What’s a Compensating Foot

Over the last few months I have heard tons of people talking about a “Compensating Foot”, claiming that they were wonderful for attaching binding.

Since that is one of my LEAST favorite quilting tasks, I decided to get one and try it out.

When it arrived, I was interested to see that one side of the foot is lower than the other….

It is even more apparent when viewed from the front….

The idea being that you can put a fabric under the foot with the edge against the lowered edge….

…..and sew…..

I love that the stitching stays so very close to the edge….without having to control it myself!!

I used the foot when binding a recent charity quilt…..

….and it worked REALLY well…..

My only concern with the foot is that I normally use a walking foot so I have more control over the fluff of the batting.

I will need to try it on a few more bindings before I make up my mind.

If you have one, do you like it??

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The Joys of Uneven Block Borders

As you may remember from Thursday’s post…..

https://francesquilts.com/2024/06/06/one-top-finished

….I decided to use leftover blocks to finish the border but there weren’t enough to go all the way around.

This reminded me that UNEVEN block borders are so much faster and easier to make so I wanted to discuss it a bit here.

You see, if I was trying to fill the outside border with a certain size of block, I would have to do LOTS of math to be sure that they fit correctly.

I do enough math for work so I don’t want to do it unnecessarily in my studio!! Here is what I did instead…..

I first sewed background triangles to each side of the big triangles, making my “flying geese” blocks…..

They were not all even so I evened them up!!

First I measured 1/4-inch from the “goose” point and trimmed it straight. Then I measured out from that cut line and trimmed each of the blocks to the same width……

Most of the blocks trimmed okay, but one or two were not quite accurate in the corners…..

Normally this would be a major problem but, since I didn’t care if all of the blocks were the same length, I simply trimmed it off…..

Now I can lay out the border, leaving gaps in the center…..

I filled in the blank areas to finish the top…..

I think that the borders look great, they made use of “leftover” blocks and, very importantly, the top was easily finished!!

Have you used Uneven borders before? How did they work?

It’s New Blade time

A few days ago, after making FOUR cuts that I had to re-do, I realized that I needed to replace the blade in my rotary cutter…..

This should be a simple process, but I often get the order of the pieces confused or backwards or SOMETHING, so this time I decided to fix that particularly problem!!

I laid out a tissue and carefully dismantled the rotary cutter, placing each part on the tissue in the way that it came off…..

Next I took the blade off and stored it in the “OLD” blade holder….

Next, I did something that I have never done before. I took an alcohol swab and cleaned the screw plate….

YUK!! I am glad that didn’t get onto my fabric!!

I also did the same thing when I pulled out the new blade. It was covered with the grease that they store the blades in and, once again, I didn’t want that oil on my fabric…..

Finally, I put it back together…..

….and gave it a test…..

PERFECT!!!

And I never ONCE worried about whether I was putting it together right!!

I am sure that many of you already use this plan but it was new to me!!

And I will definitely do this every time I change the blade!!

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On Tuesdays, I provide a tip, technique, or product review. Please subscribe to the blog to ensure that you don’t miss ANY of them!!

Never Mind!!

Back in January, I talked about clearing my “To-Do” list using the mantra…..”Now, Soon, Later & Never mind!”….

My TO-DO List is TOO long!!

This past week I decided to make use of the last item in the mantra…..

It all stems back to two color challenges that I did in 2021 and 2022.

Untitled design – 1

I had so much fun playing with the colors, matching them to the food and spice inspirations, and it was a great way to explore my fabric stash.

At the end of the first year, I decided to do the second year before I turned it into a quilt. In retrospect, they may have been a bad idea!!

So….here we are in 2024, and I still haven’t made the quilt although it is weighing heavily on my mind!

I pulled out the 6-inch blocks and put them up on my design wall…..

OKAY….that isn’t very inspiring!!

What if I change the format….maybe this…..

NOPE!

Maybe on-point will be better….

I did like that better, but honestly had NO enthusiasm for the project.

I looked at the wall for about 30 minutes and then made a decision…..

GET RID OF IT!!!

My guild charity bee has several people who have the gift of turning orphan blocks into quilts so I packaged up the blocks, along with a bit of background fabric that I had left over, and GIFTED it to them!!

It is now off of my list and OUT of my mind!!!

LIFE IS GOOD!!!