Potpourri of Quiltiness

This week was a real potpourri for me of home decor, piecing, quilting, and blogging. This week is the final time Lee Heinrich of Freshly Pieced is hosting her Wednesday WIP link-up party so I did not want to miss inclusion in that, for Auld Lang Syne.

I made up a another color combination from my Sandy Klop Flying Circles pattern. I pieced only six triangles for this wall hanging this week and I accomplished that just today. Once again I chose a trio of fabrics with an intended orientation and then when I start flipping them around I become undecided. This combination of red on red dots, green on green swirl, and red/green stripe has the potential to look suspiciously Christmas-y. But then again so do the red chairs with apple green piping in my living room. The overarching question with this block for me is "Whirligig" or "Star". I originally intended the stripes in the interior to give a sense of whirling motion with the red on the outside. But the green swirl and the green stripe seemed to blend with each other too much so the inner section becomes a weak whirligig and an even flatter, non-3D star.

I tried moving the red in to be part of the star or whirligig. I like this better but it does give off a strong aroma of Christmas with those two basically solid fabrics strongly adjacent. The stripes give a sense of radiating rather that rotating.

On the third configuration, my only remaining option, I kept the stripe inside to give that rotating feel and used the red to contrast. The perimeter is a bit weak where the green swirl and green/red stripe are adjacent, but nevertheless, I think this arrangement is the front runner for me at the moment.

Actually I mis-spoke (mis-wrote?). I do have a fourth option. I could disperse these six triangles to be the spokes of a different interior hexagon like I did with a blue/green/red-white triangles in my Sandy Klop  class post of 1/23/16. The possibilities are endless. Well, to be precise, the number of possibilities is finite, but there are indeed a myriad to choose from.

On the home decor front, I was otherwise productive in that I finally did finish the barstool covers I'd been working on and mailed them off yesterday to my son and daughter-in-law. See my previous post.

This morning I attended a Handiquilter Sweet Sixteen Club at my semi-local quilt shop The Cotton Patch in Lafayette, CA. There, I practiced stitching two FMQ patterns from Lori Kennedy's blog. She has an entire collection of patterns and tutorials at theinboxjaunt.com/quilt/free-motion-quilting-tutorials/. Underneath each photo is the phrase I made up to chant to myself as I sew. The cute bows are much easier than they look. I chant, "sway down, sway up, sway down, figure 8 big, figure 8 little." "Practice make perfect," as the saying goes. I will settle for "Practice makes presentable."

That concludes my potpourri of quiltiness this week. Did I mention I also bought the yarn to knit my six-month-old grandson a baseball jacket style sweater? Aah, but that is the subject of another post. For now I am linking up to this week's WIP Wednesday.

Whine & Dyin'? No. Wine & Dine!

Those barstool covers are completed! My past posts to document my learning and struggles could be construed as whining. I must admit these covers challenged me but I was determined they would not defeat me. It was do or die! Now they will be best used to "Wine and Dine" instead.

In my most recent post on the topic, I dismissed a final short seam between the back and seat as trivial but was leery about the task of attaching all 30 feet of Velcro®. Pleasant surprise! The Velcro® went on like a dream. I upped my needle size from 80/12 to 90/14 and lengthened my stitch size from 2.5 mm to 3.0 mm and the thick Velcro® tape whizzed under my pressure foot. I must admit, though, that discarding 30 feet of the loop side of Velcro® was agonizing for a saver like me. Surely it could be used for something else. The stools themselves have the loopy side permanently affixed on the underside of the seats, so the covers only needed the soft side.

On the other hand, that "trivial" short seam I previously referenced was deceiving. In addition to the short straight section, it had a curved section, and a curved section that mated to a straight section after a Y-junction. Whew! The two left red arrows matched up, the two top and bottom yellow arrows matched up, and the two right red arrows matched up. It took me several tries before I recognized the Y-seam for what it was. I had to lift out the needle and re-insert it, much like turning the corning when attaching the binding to a quilt. Once I figured out the Y-seam incognito, there were no mishaps and nothing needed to be un-sewn. Yay!

I am so glad – so very glad – I kept half the original cover intact because I referred to it a zillion times I think. That short straight portion of the seam... ? It is at the far left of the photo with the snippet of Velcro® tab hanging from it. It creates a kind of pocket tab that inserts between the stool back and stool seat to fasten underneath at the rear of the seat.

I did have one area I considered ripping out. On the first seat I constructed, I pressed the seam open between the gusset and the seat top, then topstitched on both sides, shown by the upper red arrow. I later decided the seam would be stronger pressed to one side, shown by the lower red arrow. This approach also halved the amount of top stitching and replicated the original. I left it this way on one seat rather than risk tearing a hole in the fabric trying to remove it. I probably should not have even pointed it out. Consider it my signature custom flag and precautionary measure to avoid angering the gods.

If you are wondering where I got those cute arrows, they are a set of straight pins I bought several years ago, sold by Fons and Porter. A container has way more than I need, but they do come in handy for marking pressing directions (and for illustrating blog posts). Besides, the tins holding the four styles of arrowhead pins for left, right, up, and down are so darn adorable with their quilt block motif and square viewing window, I could not pass them up.

I took extra precautions to assure I placed the Velcro® in the right position to wrap just the right amount beneath the seat of the stool and mate with the loopy side of the Velcro®. I used the original cover as a pressing guide to know how much to fold up. I hope, hope, hope, hope, hope they fit! It is kind of like making clothes for a distant grandchild, but at least this should be a bit simpler since the stools are not a growing, moving target.

I think I have worked my way through just about every chair style in my house to illustrate these covers at their various stages of completion. Here is my best candidate, although the flaps hanging down have not been tucked up and fastened with Velcro® to the seat underside. My daughter-in-law is really good with keeping in touch, so when she sends me a photo of the covers on the intended barstools, I will publish an update to this post.

For those of you interested in my home decor forays outside the quilting world, here is a summary list of the posts about my progress and my lessons learned with these barstool covers. My intention is for this post to be my final one on the topic. I plan to mail the covers off ASAP.

September 30, 2015 Barstool Covers

October 7, 2015 Barstools vs. Blankies

January 20, 2016 Prototype Barstool Cover

January 27, 2016 Barstools, Whirligigs, Distractions

February 2, 2016 Whine & Dyin'? No. Wine and Dine!

Oh, and by the way, after all my forays in several fabric stores in Northern and Southern California, I finally have plenty of fabric left over. Matching pillows, any one?

UPDATE (2/6/16)

I mailed the covers Wednesday 2/3,  they arrived Friday 2/5, and they were put on the barstools Saturday 2/6. My daughter-in-law texted me, "First one fits like a glove!" Then a bit later I got the text, "They all fit perfectly!! No lie!" 

Aah... what a relief. Here is a front view...

and a rear view...

Here is one last photo of all five in place around the round end of the "apostrophe" kitchen island. I think Carrie picked out great fabric to go with the countertop. I am so glad that "All's well that ends well."