I took a break from handwork yesterday to machine quilt a quilt for a customer. It took most of the day and when I was finished I decided to try an idea I have been contemplating for awhile.
The idea: sew a crazy patched quilt on the longarm. I envisioned using the stitch and flip method while the backing was held taut. Seemed easy enough.
I figured I would start with a lap sized fleece blanket area. So I loaded a twin sheet and added a very thin blanket from my stash. Then I gathered a pile of miscellaneous cotton clothes I could cut up. My goal was to use large pieces & to machine quilt the various patches.
Well, a few minutes into the idea I could see this was more work on the longarm than it would be on the domestic machine. I'm not good at all with longarm rulers and I couldn't freehand a straight enough seamline to save myself. So I took it off the longarm and finished it on the domestic machine.
Toward the end I thought about putting the quilt back on the longarm to machine quilt it. But, it's soft and drapes well now. And, I have enough on my To Do List without adding more time to this project. I even thought of using it as an "art" background and further patching it with raw edge snippets and patches. Then I remembered the pile I have already that are going nowhere fast.
I pulled out some leftover binding pieces. I think I'll finish it up as a little lap quilt for the Houston Furniture Bank. Someone in Houston wants this quilt. I'm sure of it.
It's a good idea & it probably only took about 2 hours to get it to this stage. Maybe another hour to square it up and bind it. As donation quilts go that's very fast. And, it's very usable for a child or an adult.
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I’m glad you satisfied your curiosity, and now you know this is one of those things the domestic machine does better than the long arm. Those are some nice prints, I’m sure someone will be very happy with this quilt.
ReplyDeleteA couple of men's shirts, one of Laura's old sundresses, a piece of very vintage waverly print and some pillow shams. I could certainly visualize sewing more of these CQ quilts to use up some big pieces of fabric or more clothes I bought for patchwork. Now that I know they are a pain on the longarm, I might think about piecing them without the fleece & batting and then putting on the longarm for some funky swirly quilting. Working the fun embroidery has really liberated my thinking. We might as well do what's fun, right?
Deletelooking great.
ReplyDeleteI have always loved your raw-edge strip pieced quilts. I wonder if you could do something similar with the crazy piecing. Maybe hold the shapes together with a dab of glue....hmmmm.
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