It's magic!

Hello all, and greetings from my very soggy home! Seriously, it will not stop raining.  As you'll see in the following pictures, there are puddles everywhere, and the grass feels like a sponge.  The sump pump is running quite a lot.  The sad part is that we're still down several inches from where we should be because the last couple of years we were in drought.  Some of the pictures today are darkish because I had to dance between the raindrops to get them, so sorry about that!

Today I am showing off the completely finished Mutant Elephants quilt, complete with a really snappy machine-finished binding!

Well, at least you can really see the quilting! I was going to quilt this myself, but I chickened out.  Just too big, and with limited time in my life, it was better to send it to the longarmer.  I know the turtle and the frog are a little wide-eyed, but I like them.  Plus, those birds are flying, because I forgot to give them legs.  Next time I'll piece some legs in, but for now, they're flying.

I took this lovely little quilt to the park and tried to get some good pictures, but it was really wet.  See the puddles?

Who's going to lay their quilt on that?  Not me!

For this quilt, I did the machine binding again using the tutorial for Susie's Magic Binding, found HERE.  It really is magic! I think it looks fantastic. Look how it turns out:

This binding took me about an hour and 45 minutes, with several breaks, mainly because of the pressing involved.  And stitching that looooong seam in the binding, which was tedious but not difficult. I used my zipper foot to stitch this binding down on the front and it worked great. Plus, last time someone suggested that I do the sides and then do the corners last.  This was a great idea, at least until I get the hang of machine binding quickly.  Even with the "piping," my corners turned out great:

My only trouble with this binding is that I didn't realize that so much of the under fabric would be "lost" and the stripes would essentially be invisible.  Here is a swatch of the two fabrics I used:

See how much of the stripe pattern was hidden?  Next time I'll put a solid on the underside.  The good part is that you can use less of each fabric since they are both cut narrowly, so if you have a really cute fabric but not quite enough for a binding, you can still use it along with something else on the underside. Win!

Everybody have a great weekend.  I'll be checking my north side for moss.  Imagine finding some--wouldn't that be a situation? 

One last thing: The Academic Quilter is now listed on QuilterBlogs.com! We'll see what happens.  This does NOT mean there will be ads.  Still non-profit! But if you are looking for something new or different, head on over there to look around! 

Linking to Confessions of a Fabric Addict and also Finish it up Friday.
 

Bound and determined

Hi all!  How was your week? In just a couple of days it will be June, and you know what that means--it might, just might, be safe to put the long underwear away for a few months.  Not saying anything about the electric blankets. Quilts, of course, stay year-round.

So today I have two finishes to show you, both from tops that I finished up some time ago. These are connected to each other in an interesting way, which I'll get to in a minute. First up is this beauty:

 This is Summer Picnic, and you can read more about it HERE. It was quilted in an allover design with bright green thread and is showing off here at the formal gardens in the park. I love that little gargoyle, which I think is supposed to be a fish. No one was in the formal gardens since they're not in bloom yet, so the quilt got to shine all by itself.

Along with Summer Picnic is the blue and white fields and furrows quilt, which you can read more about HERE:

This lovely quilt --which needs a real name, if you have any suggestions--was quilted in an allover leaves pattern in white thread by my friend Amy.  She has a new long arm and wanted a top to practice on, so I let her use this one.  I think it turned out great!

What "binds" these two finally finished quilts together? Well, these are the first quilts I have EVER bound completely by machine!  I was scared to do it, but I'm so glad I did. It was not without its problems, but it's a great new technique for me.  I stitched the binding to the back and folded it to the front and then edge-stitched it down, which worked so much better than trying to line up everything from the back.

Here was one of my problems:

See how wonky and weird that is, with tucks in the binding? Yeah, that's bad.  I started out with a zipper foot to get close to the edge, and that didn't work so well at all.  I looked through my machine feet (most of which I never use) and was thrilled to find this:

This is an edging foot, and that little white piece guides along the edge so that the needle hits right at the fold.  Doesn't that edge look really good? My stitching got a lot better using this foot.  Of course, I still made just a couple of small errors when I got a little over-confident:

See? Oops. I wobbled off the edge there, but it was easily fixed.  One thing I need to do is go slowly, and I also need to keep my eyes on the edge every single second, at least until I get better at this.

I loved this technique.  It was so fast! I did the blue and white quilt first and it took about 2 hours, from cutting the binding pieces to putting the last stitch in.  I kept stopping every few inches to fold the binding back over and straighten it. Summer Picnic took only about an hour and a quarter, mostly because I had everything set up already.  I also pressed the binding to the front after it was stitched to the quilt so that it was much easier to position.  I've read about glue basting and I might try that on a mini to see how it works.

I am so happy with how these turned out! When I first started quilting, way back in the 90s, there were a bunch of women I met who told me that it wasn't a "real" quilt unless it was hand-quilted. I wonder what they would think of putting the binding on by machine? I can guess, because I already know what they thought of machine quilting. Hint: it wasn't positive in any way.

Anyway, now I've learned something new! And it's useful and I like it! Some more practice and I think I might be doing this on a regular basis. It won't replace hand binding completely, but it's nice to know how to machine bind if I want to.

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend.  I'll be doing laundry from our vacation and finally putting in some plants! Won't that be happy? I have been waiting a long time for some color and now it's past time for it.

Linking to Confessions of a Fabric Addict and also Finish it up Friday. Come on over and join in!

Goals are nice

Hi folks! Well, we put a lot of the garden to bed for the year this past weekend, so now it's time for me to put some quilty projects to bed too. Here is what I'll be working on for a little while this week amidst all the stress and general mayhem. I have a very hard deadline for something very important this Friday, so I may not get to everything, but its always good to have goals.

First, I want to finish (and quilt up!) the Halloween paper-pieced project. I think it would be nice to have it actually finished in October, don't you? Here is it's current state:

It needs the remaining details and then quilting. By the way, if you're considering making this, the fabric amounts listed in the pattern are greatly exaggerated. For example, the pattern called for 3/8 yard of the green, but I only used a 3 inch strip, so plan accordingly. While I was piecing this, I had to tape some sections together because they were too big to print in one piece. I used a tip from Bonnie Hunter and used "paper bandaids"

These are just labels used instead of tape. They worked great! I sewed right through them and they were easy to rip when I removed the paper.

I've also been cutting out a bunch more Drunkard's Path blocks.

I decided to keep the original green. I want to start putting some blocks together this week so I can see what they look like together. While I'm thinking of it, does anyone have a good use for the leftover "bites" that get cut out of the squares? They seem like such a waste, but they're an odd shape. Maybe I'll just stitch some of them together into circles. I hate wasting fabric!

 I also have a small pile of things to be quilted, so it's time to get a move on!

Okay, it looks like a small pile, but believe me, that will take me a while.

I also have two quilts that are all quilted and sitting here waiting for binding.

Pretty backings, aren't they? Wait until you see the quilts!

That looks like a pretty ambitious list for me for the week, so we'll see how far I can get!  

Linking to Linky Tuesday, Fabric Tuesday, WIP Wednesday, and Let's Bee Social. Happy sewing, everyone!

One final note: I had to disable anonymous comments on the blog because of a very persistent spammer. If you want to say something but don't want to register, go ahead and email me: academicquilter AT gmail DOT com. Thanks for understanding, friends!

Progress

Hello friends! Hope you are having some good quilting time already this week. Or at least shopping time! This weekend I checked out a new quilt shop near here. Quilt-agious is a very cute shop with some really nice fabrics. Plus she wants to start a Quilt of Valor chapter! So if you are anywhere near, go check it out.

Here's what I'm working on for this week:

Fiesta Pinwheel blocks! That will brighten anyone's day, won't it?  I certainly have been enjoying working on this very happy quilt. Hope to finish putting the blocks together by the end of the week! Exciting, no?

I am also working on making some fields and furrows blocks from my abandoned half-square triangles.

(What looks like a misalignment there is just a shadow. I checked!)

These are easy blocks, but I keep having to stop and check that I'm putting them together properly. Believe it or don't, I've never made fields and furrows before. Learn something new every day. Also, I was sure that I had at least 100 of these HSTs. Turns out I have more than 200, plus a bunch of left-over fabric. So I'll make 20 of these blocks and then see where I want to go from there.

Other than that, I've been making bindings. You know the big pieces of backing that are left after you have a quilt quilted? Like these big hunks:

I just cut those up into strips and make bindings. Usually I can get a bunch of 2 1/4 to 2 1/2 inch strips from these chunks.

 Then I have a nice basket o' bindings to use! Saves me a lot of time. If I have a 60 by 80 quilt, I can usually get at least 300 inches of binding from the backing scraps, which coincidentally is enough to bind a 60 by 80 quilt! Win, win.

Have a great week everyone!  Happy sewing!

Linking up with Connie and Lee and Let's Bee Social again. Come on over and get inspired!

Also, check out the blog roll! Some of the gadgets may FINALLY be working!I'll be adding more now that it works, so check back if you're looking for someone specific.