Trying new things

One must always be open to trying new things. I know that I'm guilty of doing things the same old way. Or we sit in the same spot at the table, on the train, we drive to work on the same road. Nothing wrong with it - it frees up our brains to think of other things. But it's also nice to shock the brain into trying new things!

So you all know that I've been doing a lot of quilts for magazines over the last couple of years. That means working with the fabric companies and I have to say that Northcott has been very accommodating and their fabrics are beautiful to work with. A HUGE thank you to Northcott for your support and to Susanne who fulfills my needs. I truly appreciate the support.

In case you didn't know, Northcott has a line of batiks as well. The brand name is Banyan Batiks. Karen Gibbs is the lead designer for the batiks. She's been working with the folks in Indonesia to come up with some unusual techniques to produce new patterns/styles of batiks. Check it out.

I've actually made quite a few quilts using Banyan Batiks. However, a while back when we were discussing fabrics for the latest quilt which will appear in Jan/Feb 2020 of McCalls Quilting, Karen asked me to do something different. We got the OK from the publisher and I ended up with rayon for the backing of the quilt.

BTW - in case you think, I'm spilling the beans - you're not going to see the front of the quilt - just the back and everyone is OK with that.

It was with a bit of trepidation that I made the backing for the quilt. I had to join two pieces of the rayon and if you've ever worked with rayon, it's VERY slippery compared to cotton. OK - so that seam is done. I pressed it (it presses beautifully) and then I loaded it on the long arm with the selvages pinned to the leaders. OK - so that worked just fine. So far - so good.

I put a new needle in the machine, loaded my quilt top made from the Baralla collection. Then I loaded the 80/20 batting. OK - here goes nothing. Let's see what happens.

There was no difference quilting with the rayon on the back. I could have been quilting cotton for all the long arm cared.

The quilt is quilted and time to unload. WHOA!!!!!   What just happened here? The quilt is beautiful. It's very LIGHTWEIGHT compared to a quilt done with batik or cotton on the back. And guess what else???  It's incredibly soft!! Oh my GOD - I might just become a convert to using rayon for the backings of quilts. Never in a million years would I have chosen rayon for the quilt backing. THANKS, Karen for the push in that direction.    Hmm - I have a couple of pieces of rayon that need to be made into garments. I need to make that happen real soon.

Rayon as a quilt backing

It seems to be a Northcott day. I did spend some time in Studio B to get it ready for today. There will be 6 of us sewing and it looks awesome. Although there are still boxes and furniture sitting in almost every corner. I'll work my way through it. It was such fun last night as I spread out stuff to work on to get ready for today.

This quilt now has a backing. The backing is an older Northcott print by Jane Spolar called Saturday Afternoon! But the color (you're seeing the wrong side of the fabric) was perfect.

The backing of a quilt top

I went shopping Chez Elaine. Seriously??  This is just way too weird. The way that stash room is set up at the moment, there's no tripping over anything. While the floor isn't completely clear of stuff, it's pretty darn good. I was able to put away some scraps in the scrap bins and not have to stretch. The blue basket of fabric came off the shelf and onto the work tables with ease. I know -- I HAVE to keep it that way. It's such a pleasure to work in all that space. It may mean that some stuff gets packed into WELL LABELED boxes and stacked out of the way. NO - I'm not ready to get rid of everything at this point - don't even suggest it!!!!

Anyway - I did find some fabric that'll work perfectly for the binding.

Found a fabric that'll work for the binding

I came across this little basket that I made from the leg of a pair of jeans. I didn't put any stabilizer in it and I didn't like it that way. Too limp. So last night, I took it apart and one of my jobs today is to put stabilizer in it and put it back together. I know - who would have the patience to do that? But what else was I going to do with it? It really needed a stabilizer for it to be used by me or someone else. I should have put it in when I originally made it, but I didn't. That dot fabric, by the way, is a Northcott - Colorworks Concepts.

This denim bucket was a project that I did on QUILTsocial a while back. Here are the instructions. HEY -- you should be checking out QUILTsocial more often. There are all kinds of projects, tips, and tricks on that web site. Just type in denim and see what you get.

Bucket made with cotton and a denim pant leg

Here's another Northcott project. I believe this was the first project I designed when I went to work for them (for the record, I'm no longer an employee). It's also an older print - the collection was called Happy Hour.  It's a table topper. The fabric and pattern have been sitting around for a long, long time. I popped it into my retreat bag and I was able to make it up in a morning. The colors are a bit bleached out in the photo. The blue and pink are much more vibrant in real life. And I have enough of the border print and the stripe leftover that I think I can make a set of placemats. That's for another day.  The binding and the backing are also made so that one moved into the "to be quilted" pile.

Table topper

Over to the long arm where I got another quilt done. This one is for Quilts of Valour. It's completely made with my leftovers of Toscana from Northcott. It's a log cabin block and was the pattern chosen by Canadian Quilter's Association this year for Quilt Canada. I had the fabric precut for the 48 blocks and took it to our quilt retreat earlier this month.

The top was completed at the retreat. Thanks to all the ladies who sewed blocks. I emptied a bolt of Northcott fabric (Stonehenge Oh Canada) for the backing and the binding. Now it's quilted and my goal is to get the binding on so it can be delivered next week.

Community projects quilt

Since not all of you can be with us today as we sew, here's a quick glimpse into the main sewing area of Studio B.

I laid out the worktables a bit differently. We're going to be 9 on the weekend so this configuration won't work then. But we each get our own 5-foot table. Yeah!!!!! You can't see much of the messy corner to the right! The design wall is accessible and clear.

Work tables set up in Studio B

This is the cutting table. Half of that is stuff that people will be picking up today. The other half is my stuff that needs to be trimmed or sewn today. I have my cutting mats, a cutter, and some rulers there so I'm back in business. I said to Miss Murphy who had come down to keep me from getting too lonely that it felt very good to be back in business in Studio B. She agreed. Oh - there's the Stonehenge Oh Canada on the back of that quilt waiting to be trimmed.

The cutting mat

And here's the ironing board. I've got my "spare" ironing board set up. I wasn't going to bring the big one down from upstairs. This one will just have to do. I'll have to bring my iron down that I'm using upstairs as I have NO idea where my other irons (3 of them) are. They're somewhere but haven't surfaced yet. I have a wee bit of pressing to do this morning to get started. Yep - there's more stuff just shoved into a corner. It'll be dealt with slowly. That storage room is going to fill quickly so I'm ensuring that what goes in that space is well labeled and sorted properly. I'll share that with you another day. There's still loads of room at the moment.

The ironing board

I'm so excited about today. It's been months since we had our last Sit n Sew day.

On that note, I'm out of here.

Have a super day!!!!


Ciao!!!