A Scrappy Trip Around the World!

Finished!  I finally managed the free motion loops borders at a quilt retreat my friend organized a couple weeks ago - I think my machine behaved because it was intimidated by all the nice machines there!  My first large machine quilted quilt!  A learning process, for sure - I learned the importance of scant 1/4" seam allowances and accurate cutting, that using some cotton/poly blends is not the best idea, how to add borders and piece a backing, how to make a quilt sandwich, how to wrestle a large quilt through a domestic machine, how to free motion quilt swirls (though somewhat unevenly), how to add a label to the back...

 



 

Closeup:

 

 

Back:

 

And here are some interesting numbers for my quilt:

quilt top before quilting/binding: 53"x77"
number of blocks: 24
number of 2" finished squares: 864
total yardage used = 8yds:
- [24 blocks x 6 strips (144) @ 2.5"x16"] 4 yards (counting fabric at approx 40" wide, 16 2.5" wide strips can be cut side by side in one full width. 144/16=9 lengths of 16", so 144", which is 4 yds exactly)
- backing and binding = 4 yds

All the fabric is from my stash!  The biggest part of it, mostly "ugly" fabrics. The batting is part of a queen I bought for $14, and maybe a couple dollars on thread, so this quilt cost me maybe $10-12?

 

Finished quilting the body of my Scrappy Trips!

 

This was a challenge to put through my little Babylock!



 

Back:



 

Now to decide what to do in the borders. I think I'd like to try something fun, not straight lines, maybe some free motion quilting.

Scrappy Trip-Along with borders!

With borders:



Backing with some random floating blocks made of leaders/enders from the scraps. The backing fabric is a cream, green and orange floral, looks green, more of the huge amount of fabric my friend gave me last summer. Great to have some real yardage in the stash for backings!



This is my first "big" quilt! I'm excited but nervous. Have to go get some quilter's safety pins now and then try lay it all out to baste. I'm worried about the wrinkles in the backing. It was hard to try get such large pieces somewhat squared....

Scrappy Trips blocks pieced

Yesterday I fiddled a lot with placement of my finished blocks - I don't think I have the best eye for this!  Anyway, here are my Scrappy Trips, pieced in rows! Since this photo I've actually sewn two of the rows together too, so quilt top nearly done!

 

Scrappy Trips progress

Progress on my Scrappy Trips Around the World quilt: I have 7 blocks finished and 13 strip-pieced, ready to be cut and pieced again!

In case this is helpful at all - a couple of notes. I chain-piece the three sets of two strips and press them. (You can see I only press the outer two, as I found if I press the centre one already it's hard to fold accurately to sew into a tube later.)



 

Then I sew the three pieces together into the 6-strip block. Here's my stack of 13, pinned and ready to sew. I chain-pieced so I'm not clipping near as many threads and don't have to deal with snarls at the beginning of each!



 

Big stack of 6-strip blocks, ready to press.



 

No pic of pressing - I press to end up like this, except I don't press the centre seam, to make it easier to fold in half. (pic posted by Lorena in Sydney in the discussion on the Scrappy Trip-Along Flickr group)



 

Then fold each 6-strip block in half and sew to make tubes! I sewed these up last night:



 

I'm hoping to get a couple of these at least cut apart, maybe sewn up today!

Scrappy Trip-Along

I'm joining my first quilt-along!  It's the Scrappy Trip Around the World. The finished projects look intimidating, but I made two blocks easily today!! I love that I'm using up random "ugly" and old fashioned fabrics, plus the act that there's no planning! The only thing I'm making sure of is to do each centre dark.  The tutorial over at QuiltVille is great.  I especially wouldn't have thought to press the way she suggests - makes it so much easier!