Magic Cube III

Tags

basting, black, fabric, folding, magic cube, paper, red, toy, white

(c) 2015 by hs

I made a magic cube years and years ago. And thought it would be fun to do another which I did. But it was no fun at all. I had a hard time matching the sides and the corners in particular, pricking myself constantly.

(c) 2015 by hs

A work mate of mine very much liked my first magic cube. Initially I brought it to work in order to show it especially to him because he had designed a similar kind of folding cube for one of our clients as a giveaway. He was decently impressed that a child’s toy version of “his” cube existed and so it stayed on in my office and we all are constantly playing with it. What he never liked, though, was my choice of fabrics. After he repeatedly complained about this, I resolved to make him a cube of his own—in his colours. Which is easy, because he is fan of the soccer club Eintracht Frankfurt. Their colours are black, white, and red, and if he would be in authority there would be no other colours in the world.

His birthday slowly nearing, I somewhat reluctantly sat out to get it over with. But this time I resolved to put some time into basting the fabric pieces on paper first. And that was doing the trick!

(c) 2015 by hs

The cube came together in no time. Well, not exactly, because there are plenty of seams to be done. But it felt like no time at all. I had no difficulty at all in matching the corners, and pricked myself zero times. I had some fear of forgetting to pull out the paper in time but I constantly checked before sewing if this side would be the last of this fabric square and so all went well.

(c) 2015 by hs

I am excessively pleased with the result and hope that he will be, too.

(c) 2015 by hs

(c) 2015 by hs

(c) 2015 by hs

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Basting without kneeling

Tags

baste, basting, farmer's wife, farmer’s wife quilt, quilt, quilt borders, turquoise

(c) 2014 by hs

My Farmer’s Wife quilt has now two borders, an 1 inch grey polka dot, and a 4 inch white and light blue stripe. Since I moved in my flat in September, this is the first big quilt I wanted to baste. I used to do it on the floor, usually in our dining room which is tiled. I moved the table and chairs to the side and crawled on my knees for one or two hours.

(c) 2014 by hs

Now, I have a light-coloured laminate floor in all rooms—not fit for scratching needles. So I pondered over an alternative way of basting my quilt and came across this method on Pinterest:

(c) 2014 by hs

I wrapped the backing fabric and the quilt top around two boards I bought in a hardware store.

(c) 2014 by hs

Then I began to uncoil them on my dining room table, letting the batting float in between. I smoothed out any wrinkles while going and started pinning. When I was done with the section on the table, I pulled it to the side and let it hang off the table, then unrolling another section of top and back.

(c) 2014 by hs

I admit that I had some doubts as to the exact direction of the three layers and any wrinkles since I was used to fix the top and the back on the floor with some tension. Moreover, it was somewhat exciting whether the backing and batting would be long enough or one of them would end before I had completely unrolled the top—but of course my measuring was correct and everything went well. I was done in no time—or so it seemed to me. And neither my back nor my knees ached the least bit!

I decided to quilt every one of the 110 squares individually, making the design up as I go. I am looking forward to “re-visiting” them all.

Layer, baste, and quilt

Tags

America the Beautiful, baste, basting, quilt sandwich, quilt top, quilting

This is always the final instruction, the last step of each quilt pattern in McCalls Quilting Magazine. “Layer, baste, and quilt.” Like “Ready, steady, go!“ or some spell that—if pronounced correctly—will magically turn your quilt top into a quilt sandwich, a flock of small silver needles busily coming up and down through the fabric layers, threads buzzing so fast that you can hardly make them out. Wouldn’t that be nice!

I always found it a little strange that the task of quilting your quilt is described only in one step, a short paragraph. Of course, there is no need for step-by-step photos for this process. But considering how much work still lies ahead and how long it will take, I always thought quilting your quilt would need a little more than this.

I am often inspired by seeing what other people did. I get my best ideas by looking at other people’s works. So I would appreciate more detailed photos of the quilt patterns in McCalls. If I can have a close look I am quick to decide if I like it or not. And if not, what would work better (with my taste). In rough, this is one possible way to make decisions on how to quilt, where and what, and how much.

© 2011 by Heike Scharmann

Layer, baste, and quilt apparently is not a spell. In fact, it means that I must leave my sewing space, move the dinner table and chairs to make room for—this time—America the Beautiful, 73 to 95 inches. This always means some havoc, and I need to make sure either that I have time enough to do all the basting at once, or that we do not need the dining room for some time.

Furthermore, it appears that this work does not agree with my knees anymore. I always felt a little sore at my knees and my fingertips after crawling for two hours on our tiled floor and pulling up the needle so many times, or recently pulling up and closing so many safety pins. But now my knees have reached an age where they demand at least a cushion.

I promise you now that I will post some detail photos of my quilting as soon as I am done.

© 2011 by Heike Scharmann

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