Try New Things

I like to try new things. It's what makes life interesting. In my quilting, I am never convinced that I know the best way to do things. So I am always game to try something new. I tried a few new things with this current charity project. This is always a good opportunity to try new things.

I discovered a pattern for a scrap quilt on Moda's website (Moda Free Pattern) in January while I was sewing In Key West. I made a scrap quilt from it that I can't share just yet because it's a surprise gift. But I loved this pattern so much. It is a great scrap quilt that is easy to adjust to any size. The pattern called for 2 1/2"x7". I decided to make a Valor Quilt to be donated for injured veterans through my Quilt Guild. I thought this would be an opportunity to use up some of my stash. I increased the size of the rectangles a bit to 3"x8", and cut up most of my red and cream homespuns.

The first step is to sew together 2 of the rectangles.

And then keep adding rectangles - one cream, then one red. I pieced 4 strips this way, until I had 25 rectangles in the strip.

Then I trimmed the edges and the top and the bottom.

I alternated these strips with navy strips onto which I appliqued stars.

To baste the quilt, I decided to try something new. I usually use safety pins for machine quilting. This time I tried using a temporary adhesive (505). I have a love/hate relationship with this spray. It's a messy product - hard to control the overspray. To try and minimize the mess, I hung a bed sheet on my design wall that also covered a part of the floor. Standing upright to spray really did work. First I pinned the backing to the sheet. Sprayed it and smoothed the batting onto it. Then I sprayed the batting and smoothed on the top. Would it stay put while I quilted it? It wasn't that large ( 50"Lx 40"W) so there wouldn't be a lot of squishing it. I was a little skeptical, but tried it anyway.

It worked! No puckers on the back. Success.

I decided to try something different than I usually do for the binding. I wanted to do it entirely by machine. My friend Kelly shared her method with me. I cut my binding 2 1/2" wide. After trimming the excess batting and squaring up the quilt, I sewed on the binding with a 1/4" seam allowance to the BACK of the quilt. I flipped it to the top (where it was a little wider than on the back). And then I actually pinned the binding all the way around, paying extra attention to the corners. Top stitched it. It came out great.

Would I use these 2 new techniques again? I would with some caveats. I would limit the spray basting to quilts that were on the smaller size. And the machine stitched binding? I have another scrap quilt that needs a binding that is a little bigger than twin size. Tomorrow I will try it again. But, maybe not for competition quilts.

Thanks Kelly!