D297-307: Back in a tick...

Sorry... sorry.  I know.

I finished the ring stacking toy.  It's not perfect but meh good enough.  I did not enjoy doing the base.  Bub does enjoy playing with it though.

I haven't gotten any further with the bell capsules, although the toys that they're to go in are sewn and awaiting this.  My sister suggested I buy a heap of Kinder Surprises and keep the toy container... very sensible and tempting.  I could also buy a pack of 30 for a bit over $30, which is a comparable price against the chocolates, per capsule, and also save me having to faff around with teeny toys.  Something about the website puts me off though.  I'm not sure what... it just took a long time to find a supplier who sold them in batches smaller than "500pc" or "3kg" and they're unfamiliar...  I'm so precious.

I have also basted the gifted quilt mentioned here.  I ended up getting some rather thing cotton batting and a plain mid dusty green fabric.  It's quite a heavy fabric with an open weave (I can't even remember what its called, for shame) but it matches the greens in the front quite well.  So far I've done about two thirds of the ditch stitching.  It took some adjusting of the tension before the lower thread stopped breaking when sewing at speed, even with a new needle and the bobbin case freshly oiled.

I also mended some pants for a friend, including using the blind-hem foot.  It wasn't quite as hidden as I'd have liked, but time and suspecting it wouldn't actually be better without pressing, re pressing, and possibly leaving a ridge there anyway.... I just didn't want to over engineer the whole thing and make it worse.  such the optimist.

In other news, Bub has slept through three times now.  THREE!  (Not in a row.)  And I don't mean one of those ridiculous 5-hours-is-a-technical-sleep-through but an actual 8pm-7am sleep.  She's 22mo this week and she's slept through the night three times in her life.  I'm hoping it's a trend.

D258-60: Happy Quilting Day!

Today is Worldwide Quilting Day!  I am very glad there is such a thing :D  I celebrated by buying a few quilting tools to see if they make life easier.

(The metal thimble is my usual, and the new plastic one is for quilters, but it's too big!  I'll have to make a fabric cap for my finger!  It's meant to be worn the other way around, I suspect, but I'm using it in place of my fingernail.)

I spoke with my sister-in-law a few nights ago, who has an extensive career as a seamstress and wedding dress maker.  She has made quite a few quilts but still doesn't count herself as much of a quilter...which means she knows waaaay more than me.

I've watched and read about the process of basting as a stitch, but how to approach a whole quilt is different.  I wanted to ask her about how to start, especially since my quilting will go from side to side.  A lot of the basting advice I've seen look like this:

1. Tape down backing squarely
2. Lay down batting
3. Lay down top quarterly
4. Begin in the middle and baste towards an edge, then the opposite edge.
5. Then baste from the middle to the other two edges.
6. Baste in even intervals parallel to both your first two basting lines (which will be in a cross form).

Then they talk about the quilting beginning from the middle and working it's way out.  

I've gotten a walking foot specially because I knew I'd be doing straight stitching on quilts - I love the repetition of straight lines in some modern designs - and I've had frustrating experiences with layers shuffling in the past.  I wondered if that might still be a problem with a walking foot and if basting would make a difference, and it does. So...

Tip of the day: If you're quilting path has a direction, baste perpendicular to that.  I'm basting in a north-south direction because my quilting will be east-west.

My basting is quite frequent, but I'm being finicky as I've not machine quilted before.  I ruined a fingernail (heavens!) with my straight-needle basting so I splurged $3 and bought a curved one.  

I'm not sure I love it yet - it's thick, it's hard to get a small stitch length and it's a bit flippy while wearing a thimble - but I suspect it's still better than a straight needle, especially if the holes can be worked out later.  The plastic thimble was in case the curved needles didn't workout, but I forgot how small my digits are - it almost slides to my second knuckle.  Still, trying out new toys is hardly a hard ask.  

Hope you were able to enjoy World Quilting Day somewhere too, even if it was simply to be under one! (A quilt, I mean, not a quilter.  Although...)