SUCH FUN!!!

I had almost too much fun today!  I went this morning to The Fabric Nook, located in our local IDA and bought a WHACK!! of material.

This first set of fabrics, nearest the camera, are from a range of fabrics that I used to demonstrate "Disappearing 4 Patch" last year.  I have 13 finished blocks from that day, but had run out of fabrics to make more of the same.  Last week I saw this same fabric range on the cutting table and was delighted to know that I could now buy what I needed to finished up 42 blocks for a whole new large lap quilt.

Then Angie and I picked out this middle stack of fabrics for the "demo" day in June when I will show how to make the 3D pinwheels for a baby quilt.  The purple on the left will be used for the pinwheels, the inner border and the binding.  The yellow to the right of it, which is repeated later on, will be the border.  The other seven fabrics, including the repeat of the yellow will be the big 4 patch squares that make up the body of the quilt and also the background for the pinwheels.  I bought enough to make 2 quilts like that.  I will have them cut out and the 4 patch blocks sewn before the "demo" day.

My last purchase was this beautiful blue fabric with clouds, along with the purple, red, blue, and green.  These are to make a pillow for an inspiration for another use for 3D pinwheels.  One side of the 14" pillow will be one big pinwheel.  The other side will be four smaller pinwheels.  All this just to give ideas of how to incorporate 3D pinwheels into smaller projects. 

I had made a mid-size bag over the last weekend of denim with an orange pinwheel on it, but neglected to take a picture.  That bag is already over at IDA, so I will have to take my camera in some time to get a photo of that project.

 Then I noticed some very attractive panels folded up and lying on top of some fabric bolts.  I had an idea!  If I would take a panel and make it into a nice lap quilt that they could display, people would be enticed into buying the panel and fabric for that project.  So we added a panel and some bright gold and purple for borders to my stack.

When I got home I started on the borders for the panel.  Bigger side borders and smaller top and bottom borders because the panel is quite long for how wide it is.  Then I planned equal 5" borders on each side.  I usually sew two WOF strips together for one of the long borders, trim it to fit and sew what's left onto another strip for the other long border.  I did that first. 

Then I took one of the WOF strips for the short border, but happened to notice that it was precisely the right length for the long side.  So I sewed both long sides onto the panel.  Now for the top and bottom.  And to my great surprise, the WOF strip was precisely the right length for the shorter sides, the top and bottom, JUST THE WAY IT WAS!  It fit exactly.  Now how often does it happen even once in a project the the strip fits perfectly?  

Oh, but alas!  The reason the top and bottom strips fit was because of a mistake in sewing on the side borders!  I had inadvertently used not the WOF 5 1/4" strips for both of the side borders.  One of the strips sewed on here was the remnant left when I cut five 5 1/4" strips.  It was only 4" finished, compared with the 5" finished on the other side.  OOPS!!!

I decided to use the two 5 1/4" strips sewed end to end for a binding, and trimmed an inch off the fatter side border.  So now I have a kind of goofy quilt: the inner border is fat on the sides and skinny on the top and bottom, and the outer border is fat on the top and bottom and skinny on the sides.  

Should I cut an inch off the top and bottom to even things out?  Maybe......

In the meantime I had washed the flannel for the backing of the lap quilt, using a "colour catcher" to see if that fabric would run or not.  Well....the colour catcher on the right is what came out of the washer.  It's the exact same colour as the fabric, meaning the it runs like mad.  So I put about 3 1/2 quarts of very hot water into a big pail, added 6 tablespoons of the Rit Colour Stay to the water and put in the length of fabric.  Soaked it for about 30 minutes, stirring it around once in a while.  Then I washed it again with another colour catcher, and here's the result.  In the second wash it didn't bleed at all.  That's evident from the colour catcher on the left.

I can heartily recommend Rit Colour Stay for treating fabrics that bleed colour.  I do find it important to prewash flannels, which not only tend to bleed colour but also tend to shrink up a bit.

As I said, almost too much fun with fabric today.  I feel a little giddy.  Time to sit down with a cup of herbal tea and plan our dinner for today.