Almost There....

I blogged some months ago about finishing projects and how to get all your ducks in a row to finish successfully and in a reasonable amount of time.  These “ducks”, as you know, are funny creatures. I’m lucky to get all my “ducks” in the same pond, much less in a nice, neat row.

As you’re busy sewing and piecing, it’s important to keep the final steps in mind, even though those steps may seem an eternity away.  At some point, you or someone else is going to have to quilt your top.  So with finishing in our focus, pay attention to the seams.  How you press those seams is just as important as keeping a consistent ¼-inch seam allowance.  Typically, we press towards the darker material so the fabric won’t “shadow” (show through on the front side of the lighter fabric). 

This is a good rule of thumb, but as with many rules, sometimes you have to break them to make progress.

If there are several seams coming together at one point, it may be a good idea to press the seam open.  We do that to reduce bulk.  If there are several seams converging at one point, it can be difficult to get a needle through all of those, plus the backing and batting during the quilting process – even with one of the long arms.  Pressing the seams open will help.  You have to keep the quilting in mind during the piecing so that everything will flow smoothly as you head towards that finish line.

It’s equally important to square up your quilt as you go.  The best quilt patterns will give you an unfinished size of each section and each block as you go.  Remember unfinished is the adjective used for a block or a blocks section before it is set in a quilt.  I love quilt patterns that give you those sizes for each section as you go.  It’s so easy to adjust your seam allowance and make changes before you’ve made a half a dozen blocks and realize the size is not right.  That makes me want to cry and toss the quilt in a closet and just forget I ever started.  However if the pattern doesn’t give you the unfinished size of each section, it should give you the unfinished size of the block.  It’s a good idea to complete one block of each of the types of blocks used in the pattern and make sure the sizes are coming out consistent with the pattern.  It is always, always, always easier to make changes in the beginning than get almost through with the top and realize that blocks are not going to match up.  So finish a sample block, measure it, and square it up if necessary, before making all the blocks.

Squaring up the blocks simply means trimming the block down to the unfinished size required by the pattern.  Often times, you’ll only need to even up the sides before sewing on the sashing or sewing the blocks to one another.  

But this step is important because it means all of your rows should come out the same size, which means all of the sashing will go on without a struggle and then the rows will go together perfectly.

Another thing you may want to do as you start cutting out your quilt is go ahead and make the binding and the label – or at least design the label so all you have to do is drop in the finished date when the top is complete.  

So often we get down to the last few steps and realize we have to cut more fabric.  It’s really easy to go ahead and cut the binding while we’re in the cutting zone at the beginning and it’s just as easy to stitch it together and iron it while we’re piecing.  There’s something about having to go back to that cutting table to make the binding that just kind of takes the wind out of progress and makes it easy to set it aside.  But if it’s already cut and sewn and ironed and just lying there waiting to be stitched down that makes you (or at least me) get excited about that last little push down the road to finishing. 

Which brings us to batting and backing.  I am kind of wishy-washy about these two.  If I find the backing for my quilt that I absolutely have to have when I’m purchasing the rest of the fabric, I will go ahead and buy it.   However, I am absolutely in love with the wide backing fabrics.  They do not have to be pieced.  Now, if I find regular-width material that just meshes perfectly with the top, I will purchase enough of that to piece the back.  But as a whole, I will hold off buying the backing until I can find the wider-width fabrics.  That said, it may take me several days to nail down the backing after my top is complete.  Yes, that hinders my progress.  But to me, not having a seam in the back of my fabric is worth it for two reasons.  First, I hate piecing backings.  And second, a whole back is easier to quilt through if I’m quilting on my mid-arm or domestic machine.

Likewise, different battings give different effects on the quilt and I may not decide on a quilting design until after I complete my top.  The effect and design plays into what kind of batting I purchase and if I have one or two layers of batting.  So, again, with this step I may wait until the top is complete and let it speak to me.  If I am using a long-arm artist to quilt my quilt, I will also talk with him or her before I purchase the batting.

Quilting, just like lots of things in life, is all about reminding ourselves of the completed project while we’re in the middle of making it happen.  And it’s easy to forget that as we’re caught up in making fabric choices and dealing with tricky patterns. The more you piece and quilt, the easier it is to keep all these options in mind in the process.

Love and Stitches,

Sherri and Sam