inch tape diagonally across the quilt. I stitched along one side of the tape and then the other. Next was to put a "guide" on the walking foot so I don't have to mark all the lines.

Then just stitching lots and lots of lines, about half inch apart like this. I used a thread color that matched the print on the back as you will see the lines there and if they are not perfectly straight you will not notice it as much with matching thread. this was the first time I used colored thread on a light flannel and it was GREAT!! I could see my stitching lines so well!! Maybe a tip would be to use a light color flannel on the top if you are using dark thread or visa versa.

This stitching takes quite awhile. We watched Men who stare at goats, what a weird movie, while I was stitching. Done!

In case I forgot to tell you. I use about 1.25 yard of cotton fabric with a cute print for the back, lay this cute side down. Next comes 4 layers of flannel. I like the Cozy solids at JAF. They are reasonably priced, and the color goes all the way through, very important so the chenille is really colorful when you are finished! I get a yard of 4 different flannels. I think just a hair over a yard might work better since you have to trim later. You need to layer the flannel on the back of the print, but put your flannel right side up. Obviously, you need to do all this pre-basting. Well duh!

Once all the lines are sewn, you get to do the cutting. Only cut through the top 3 layers of the flannel. For this quilt there were 2 layers of green, one layer of blue and then the red, followed by the cotton print. This means that I would not cut the red layer only the first 3. Like this:

I like to use these chenille scissors. It is hard on your hands but the little chenille cutter distorts the blanket so I like the scissors better.

Here is what the front and the back look like prior to squaring up.

For the squaring up, I folded my blanket in half and used the fold line for my straight line to do the trimming. Then I flip it over and do the other side. Next I re-fold in the other direction and do the same thing. I do one more check using a BIG square ruler just to double check that the corners are really square and trim them if they are not. After that I pick it up, and fold it, chenille side inside and check the alignment. Do the corners line up? Are the edges even with each other? If you said yes then you are ready to apply the binding.

Lucky me, PTM does the bindings for me. They really hurt my hands and all the way up into my shoulder (of the hand that holds not the stitching hand). I am trying to get her to do a binding tutorial because her bindings are EXCEPTIONAL!! No really, you will not find a better binding. Go over to her blog and BEG her to do the tutorial. We will ALL benefit if she does that!! I promise.

We ended up watching another movie and it wasn't quite finished so I decided I should take the time to sew my HST into "flying geese" for my kitty basket quilt. I got them all sewn and pressed. Now I need to lay them out and assemble the quilt top. I really love how they look.

Maybe I can sew this together on Wednesday night since I will have Zumba tomorrow and Body Pump on Tuesday. Or maybe I will go back to PTM's and sew on Mon or Tues. Anyway, that was my afternoon and I am so happy with all I got done. While I was working PTM was taking apart some of our wool finds at the Thrift shop. (The Sally Ann,she calls it). We went on New Year's day and got all the tag of the day items 5 for $5!! We will be busy disassembling them and then felting them. I'll keep you posted. I have to remember to take some pics next time I go over there.

Well, I have to get off to bed since I have to be up at the horrible hour of 5am tomorrow and go back to work for the first time in 2 weeks!! Have a great evening!!
XOP