Deco Blocks Finished, Custom Quilting Progress + Stonefields Pattern Has Arrived!

Drumroll, please...  Only 170 weeks or so behind schedule for the 2021 Deco Quilt Along hosted by pattern designer Lo & Behold Stitchery, I have finally caught up to Week 7 by finishing all of my blocks and moving on to assembling my quilt top!

Finally Finished Making All of My Deco Quilt Blocks!

Once again, if I had any idea how long this project was going to take, I probably would never have started it in the first place.  😬. Ignorance is bliss!  

Rebecca Does Not Follow Directions, As Usual

Including some "action shots" here of quilt top assembly in progress.  My poor B 990 machine must be so bummed; all her fancy high tech features but the only thing she gets to do so far in my studio is Piecing Straight Stitch #1313!  So, if any of you have made this quilt before you might be noticing that I've veered from the pattern instructions in a couple of key ways:

• I disregarded the instruction to press all of the seams open in this quilt and created my own pressing plan instead.  It is nearly impossible to get crisp and accurate seam intersections if you press all of your seams open -- and conversely, it is practically goof-proof to get perfect seam matches when the seam allowances have been pressed in opposite directions and you can just snug them together for a little seam hug, secure with a couple o pins and then sew
• The pattern instructs you to create additional full log cabin blocks and then slice them in half from corner to corner to create the side blocks.  I didn't want to do that for two reasons.  First, it would cause weird and unnecessary seams to land right on the outside of my quilt where they would interfere with binding in the last stages of the project.  (Note that, if you're making one of the smaller size versions of Deco rather than the bed size quilt I'm making, you have to slice different blocks in half diagonally, losing your points all along the outside of your quilt!).  Second reason for disobeying instructions was that I wanted to have control over the grain line along the outer edges of the quilt as much as possible, so I cut those blue triangles for my partial side blocks with the grainline on the hypotenuse (long side of the triangle).
• I used my AccuQuilt GO! Setting Triangles 8" Finished die (this post contains a few affiliate links) to cut my side and corner setting triangles to the exact size for my 8" finished blocks.  AccuQuilt makes their setting triangle dies in various sizes and it's definitely worth getting the coordinating size setting triangle die if you already own one of the AccuQuilt Qube sets and/or you frequently make blocks of a certain size.  Not only does this die "do the math" for you to cut the appropriately sized setting triangles -- with the points pretrimmed for easy alignment before stitching -- but the layout of the triangle shapes on the die itself ensures that all of these setting triangles will have straight, non-stretchy fabric grain on the edges that will form the very outer edges of your quilt top.  So, because I cut these setting triangles with my AccuQuilt die, I did not have to think about making sure I had straight fabric grain on the hypotenuse side of my side setting triangles but straight fabric grain on the short sides (NOT the hypotenuse) for the four smaller corner setting triangles.  The setting triangle die makes it a lot easier for novices to tackle diagonal set quilts successfully.  By the way, if you don't think you'll make enough diagonal set quilts in a particular block size to justify the cost of AccuQuilt or you're not already invested in that cutting system, there are specialty rulers available that will help you cut the correct size setting triangles for any block size.  I have the one Kaye England designed for Good Measure, but I've seen other brand versions in quilt shops and I'm sure they work just as well.  Kaye has a video showing how to use hers here.

Let's Get Ready to Sew Over Some Pins!

Oh YES I sew over pins, sort of!  

Disclaimer: Copy Rebecca at your own risk.  Rebecca is a non-professional ding-a-ling sewing recklessly on her new Bernina in a closed studio environment inhabited by crash test dummies and supervised closely by a kissy-faced Rottweiler.   Your dealer will not fix your machine for free if you break it trying to sew like wild woman Rebecca.  😜

Okay, so first of all I'm sewing very SLOWLY over these pins because I am making sure that none of the seam allowances on the bottom are flipping the wrong way and getting stitched that way, and I'm watching to be sure my raw edges remain aligned top and bottom and that I'm maintaining that scant 1/4" seam allowance nice and even down the entire length of these seams.  Secondly, I'm using Clover Extra-Fine Patchwork Pins, which are so thin and bendy that if my needle does strike a pin (at slow stitching speed), it's pretty much going to deflect that pin out of its way instead of breaking my needle.  And thirdly, I say that I "sort of" sew over the pins because I insert my pins with the glass heads on the left side and I am pretty good about pinning far enough away (to the left of) where my seam will be stitched that the needle isn't near enough to the pin to hit it anyway.  Again, I've pressed seam allowances in opposite directions most of the time so those seam intersections are going to stay interlocked at the fabric edges even if the pins are placed 1/2" from the seam itself.  That's just how I do it; feel free to do yours differently!

Top Left Area Is Assembled, Everything Else is Loose Blocks

So this is the view in my studio today, exactly the same as yesterday since I broke my streak and did NOT sew at all yesterday.  I have the next two rows together on my cutting table, ready to be pinned to the already assembled section for sewing.  And see what I have up on my computer screen in the corner?  Instead of sewing, I was playing around with design ideas for another AccuQuilt die I own, the 12" Cleopatra BOB die (BOB=Block On Board, or a single die designed to cut all of the different shapes needed to make a special kind of quilt block).  I'll share more about the Cleopatra quilt options in another post, because it's 9:30 PM and there are no elves coming in the night to finish sewing this quilt top together for me!

Sewcrastinating With New Designs in EQ8 Instead of Finishing the Quilt in Progress

I spent a lot of time the day before yesterday out in my long arm studio working on my friend's circa 1984 sampler quilt.  She asked me to quilt this little Sam applique guy with circles on his straw hat so it would be more obvious that it is, in fact, a hat and we're looking at the back of Sam instead of a big blank face without features.  I quilted the jeans pockets freehand with a ruler, just sketched them quickly with a chalk pencil and followed the drawn lines.  I'm not 100% pleased with the free motion loop fill I quilted around the applique; this is a quilting motif that I'm very comfortable quilting on a much smaller, tighter scale but I know my friend is not a fan of super dense quilting.  I found it harder to keep those loops round and smooth at a larger size.

Sam, the Appliqué Sidekick of Sunbonnet Sue

So then when I got to this stacked blocks block, I thought I'd try using a computerized background fill design around the appliquéd blocks.  Well, it turned out lovely but it took OVER AN HOUR to set up and stitch.  Definitely not "press go and walk away."  I think I could have sped it up a little by turning off the jump stitches that stopped the machine every single time a circle in the design was disrupted by a patchwork seam, but I still would have been hovering over the machine to push and prod the quilt sandwich where needed to ensure the quilting design stitched right up to the sashing and appliqué without stitching a single stitch where it didn't belong.

Planning Continuous Curves Stitch Path on my iPad

In the photo above you can see how I was planning out and practicing a continuous stitch path for the continuous curves quilting I'm planning to add to those baby blocks using one of my curved rulers.  I do not want to have to break thread and tie off if I quilt myself into a corner due to lack of planning.

The photo below shows how I've stitched in the ditch around this Friendship Star block and then quilted a digital design over the star area.  I've sketched out some simple straight line ruler quilting for the blue background areas on my iPad but haven't decided for sure whether I'll follow through on that idea.

Friendship Star Block with Digital Quilting, Possible Ruler Work Plan for Background

Here's another block that I quilted with an 8-pointed star design, and I've experimented with adding continuous curve quilting along the outside of the block.  It is so much easier to try out quilting designs by marking up a photo on my iPad that I can just delete if it doesn't suit, versus spending hours unpicking stitches that have already been sewn into a quilt!

Digital Feathered Star Quilting With Possible Ruler Work Additions

And, in other news, my Stonefields quilt pattern arrived, the one like Nanette's quilt that I shared in my last blog post!

Stonefields Pattern Packet Arrived

The pattern is copyrighted Susan Smith 2013 and inside the big envelope there are ten separate pattern packs labeled Month One through Month Ten.  As if I was going to finish this quilt in 10 months, HAHAHAHAHAHA!  (If I could add a soundtrack here, it would be MANIACAL LAUGHTER).  Maybe I should rename mine Year One, Year Two etc.  Just look at these tiny little templates that came with the pattern!  

Itty Bitty Stonefields Templates Arrived!

Alright, I think we're all up to speed now so I'm logging off this computer (at 10 PM now) to see about attaching at least one row to my quilt top before bed time.  And this is why Rebecca's quilts don't get finished!

I'm linking up today's post with the following linky parties:

MONDAY

Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts  

Monday Musings at Songbird Designs  

TUESDAY

To-Do Tuesday at Quilt Schmilt  

WEDNESDAY

Wednesday Wait Loss at The Inquiring Quilter

THURSDAY

Needle and Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation  

FRIDAY

Finished or Not Friday at Alycia Quilts

Off the Wall Friday at Nina Marie Sayre

Beauty Pageant at From Bolt to Beauty

 TGIFF Thank Goodness It’s Finished Friday, rotates, schedule found here: TGIF Friday

SUNDAY

Frédérique at Quilting Patchwork Appliqué

Oh Scrap! at Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework