Sometimes you just need to do a quick and easy project. The fall fair had a category for a set of Quilt As You Go Potholders. I had a pile of red scraps, so these potholders came together very quickly. They have a double layer of batting to make them thick and protective. These will likely be a stocking stuffer for one of my children.
This queen sized quilt is one that I made out from someone else’s UFO. One day last fall, I received an email offering a partially made quilt top and coordinating fabric. An unknown quilter had gifted it to Judy, who was moving to a new home and purging her sewing area. Judy needed to pass this along. This was the photo.
Judy’s UFO Gift
The photo intrigued me. Confident that I could finish assembling the quilt, put on some borders and then quilt it, I gladly accepted the UFO. I like a challenge. However, when it arrived, I saw it in a different light. The photo does not show the intensity of the chrome yellow fabric. When I put it up on my design wall to consider how I would finish it, I found the yellow and red fought for dominance in the quilt. Every time I walked by, I shuddered. It bothered me so much that I ended up taking it all apart. I used the extra fabric to make more red and white singleton blocks with a polka dot center. I made a few half snowball blocks to extend the points out into the negative space beyond the center. Then I added a red check inner border and a red polka dot outer border to finish the top.
Before I quilted it, I noticed a dirt smudge on one of the snowball blocks. I decided to spot wash it before I quilted it. It came clean and I hung it to dry. The next day when I mounted it on the longarm, I noticed that the colour from the red check fabric had bled into the white fabric. After a quick internet search on what to do when excess dye runs, I ran to the grocery store to buy Dawn detergent. I filled the bathtub with lukewarm water, added half a cup of Dawn and then laid out the top to soak in the soapy mixture for three hours. I was a tad stressed as I saw the water turn a lovely shade of pink. Apparently, there is something about the Dawn detergent that makes the colour suspend in the water and not in the fabric. I followed the recommendations for draining and rinsing. It came out perfectly with no bleeding visible. Just to be on the safe side, I repeated the whole procedure, but I did not need to do so. No more dye came out. I’m glad to know this trick. It will come in handy again, I am sure!
With that ordeal over, I quilted it with a lush feather edge to edge design that sets it off nicely. The binding is a tonal red fabric that visually contains those polka dots! I’m pleased with the final outcome of this quilt.
This quilt won Grand Champion, Machine Quilting at the 2016 Wellesley Fall Fair. It now goes into my stash of wedding gift quilts for some future bride and groom to select.
I have a plan underway for what to do with the leftover yellow and red nine patch blocks. It involves a bottle of brown dye! I am certain that most people with not recognize them as having been part of the original UFO.
Posted in Completed Quilt Project, Quilt Rescue
Tagged Queen Sized Quilt, UFO, Wedding Quilt
These pot holders stated when I noticed a category in the fall fair list for two hot mats. I dug though my orphan block box and found the red stripped fabric. Then I looked in my scrap bin and found a small piece of the rose fabric. I fussy cut the roses and cut the strips into sections that could be partial pieced around the roses. At about 8 inches square, they make a nice sized hot mat. I doubled the thickness of the batting to give extra protection to a table, then quilted them in a nice crosshatch flower design. If I were to make them over, I would quilt them less densely as they tend to get stiff with the double batting and the dense quilting. However they will work well as hot mats. We tend to use a lot of hot mats and it is nice to have fresh ones every once in a while.
Posted in Completed Quilt Project, Quick Quilt, Scrap Quilt
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