Latest Lessons Learned

My last post was at 11:45 last night, now it is 10:39 Saturday morning and all my Easter quilts are completed!

I learned a few new things with these quilts. I remembered how important pressing as you sew really is! On Amanda and Korey's quilt, I was working after a shoulder injury and was heavily medicated! I didn't realize just how bad my cutting, piecing, and pressing really was. I thought everything was OK... my first hint was when I was trying to get the top completed. I noticed immediately that my blocks were measuring anywhere from 10 to 12 inches... had to add a lot of strange borders and insets to make a square-ish quilt.

Then when quilting, I had a lot of seam allowances that were anywhere from 1/4 inch up to 2 inches? Not sure how I missed that when I was putting the top together a month or so ago. I also had about 5 blocks that ended up coming apart in the quilting process. My foot kept finding each weak seam.

In putting the binding on, I realized that pressing when you are tired can really mess up a binding. I also realized that while the glue stick is easier on my hands, the glue bottle holds better. I will now run and stock up on glue bottles and keep my eye out for those beginning of the school year sales!

Since I was using flannel for both the backing and the binding, I had some really thick seams. When you add in the glue, well they were pretty stiff. Discovered that a shot of steam would dissolve the glue and make the binding behave, and then the sewing was a snap!

Amanda and Korey's quilt and Michael's quilt are both in the wash to get rid of the glue. The first wash always reveals those seams that were missed (and I expect a lot of them in A&K's quilt!), so I expect to spend another hour or so 'grooming' the quilt (clipping threads and re-attaching seams) then I can package nicely and forget about them until tomorrow morning.

I will probably load everything in the car tonight, sometime after I start the baked beans for lunch tomorrow. It is so nice not to be hosting a holiday family get together. Didn't have to clean house!!

That's all for now. I will wait to get the pictures of the quilt until after the 'grooming'.

Nini