The Pressure's On

OK the pressure's on. I have a friend staying the night on Saturday, so I thought I'll use it as motivation to finish the quilt so she can have it on her bed. As there is no quilt or blanket in the house that isn't covered in dog hair (I think there is a dog hair dispenser in the washing machine), I thought this would be the way to go. Thanks for the comments on my binding post. Normally I just slap the binding on too, but I do it in the knowledge that my borders have taken out any extra fullness from the sides of the actual quilt.

I did a bit of a measure, and yes the sides of my top are a bit longer than the centre measurement, but at this stage I can't worry too much, so I did as suggested and pulled the binding taught as I sewed it on. That will have to do.

For the back I used a large piece of brown quilt fabric that I've had for ages, bought very cheaply off ebay for just this purpose. It is Thimbleberries, which isn't really something I ever buy, but it is non-descript and I have heaps left over, so I used it for the binding as well. The photo is a bit dark as I didn't use the flash, but you may be able to see it where I turned it up at the bottom. All the threads were sewn in last night, so all I have to do now is hand sew the binding down. I cut my binding 2 1/2 inches too Lily - don't ask why - "I've always done it that way".

As for the Polydown, I found it easy to work with as it is so light. I've not used it before, and I believe it is very popular for handquilting. Normally I use cotton or wool batting, but I do use poly for kids quilts that I think will get washed to death, but I've always used a denser more needled poly bat. This stuff I used has a little bit of loft which is nice, and it is light. It should dry quickly too.

Anyway, onto other things. I found a geocache today that has the most fantastic container that I had to take a photo. It is an Australian geocache, which just means that it is listed on the Aussie site, not the American site. On our caches we have some different categories, one of them being movable caches.

This one is called Trail of Death, and it is a movable cache that has to be moved from cemetery to cemetery, and placed near an interesting/famous gravesite. You then give a bit of a blurb on your log entry, so it ends up as a bit of a history lesson.

I went to look for it today, and as you can imagine the container has a sort of theme to it, so I knew I'd be looking for something that didn't look out of place. I thought maybe a fake flower, but after looking and looking, I saw a piece of stone that looked like it had fallen off a headstone, and I turned it over and 'voila!' How cool is that? I just wish I had my camera when I found it, as it looked just like it had been there for years. So I picked up this big piece of stone and I have brought it home. The other cool thing is that the log book isn't paper, it is a flash drive that you add your log to. What a great idea.

When I hide it tomorrow I'll take a photo to show it in its natural environment. Don't some people have great ideas?

The travel bugs are moving too. Mine is getting closer to Holly, and hers is on its way to Hawaii. Not far now.

Best dash off and do a bit of last minute cleaning and hang out the washing. Then I'll watch some TV and sew down the binding. I suppose Birgit wouldn't mind sleeping under it with a bit of the binding flapping, do you think?

Advice Please

Just a quick post to ask about binding a quilt without a border. It occured to me in the small hours of this morning that I have never made a quilt without borders, until now. When you put a border on it sorts out the edges of the quilt if one is a bit longer than the other, so the finished quilt isn't wavy. How do you do that without a border? Do you measure the centre of the quilt and then pin the binding on as you would a border, or do you just put the binding on and hope for the best?

Curious Downunder

Border Worries

I can't believe how much trouble I've had with the border of the Doll Quilt 2 Swap quilt! Normally I have a pretty good idea what I'll do for a border, and usually it works out most of the time with no real dramas. But this one... First I auditioned about 30 % of my Repro fabrics (which is a significant number I'll tell you), and when I finally decided after a couple of days of looking at this, leaving the room, looking at that, leaving the room and coming back to it I finally decided.

Then the real trouble started. I think the main problem is that I made the central part of the quilt square. I didn't really think it through, just made it up as I went along, and then had to stop because of the size constraints. I should've put one extra row on the top to give it a better shape. Anyway, too late for that, so I thought I'd do what I see on many doll quilts, and add an extra strip of fabric on the top and bottom before I put the borders on. I cut it out, laid it out - it looked terrible. I tried a diffferent fabric for the extra bit, and off it started again.

In the end I got a bit fed up with it, and trimmed down the side borders, didn't add the top and bottom borders, and I think I'm ok with it now. Talk about fiddly! I suppose I'm used to the proportions of the big quilts, and it took quite some time to down scale it all in my head. I'm pretty happy with it now after leaving it alone for a few days, and I have cut the single thickness binding in the spot so hopefully that will give it a lift.

It's a bit hard to see in the photo, but there is a sort of 'self inner border' with the dark triangles, so framing it with a skinny border might've helped on another quilt, but I didn't want to take away from that look. So now to put it together, bind it and it will be done. It has been good to do - it has taken quite a bit of work for a tiny quilt, but because it is small it has been do-able. I think I will definately make some more Doll Quilts. The swap invited you to try something different, and I have to tell you that this is the first quilt I've made on point! The 4patch UFO will be on point, but as that isn't finished...

Weather is lovely and cold here with westerly winds, but the sun is shining. We had 4 inches of rain last week and on Thursday I did the big run over to the Mainland with the Van and came back with some huge bags of dogfood, fertiliser and firewood stacked to the ceiling. I had better go and get the last bit out.

More Hexagons

Sadly blogger isn't playing tonight, as I was going to put up some hexagon photos I took from the latest Patchwork Tsushin Magazine. I'll try again tomorrow.

As for the hexagons, they are quite large ones - I thought I would get too discouraged if I started with tiny ones. They are 1 1/2 inches along each straight side. I have a template that is just a bit bigger so as to add seam allowance. It can be used with the rotary cutter, but I find I just trace around the template with a pen onto the wrong side of the fabric, cut it out and then tack it to the paper. I have tried to tack it so that the needle and thread don't go through the paper, but I can't seem to get it straight.

I don't have a method as such, it depends on where I am. I will often cut out fabric and baste while watching TV at night as this requires less precision. Sometimes I will cut out and baste, then sew the hexagons one by one. I usually only cut a couple of each colour as I go. This is a slow way for sure, but I think the whole method is slow, so what the hell? Anyway, this is the first time I have done them, so as usual I am just making it up as I go along.

I am quite surprised that so many people said 'no border'. You know - I have never made a quilt without a border! What a thought. I take the point about not having too stark a border against the mellow repro colours. I was thinking of a dull purple, but maybe a 'natural' looking border by just gradually sewing random colours getting darker as they go out? Or I could break with tradition and have no border. The problem with this house is that it is very 'casual', and if I draped the quilt over the couch the dog would sit on it, so we can't have that. It is pretty silly really making these lovely things that either won't get used, or will get abused. I've been thinking of getting a glass front cabinet to store quilts in.

As for Alex's quilt, I bought 6m of lime green plain for the sashing today - just because I bought it doesn't mean I have to make it asap. This is what I tell myself. I could have it done in a flash if only I applied myself to it...

Ruth - have you tried to email from the profile page?