"Lots of Red and White" finished!

I didn’t have a lot of time from the moment of final decision til I needed to get this quilt to the room where they are going to have an open house with the works by various artists. For the sake of this report, I will consider myself a “fiber artist” though I really am a quilter. I haven’t done any art quilts at this point in my life. I know people who I would consider a fiber artist - and at this point in my life anyway, I don’t consider myself one.

However, I did get this one quilted, the matching pillow made and a few more things.

I ended up washing it with what felt like a zillion color catchers - multiple times. After the first wash, in spite of using about 10 color catchers and using cool water, I had a couple of problems with a fabric.

I let it dry for a good part of a day while I debated what to do (air dried on the table).


Then, I decided to take my finger and run a bunch of blue Dawn dishwashing liquid around each square that had the issue - it was one fabric that was probably 10x on the quilt and a different fabric that was twice. I was very generous with the Dawn. Then I put it back in the quick cycle (55 minutes) with about 10 more color catchers and this time a bit warmer temps (30C). I was quite pleased with the way the red seemed to come out BUT I don’t think the Dawn all came out as with 1 or 2 minutes left to go when I walked into the bathroom where the washing machine is, it smelled like dish soap still.

So, I put it BACK in the washing machine, this time, without any extra dish soap or laundry detergent, but another 6 or 7 color catchers. No, the previous ones weren’t really very red - barely pale pink, in fact. However, just in case.

So, now as I work on the first draft of this blog post, the quilt is lying on the table, drying. I need to get it to the cultural center in the morning so no doubt I will end up putting it in the dryer. I also need to get the label put on - but I want to do that once it is dry.

The matching pillow - I decided to go big and made a 50x50cm pillow - which is about a 20” pillow. I did quilt the front - so the “front “ of the pillow is actually a little square quilt as I made the top and then quilted it, then trimmed it to the same size as the backing. I then put in the zipper and finished it up. I like it very much.

As I ended up with ONE lone 16 patch (which is excellent for me!) I went ahead and made up 2 hearts as I thought I’d throw them in with the set. One of the hearts used that 16 patch and one just a solid piece of fabric that I used as part of the pillow and the quilt.

So, after all, I think the playing around with the label and the hearts may have taken almost as long as quilting it did. I did quilt it on my Janome domestic because I wanted to do a simple straight line type of quilting. Since each of these squares ends up 1”, when you cut it in half visually with the quilting, it makes it seem like the squares are even smaller, and thus, more impressive.

:)

I’m hoping that it actually sells for a bit. These kids from our area - the stories just break your heart!

This is the back side of the quilt. I guess I got the stripe kind of crooked.

Oh well! Humanity. I think this actually shows how crooked the fabric is as I think I tore it and sewed it along the tear.

One thing about this - outside you can really see the variety of whites once again - far more than the inside photos.



I did take these outside pictures before I washed it the second and third time to get the red that bled into the white “out”. So, if you see it - well, that’s fine, but it’s not in the final quilt I gave them to sell.

I always find this fascinating as I first noticed it with this particular quilt shown below. While working on this one - which had been inside, mostly in the winter, then I finished it and got it outside in the summer or maybe spring, and suddenly I could see the whites/off whites. It was revolutionary! I was so amazed as when I just looked at the top inside, I could see a few differences, but not like this! I had no idea!

I did take the time to go over each section and pick off the little threads. With a quilt like this, there were a lot of them. Probably took me about half an hour or maybe even longer! I did that right before I folded it up and took a photo of the quilt roll.

Anyway, as I work on this blog post, most of the red really did come out of the quilt so I was grateful for that. In fact, that is really the first time I’ve seen Dawn to do that. I mean, it has a reputation for amazing things and while I’ve had it help some - what it did for me on this quilt was mind boggling.

I did make up two hearts and submitted them.

And then on a whim, I added a couple of Christmas ornaments I made mostly on my embroidery machine. I played around with them as I wanted to try applique - hadn’t done it yet on my machine. So I did.

I didn’t do it right, though, and they have some issues that wouldn’t be there had I done them correctly. However, I’m throwing them in anyway. At least now, because I’ve attempted to try applique in the hoop of the embroidery machine, when I watch a video or read about how to do it properly, it will all make sense.

However, it’s all in one bag and I took it to the building on Thursday morning to submit.

The exposition of all the things that the artists are donating was on Friday evening but will stay up for a couple of weeks before everything starts getting sold in the middle of November.

When I first got there on Thursday, the door was locked, so I had to wait for them to open the door so I could take it in.

I did feel a big sense of relief the rest of the day once I had gotten this submitted.

The man who took it from me told me that he has known me for over 20 years now. Naturally I recognized him from when I went there often for my kid’s choir. They used to sing in a town choir called Rubikon, where I got to know some of the people who worked there.

I forgot to mention this - but the colors of the Polish flag are red and white. Let me show you. Their national emblem is the white eagle.

Anyway…off to another project.

Thanks so much for coming along with me on this journey!

Have a great day wherever you are reading this!

Becky Petersen11 Comments