The Latest Quilt Repairs

I un-sewed the old binding, removing the machine top-stitching and the hand sewing. It was pretty much of a mess, worn to shreds, but still close to it's original Kelly green.  That binding, I always wonder why it was chosen.  Of course when it was new, the colors of the quilt were much brighter and included most colors there are. So, maybe it looked good then. In the quilt's present state of faded muted colors, it shouted a bit. However, when I got it all off, so it was no longer bound by such a dark contrast, I felt I had done the quilt a favor. It now looked calm, not a confined by it's dark fence.

Modern quilts are often bound with straight grain binding. It takes less fabric and doesn't stretch if handled properly.

Traditionally quilts are bound with a strip of bias fabric.  It is said to wear better. This quilt requires it with it's scalloped edges.  One of the properties of bias is it's stretchabilty. For the binding to lie flat when finished I would have to encourage it's stretchable tendencies.

Around the convexities of the scallops I needed to stretch sideways on the binding while guiding the quilt and the binding under the foot of the sewing machine so as to give the fabric enough width to cup over the curve when turned to the back. You can see in the photo above, I used a stiletto to help encourage the fullness into the fabric.

In the short concave curved space between the scallops I needed to pull on the binding gently while sewing it on.

It took a long time. It was rather tedious to tell the truth. It reminded me of setting sleeve caps, except that there were twenty of them.

I will turn the binding and sew it on by hand. that part is relaxing at least, even if it will take a while to do.

First week of August Gone

I think, living in Florida, that August is the cruelest month.  It's generally hot and humid. There are brief respites especially when we have a sudden rain in the afternoon to break the back of the heat of the day. But then, getting older means that joints are more likely to become predictors of those rain storms by their aching. I'll be glad when it's over, this August. Maybe next year I can think far enough ahead to be somewhere else in August.

This particular week I spent three mornings at KinderCamp in the land of  "criss-cross, applesauce" (I talked about this here) and "bubbles and tails" a local elementary school.  KinderCamp strives to introduce 5-year-olds to the wonderful world of Kindergarten. The first two days I took a little of the pressure off the teachers by reassuring a few crying children that this would not only not last forever, but that books held some secret fun and by wasting time crying, we might be missing something interesting. By my return on Thursday almost everyone was finished with the crying thing.

I was reassured that I don't want a full-time job in a school. It's too much for me at this stage. I'll stick to volunteering when I have time.

I volunteered for an editing job for a pattern designer, and she is going to trust me with looking over her work.  She designs bags and purses and that sort of thing.  She may give me a pattern for free as payment. It appears that this sort of thing is the norm among the "indie" designers, especially those patterning for children's clothes and for bags. Usually they call for "pattern testers" and I have responded to a couple of those. I have not been chosen.  However, with this particular one I offered to vet her work since English is not her first language and she appears to have a real desire to produce a quality, highly usable product.  I admire that.

It's 4:30 pm and dark as twilight as today's afternoon rain pours down.

Not So Much To Write Home About

...or to blog about either I guess.  In the past week during the time I've worked on the quilt repair, I have completed replacing the missing patches with the vintage fabric. During the process I relocated the eighth missing patch I had seen originally when I first got the quilt, but had not seen during the thorough search and charting of the places needing work.  I had enough replacement fabric, so no problem, but it goes to show how careful you need to be in examining for areas needing work.  I also came across several more places where seams had come undone.

I have not done any re-quilting yet, but needed a slight change in activity, so I have started to unsew the binding. I think it was commercially made double fold tape and has done a great job in protecting the edge of the quilt. It is really nearly in shreds in places.  The person applying the binding  used an unusual technique in that on the front of the quilt the binding is top-stitched in place by machine. On the back side it has been tacked down by hand in places.  I will also do one line of machine stitching and one of hand stitching, however I will put right sides together when doing the machine stitching and then flip the tape to the back and hand sew it in place.  My machine stitching won't show.

I figured out roughly how much binding I will need. The edge is scalloped so I came up with a figure of about 9 yards. The fabric I ordered has arrived and has been washed and dried. It is a blender fabric and the pattern is called "Sponged" like the painting technique that gives you several shades of the same color.  Here's a photo of the fabric under the edge of the quilt (with the binding removed.)

As you can see, there are quite a few patches in that same color family in the quilt. I think that it will give the quilt a whole new look.

WIP (Work in Progress)

It's been a relatively busy week, but today I was able to get back to the Quilt Repair Project. I started replacing the patches that were made of a black and white print fabric that have totally deteriorated over the years, leaving holes in the quilt. As I've said before, the fabric I'm using for repair is a scrap of feed-sack fabric that looks to be "vintage" like the quilt, in purple and white print.  Tiny bits of the original black and white fabric still can be found in the seams around the patches, but can be pulled out easily, thread by thread. If they are in the way of what I am trying to do with the replacement pieces I remove them.

So far I've done two of the seven replacement patches. I made a template from a note card and cut each patch as I go, including enough to turn under on all four sides. Then I press the fabric around the template with my iron and some spray starch. This has elements of the technique my Japanese Quilting Sensei teaches for machine applique. I am hand appliqueing however.

The patch on the left side is easily found as I removed the green binding before sewing it in. Can you see the other one?

While getting ready to sew in the patches I found another two inch segment of seam that needed resewing. I wonder how many more I will find? I'm also finding spots where the quilting stitches are no more. I will need to check the whole quilt with this in mind as a last step before doing the binding.

I've ordered a possible fabric for the new bias binding, it's due to arrive on Monday. It will be interesting to see how it looks and whether it will work.

Stay tuned for my further adventures!

Quilt Repairs Begin

On Friday I began the official Repair Of Bob's Grandmother's Quilt. First I made a diagram of the entire quilt on graph paper. I marked one corner of the quilt with a bright ribbon and designated that as the upper left. Then began examining the quilt top carefully for areas needing attention. Because the quilt is square it was easy to divide it into quarters. I marked the points on the diagram.  This process showed that there are seven patches that need replacing and several places where stitching has become undone.  

So, the first photo shows a very small area at the very edge of the quilt where one patch has begun to ravel.  I think that when I apply new binding this will be covered, but I un-stitched the binding and turned under the ravels and sewed the area down to the batting and the adjacent patch so that it is secured in any case. 

Next there were several areas where the seams had become un-sewn.

Which were fairly easily repaired.

Next time I'll start replacing the disintegrated patches. I'm using The Bottom Line's applique thread in a kind of pale gold color which is really disappearing into the various colors of the patches and the background as well.

Last Week and Next

Last week included a surprise visit from my sister and brother-in-law who were in the area for a doctor's appointment. As usual on Wednesday I went to the church for our sewing group. On Thursday morning I had an interview for a job at our city library, then went to Publix for groceries. Saturday was a birthday party for a friend who was turning 90. Today of course was Sunday School and Church.

This was not a typical week, and that was fine with me. I like a bit of a change occasionally.

The coming week sees Vacation Bible School at the church in the evenings. I have been doing a bit of sewing for one of the craft projects the kids will be working on.  I have a bit more to do, but should be well in time for tomorrow evening.

The interviewer at the Library promised to let me know about the job at the first of the week. If I get the position or not, it will affect what happens the rest of the week. There's no sewing because of VBS. I wonder what else might happen?

New Favorites

The two best foods that became popular in this area while I was away in Japan are Greek Yogurt and Hummus. Yogurt is quite popular in Japan.  My theory is that after milk was introduced post WWII in the non-fat dry powder variety* and universally disliked, the Japanese later discovered, I know not where or when, that you could ferment milk, add some fruit flavor and get the same nutrition. My Japanese friends confirmed the cultural idea that fermented foods are good for you. Beer, Soy Sauce, Natto, Sake, are all considered to have very healthful properties. 

*friends who lived through the post war period have told me that they figured that the Americans took all the best part out of milk before sending what was left for them to drink.

It seems that rather than making yogurt thicker, in Japan they make it runnier. The standard fruit flavored cups are very soft and the other favorite thing to do with yogurt is to add it to drinks. There are several very popular health drinks available in stores, not to mention the Yakult company. A veritable army of young women dressed in light green uniforms riding light green bikes make home deliveries of various kinds of health drinks made with fermented milk and a specific pro-biotic. Having just looked Yakult up on Google, I find that they have branched out to other countries including the US. 

Here, though, we've gone the other way and have adopted the strained yogurt that we attribute to the Greeks. It is thick and so creamy, even the non-fat kind. For me it was instant love. Several of the popular brands in this area have returned to leaving the fruit on the bottom rather than mixing it with the yogurt. What's not to love?

The other food is hummus, also from the Mediterranean, also with great nutritional value. Today I finally had all the ingredients I needed to make my own. It's really, really easy. Probably about $3 worth of ingredients for two full cups of hummus.  Next time I want to put in chopped Kalamata Olives. Yum.