Now that the cars have been ironed onto the border, I started with the black thread, and sewed around all of the tires. There are 28 cars, so this was a LOT of sewing! And being round, it was a S-L-O-W process. :-)
Once the tires were sewn, I decided to use black to sew the windshields on all of the cars.
When I finished the black thread, I started on the blue. I noticed that the wheels and blue outline looked great, but the windshield did not look good being black. It was too dark compared to the faded black on the windshield.
Therefore, the black sewing by the windshield had to go! So, I got out the handy dandy seam ripper and cut off the white and black thread that outlined the windshield...on each of the 28 cars. (Would have been nice to notice this right away.)
Once they were off, I got back to the blue sewing. This is what the blue looked like once the applique was complete. If you look close, you will notice that there are 2 shades of blue, but the one shade of blue thread that I had was sufficient.
When the blue was done, I went to change the thread, and noticed that it was almost empty. What perfect timing! If I just had one more blue car to do, I would have had to go to the store and buy more thread. :-)
It is such a great feeling to know the quilt is almost finished! :-) The next step is to do the border. I took the light blue fabric and cut 3 1/2" strips.
Unfortunately, there was not nearly enough material, so I had to make another trip to the quilt store. On top of the extra trip, the new fabric had to be pre-washed, dried, and ironed, before it could be cut into strips.
Once the blue strips were cut out, I moved on to the outer red strips. Just like the other red strips, this would be cut at 1". When the material was cut, pieces were sewn together for the 2 long sides.
Then, the red and blue strips were sewn together. This would make it easier to attach to the quilt later on compared to having to do 2 separate layers. When the pieces were sewn together, the seams were ironed on one side and the front of the strips were also ironed flat.
Then I laid the quilt on my bed and pinned the border to the quilt to see where the edges needed to be cut.
When all 4 sides were pinned, I put the border over the rotary cutter and trimmed the edges, leaving about 1" extra on all 4 sides (which will be cut later when the border is sewn to the quilt).
The reason the border is not yet sewn to the quilt, is because the border cars have to be attached and sewn into place. With all of the turning required due to the curves of the cars, all of the quilt material would bunch up and cause problems in the sewing machine if I sewed the borders to the quilt at this time.
Even though this is just pinned, the pictures below should give you a good idea of what the lighter blue tie-dye fabric will look like next to the darker background blue.
The lighter blue border actually compliments the blues in the "black GT" on the crib side of the quilt, and I think it looks nice with the red strips on both sides.
With the borders pinned to the quilt, it was time to figure out where the cars should be placed. I curled under the ends of the border and red strip to imitate the diagonal edge that would be there once it was sewn together. This showed me how far down the border cars could be placed. Assuming that all of the long strips were the same length and all of the short strips were the same length, I only measured once, and then used that to quickly place the cars on the other strips.
The paper on the back of the fusible webbing had to be removed on all of the cars.
I also kept both sets of cars separate as the colors were slightly different. Then I lined up the cars on each strip using my ruler, and ironed them into place.
Each side of the quilt will have the same color order, so I made 2 of each strip look identical.
I was hoping to just trim the excess off of the blue background where the edges didn't match up. However, when I looked at each corner, I saw that I could not simply trim it. What would happen if I did that is to get 4 sloped sides. In other words, the angle was off center, so in order to keep it looking centered, if you measured the width of the blue background from one end to the other, there would be about a 1/2" difference. This would not be terribly noticeable until the red strips and border were attached. Then you would easily be able to see that each of the 4 edges gets larger or smaller from side to side.
To fix this, I saw no other way than to use my favorite tool - the seam ripper! I removed all 4 of the background strips and used my excess material to re-cut new strips. When I did that, I intentionally shaved off 1/2" width on the strips. The reason is that the material I bought is about 42" selvage to selvage, so this would allow me to use one strip (without piecing) for the top and bottom for both these blue strips and the first set of red strips. That way, in case I make another mistake, I should have some extra material to use. Re-cutting and sewing the blue strips to the play side of the quilt took about 1/3 the time it did before, and this time, the edges lined up!! :-)
Once this was done, I took the red fabric and cut 12 1" strips. These will end up being 1/2" wide after being sewn.
Just like I did with the blue strips, I pieced 2 of the red strips together for the long sides, and then, matching up the piecing with the piecing of the blue strips, I sewed the red strips to the blue background.
Then, I ironed the seams down, pulling the material out as I went, so it came out even all the way down.
As you can see, there were a few places where strings from the frayed edges managed to slip through the area I was sewing. They just had to be cut as close to the fabric as possible without (obviously) cutting the fabric.
Once both sides of the red strips were ironed, I cut any excess material from the ends of the strips so that the corners lined up (doing my best to avoid the mistake I made previously), and I cut the corners. To do this on the red strips was more difficult than the blue - probably because the blue are longer. I cut 1/4" seam allowance from both sides, folded the seams through the middle so they lined up, and then put them in the sewing machine to sew them together. This was a lot more difficult than it looked. The first time I tried with the red strips, I noticed that the diagonal line did not match up with the blue line. There were also places I had to remove stitches or add stitches to get them to line up correctly. In this picture, I had to sew twice, because I had to add a few stitches to meet the corner. I couldn't do this the first time, because if I sew to the edge, I cannot back up the stitches or the material bunches up. It just adds another few minutes, but makes a huge difference!
You can see how when it is opened up and flipped over, after ironing it down, the diagonal edge lines up with the diagonal of the blue background. It really wouldn't make a big difference if they line up at the same angle, but for presentation, it looks much cleaner this way!
This is what the red strip looked like when all 4 sides were attached. I still have to sew on the border and the final red strip, but it is getting there, and I'm very happy with the way it is turning out! :-)
The next part was to attach the red strips to the back of the quilt. First, I contemplated reprinting the 13 black pieces to see if I could get them to turn out sharper, and would then redo the black GT. This would probably take 3 days minimum to do, and would require buying more fabric sheets and blue background material. After talking with a few people, and after stepping back and looking at the black GT, it's not that the color is "off", but that the black is just faded. Since I would have to pre-wash the material, even if I was able to print sharper black pieces, the difference would be minimal compared to the time and expense of re-doing that section. Therefore, I decided to leave it as is.
I had already cut out the red strips for this side of the quilt, but before I could use them, I had to match up the 2 sides of the quilt so they were the same size. This sounds easy, but I do not have an area in the house with floor space allowing me to completely lay out the quilt so it is flat. Additionally, I should have measured BEFORE adding the red strips to the other side of the quilt. Oh well. I tried using the ruler to just measure the play side, and what I found out is that from one side to another, the lengths and widths are not the same!! I guess after piecing everything together, and some parts stretching more than others, there was a bit more variance that I would have liked. I just took the closest measurement I could.
Because the sides are so long, I folded the back of the quilt selvage to selvage, pressed the edges down, and laid that over the rotary mat with the ruler on top. Then I could properly measure and cut the quilt.
In the end, when both sides are finished, I will have to add batting (a thin line of stuffing to make the quilt soft and warm), and then sew the edges together. They need to be close, but not perfect.
After this was cut, I repeated the same steps taken above to attach the 6 red strips to the edges of the black GT side of the quilt.
The red really helped brighten up this side of the quilt. The embroidery will be red as well, and seeing the red on there helped to alleviate my worries on how that side of the quilt was going to turn out.
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.
