I'm almost finished with my #hexesandexes quilt! I sat at the machine for quite a while yesterday and a few thoughts came to mind. I thought I'd share them with you. :o)
- 'Y' seams aren't that bad after all. I think I should re-name them "Why are people so afraid of these- seams" I took lots of pics so I can share them in my tutorial.
- Sewing is like exercise. When you do it often your body gets used to it. When you don't do it as often you can get injured and become sore. My finger is sore from lifting the presser foot up and down so many times. I burned my arm on the iron. And my back is tight from sitting at the machine for 3 hours.
- Making a quilt using OOP fabrics has been an adventure. I've recognized the kindness of quilter friends around the globe as other fabric enthusiasts have shared their prized stash with me. I've been able to pay it forward. The other day at the fabric store a woman needed more of a print than the 1/3 yard the store had left. I recognized it as one I had at home. Once I located it I called her and took it to her. Her smile and gratitude was payment enough.
- When you are excited about a project/ quilt it is so much easier to sit (for hours) and work on it. "Have to" projects just don't have that same pull.
- Writing a tutorial for a quilt requires a lot of pictures. I forget to take pictures sometimes. Other times I take a million. I think I have over 50 for this tute so far. I have a lot of editing to do!
Now for a question for you:
I can't decide how to finish the back of this quilt.
On one hand I can use leftover scraps and blocks to piece a back and then quilt the quilt myself.
On the other hand, I don't have a minkie backed quilt so putting minkie on it would be so cozy. But then I'd have to buy the minkie and pay for the quilting as I can't do it on my home machine (I've tried- it's not pretty). So what are your thoughts? Pieced back or minkie?
7 comments:
I just finished quilting minkie onto the back of a quilt on my home machine. You can, too! Baste the snot out of it (I used pins, but I've heard you can use spray, if that's your thing), get a ball point needle, instead of a sharp, and use a walking foot, if you're straight-line quilting. It was SO SOFT! I think I need to have one for my very own.
On the other hand, I usually use more fabric on the back and mimic or complement the design on the front.
Minkie makes for such a cozy quilt back, but it is hard to work with due to the stretch factor, and lots of fuzz going around. I think this quilt would look better with a pieced back of some of the same fabrics, though. It's a beautiful top.
lol! I have the same feeling about y-seams now, too. I do remember being daunted by them, but they're soooo easy once you're used to them.
Being in a financial tighter-than-usual year for us, I can more easily vote for not using minky if it's not a good time to have to pay a longarmer. That quilt would be fab with a minky back, but you can always make another quilt specifically to get minky backing later on when it's better on the wallet. :)
Will you always look at the quilt and think you should have used minkie? If so, then go for it. If it were me, I would just piece the back, but that's because my quilting budget has been slashed to next to nothing.
Pieced back. If you're anything like me, it feels SO GOOD to use up fabric that's on hand. And it takes time to piece a back, so you've made the effort to make the quilt more unique. I've worked with Minkee, and as nice as it is to touch, it's a bugger to work with. Stick with the cotton stuff to make your life easier. All this is, of course, is in my experienced humble opinion.
I love your hexesandexes top. Yeah, the minkee would be soft but I think it would look better being pieced. It seems like we're all in the same boat when it comes to backing and paying for quilting. Times seems to be getting tougher so we make sacrifices where we can. I think the back would be great if you used some of the darker grey/black for a large part of it.
use flannel instead; it's easy to find and it makes the back so soft. It is also fairly easy to work with. I make pieced backs on most of my quilts using flannel and sometimes regular cotton left over from the front.
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