The convention for showing a finished quilt on a contemporary quilt blog seems a nice gauzy photo on a rocking chair or grass or antique oak table with flowers or cupcakes, strategically styled so you can't see the bobbles and bubbles and fuckups.
I don't have any of those things. And even if I did, it's too hot out in the sun today and I am hiding in my Arbeitzimmer in the dark. Please enjoy the reverse side of a cutting mat and the un-pointy points.
But only on the inside of the border. I spent about a day working out the details for the binding on this sample; originally I stitched close to the edge of the outside hexagons, and it was too difficult to trim the binding because the stitches were too close to where my scissors needed to be. Now I know why people do samples. (This green bit was an earlier idea that I had intended to be sleeker and not so puffy, so it goes into the Box of Parts.)
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| Border stitching. |
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| Marks for trimming. |
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| Binding hexagons. Only made one mistake here. |
The binding method has a thousand tutorials on the Internet. I think I used this one from Quirky Granola Girl because it's the one I saved to Pinterest.
The starch step was interesting, because it's been literally 10 years since I've stitched anything that required starch (I prefer the imprecise), and on top of that I had no idea how starch is packaged and sold here. The aerosol can seems very similar to US spray starch (plus it has a cat on it) but with more scent because all the German laundry products are drenched in scent. There's also a liquid starch that goes in the washing machine with your clothes (the bottle had directions for T-shirts, seriously) that I think is similar to US liquid starch, but I haven't bought any to experiment with yet.
When I went to the Patchworkmesse in Erding in March, I was grumpy because I hadn't submitted anything because I never finish anything bigger than an index card. Now I have something to submit. Free admission, baby!! Woo-hoo!
Looks great! That's for commenting on my blog and adding the link. I do still read comments but I can rarely reply because so many people are no-reply-commenters on blogger.
ReplyDeleteI've never heard of putting liquid starch in the washer. I have a gallon of liquid starch because I found a brand here that doesn't have much added scent (plenty of starch companies in the US use too much scent, too). I dilute the starch in a spray bottle and just spritz when I iron.