Before and After

You might say it's been a before-and-after week.

The third triple-arched window quilt has been blocked, and just needs squaring, trimming and binding. Fabric for the binding had to be ordered--nothing in the stash worked. Anyway, here's another great example of what a difference blocking makes. I never get tired of saying that, and really I don't have to...the photos say it all.

BEFORE

AFTER...and yes, it stays that way!

'Nuff said. Except this: I used to block quilts with a grab-bag of things like corrugated boxes or cutting mats plus flannel-backed vinyl tablecloths and folded sheets, both flannel and cotton. Everything but the box or cutting mat would have to be smoothed as much as possible (I refuse to iron sheets) before pinning the quilt down through it all with t-pins.

And then last year I saw these on a knitting podcast...

...and I'll never go back. These are WONDERFUL. T-pins come with them, and easily pierce the semi-firm rubber foam. I bought two sets (a total of 18 interlocking pieces) so that I can put together a blocking mat large enough for a good-sized landscape quilt or for all the knitted pieces of a sweater at once. Great for either a table or the floor, and you can use steam to block (iron hovering only--no pressing). Here are a couple of photos of the mat in action (click to enlarge):


Left: Laying out the third triple-arched window quilt.

Right: Front piece of NaCraga, an Aran sweater pattern by Alice Starmore.



On to project two: The underwater scene background is quilted now--though not at all densely, in order to keep it from shrinking too much vertically. Otherwise the placement of all the fish and turtles would have changed considerably and they would have been more crowded.

Before quilting

After quilting

You might have to click on each one of these to see any change, but the second one is quilted. I loved the variegated background so much that I wanted no change in appearance after quilting it. So I visually divided it into nine vertical horizontal sections (marked with horizontal pins in the photo below) and matched each one as best I could to one of my Isacord thread colors. It worked out pretty well.

Next comes the gluing and fusing. I took several closeups of the layout so that I can put all the fish, turtles and plants back where they were (see previous blog post). I still like the look and don't plan on changing anything.

Have a great weekend!

Linda