Andrew (from Little Handfuls of Scraps by Edyta Sitar)
This was my April project for the sewing day with Stacia and Deloise; I’m going through the book alphabetically while my sisters have picked a different path through the book. This is one that Stacia had already done so I was able to get some pointers from her.
When I was picking my fabrics, all scraps, I was happy that I had pieces already cut that fit the pattern almost perfectly. For another project I’d been saving 1.5″ x 3″ pieces; this called for 1″ x 3″ so it involved only a bit of trimming.
The piece went together very quickly and I was completely finished, binding and all, before our last check-in of the afternoon – a first for me.
As part of last Christmas’s 12 Days package each family received a colouring book with quilt blocks. I asked them to colour a few blocks and send me their favourites. Madison was the only one who sent me a photo of the block she created. So for her birthday “card” I decided to make the block for her.
I must have looked at her photo a hundred or more times both in the designing stage and in the actual making of the piece. How on earth I made such a glaring error I have no idea. But I didn’t notice it until I was well into the quilting and it was far too late to make the correction.
I ran out of basting spray so had to sandwich using pins. All my big quilting pins were in use in other sandwiches so I had to use the small ones. With my numb fingers it was a challenge to get the pins closed. Another challenge was getting the pins open and removed as I ran up against them in the quilting process. Tying and burying the ends was also difficult.
Except for the mistake I made I’m happy with how it turned out. When I started quilting I had no idea what patterns I would use in the blocks but as I finished the first bit ideas came to me. It is all straight lines but I’m pleased with the effect.
I used one of my own coloured pieces for the label.
Another product from a sewing day with Stacia and Deloise.
Thanks to my scrap collection I had almost enough of those tiny (one-inch finished) half-square triangles already made. I used leaders and enders to complete the 144 that I needed. Much to my surprise, as I was sorting through scraps to make the triangles I found so many that I’ve had to dedicate a shoebox just to triangles. I also had almost enough of the larger half-square triangles in my stash.
On an earlier project Stacia mentioned she had problems with a border of HSTs so I adjusted the pattern assembly so that I was sewing a portion of the border with each block. When I was ready to sandwich the project I remembered that using the small pins to baste was really hard on my fingers. Since I only had the small pins available I dug out a community quilt that was ready for quilting. I only quilted enough of it to get some larger pins for sandwiching.
I’m not happy with the quilting; it took me a long time to figure out a quilting pattern and then a long time getting into the rhythm. As my fingers have such a hard time tying thread ends and burying them I went with Stacia’s suggestion of backstitching each beginning and ending so I didn’t need to tie or bury. That worked well. As I quilted though I had some bunching around some of the HSTs; I maybe should have basted it better or done my quilting in a different order.
The binding also posed some problems. Again, because my fingers don’t work as they should, I did a machine-stitched binding. It seemed to be going well until I was almost at the end and I noticed I had missed the seam in one stretch. Because I was sewing with black thread on black it was very hard to pick the stitching out. Added to that was the fact that I was using Bottom Line thread so it was nearly invisible.
I’m glad to be moving on to the next project in the book.
From Little Handfuls of Scraps (Edyta Sitar) ~18″ x 23″
This year, for our sewing days with Stacia and Deloise, we are all working on patterns from the same book – Little Handfuls of Scraps – that we bought on our sewing trip last June. Stacia is working through the patterns as they come in the book, Deloise is picking and choosing which one she wants to make and I’m going through the patterns alphabetically.
The pattern called for very tiny pieces and I knew that my hands, and maybe my mind, wouldn’t be able to handle it. So I enlarged the pattern and, except for the time it took, I was able to manage.
For me, the January sewing date overlapped into February before I finished the piece. The quilting is very simple – just straight lines on either side of the long seams.
I think it is a nice addition to the stairwell collection.
