Another tip

Still quilting this Mariner’s compass. 

It was time to do the gold half squares.  I knew I wanted something triangular.  I found a feather pattern in my book. 
My book is a book of tips I’ve collected for myself; off the internet, out of old quilting magazines, just stuff I’ve gathered together.  Part of it is quilting templates that I can trace and use. 
I traced it and needle punched it and made 8 copies.

I quilted the first one through the paper and was not happy.  Something about my tension.  I had all these loops pull up when I pulled out the paper.  So, I tried something new.  I pounced through the needle punched paper.  First one was okay, but I had trouble keeping up with the dots when I quilted it.  On the next one, I spritzed it with hair spray and then pounced it.  That worked better, but still, by the time I was done, most of the chalk was gone. 
So, I pounced it and then took one of my Sewline marking pencils and marked over the dots and that stuck and I was very happy with the results. 

I will definitely use the pounce again to get the shape down, but then trace over that with something else.  It increases the time it takes, so that’s not such a good thing.  But, the accuracy makes up for it.  And, the visibility of the lines was perfect.
So, that’s a tip for all of us that don’t plan our quilts well enough to pre-mark them before we pin baste them. 
There is a time to plan and there is a time to fly by the seat of your pants and it takes wisdom to know the difference.
Be well.  I have the day off and Sydney and I are going to sand and paint the adirondack chairs on the front porch.  She wants to stencil leaves on them.  I am trying to open my mind and let her show off her talents.  And, trust that she can and will do it right.
Lane

P.S. about the pounce
This is my pounce.

It’s a plastic box. You pour chalk in that hole and inside the box is a fabric surface; like terry cloth.

 

You lay the pounce over the template and tap it (contrary to the name, you don’t pounce it. I believe the name derived from putting flour in a tea towel and pouncing that over a template to mark. This tool is a bit more refined and only needs a gentle tap.) Anyway, when you tap it, it causes the chalk to come through the terry cloth fabric and leave a mark on whatever it is sitting on. If that’s the template, then when you move the template, all that’s left are the lines where there was no template. Or, in my case, because I had needle punched, I got dots instead of lines and then I used a ceramic pencil to connect the dots.

Later.