I've been auditioning borders for the latest quilt that I've been working on. I've already given it a name but, for secrecy's sake, since the newlyweds don't get to view it in all its glory until it's finished, I'll call it The Pandemic Wedding Quilt. It seems appropriate.
I'm not a great fan of applique - the doing, not the admiring. I love seeing what others are able to do with needle and thread but I seem to be lacking skills in that department. My applique pieces are usually fairly basic. Case in point:
And another one:
But I felt that the body of The Pandemic Wedding Quilt (which is completed apart from the outer border) was crying out for some applique and so I started playing around with some ideas.
This was my favourite but I didn't feel it suited the style of the quilt. Perhaps I'll make another quilt especially just so that I can use it.
After much drafting and playing around and trusting my instincts (rightly or wrongly), this is what I've ended up with (only a sneak preview of a small part):
Now we come to the cautionary part of my tale. Since I'm not super-skilled at applique or a fan of tracing the same shape multiple times, I tried cutting corners. I cut several leaves out at once with no marking and this seemed to work but the birds were a little trickier and I turned to freezer paper (something which is not sold in supermarkets in New Zealand, by the way, but only in quilting stores). I had never used this before and the instructions on the packet for use with fabric were not comprehensive. I did know enough to iron the shiny side onto the fabric but what with poor lighting and rushing things, I ended up turning one shape over and accidentally ironing the wrong side to the fabric.
You can guess what happened. The paper did not stick to the fabric at all but it stuck to the plate of my iron. Very well as it turned out.
Not sure how to remove it, I turned to Google. There were lots of articles and posts about not ironing the shiny side (as if I would do that on purpose) but nothing about what to do if you inadvertently ironed the wrong side and ended up with it stubbornly adhered to your iron.
I decided the best thing to do would be to turn the iron off and let it cool down. Which I did - fully intending to come back to it later - but which I forgot to do.
A few days later I decided to iron the fabric for the border. A crisp, clean white. Part-way through I wondered why my iron didn't seem to be doing a great job and then I remembered the freezer paper stuck to its plate. Oops. It looked a little scorched and I figured that the steam was probably helping to break it down. At this stage I should have found a scrap piece of fabric and continued to iron on that until I had cleared the iron of the paper.
I didn't. Thankfully, I was able to finish ironing my border fabric without any mishap. (I wouldn't recommend this in case the scorch marks end up on your fabric). Once done, I turned the iron off and waited for it to cool down. When it was well and truly cool (and unplugged), I placed a wet cloth on the plate and found that with minimal effort the paper scraped off with my fingernail. My iron is all clean again (well as clean as it's ever going to be) and in future I'll try not to iron the wrong side of freezer paper. But if I do - or if anyone else does - there is an easy solution (just next time I'll use scrap fabric first).
Now that the border fabric was ironed, cut, and sewn together (why did I decide to mitre the corners?), the basting of applique pieces began. In case you're wondering, this is not going to be a quick project. But it is one I can work on of an evening. And this is where I have a wee moan. This morning, realising that I would need to purchase some threads to sew the applique pieces in place, I popped into town.
A year or so ago our one and only quilting shop closed. There is another shop that sells fabrics and threads and needles for dressmaking and curtains and which has a small selection of quilting fabrics. I had hoped they would have a good selection of threads but, alas no, there wasn't a lot to choose from, especially since I wanted 100% cotton. (Forget silk, which some applique artists swear by apparently. I wasn't going to find anything like that locally.)
I chose several colours that I thought would work and took them to the counter. It seemed to take an age for the prices to be rung up and I found myself getting frustrated. (This seems to be a regular occurrence whenever I visit this shop - long delays before my purchase is completed). Finally the problem was revealed.
"They are different prices. [Really? I only saw one price marked on the cabinet.] Only one is 100% cotton. The rest are poly-cotton. Does that matter?"
Well, yes, it did but since I had chosen the threads from the one cabinet that claimed to be cotton (all the other cabinets stated polyester) I figured I didn't have a lot of options. The next nearest shop was an hour's drive away and I just didn't have that time to spare.
I paid for the threads and driving home in the car repented of my uncharitable thoughts re the salesperson who took so long to transact my purchase. Once home, I opened the package and looked at the spools that I had bought. 100% cotton. Every. Last. One. Of. Them.
No wonder online shopping is so appealing. Sigh.
Comments