Quilting Doesn't Lend Itself Well To Blogs
Hey readers,
I am drawing some concepts up of the next round of puppets that I want to make. I want to do a monster in every color of the rainbow. I am really excited to get started, but I also wanted to branch out into a different sewing project.
I decided to do a quilt. This project is rife with issues that I will get into, but I am committed to getting the top complete before I move on to something else. After working on it for a while, I discovered rag quilts. Rag quilts are super fun and much simpler than a traditional quilt. I want to do one of those next, so my puppet projects might sit on the backburner for a while.
"What is wrong with this quilt?" You might be asking. Probably you are just reading and not trying to ask questions of your screen. Really that would be silly of you. I am not there to answer your questions and I am the best person for that job - since it is a question of me.
Essentially the primary problem is that I don't like quilting. "Why would you make a quilt then?" You might continue to ask of your computer. I guess I should clarify. When you sew a bunch of shit together in the shape of a blanket, that isn't actually quilting. That is just sewing a bunch of shit together. Quilting is the part of the process where you sew the bunch of shit (heretofore referred to as "the top") to a layer of fluffy insides and a bottom. This process is time consuming, difficult, and did I mention time consuming?
A rag quilt doesn't require that step in quite the same way. Since I plan to make a rag quilt sometime soon, I won't get too into it, plus this isn't a blog about that! I am so easily distracted.
So if I know all this about quilting, how did I find myself in this position? It started with a trip to the fabric store. I was there to buy blue fabric for the first of the puppet monsters. Instead, I proved that I am easily distracted and wound up in the liscensed fabric section. A hundred bucks later and I was walking out with a ton of Nintendo prints. I planned on making a twister quilt with 5 inch squares. A twister quilt is just a special quilt with 4 almost triangles cut into each square and laid out in such a way that they look like little pinwheels. Mistake 1: All of these fabrics are WAY too busy for a twister quilt, particularly one with only 5 inch squares - as you will see. It is so hard to tell if you are looking at a Pikachu or Donkey Kong when all is said and done. I should have went with squared nearly twice this size.
Next comes cutting all your fabric into squares. Of course, if you want a 5 inch square at the end, you have to do a bunch of math to make sure that with seam allowances you wind up with 5 inches. That took me some doing, but I got there. Once you have a bunch of squares you have to cut them into your pinwheel shapes.
As you can see in the picture, they aren't quite triangles. There is a squared off edge that makes the shapes non-reversible. So if you have a nice fabric wheel that can cut multiple layers of fabric at a time, keep in mind that if your fabric is folded over on itself front to back, half of your fabric triangles will be pointing in the wrong direction. Mistake 2: I did that.
I find the pattern of a twister quilt to be a bit confusing - compounded by my confusing fabric. I laid a bunch of rows down on my floor to get me started. It is probably clearest in the pink pinwheels what is happening. Each square has one part of the pink pinwheel and when four are together it looks like the pinwheels are the primary shape. Its a clever idea, but I don't know how anyone does this without laying out a on of rows to see what is going on.
Then I found that I had set up significantly more blanket than I was willing to do in a single sitting. Since nothing is sewn together, that meant carefully walking around my apartment for a while - lest I accidentally move stuff and screw it all up.
You can see in that picturing that things do repeat every six squares. This means I can do single rows at a time moving forward. Quilts are going to make tough blog posts for me, because progress isn't quite as visual as a puppet. You have a bunch of fabric, and then you have some of it sewn together, and then you have a quilt. Puppets are certainly more dynamic. Quilts are still fun though and having a usable blanket for around the house afterwards is pretty rewarding. Not that puppets aren't great, but they really only keep my forearm warm.
I sewed a ton of little pinwheel shapes together and made a bunch of squares. Before I knew it, I had tackled everything I laid on the floor.
It was much smaller than when I started, and I had to add a few rows to get to twin sized. Now I am left with the rest of the blanket. I need to do this same work over and over until I hit my twin sized scale, or run out of triangles, whichever comes first. Wish me luck.
I am getting more precise with my sewing and in the end I will have a nice blanket, but I really want to do a different and less labor intensive quilt really soon. The last time I tried quilting, I also bit off more than I could chew. I was attempting to make a 22,000 square quilt using 1 inch squares representing pixels from a video game. I won't give up again - and I will set my sights a little more realistically. Though I do plan to pick up that quilt again someday.
There is a lot of exciting stuff coming! My vacuform machine is going to make the next few puppets really fun. This rag quilt idea is going to be adorable! Not to mention I am doing a really small project with dice and pickles - don't ask.
Anyway, keep making cool stuff!
Until next time,
JoshPrime
I am drawing some concepts up of the next round of puppets that I want to make. I want to do a monster in every color of the rainbow. I am really excited to get started, but I also wanted to branch out into a different sewing project.
I decided to do a quilt. This project is rife with issues that I will get into, but I am committed to getting the top complete before I move on to something else. After working on it for a while, I discovered rag quilts. Rag quilts are super fun and much simpler than a traditional quilt. I want to do one of those next, so my puppet projects might sit on the backburner for a while.
"What is wrong with this quilt?" You might be asking. Probably you are just reading and not trying to ask questions of your screen. Really that would be silly of you. I am not there to answer your questions and I am the best person for that job - since it is a question of me.
Essentially the primary problem is that I don't like quilting. "Why would you make a quilt then?" You might continue to ask of your computer. I guess I should clarify. When you sew a bunch of shit together in the shape of a blanket, that isn't actually quilting. That is just sewing a bunch of shit together. Quilting is the part of the process where you sew the bunch of shit (heretofore referred to as "the top") to a layer of fluffy insides and a bottom. This process is time consuming, difficult, and did I mention time consuming?
A rag quilt doesn't require that step in quite the same way. Since I plan to make a rag quilt sometime soon, I won't get too into it, plus this isn't a blog about that! I am so easily distracted.
Next comes cutting all your fabric into squares. Of course, if you want a 5 inch square at the end, you have to do a bunch of math to make sure that with seam allowances you wind up with 5 inches. That took me some doing, but I got there. Once you have a bunch of squares you have to cut them into your pinwheel shapes.
As you can see in the picture, they aren't quite triangles. There is a squared off edge that makes the shapes non-reversible. So if you have a nice fabric wheel that can cut multiple layers of fabric at a time, keep in mind that if your fabric is folded over on itself front to back, half of your fabric triangles will be pointing in the wrong direction. Mistake 2: I did that.
I find the pattern of a twister quilt to be a bit confusing - compounded by my confusing fabric. I laid a bunch of rows down on my floor to get me started. It is probably clearest in the pink pinwheels what is happening. Each square has one part of the pink pinwheel and when four are together it looks like the pinwheels are the primary shape. Its a clever idea, but I don't know how anyone does this without laying out a on of rows to see what is going on. Then I found that I had set up significantly more blanket than I was willing to do in a single sitting. Since nothing is sewn together, that meant carefully walking around my apartment for a while - lest I accidentally move stuff and screw it all up.
You can see in that picturing that things do repeat every six squares. This means I can do single rows at a time moving forward. Quilts are going to make tough blog posts for me, because progress isn't quite as visual as a puppet. You have a bunch of fabric, and then you have some of it sewn together, and then you have a quilt. Puppets are certainly more dynamic. Quilts are still fun though and having a usable blanket for around the house afterwards is pretty rewarding. Not that puppets aren't great, but they really only keep my forearm warm.
I sewed a ton of little pinwheel shapes together and made a bunch of squares. Before I knew it, I had tackled everything I laid on the floor.
It was much smaller than when I started, and I had to add a few rows to get to twin sized. Now I am left with the rest of the blanket. I need to do this same work over and over until I hit my twin sized scale, or run out of triangles, whichever comes first. Wish me luck.
I am getting more precise with my sewing and in the end I will have a nice blanket, but I really want to do a different and less labor intensive quilt really soon. The last time I tried quilting, I also bit off more than I could chew. I was attempting to make a 22,000 square quilt using 1 inch squares representing pixels from a video game. I won't give up again - and I will set my sights a little more realistically. Though I do plan to pick up that quilt again someday.
There is a lot of exciting stuff coming! My vacuform machine is going to make the next few puppets really fun. This rag quilt idea is going to be adorable! Not to mention I am doing a really small project with dice and pickles - don't ask.
Anyway, keep making cool stuff!
Until next time,
JoshPrime
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