Day 4

I have been under the weather with symptoms resembling pneumonia the past few days. :-( This is making it a bit of a challenge to get anything done, but I want to keep moving forward... If nothing else, using the lap top in bed is much more satisfying than simply trying to sleep. :-)

Yesterday, I found the type of fabric paper that I would need. But I have not ordered it yet. In order to do that, I need to know how many sheets I will need. (Printed Treasures are $20 for 5 sheets, so the last thing I want to do is order too many!)

Let's see... I have to figure out the size of the entire quilt, and then each piece. (That seems like the logical way to do it!) I will need to email the images in the exact size I need to my sister, so she doesn't have to do anything but print. The images will be placed in the correct size in MS Word documents. I can use more than one image on a sheet, as long as I leave at least 1/4" around the border of all images (this will be folded under when the pieces are cut and sewed to the quilt).

Baby quilts are typically anywhere from 25" x 36" to 60" x 60". They can be square or rectangular. I would like the quilt to be able to fit in the crib, but be able to fit comfortably over the youngster when he's a 2-4 year old toddler as well. (Might as well get some good use out of it!) A crib mattress is about 36" x 52". I would also like it to fit in a youth-sized bed. The size I chose is 10" x 10" for each white square, 1.5" x 10" for each colored strip, 1.5" x 1.5" for the small white squares, 2" showing for the background (on the play side) and 4" wide for the car border. This will total somewhere around 48" x 60" (4' x 5'). It should fit both the crib and a child's bed, while also being large enough to play on.

Now that I have the sizes, I used Power Point, made 10"x10" squares, and sized out each of the four cars that would go in the white squares. When this was done, I looked at the original Power Point design (which of course was not to scale). Power Point does not allow you to have a slide as large as the quilt will be, so I had to scale down to 1/2 size. Since the border and blue background will both be different blue patterns, I darkened the border to see the contrast. I do not think the thin red lines will be in the border, but I put them on here so you can easily see the border from the background. Here is the crib side to scale:

Once the design was to 1/2 scale, I simply doubled the border size and put these into Word documents. I could fit 4 of these cars on a sheet, so that will save on fabric paper! (In case you are wondering... The reason I use Word rather than IrfanView for the pictures, is because if I do anything to the image in IrfanView, the resolution of the image is drastically reduced. In Word, the resolution does not change, so when the images print, they will look sharper - especially the black Ford GT picture, which will be very large.)

Also, while doing the border cars, I noticed that the Tungsten (silver) GT had white stripes, when it should have had light silver/gray stripes. I also noticed that the red car had black stripes (I must have been sleeping while working on this). No big deal. I am just happy that I noticed it BEFORE the graphics were printed onto the fabric sheets, and I was able to make both changes without difficulty.

Then I emailed my sister the graphics and quantity for each - with detailed instructions on how to print them. I tried to cut the black GT photo into pieces that could be neatly sewn together, but was not able to do that - even the door was greater than an 8 1/2 x 11 fabric sheet, so I went ahead with the order for 4 packs of fabric sheets.

I spent a couple of hours online looking for stores that would inexpensively print the large black GT to the scale I wanted (about 26" x 36"). I found none in the US that were affordable or that would do the printing without making the entire quilt for you. So I started thinking again... I would have to find a way to do it myself.

That also means I would need more fabric paper! I contacted the place I had just ordered from (online, so no phone number), but their email reply was that even though I had just ordered the sheets 10 minutes ago and it is a holiday, it is too late to cancel or change the order. The problem is that I did not want to pay shipping twice. :-( Oh well. You win some, you lose some...

I used the high res photo and tried a variety of different ways to cut it up that would look okay once they were sewn together. The first time I did it, the pieces were too large for my comfort once they were put on the 8 1/2 x 11 Word documents. There was just 1/4" on the outside, so I tried again... The second time, the pieces were smaller and everything looked perfect, except one of the side pieces had just the edge of the black tire on it. This meant that I would have no where to sew it too (the 1/4" was supposed to be tucked underneath, so the tire had to be at least 1/4" on that piece). Third time's a charm! Here is what it looks like (the lines have been added so you can see where I will be sewing the pieces together):

Aside from cutting around the car, I will also have to cut through the windows and tuck that fabric underneath to keep the edges from fraying. This will be the most challenging part of this quilt, I believe. This is also more difficult than most of the quilts I've seen. Figures... But on a high note, I've finally found a use for my love of jigsaw puzzles! :-) Here are what the pieces look like all jumbled together. How good are you at puzzles?

I made sure each piece was still high resolution, and I put them on separate Word documents, and again emailed them to Lisa. (This meant having to order 3 more sets of the Printed Treasures.)