I may have an earned doctorate, but that does not necessarily make me the sharpest pair of scissors in my sewing kit. Just sayin'.
Stonefields (designed by Susan Smith) has seen some action this week. I had a lot more glue basted hexies using Sew Line glue sticks. Then I sewed together more hexie flowers.
Initially, I tried pinning the flowers onto the outer borders. It was easy when I just stabbed a pin to hold them on the big design wall. But had to remove all that to actually secure them. Pinning them on was too hard and they were puckered.
I glue basted 25 flowers onto each of the first 2 outer borders. Now I realise that the Quilters Stitching glue I used will NEVER release. Maybe heat will work?
This time I removed the center paper. That was not too difficult. I switched to using a size 90 needle after using a size 80. This is supposed to enable tearing off the papers. We shall see. I also switched to a different glue. One of the flowers fell off when I put the borders on the wall.
I am carefully positioning and measuring each flower so we stand a chance of having them evenly spaced apart. Eventually, after machine quilting and washing, the whole thing will be sort of scrunched up that it will not be so obvious if they are not even. At least that is what I am telling myself.
I bought a new wool mat. Saw one at a farm picnic last month that the quilter's husband bought for her and fastened to a big board with bolts to hold it steady forever. I got the 22x60 size. It is too wide for my large pressing board, but it sits on the table beautifully and does not squirm. It has a felt carrying case in case I decide to take it to a quilt retreat somewhere. But retreats often allocate 6 feet or 4 feet of table space, so will have to give that some thought.
The border fabric stayed perfectly in place and did not wiggle. This was really satisfying after my previous experiences.
Next, I started to machine applique the first hexie flower down. I was eager to see how that would work. I am using a 60wt poly that sort of disappears with a narrow zig zag stitch. There are 18 sides to each flower, so turning the corner 18 times. For each hexie flower.
There are, so far, 25 flowers on each of the first 2 outer borders. There will be 4 outer borders. You can do the math. There will be more flowers in the corners. Eventually.
Time to let this project marinate for now.
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