I am happy enough with it and you might notice I've tried a bit of colourwash technique with it. However, if I make the VIQ in this design I think I will organise the fabrics differently.
BTW, Oscar (my dear old 15 years old ginger boy) even approves. I found him quite settled on it in the dark one night where I had it laid out on the floor in my sewing room! He left some of his personal embellishments on it which, sad to say, I had to brush off it next day.
Now for a MINI-TUTORIAL: Last week I watched Jinny Beyer on a free video from Alex Anderson and Ricky Tims and saw the simplest idea for getting seams to meet exactly. If yours already meet exactly then you don't have to read this but this is for the benefit of those like me who battle to get seams meeting properly. I tried it and it works beautifully!
First, with seams pointing in opposite directions, butt the seams together and place a pin 1/16" each side of the vertical seam. You can check how the seams will look by opening out the two pieces. If they don't meet, then try again!
Now stitch right up to the first pin, holding it at right angles to the stitching. Remove the pin and do a couple more stitches and then remove the second pin. Continue stitching.
Voila!! The seams meet and there is no frustrating frogging (unpicking). BTW, in case you are wondering why there are different fabrics in the pics, the last two turned out fuzzy and I had to do new ones!
Let me know whether this has helped you. I've been doing PW for years and tried a number of different ways of getting the seams meeting. Very simple but it was a lightbulb moment for me. Maybe I'm just simple ;-).
I saw this on Alex & Ricky's show too, Daphne. I tried it on a quilt where the pressing instructions ended up giving you some very bulky seams going in the same direction and it worked a treat, producing good points.
ReplyDeleteThere are pins available that are two pronged.... now I know just what to do with them!! I will certainly give it a try. I love learning new tricks!
ReplyDeleteThis is the same way I teach meeting corners in my Stitchin' Mission beginner quiltmaking lessons. The trick is to pin the intersections, but NOT put the pin through the stitching, that just pushes the intersection apart! Put pins on either side of the stitching and it works great.
ReplyDeleteThis has cleared up the double pronged pins for me. Thanks. I usually pin the top fabric close to and just before the seam join, then sew right up to , if not over the pin. It usually works really well but sometime the seam just slips a tiny bit. The second pin is a brilliant idea for those very tricky joins.I really like your quilt! Ann:)
ReplyDeleteHi Daphne, how funny is that - I was going to do that continuous step quilt as a challenge for our group - then draw the winner out and they could put it all together!! Might still do it though. Looks good, regards Debi
ReplyDeleteyour 15 year old orange puss and my 15 year old orange puss could be twins except that my Oakley has started looking very frail lately. He also is a quilt afficionado
ReplyDeleteMy cat is the official placement officer of my quilts.. if he doens't like it, for some reason he destroys it.. other times he cant be bothere and just lays on my 'design floor'.. I have some pics on my blog of his goings on...
ReplyDeletetake care and thanks for the tutorial
Susan, I have seen your orange boy on your blog and have commented to DH on how much he looks like Oscar! Sorry to hear your boy is feeling his age. Oscar is going strong at the moment and eats well but he has a thyroid problem for which he has medication.
ReplyDeleteThank you all for your kind comments.