1/4/10

Submit to my will

I've talked often about blocking my quilts and making them submit to the shape I have in mind. And, I never tire of sharing information. Many of my quilts are wallhangings and now I've made two quilted table toppers. I want these quilts to be square and all the edges be straight. Often, there's a shape in a quilt that doesn't want to come out perfectly square and wouldn't if I left them alone. The binding on the round quilt was not stretched and caused the edge to fold up like a bowl. But, by blocking, I can make the quilt come out exactly like I want. I can even make a single block that isn't exactly square come out square.

Here's a picture of the two most recent finishes being blocked. They'd been washed and then were pinned to the floor on top of towels. This morning, when they were dry, they were pretty stiff and perfectly shaped. I even pinned down all the points on the medallion to make sure they were straight and fanned out. Now that they've dried how I want them to, they'll lay like that until/unless they get wet again or wadded/folded up.



Now, I wonder how many pins it would take to get Sydney to bend to my will?????

Well, it's back to work for me today and Sydney gets to enjoy her last day out of school. I'm currently composing an email to the school about the trouble on the last day and hope that I can straighten that out with a minimum of having to deal with authority figures. But, at the same time, I want her to have to face her own music. There's only so much we can do and for the rest, we rely on our village to help out.

Hope everyone is having a wonderful Jan 4. I think the next thing I'll be posting is the quilted pillow shams I'm working on for Sydney's bed. They're coming along fine, although a little slow. Nothing like working without a pattern. Take care. Lane

3 comments:

Barb said...

You changed your blog, nice!!

oldbatt said...

I've always wondered about blocking a quilt and why you do it and when. Thanks for the info! Lisa

Vesuviusmama said...

So that's how you do it! I may give that a try with a flannel quilt I made recently that is anything BUT a square. (and don't you DARE pin that girl! :) )