Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Late-Night Experimenting

Hello, everyone!

Just zipping in with a quick WIP Wednesday update--it's a gorgeous day here, so I'm headed out for a long walk soon. This past week has seen me working on my Kaleidoscope quilt (which included a clean-and-oil of my little Husqvie and some musing on how she talks to me), with a break for a sewing project I can't quite show you yet. :)

Last night I finished my layout, and started sewing blocks together:

Kaleidoscope: Layout!

That's where the experimentation came in.



I've seen recommendations to use starch in these blocks, since there's so many seams on the bias, but I hadn't starched anything yet--and I've got the quarter-blocks all together! SO the question becomes: does starching help from here on out? And when is the best time to do it?

I tried block #1 without any starch at all, and sewed like I did when constructing the quarter-blocks, from the big end of the wedge toward the point. I pressed everything toward the dark fabrics, and I was thankful for the 67 blocks of practice I had with the Tweetygigs quilt when I was matching points! The first block came out pretty well, with just a little waviness:

Kaleidoscope: First block

For block #2, I sewed the quarter-blocks into half-blocks first, and then starched the two halves before the final seam. (I pressed the final seam open on all my blocks.) The points came out nice!

Kaleidoscope block 2

But the ripples, I'm not so fond of.

Kaleidoscope block 2

On block 3, I decided to starch earlier in the process--adding the spray starch to the quarter-blocks, and only then sewing the half-block seams and the final seam. This seems to be the magic thing, for me at least!

Kaleidoscope: Block 3

The block went together well, and it lies flat as you please. It'll be a bit of an extra step to starch all those quarter-blocks, but I think it'll be worth it to keep from dealing with too much distortion in my blocks!


This week's stats:
New projects: 1 (the secret project)
Completed projects: 1 (the secret project got done, too!)
In progress: 7

WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced

13 comments:

  1. I love the colors! They're so bright and fun. Great job on the quilt.

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  2. Very nice! I love the way the top is coming together!

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  3. Hmm, starch. That might've been an idea for the kaleido, mental note to self!

    It's looking good!

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  4. Great color combo!! I've never used starch... your blocks look great though! I may have to give it a try...

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  5. So fun and bright! I love it! Thanks for experimenting with the starch and posting your results. I haven't used starch before so I learn a lot!

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  6. wow - your kaleidoscope is really fun with all those brights!

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  7. I just realized I missed the jump in your post - very interesting about the starch results! Too bad my blocks are already done - but I'll go back & try the starch on them before I piece the rows together. Thanks.

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  8. I've never tried using triangles at the corners but always set in squares. Yours looks a lot easier to put together starch or no starch. I like those bright colors.

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  9. Isn't it crazy how a little thing will make a big difference in the outcome?

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  10. Wow! This is gorgeous! Love your take on the kaleidoscope!

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  11. Thanks for the tips! I haven't pieced my blocks yet, so this is really helpful.

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  12. Coloooooorrrs! <3 <3 <3

    I do not know how you do this, but I sure enjoy seeing the results.

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