13 2 / 2012
My Quilting Aunties
I stopped into Button Box in Wellesley today to grab another half yard of a fabric I was short on for Aidan’s quilt and to have a chat with one of the many little hens who work there about a conceptual problem I was having with the wedding quilt.
Enough people have given me significantly more fabric than I need that I was thinking of backing the quilt in spare fabric from people and emblems from T-shirts like the one that Debbie gave us - and maybe a few others we have laying around that we don’t wear. The problem I was having is that, for quilting purposes, I’d like the fronts and backs to line up. I’d thought of about a hundred ways to accomplish this and they all seemed super complex and/or impossible…but after a bunch of brainstorming, they suggested a technique I’ve never heard of and that I think solves several problems about this project.
Quilt as you go!
So basically you quilt every block and the backing piece that goes with it individually and *then* you assemble it into the big thing once it’s all done.
1) This means that I can make sure that back and front squares line up.
2) This means that I don’t have to assemble the whole front and the whole back and then assemble/sandwich/quilt/bind under the gun at the end - I can make pieces as they come in and then just assemble at the end - or even assemble as I have enough to assemble - which is brilliant.
3) I have a ton of batting chunks laying around and this will use them up nicely!
4) I can do it with or without sashing - but I think that sashing an otherwise super crazy quilt will unify it nicely.
This is all very exciting. I have three blocks done and conveniently three blocks of backing cut - so as soon as I get my sewing machine back from its warrantied cleaning/repair - I can start on this!
