Thursday was an exciting day because I got TWO pieces of good news.
First of all, I learned that my quilt “Sadie The Saddle-Billed Stork” was awarded an Honorable Mention ribbon in the “Art – Realistic” category at the “Georgia Celebrates Quilts” show……
I was excited to hear that my friend Rosie’s quilt was awarded the OTHER H-M ribbon in the category!!
THEN….that afternoon, I got the email that my quilt, “I Remember” was accepted into the Cherrywood Poppy Challenge…..
I cant wait to see it hanging at Houston in November!!
Back in December, I received two REJECTIONS in one day, and I must say, THIS is loads better!!!
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Yesterday I had finished the quilting and facing which means that the challenge was ALMOST finished.
The finale was to add the ribbons, awards and insignia. It was so satisfying to sew and pin each of the pieces on…..
….remembering my Dad with each item!!
I was thinking that the quilt was finished and I suddenly remembered that I hadn’t added a poppy…..
TO THE POPPY CHALLENGE!!!
My original plan was to make it fairly light and frilly but changed my mind to make it look more like the paper ones that people buy and wear….
I quickly fused the fabrics together and rough cut two poppies and a leaf. I had also thought about adding a fuzzy center or beading or something along those lines, but finally elected to sew it in place and then add a few details with a Fabrico marker….
Once finished it was time to photograph it to prove that it was EXACTLY 20-inches…..
It has now been submitted to the challenge. I have seen a number of submissions online and I have to say that there is a lot of STIFF competition!!
Regardless of whether this quilt is accepted into the challenge, it will always be a wonderful reminder of my Dad!!
As soon as I finished this piece, I returned to my “taxing scrap” quilt and am looking forward to showing you where it is now!!
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When I left you on Thursday, I was having lunch, thinking about why I didn’t like the current version of my quilt…..
Then it hit me…..
The red border just trails into nowhere!! It needed to make a full box, something like this…..
I also auditioned it with a cut-out like I had at the bottom….
….but I didn’t like it!! Whew….that makes it a little easier!!
But, to do what I wanted, I had to do a LOT MORE MATH, giving myself room for the lettering to fit without being squished AND room for the 1.625-inch (3-part) border.
Let’s just say that there were a lot of measurements taken and a lot of pencil marks drawn before I felt comfortable with my calculations…..
Before I could start sewing, I had to rip out some of the grey border…..
I momentarily thought about cutting the grey off but, fortunately, realized that I would have an unwanted seam there if I did that!!
Fairly quickly, I had the borders added with the top measuring about 23-inches square…..
I spaced out the letters and fused them in place…..
….and the top was ready to quilt…..
I headed to the garage and basted it together using 505 Spray…..
I was a bit concerned with the weight of the medals causing issues, so I used a double batting…..cotton on the back and wool on the top. I am thinking that the puffiness of the wool will help fill out the uniform. It looks kind of flat right now!!
I was so intent on the quilting that I forgot to take photos or video, but suffice it to say that I spent a lot of time changing thread colors, forcing my needle through 7+ layers of fabric and batting and generally praying that I didn’t mess it up!!
Then it was time to trim it down to the final size….20-1/2-inches (giving me 1/4-inch on each side to add the facing.
But now the wool batting was causing issues!! Because of the puffiness, the top had shifted some and this red corner wasn’t square….
I had started going thru scenarios where I took out the quilting in that corner and re-pieced the borders when I thought….
WHAT happens if I flatten out the top REALLY well using Magic Sizing???
And look, now that corner is magically square again…..
WHEW!!!
Again, after an extraordinary number of measurements, I made the final cuts….
I wanted to face the quilt using the grey fabric but all I had were a bunch of smallish pieces, so I sewed them together and hoped to have enough…..
To avoid bulk, I chose to open my seams and also didn’t fold the binding in half. I am hoping that just having one layer of fabric in the seam allowance will make it easier to turn to the back!!
Here it is turned and ready to be hand-sewn in place…..
….and YES….it measures EXACTLY 20-inches!!
Come back tomorrow and we will get it finished up and ready to enter.
Oh….maybe I should add a Poppy…..since that IS the name of the challenge!!
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Yesterday I titled my post “Remembering with Cherrywood”. Today’s post might be called “Cursing With Cherrywood” because…..
Now it was time to do the math!
I am a CPA by trade and I love Math, but not when a single wrong cut would ruin everything and there isn’t fabric to start over!!
Measuring showed me that the uniform took up 16.75-inches…..
….leaving 3.25 inches to play with and that 3.25 had to be divided by two…..so 1.625-inch borders were required.
AND, those 1.625-inch borders were divided into THREE strips!!
YIKES Frances….can’t you make anything easy!!!
I knew that I was going to want a little leeway in the final border so finally came to the conclusion that the first grey border and the red border would be 1/2-inch and the final grey border would be approximately 3/4-inch…..or however wide it needed to be to fit the 20-inch parameter.
Now, there was no way I was going to cut strips that would piece to 1/2-inch, so I decided to make them larger and then cut them down once they were applied!!
GOOD PLAN!!
The first border looked okay…..
Let’s add the top border. This one was going to be much wider and was greatly complicated by all of the bulk of lapels, shirts, epaulets, etc!!
I measured, re-measured,and measured again and then stabilized my ruler….said a little prayer….and made the cut…..
The top fabric was added and we were cookin-with-gas!!
If you noticed, when I was auditioning the red strip, I didn’t have enough fabric for it to meet in the center of the bottom….
I decided that I kind of liked that break, so I pieced it in…..
Now that I was happy with the red border, it was time to trim it down…..NOT TO 1/2-inch but to 3/4-inch…..
YESSSS…. I almost made that mistake!!
I added the last grey border, replaced the letters and stepped back to admire my handiwork……
But something didn’t look right!!
So what did I do……fixed lunch, sat on the deck and read for an hour and thought about it!!
Come back Saturday for the solution…..
Meanwhile, don’t miss tomorrows finish of Quilted Mandala #5. It is a favorite!!
