Day 17

On Sunday, while watching the Super Bowl, I worked on the quilt a little bit. I washed the new border GT fabric sheets that I had gotten printed on Friday. As with the others, I cut the frayed edges off after washing them.

And I ironed the sheets when they were dry.

I’m not sure what the difference was, but none of these sheets bled – not even a little bit! The color was also just a little bit off (the red was more rose than orange-red, the blue on the heritage had less green in it, etc).

The thread should still match closely enough so that it won’t be a problem when I appliqué them to the border, and all of the ones that Lisa (my sister) printed will go on one side and the ones my printer did will go on the other, so each of the 2 shades will be on different sides of the quilt.

Then I left the border cars alone, and I went to work on the black GT. I had cut an outline around the GT on Friday that left a 1/4" seam allowance. At this time, I tucked under that seam allowance and pressed with my fingers to make the crease. Because of the curves in the GT, I had to cut strips up to the edge of the seam allowance.

I thought that rather than pinning or basting, I would use fusible webbing to hold it under as this would not only look clean, but would add extra protection to the quilt. As I had done with the other GT pieces, I traced the outline on the paper side of the webbing and cut it out.

Then I thought I'd kill 2 birds with one stone. :-) I placed the webbing 1/2 way up, so that 1/8" was on the seam allowance (this would fuse the seam under) and the other 1/2 was above the seam allowance (this would fuse the piece to the background of the quilt, holding the GT in place, so it didn't move when I sewed around the edges).

I ironed it into place on the seam allowance and removed the paper backing.

Then, very carefully, I tucked under the seam allowance and ironed it to the back of the black GT, making sure the tip of the iron did not touch the glue.

So far so good! This is what it looks like from the front:

I then cut around the tire and applied the fusing to about 5 more pieces of the seam allowance. To keep the seams from overlapping when they were flipped over, especially around the curved edges, I cut out V-shaped wedges.

Then I removed the paper backing of the fusible webbing and ironed (pressed) the seam under as I did before. A problem occurred. At first I thought it was just a fluke, but it was happening to all of the pieces that I was tucking under, regardless of how long I held the iron in place. The seam would appear to stick, but after about 30 seconds, it would come up.

There was no weight or pressure pulling against it that would cause this. And I had used the same fabric sheets before for the 12 GT's that were fused to the white squares and had no problem. Whatever the reason, the fusing would not stick, so I decided to stop using it. Instead, I just used the iron to press the seams under.

You can see that the seams don't stay flat after being pressed, but they will not lose their crease. So when it is time to sew around the edges, it should be much easier to do!

Once all of the seams had been pressed under (except for the windows), I turned the GT over. This is what it looked like:

The edges are not perfect, but I'm hoping they improve once I sew them. I also have to be careful that I sew over the edges of the areas that I cut down to the seam allowance. If I cut too far on any of them, there could be fraying after the GT is attached to the background fabric.

I put the black GT aside and cut out the strips for the blue background on the play side of the quilt. I needed 49 1/2" for 2 of the sides, and 40 1/2" for the other 2 sides. Because of the length of the fabric, I had to cut 2 strips for each of the long sides and piece them together - each being about 25" long. The width of the fabric was supposed to be 45" - which left 43-44" after cutting the selvage edges off. However, the width was actually only 42", which didn't leave much room for error on the 40 1/2" strips. The length was the same way. I only ended up with about 1/4" of left over material, even though I added a couple of inches when I gave the measurements to the lady at the quilt store (who cut the fabric). This means that next time I need material, I'll have to add on even more inches to ensure I have enough. It was a close call!

On the 2 shorter strips, I left myself room for error (didn't cut them exactly accurate) in case there was a problem lining up with the other strips. It's easier to cut than to add on! Once the strips were cut, I pieced the 2 25" lengths together and pressed the seams.

Then I pinned the side to the quilt and pieced these together.

You can see there is 6 1/4" of material left at all 4 ends. These will connect with the other 2 strips once attached.

I then pieced the 2 shorter pieces to the top and bottom of the quilt. Because these were not cut exactly correct, there was > 6 1/4" fabric on each of those sides left over. Unfortunately, I forgot about that. :-( I was trying to figure out how to piece these corners together so they looked nice. I decided to angle them to the corner rather than just piece straight across. What I should have done, was first cut the extra material from the side, but I didn't. Instead, I measured 1/4" from where the line would end up (corner to corner) and cut. This would give me the 1/4" seam allowance on both sides.

Once it was cut, I sewed the pieces together and pressed the seams.

Then I flipped the quilt over and ironed the top. You can see there is extra material (about 1/4") from not cutting it before. This lined them up incorrectly. Even though they look okay, I will end up having to cut the width of the long sides by about 1/4" to compensate. In the end, the quilt will be 1/2" less wide, but overall (and given the size of the quilt), this will not be a noticeable difference.

I am glad though that I did this prior to cutting the background material for the crib side of the quilt. After I cut and line up the material, I will have to adjust my measurements for the rest of the strips and the border on both ends of the quilt. The bottom of the quilt will give you a good idea what it will look like with the diagonal piecing at the corners.

And this is what it looks like laid out. The red strips and border still need to be done, but it's just about there! ;-)