Day 18

It has been about a week since I last posted. I had been working on another project - getting my Six Sigma Black Belt certification - so I had to put this on hold for a bit.

Last week, I had tucked under the seams and planned on using a blind hem stitch to sew the GT to the background. So, today I laid out the background fabric on the ground and centered the GT on it.

Then I put pins everywhere around the border to hold it in place.

The blue thread that I had was a little bit lighter than the background blue, but was a close match, so I decided to use that for the stitching. Even though the stitching is not supposed to show, I want the color to match just in case...

There were a few problems with trying to use the blind hem stitch... A few days ago, I had tried using the fusible webbing on a few of the seams hoping to keep them tucked under. Even though this didn't work, the glue not only added an extra layer of thickness for trying to push the needle through, but it did not allow me to use the stitch properly. The second problem was that all of the seams that meet the edges from where I had sewn the 13 pieces together add an extra 2 layers of fabric that also make it very difficult to get the needle through when doing it by hand. The result of the thickness was cutting my hand trying to push the needle through the material and bending the needle. Oops. :-(

The result of the glue from the webbing was not being able to get under the fabric properly. In addition to that, my lack of skill with this stitch resulted in uneven stitches and the blue stitching showing. Even after pulling the thread tight, it was too loose to use for a blanket. If the little kid pulled at it at all or if it went through the wash, chances are, it would come apart. Here are 3 pictures of my amateur attempt. You can see in the second picture that at least some of the stitches were hidden. :-) But you can also see in the 3rd picture how messy it looks! :-(

While deciding what to do about it, I went back to the 2nd set of border cars that I had recently printed. I used my webbing and traced the outline of the cars.

Then I cut them out and ironed the fusible webbing to the back of the cars.

Then I cut out along the outline of these 15 border GTs.

And there you have it! Both sets of border GTs (for the front and back of the quilt) are ready to be sewn onto the border.

Getting back to the problem above, I decided to get rid of the blind hem stitch and sew a satin stitch around the border of the black GT. This would look similar to the way I did the other cars, and would probably look better and be sturdier. I thought about using black thread since it was a black GT, but the color did not come out black. It had come out in blues, greens, and teal. So... I could go to the quilt store and try to match up one or two color threads or use the blue as it matched the background pretty close (and I could use that for the entire border).

I decided to test this. I took one of the fabric sheets that had to be reprinted awhile back (luckily I had not thrown it out) and cut a square out of the extra blue fabric that I had. Then I cut out the border of this sample GT piece and traced and cut out fusible webbing to it.

Then I ironed the webbing to the piece.

I peeled off the backing paper on the webbing and ironed it to the blue background fabric square.

Then I set the sewing machine to the applique settings I used previously and sewed a satin stitch around the border and inside the window.

On such a small piece, there was almost no bunching of the material. You can see that the piece does not look black, so the blue actually compliments it and makes the image stand out a little bit. I decided to go for it...

First I had to use my seam cutter to get rid of the attempted blind hem stitch (there was just one area I had attempted this, so it only took a minute).

Then I trimmed down the seams near the borders so then when I put fusible webbing around the borders I would not have a problem with it holding. I also did this so that the sewing machine would have less of a chance of getting caught (or breaking the needle) due to the extra layers.

Then as I did with the practice one, I cut out webbing.

I just put about 1/2" of it around the border of the car - not over the entire car. Luckily, I had enough left over from the border cars that I did not have to make another trip to the store. :-)

Then I cut out off the 1/4" seam from around the car.

And, I peeled off the webbing paper. You can see that only a small amount of fusible webbing will actually be applied around the edge. This is just to hold it in place while I sew, give extra support, and keep the edges from fraying.

Then I had to re-center the GT onto the quilt. I had obtained the measurements on all corners before removing the pins before, so this only took a minute. :-)

Then I ironed it to the quilt. I actually ironed it directly on the floor as it was laying on a rug on the carpet. Once it was set, I put it on the ironing board and ironed it again for a better hold.

I was not sure it would hold together while sewing, since I'd be moving it all around and bunching up the material, but I was pleasantly surprised. While sewing, I had to roll up the material while turning it to get it to fit in the machine because it was almost 4 x 5 feet of material. I am not sure if it is due to the extra material or the weight of the material, but there were a number of places where the fabric bunched up (you can see this in the waves below - they are supposed to be straight lines obviously) and also where the stitching bunched up (and I had to carefully lift the presser foot with one hand over the lump to move the stitching forward).

If that were not enough, I accidentally sewed 2 parts together as I did not get all of the material out of the way and it caught under the sewing machine. Luckily I caught it right away... (Where did I put that seam ripper?)

Of course, there were the other "incidents" that occurred as well. For instance, I'm not sure what I did, but instead of one line of blue thread, there were 2 lines that somehow managed to get caught in the sewing machine. When I lifted the needle and tried to straighten it out, it caught with the white (bottom) thread and was a mess! At least the only harm done was having to cut the thread and rethread the machine...

I should mention that throughout this project I have dominated almost every room in the house. :-) Bob has not only adjusted without complaining, but has become my "maintenance crew" - picking up all the loose thread and extra clippings of material that I leave behind...

Because the black GT was so large, this took a few hours to sew. My back and legs were aching so badly afterward I had a difficult time standing. The cure for that (as with just about everything) is food! :-) I took a break, and Bob and I went to a really cool pizza joint, where we not only stuffed ourselves sampling a number of different plates, but I also discovered that I LOVE eggplant!!

Here are a few pictures showing what it looks like close up with the blue outline.

I am not sure what I think of it. It is not thick enough to get the GT to stand out from the background much, but that is a good thing as it is not supposed to be too "loud". I guess I was hoping the black GT would have turned out a darker, more solid "black" instead of the faded greenish/blue look. That would make the car stand out much more (as it does on the original picture).

Here is what the GT image looked like compared to how it turned out. The difference in color is huge unfortunately! (I know I am nitpicky, but I want it to look nice.)

Here is the car on the background laid out. Of course, it will have the red strips and border on it, as well as the red embroidered info, so that should help the look.