February | 2015 | Quilted Impressions

I get asked a lot about taming wavy borders and my best answer is to avoid them in the first place. You may already know what ‘squaring up’ means and may want a refresher. If you don’t then I want to offer a link to the best example of squaring up blocks I have found. Its a short video by Bonnie Hunter. In this video Bonnie shows how to square up a small square in a square block. http://quiltville.blogspot.com/2015/02/5quaring-up-square-in-square.html

Squaring up the blocks before putting them together will help avoid the excess on the outside edge of your quilt. Fullness issues generally begin in the center of the quilt & amplify the problem until it gets out of control right before adding a border.

As you put your blocks together continue to lay the quilt out on a flat surface, the floor works great, and see if things are laying flat as you go. If not, fix the problem. If you don’t it will only get worse the farther out you go.

In addition, I like to suggest using some spray starch or sizing when you press your fabric before cutting it out. This will help keep the fabrics from stretching when cutting & piecing.

Enjoy the video & if you haven’t been to Bonnies blog you are in for a treat!

It may be too cold to go out, but its never too cold to quilt!

I know its supposed to be March that is “In like a Lion & out like a lamb”, but February seems to be the Lion so far. Last night it finally stopped snowing & left 15″ of snow on the deck & more in drifts. Today all quilt drop off & pick ups are canceled unless you like pushing your car. That also means I’m not leaving home for a couple days but will still be working on the customer quilts I have in house.

I just returned from retreat yesterday. Its always a lot of fun & nice to get to work on some projects and see what others are making. The Kettunen Center is a nice place to stay in and sew. The work room fit about 22 of us comfortably and our sleeping rooms are just down the hallway. The center is a 4H complex. This weekend was also Winter Fest. The kids were enjoying a lot of fun activities both inside & out. I saw a few classrooms that looks so interesting I almost had to stop sewing & join them. There was snowshoeing, cooking outside, archery, photography, even dog sledding classes.

This is one new quilt I’m working on. The quilt is Amish Squares which is in the book Amish Quilts the Adventure Continues by Lynn Koolish. I saw this quilt hanging in Lolly’s at Shipshewana this summer and had to make it. This is one of 9 colors that will be paired with black.

The other project I worked on was a Disappearing Hourglass pattern from Missouri Star Quilts. I was using a layer cake fabric by Moda called Kahuna. Its a very pretty variety of Hawaiian prints. I’m about halfway finished with the blocks.