Louisiana zine and more quilting

https://louisiana.kitchenandculture.com/

Want a little more Louisiana? You can find it right here! This online mag "celebrates the culure, heritage, and cuisine of Louisiana."

I just happened across it while searching for a certain quilt show. I didn't find the show, but it may have something to do with not getting any farther than this interesting piece of online real estate. Anh, someone else is doing the legwork for the quilt show. I took a few minutes and liked what I found. There are over 1,600 recipes, events calendar, and cooking videos. If you have a few minutes, you should go.

Otherwise, I've been working on the latest tee-shirt quilt. Today I spent the morning making a backing. I wanted to include some of the shirts in the quilt but that would make it much too large and time consuming to quilt. Rather I sewed them into the backing, which took longer than I anticipated. 

That was mostly because I didn't look closely at the fabric on the bolt. Apparently I emptied the bolt and reused it. The fabric on it now is only 44" wide, not the 108" that I expected. Talk about a surprise!

I actually measured the amount needed and cut it before realizing there was a problem. That may be because the fabric on the bolt is a regular weight quilting cotton, not the lightweight muslin I thought.

Anyhoo, I got it all resolved and the backing looks pretty good. I loaded the quilt after lunch and began quilting. It's going relatively easily, so I'm happy. 

And my day ended with getting to some guild duties: sending out emails, setting an appointment, texting a member or two to check on their progress, that kind of stuff. It's the stuff that I really don't enjoy but have to get done. It does feel good to know that those chores are out of the way.

How is your day going? Were you able to get some quilting done or did you manage to get through some of the not-so-fun chores?

Harley Davidson ~~ finish!

The Harley Davidson memory quilt is complete! Binding and label done and dusted! The only thing left to do is to deliver it to the client. There were 30 or so tee shirts in the container, and I tried to use at least a small part from all of them. On many both the front and back had nice designs, so I sewed them together and created one panel. It was helpful in creating the puzzle design that the couple wanted. 

We were barbecuing on Monday when I finished the binding, so I  asked a couple of the kids to hold it up. Two "volunteered" but one of the guys was a bit short and had to stand on a small table. 

The other kiddo acted like he'd never held up a quilt, so someone had to get in the mix. Getting a straight line was impossible once I asked them to turn the quilt around. I had to choose how much of the boys to crop out but decided that I'll leave in however much is there. This way you can check out their happy faces. Everyone wants to be a quilt model in this family. At least they liked that it's a Harley Davidson quilt. 

My client mentioned using a black backing, but black is such a shocking color on the back of a quilt. I found some Kona charcoal, which is almost as dark and decided to go with it instead. I debated about the binding until I realized that I didn't have enough of the charcoal fabric. So black binding it is. I actually like the little contrast on the back, and the black works better on the front since many of the tees are black.

I put one full strip of tees on the back and the bottom-most tee has a nice open area above the design--perfect for the label. I included the information that I always include on a label and still have space for the family to add a note for dad. It's to be a Father's Day gift, so  that will be especially nice.

 Ready for its trip to Baton Rouge in the next few weeks, this quilt may be one of my favorite memory quilts. I'm quite surprised at that realization since I'm not a motorcycle fan but happy that I like it so much.

		Quilt Stats
	Name:	Ainsworth Harley Davidson Memory Quilt
	Size:	74 x 96
	Fabrics:	Tee shirts from client
	Backing:	Kona charcoal
	Binding:	Kona black
	Pattern:	Puzzle design
	Quilting:	custom design based on tee-shirts
	Completed:	February 2018

Link Ups We Love!

Crazy Mom Quilts (Finish It Up Friday)

My Quilt Infatuation (Needle & Thread)

Busy Hands Quilts (Finished or Not Friday)

Confessions of a Fabric Addict (Can I get a Whoop! Whoop!) 

Calico

Recently I've been using up some of the calico in my stash as backing for baby quilts. They are light and soft and cheap. Well, cheap in my mind since I either bought them long ago or inherited them from mom's stash. 

As I was cutting into the last pile I was a bit sorry that they were all gone. Still, I decided to check one more time to see whether I could find a few small pieces or something to add to the leftovers. 

I found a few more than expected! Yay, right? After I pulled them out, I started looking through the pile to make sure that they were all calico and to look at sizes. That led me to thinking that maybe it would be good to discuss calico. 

Calico is a thin, woven cotton fabric made from unbleached, undyed threads. The selvage is slim and tight but barely noticeable or distinguishable from the rest of the fabric. Generally there's no writing or label on the selvage. 

It is generally coarser than other cotton fabrics, but softens when washed. It's about the same weight as muslin and is usually overdyed in small print patterns. One of the oldest fabrics made in mills, it was used for dresses, aprons, and quilts. 

It may have more than one color but rarely has deep, rich colors or large prints and are not colorfast because they are cheaply processed. They work well with solids, especially thin, cheap cottons. Calico is used by fashion designers and sewists who create dummy pieces when designing since it is much cheaper than luxurious, expensive fabrics, such as silk, damask, chiffon, etc. 

Calico makes great backing for quilts, especially children's quilts, precisely because they are thin and soft after washing. I am thrilled to have found more calico in the stash. I think this may be it, though. I'll have to move on to other fabrics when the basket is empty.

Pieced Backings

While making the backing for my most recent quilt, it occurred to me that someone might be interested in how I create my backs. So I thought I'd try to explain my process.  

Now, this may not be the best or easiest way to piece a backing: it's just the way I do it. The first thing is to pull fabrics. I generally try to find fabrics that sort of coordinate with the front. I don't want too many of the exact same fabrics or colors since I like the interest of a mix of colors. When I say "sort of coordinate" with the front, I like a bit of difference so that there's something interesting and different on the reverse. 

Once I've chosen the fabrics, I begin by trying to determine a common size among them. In the fabrics that I pulled for this quilt, I noticed that I had several fat quarters, so I cut a few more from the yardage that I'd pulled. 

I had several small squares and two leftover blocks. These I sewed together to create a large section. I found it easiest to sew the smallest pieces into one section, the larger pieces into a different section, and then the odd pieces into a third section. (See photo below.)

The next step is to work with the fat quarters. Working with fat quarters is relatively easy because they are 18" x 20", so it's important to match pieces to that size. I square up the pieces by laying out a stack of four or five. Trim one edge, then use this straight edge to square up the other edges. Once they are all square, I sew them together by matching the same size edges. As I sew, I try to keep the new pieces close to the same length so that they go together easily. See the fat quarter rows in the picture below.

Now that I have several large sections, I start figuring out how they go together. The design board makes a fabulous assistant for this part. In this case the odd pieces section and the small pieces section fit together nicely. After they were sewn, I squared up the edges of the one large piece. 

The next part of the backing that fit together were a fat quarter row and the large pieces section. Again, I squared up the large piece after sewing. 

I added the long single piece to this section so it would be the same width as the first large piece on the top of the backing and sewed those two together. 

I added some smaller pieces to the long fat quarter section because I needed more length. I measured several time to double check that I had the right length and then sewed the fat quarter section to complete the backing. The quilt top is 101" square but the backing needed to be 105" or larger. Somehow I managed to get 107" so I didn't worry about squaring it up. I'll do that after I've quilted it all.

I have to admit, it took quite some time to put all together. In the end, though, I like the look especially since it's hard to tell that there were distinct sections. While I don't expect that anyone would really display the back, it's nice knowing that it adds a little interest to the quilt. It also reminds me of the utility quilts that my mom  and grandmother made when I was a young girl.