Saturday, January 21, 2012

What was I thinking?

12Jan20stipple First of all, I’ve been practicing my free motion stippling. Quilter, teacher and blogger Leah Day has us stippling in rows this week. I was having trouble with her instructions last week because her stippling has more of a pattern than my random mess, but not enough of a pattern to be able to duplicate it. I tried to copy it on a piece of paper and then sew it, but it looked awful – full of jaggies and uneven stitching that you get when you forget what you’re doing. I didn’t think I was ready for stippling in rows, but I had some time tonight so I did some sewing before I could think myself out of it. And I had fun.

Started off with some sharp corners, but it was coming out much better by the time I was done. Instead of trying to memorize all of her stippling patterns, I remembered two that went together well and displayed enough randomness that most people wouldn’t know that it wasn’t all random. I was having a hard time at first doing the alternating lines “upside down” until I gave up and improvised for the bits that came out “backwards”. Just need to keep practicing on that stitch length, for one thing. I’m still drawing pencil grids so I can be aware of how big my pattern is. A little more practicing this way and I should be able to stop using them.

12Jan20quilt I’ve been using Aurifil 50 wt polyester in the bobbin and as my top thread. It sews nicely, but does it ever leave a lot of fuzz behind! I’ve never used a thread that has left so much lint for me to pull out of my machine. The price you pay, I guess. Just keep your lint brush handy.

Back to my Mexican Star. I decided after the last post that I did indeed like my inner borders after all, and that my plans for the corners were going to fit. I 12Jan20quiltB stitched one together just to make sure… but when I cut the filler triangles, I was thinking that I could cut them a half inch smaller than the Half Square Triangles, because you cut the HSTs bigger to allow for two sets of seam allowances.

D’uh. I left the first square the same size as the HSTs. The second one I trimmed – trimmed the seam allowance off! I’m going to have to that the corner apart – the last two rows of it anyway – and replace those triangles with bigger ones. Hopefully I’ll have enough fabric to do that. I’m getting quite low on the yellow. Such a shame if I had to buy more. :-)

Until next time,

1 comment:

  1. I really like your stippling, particularly the overhanging bits. That makes it look very interesting.

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