Masquerade Quilt Is Complete

Technically, Masquerade was complete after the label and binding were attached (previous post 10/14/20); but after nine years in the making, and nine posts throughout the process, the quilt deserved a tenth post dedicated to its completion. The king size quilt also needed a hanging sleeve in order to be photographed. It is the largest quilt I have ever made. I am proud I made it totally on my own – no sub-contracting for the quilting. At 88" x 92" it is too big for even my 6'4" husband to hold up for me, and so here is Masquerade, displayed on a rack, indoors, with additional lighting from a high intensity lamp.

We initially tried for the natural lighting of outdoor photographs but the wind was battling us. I had to time a shot when the quilt was vertical and not moving and orient myself relative to the quilt so that at least one view was looking straight on. Harder yet, my husband is concentrating in this photo on keeping the entire contraption from blowing over; 56 square feet makes quite a sail. Gale force winds are not required to topple over the frame, only a persistent breeze. Angling to optimize the sun for lighting often works at cross purposes to choosing a direction that minimizes the forces of the wind. Advertising banners often have holes or slits in them to allow the wind to pass though. Obviously I was not about to do that to Masquerade.

I have a greater admiration for photographers. I will spare showing you images from my many failed attempts due to 1) legs of the stand blocking the quilt, 2) the camera tilted too much to level the photo afterward by cropping, 3) parts of fingers over the lens, 4) blurred image because of  the quilt moving, 5) blurred image because of me moving. But, I did get one almost straight-on outdoor photo during a lull in the breeze while no cloud was passing over and obscuring the sun. The Seuss striped binding was an experiment for me and I like the results. It brings spots of brightness to the edges of the quilt both in this outdoor photo of the front and the following indoor photo of the back. I do love the backing fabric, also. Its history, having been designed by a blind artist, is told in my post for 9/16/20 and in my post for 8/21/17 when I bought it.

Indoor photography is easier, if I could manage the distance. Off to the far right, out of view of the shot, are the stairs. I crouched on them to be at the right height and far enough away to get a meager selection of straight-on photos. There is however, a traffic-blocking feature between rooms. That inconvenience may be offset by the "privacy screen" feature created next to the kitchen eating area.

 

I am pleased, and proud, and relieved to have finally, finally, completed Masquerade. Begun for my daughter's wedding in 2011, I told myself if I did not complete this quilt while confined indoors during the pandemic, I never would. The quilt's design has changed from the original expectation, but so have the times. Several quilters in my guild are noting pandemic on their labels but I do not want a strong reminder of this period in time. I am waiting for this social distancing to pass, sooner rather than later, I hope. I think the name Masquerade contains the concept of mask. This double entendre can be a subtle history marker while placing all those masks in a party and upbeat light.

Nine years may sound like a long time but, as I look back on it, it was really two months of concentrated effort after a "gap of giving up" that was just shy of nine years. My husband claims I would be remiss if I did not admit that during those two active months, the quilt was affectionately referred to as "the quilt from hell". (Or perhaps sometimes, not so affectionately, as seen in my 9/25/20 post about skinning a quilt.) Not willing to allow another "gap of giving up" to occur, I doggedly pushed ahead to completion. 

Below are links to the nine previous posts in chronological order by their publication date. They document the fabric acquisition, fussy cutting of the hexagons, piecing, arranging, re-designing, more solids cutting, supplemental piecing, re-arranging, sandwiching, FMQing, un-FMQing, more FMQing, labeling, binding, and photographing. My daughter may like to someday read a blow by blow description of this quilt in the making. She was always so encouraging to me during our phone calls these last few months since its resurrection. She patiently fielded my creeping progress reports in which I kept saying "I'm still trying to figure out ___", "almost there...", or "in the home stretch now...", among other "the check is in the mail type" platitudes.  Masquerade, the admittedly sometimes "quilt from hell" has, upon completion, officially become the "quilt from my heart". I fervently hope she and her family will use it and enjoy it for many years to come. 

10/19/2011   mask-quilt.html

08/10/2020   hexagon-heaven-or-hell.html

08/18/2020   harried-hexagon-happenings.html

08/27/2020   hexagon-columns-completed.html

09/06/2020   hexagon-top-assembly-completed.html

09/16/2020   hexagon-top-prepped-for-fmq.html

09/25/2020   fmqing-triangles-on-masquerade-quilt.html

10/12/2020   completing-fmq-on-masquerade.html

10/14/2020   masquerade-labels-and-binding.html

Masquerade Labels and Binding

The free motion quilting on a quilt, especially one as large as this king size one, is always the hardest and most time-consuming part for me. FMQ was the topic of my posts for  9/25/20, FMQing triangles and  10/12/20, FMQing inserts and hex centers. Finishing details like machine embroidering the labels and attaching the binding do take an effort but a much more manageable one than free motion quilting  – most of the time. I wanted blue grosgrain ribbon for the labels on Masquerade, but, as luck would have it, I did not have any. Normally I would just dash into my local craft store and have them measure out ½ or ¾ yard for me. But, during this pandemic, I am not leaving my home for anything non-essential; plus, the store I would use does not regulate its customer traffic safely enough for my satisfaction at this contagious time. Fortunately, there is almost always the option of purchasing online, partnered with mail delivery or curbside pickup. So to cut two labels, each about 10" long, I needed to ordered an entire roll of blue grosgrain ribbon – 25 yards of it! It was $10 for the whole roll so the price was not that bad. Maybe I can ribbon weave some pillow covers with the non-trivial length of leftovers. But then I would need a second color - no? This thought process reminds me of the book If You Give a Mouse a  Cookie.

Having some extra was good. It was not until the fifth attempt was I successful in embroidering the quilt name and date. My first attempt was progressing great but the thread broke before the file "0" of "2020". When I tried just adding another digit I goofed, and the letter "M" from the beginning of the word appeared instead. On try #2 the thread broke after 7 letters of the 15 character phrase; on try #3, the thread broke almost immediately. I rethreaded my machine top thread, removed the bobbin and cleaned and oiled the area before reinserting the bobbin. Perhaps the eye of the needle was too small or had a burr? I changed from an 80/12 to a 90/14 machine needle. On try #4 the entire phrase came out fine – almost. It appeared to me the second character, the "A", was slightly squashed so it read as MISQUERADE. Perhaps I was constraining the free flow of the ribbon somehow. Since I tend to be fussy, I decided to try one more time. Lo and behold, attempt #5 was a winner! MASQUERADE_2020. I was able to embroider my name exactly as I had wanted it on the first try, the bottom most label in the following photo. Whew! I had visions of using up the bulk of that 25 yards.

For the quilt binding I wanted to do the flanged binding, first because I like the crisp look and second because I did not want to hand stitch (88 + 92 + 88 + 92) = 360 inches along the perimeter. There is a full tutorial on this binding technique at Susie's Magic Binding. I've used it previously on my Fun Guys quilt (6/17/15 post), my E_I_E_I_O quilt (12/9/15 post), and my Whirligiggles quilt (3/23/20 post). For a ⅜" wide binding with an ⅛" flange I cut a white strip 1⅝" and a striped strip 1⅜" wide then sewed them along their length with a ¼" seam. I chose the black and white stripe as the main binding fabric as a graphic accent.  To me black and white fits in with a masked ball.

I made sure to stagger the bias seams of the two fabrics when I joined them, eventually...

... nearing the end. Finally!

Pressing along the 10 yard length of the binding took three passes of the iron: once to set the seam, once again to press it open, and a third time to fold it in half revealing the ⅛ flange.

At the tapered end of the ironing board, the length of binding kept slipping off to the front or back. The pressing process went much more smoothly merely by placing a square board with a straight edge over the pointy end of the board. Then the binding was able to hang straight down from each end of the ironing board.

I used Clover Wonder Clips® to hold the folded over binding and checked periodically for a uniform ⅜" width with a hemming gage.

Using a stitch-in-the-ditch foot, I sewed within that white flange all around the quilt. The bunched up quilt made quite a pile on the surface of my sewing cabinet.

Along the edges with the inserted isosceles triangles, here is the way the binding looked. The white thread is neatly camouflaged within the white flange. The parallel quilting lines in the triangular inserts were spaced apart a similar amount to the stripes on the binding. For the binding around the four quilt corners, I navigated two 120° angles at each of the four corner hexagons. 

I put the labels on the back in the lower two corners, angled to parallel one edge of the corner hexagon. The two corners are folded in to meet each other in the next photo.

It is about time to reveal the completed quilt, right? As soon as I put on the hanging sleeve I will be able to display it all at once, take some pictures, and publish my final post on Masquerade. I am so looking forward to completing this one!

Completing FMQ on Masquerade

After completing the FMQ in the jewel toned equilateral triangles in my 9/25/20 post, I still had to secure the hexagons in some way. I decided on an asterisk in the center of each. Originally I was going to make that asterisk in the same color thread as the triangles surrounding the hexagon. Feeling lazy, I was reluctant to keep changing thread. Sometimes my tension balance gets a bit off and needs to be readjusted for a different thread, even if it is the same brand. Perhaps the amount of dye for a certain color makes a difference...? Besides the tension tweaking, I would also need to figure out what to do for those hexagons in the transition columns that had two colors of triangles surrounding them. Laziness won out, and I decided not to change thread colors and to do all centers in the same color orange as along the edges. I liked the results. When they do show, the orange asterisks seem to echo the orange plus sign sparkles in the black background. What was initiated as laziness, worked out better. Not being able to find those four asterisks in the next photo is a good indicator that I achieved my desired effect. They are sufficiently hidden that they do not detract from the symmetry of the hexagons yet they hold the layers of fabric and batting together.

 

Since I dragged from center to center, rather than traveling, I had to cut all those connecting strings – front and back. I snipped and kept filling a handy cup I trailed along. Then I repeated the whole process on the back. It was not difficult, but methodically going over ~8100 square inches of the king size quilt – twice – was time consuming.

The final FMQ to be completed was on the isosceles triangle edge inserts. The stitching lines would be parallel and have graduated height like a zig-zag piano keyboard border.  I suppose they could have been orange like the center of the hexagons and the equilateral triangles they bordered, but I rejected that option early on, preferring a color similar to a black and white binding. I had planned striped binding; this verticality would echo the stripes. I needed to decide if  the lines should be black or white. To avoid the prison look of black bars over the faces I chose to use white thread. As a bonus, the white flashes in the background are picked up by white thread. So that the tallest line would fall at the highest point of the triangle in each edge insert, I started in the center and worked my way left; then I traveled along the edge back to the center and continued to the right.

 

 

The white thread still looks fine over masks that are not white and I think it will look even better when the binding is in place.

   

Going back to my Pfaff domestic I sew ¼" from the edges, negotiating that 60° angle on each of the four corners. I am in the home stretch now. I need to make and attach the labels and make and attach the binding. I am off to do that now instead of blogging.

FMQing Triangles on the Masquerade Quilt

Each hexagon is surrounded by six equilateral triangles which form the points of a star. I planned to stitch three arcs in each point with matching thread in the colors pink, purple, blue, green, and orange. I would leave the hexagon  mostly non-stitched, so as not to distract from its symmetry. To tack down the center though, there would be six short lines only, stitched in the ditch at 60° to each –  like an asterisk –  *. This asterisk stitching would not be continuous; I would have to start and stop at each center ... all 173 of them.

I had FMQ'd the pink triangles and a few of the pink center asterisks when I found a tuck in the backing. Horrified, I asked myself how this had happened. Was putting asterisks in the center of the hexagons a possible cause? Between hexagons, I was moving the quilt several inches without stitching, dragging thread, and perhaps bunching the backing. Or did the glitch originate in the layering? Usually, before I build my quilt sandwich, I put my batting in the dryer for a few minutes with a damp cloth to fluff out any wrinkles. I had forgotten to do that step before I centered the batting and spread it out on my backing, which was already taped to the floor. Rather than pick the batting back up again and cart it back upstairs to the dryer, I crawled around on the floor smoothing out the batting as best I could. I rationalized to myself that a few speed-bump-type lines were acceptable. Maybe they were not. Also, once I have made the sandwich I generally flip the three layers over and repeat the smoothing process on the back, doing a quality check. I was juggling such bulk with this king size quilt that I just plain forgot this step. In theory this additional smoothing step should have been redundant, but possibly it was not not. Whatever the casue I needed a recovery plan.

There were no other options to remove this tuck other than to "unFMQ". Picking out the stitches would be excruciatingly slow. Fortunately I was still near the two edges at one corner of the quilt so I painstakingly and resignedly set out to slice the stitches from their edges rather than pick them out from the top and bottom, using a "skin a quilt" method. I peeled back the backing from the corner and cut the stitches with a sharp tool using the batting as a buffer and being careful not to cut the backing. See YouTube skinning a quilt video.

I tried several tools to see which was sharpest and had the best geometry for the job. I thought it would be a rotary cutter with a fresh new blade or a razor blade; but, no, the best was the scalpel at the lower right. How appropriate for quilt surgery! Just touching it to the stitch under tension split the thread apart – except at those pesky asterisks where the lines had been double stitched. There stitch removal was a struggle and I had to be super careful to slice only threads and not fabric.

The residual clipped threads formed ghost images of circles. These came as a bonus secondary pattern surprise to me. It was tedious removing the thread snippets with tweezers, but I took my time. A lint roller worked well on the quilt front or backing fabric but not so well on the batting, already fluffy and slightly tacky from the temporary spray adhesive. Odif 505™ is a great product. It grips the layers well, but still it is forgivable for repositioning the fabric – kind of like the quilting world's version of Post-It notes.

My scalpel wielding skill failed me only once, slicing a small slit less than ¼" in length in the backing. A circle of Wonder-Under® ironed on to backing will fix that. I pinked the edge so its presence in the quilt would not have a defined ridge that could be detected easily, and then ironed the spot onto the wrong side of the backing fabric only, much like an "on-the-spot" round bandaid. Although I peeled away the paper backing, I did not heat the area to adhere it to the batting just yet. Heaven forbid if I needed to do another "skinning". I did not want that one spot stuck where it should not be. I will complete the heat press later once the quilt stitching is complete. That is... if I can find where it is! For now the location is marked with blue masking tape.

After losing about two days to repair – and let's face it, also to despair –  I forged ahead completing the pink and moving on to purple and blue.  By Wednesday, I had completed the green and part of the orange. Thursday morning I went straight to FMQing still in my PJs and completed the orange.  I do like how the triangles seem to fluff up like puff pastries or three sided ravioli, if there is such a thing.

 

I still need to stitch the squat isosceles triangle edge inserts. Then the final stitching will be the asterisks central to each hexagon. After completing the jewel-toned triangles I decided to spread the quilt out on our king size bed in our master bedroom to check for mistakes. I had my fingers crossed there would be no repeat tucks. When I asked for his help in spreading it out, my husband asked what I was doing and why. He turned off the lights as he entered the room and proceeded to close the plantation shutters at the windows. He quipped, "So you do not find any mistakes." When I gave him "the look" he opened the shutters, turned on the lights, and asked if I needed a flashlight. I said thank you, but no. Then he brought me a magnifying glass directing me to pose using it so he could snap a photo.

 

Happily I found no tucks, just one snarled bird's nest of green thread where I had not thoroughly moved a thread tail off to the side. (Actually, my husband found it.) I easily clipped it away. I did find that I had stitched over a piece of masking tape meant to remind me where there was a manufacturing flaw in the fabric. The flaw was fortunately near an edge that would be trimmed off and I was able to tear it away at the perforations without any hassle or residue. This slit is a different one from the slice I inadvertently made during my adventures in quilt skinning. 

 

What I did not find was that tiny piece of masking tape marking where I needed to return and press down the second side of the Wonder-Under® patch, securing it to the batting – at the slit I did make myself. At least it is good news that I can't see it. My backup plan is to dry press the general corner area in the pink where I had skinned that portion of the quilt. Somewhere, the sole plate of my iron will find and heat set that jagged-edged Wonder Under spot. I see a few more hours (days?) of asterisk FMQing and edge insert FMQing in my future; then on to the trimming and binding.