Pressing Tip

I always have trouble pressing a block with lots of seam intersections so that the seams are really flat. A hard ironing board and a heavy iron help, but I don't like steam. Lately, I've been trying this method, which I like, and I thought I'd pass it on. It will be familiar to anyone who has done lots of garment sewing, especially tailoring, but I've never heard it mentioned by quilters, and I never thought of it myself until recently.

Here's the basket block; see all the nasty intersections to make flat. There are more on the other side too.



Here's the tool I'm using. I don't know what this is called, but it's used to press seams open before they're pressed together, and it has all those weird curves and points to accommodate different seams. For quilting all you need is a long flat piece of wood; a 12 inch piece of 2 by 2 would work fine. Wood is the best because it is a good conductor of heat and pulls the heat out of the fabric quickly so that the seam cools in the position you want it to be.

All you do is press the seam together, then open the block and press the seam to the side, as usual. While the fabric is hot, put the wood piece on the seam, press down, and hold it for about 10 seconds or so.



You end up with a flat seam without worrying about scorching or puckering from steam. If you really want to use steam, give just a second of steam before you put the wood down.


(Do you think that woman needs cosmetic surgery on her hands? Yikes!)

Another Product Endorsement...

...without the big payment, unfortunately.

I just found the Scotch Fur Fighter. It's intended to remove "embedded pet hair". Since we have a cat, I bought it. But before using it for cat hair, I gave it a try on the nasty little bits of felted batting lint left after I washed the quilt made with that crappy Fairfield batting. I had used a lint roller repeatedly and couldn't get it all. The Fur Fighter worked. So someone might find this useful, for pet hair or lint. The only drawback here is that this gadget was not cheap, and it will eventually require more refill sheets which may be difficult to find.

Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down

Thumbs up for the Supreme Slider! It's very smooth silicone (I think) sheet that fits on the bed of the sewing machine allowing fabric to move more easily when you're doing free motion stitching. There's a hole for the needle, and the underside is sticky and clings tightly. I've only used this on small pieces, but it was wonderful, totally living up to expectations.

P.S. Kathy's comment about washing the slider is a good one; I should have mentioned it. I already had to do that, and it seemed to work fine.


Thumbs down here. This batting shrinks more than I expected, it doesn't cling to the quilt very well, causing puckering, and it sheds lint EVERYWHERE. I thought I was buying Hobbs Heirloom, which has the same cotton-poly content, but had a real senior moment and bought this by mistake. Don't do it!

Check It off the List

Refraction 60" x 48"


I just finished the official portrait of this piece for entry in Road to California, and so I promise that this is its final appearance. Yesterday I forced myself to sit down and sew on the sleeve while watching Duplicity with Clive Owen and Julia Roberts. The movie sweetened the deal considerably, even if it's actually a movie that requires a bit more attention than the ideal handwork flick. (Handwork flick--a new genre maybe? I know we've all got our favorites.)

I thought I'd have to go out and buy a rod and rig up some sort of temporary hanging deal for photographing this quilt since it's bigger than usual, but the wonderful "No See 'Ums" hanger from the Hangup Company that I use for a quilt above my bed expanded to sixty inches, and there was enough room to clear the bed. Good lighting in that room too, so all went well. Isn't it great when things are easier than you expect? Road to California even has on-line entry now, so you can upload photos and pay the fee in minutes, slick as a button.

I'm so glad to have this done!

Still Thinking

Thanks for all of the helpful comments about my design dilemma. It's amazing and wonderful to see what other people think of, and please, feel free to weigh in again! Following Debra and Nellie's idea I did stitch together the small yellow shape in the upper right to see what it looks like.

I was really intrigued by Liz and Fran's idea of using some of both, so here is what it would look like if some shapes were smooth and some irregular.

Fran's idea of a diptych certainly made me think. I'm not sure I'm ready for that many more blue blocks. But if this were a smaller piece it would be something to consider seriously. While I mull this over, I'm going to stitch together the background blue blocks. This is slow because I have to be systematic to make sure I don't confuse the placement. I take four blocks off the wall, carry them to the sewing machine, stitch and press in a certain order, and then carry them back. Since the design wall is clear across the room from the sewing machine, I tell myself this is good exercise.

Decisions, Decisions

After tinkering with this blue piece for a while, I had finally got the large circular shapes looking as good as possible, I thought. The original sketch I made for this in a class was circular shapes crossed by lines, some behind, some in front, some through the circles. I'm trying to get the effect of spheres floating in space. Even after much work the "spheres" or "blobs" still weren't satisfactory to me.


Then last night I realized that I could piece the contrasting squares, cut them into a true circular shape, and applique them to the background. I think that was what I originally planned long ago, but I got so caught up with these curving blocks in the background that I forgot my old idea. So here is what it looks like with the small circle on lower left roughly shaped and pinned on.

It looks much smaller because the seam allowances are gone. I think I like it better, but I think the original would look better also when tightened up with seam allowances. And will the rough and irregular streaks look odd if the spheres are so regular? I'm still debating. Any comments?

I've also decided to try the Hoffman Challenge after all and began to plan that. I had a very clear idea of what I wanted to do, so that would be easy, I thought. Wrong. So last night was not a restful night.

Easy Curves

Debra asked how I made the abstract blocks in the blue piece I'm working on, so here's a tutorial. They're wonky, free-cut curved blocks. The technique is basically the same for any kind of curved piecing, but this is easy because the curves can be gentle, and you don't have to worry about getting them perfectly straight, because they'll be trimmed later. You start by cutting a block bigger than you need though, so there's some waste. I cut my squares 5 inches to trim down to 3.5. I usually work with three or four squares at a time.

Stack them, right side up, and cut in a random way with gentle curves into two or three pieces.

Then clip the in-curved piece about every one half inch, not going in quite a quarter of an inch.


Then you shuffle: I take the top left hand piece and put it on the bottom, and then take the bottom right hand piece and put it on the top. They're partially shuffled here.

Then line the pieces up, flip the in-curved piece over, and put a pin in the center.

Then gently pull the top piece so that the edges line up. The corners will not match; the top one will over lap about a quarter of an inch.

Sew as usual, pushing the fullness out of the way. On a gentle curve there isn't much.

When you get to the center remove the pin and rearrange the pieces so that edges on the rest of the seam are lined up. If a pucker seems to be forming, stop, lift the presser foot, and rearrange the fullness. On a sharper curve, you may have to do this a couple of times.


Do the other seam the same way, always putting the in-curving piece on top. You end up with three blocks, each one different. There was very little distortion on these blocks, but sometimes depending on the type of curve, there may be more. Trim them, and play with them.

Quiet Sunday

Actually, I've been working obsessively on this thing:

It's not where I want it yet, but it's come a long way, and I'm not ashamed to show it. I still want to add more detail to the background and work on the circular shapes so that they're less blocky. This is actually lots of fun. I made A LOT of blocks and then began to move them around to approximate the design I had in mind. It's interesting to see how a block that seemed like it would never work can turn out to be just the right thing for another area--sort of like working a jigsaw. But I still had to make some blocks specifically for a particular place. You can click on it to see better.

I did take a break long enough to choose fabrics for Take It Further Challenge:

The light fabric is more peach and less pink than it looks in the picture. I didn't try to keep the same mid value slightly grayed tones because I don't particularly like them. Browsing around to see what other people are doing made me think better of them however. But these fabrics should work for me.

There will be no Christmas news here

The last issue of Quilter's Newsletter gave me an idea of how to translate a design I made a year ago into a quilt. So as a first step I have pieced these blocks in what is supposed to be a nine-step value scale. It was an interesting exercise even if I do nothing else. I learned that even though I think I have a large stash, especially in blue, it isn't as large as it might need to be to do this successfully. There isn't a completely smooth blending. Not too bad though--it actually looks better in the photo than in reality. I think I'll keep going, although it will take lots of little blocks!