Another finish! I think I had mentioned in the post about the first plain spoken quilt that I had cut enough pieces for a second. Well, those pieces were set aside for someone and then they got something else and so the pieces stayed aside for a while. Since May.
I had been dreading plain spoken II since I first conceived of it. Mainly because I didn't love making the first one and had troubles matching seams. As it turns out, following the directions makes a big difference! (Why have I not learned this lesson yet??)
Going from memory (because I don't own The Modern Quilt Workshop and have to try and get it from the library when I need it but didn't want to go hunt it down). I realized that my biggest mistake the first time around was the way I laid it out. Rather than pair randomly and then layout the pairs in a suitable combination, I had laid out each individual piece until I liked the overall design and then tried to painstakingly piece them together.
This time around I paired then laid out then pieced and it was wonderful. This is my reason I came up with: because my cutting wasn't exactly superb, when I tried to piece one after another it started to get a little crooked and I didn't notice until it came to matching seams between rows. Doh!
I think I may actually love this pattern now! (That is a darn good thing too because I now have a king sized version to make!! More on that later.) This quilt top is officially the most "perfect" top I have made to date. All the seams match up, the lines are straight and the top is square! I feel a little silly saying this now after 2 years of quilting, but it has definitely been a learning process and I think repeating the same pattern has helped me trouble shoot some things.
Like in my pink patchwork quilt I stuck with ironing seams in opposite directions and it really really helps in matching seams from row to row.
The final top measure a little less than 50 x 70 which is because I chose to make a more square quilt than the recommended size in the book. Now I just need to figure out how to quilt it. I am stuck between straight line quilting close together (think less than .50 inch) or the recommended meandering type of free motion. Any votes?
As a final note: this is what happens when you try to photograph in the wind. It's ALWAYS windy in Calgary, so this is becoming an issue. Oh well, it makes for a fun outtake!
1 comment:
This looks fantastic! Really great job.
I've been quilting for longer than that and I think I'm getting worse rather than better as time goes on, so far as winding up with square tops. I don't really know why, exactly, but when I first started I did everything by hand, and so I was forever drawing on my quarter inch seams, and now that I machine sew, I use the foot as my guide, but possibly I shouldn't.
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