It's a Flimsy Finish Day :)

Before I start with my progress over the weekend on my quilt tops, I want to say that I participated in the Grow your Blog Party over at 2 Bags Full, the link is on the left sidebar.  There were over 600 participating bloggers!! How cool is that?? If you are looking for some new blogs to read, head on over there and check out all of the links!  I have spent the last two days hopping all over the internet :) Welcome to all of my new followers and readers!

I finished the Square in Square flimsy this morning AND I finished putting the borders on the Scappy Bargello! Not a bad start to the day :) You can find the information on fabric and pattern for the Square in a Square top here.  I have learned some interesting little tidbits when piecing the Square in a Square quilt, more on that after the pics!!  I did not take more pictures of the Scrappy Bargello, it is so big at this point I do not have a place big enough to photo it! I will take pics after it is quilted and I can man handle it more :)

Not the best full shot but I wanted to give the full effect AND I have close ups :)

Don't those batiks just sing? Xanadu by Moda, love the colors!  So I did not have enough of the gold fabric to use as sashing.  I used white Painters Canvas by Michael Miller.  The sashing finished at 1" and I figured out a new to me way to do sashing that made it WAY easier to match up those columns.  I'm sure there is a tutorial out there somewhere but I had never seen one, late to the party - that's me! LOL First, I figured out how all of the squares were going to be laid out.  Then I sewed the sashing strips to the bottom and right side to all of the squares except for  last row horizontally and the last column vertically .  For the last row, I sewed the sashing strip only on right side (but not to the last column of blocks) and for the last column I sewed sashing strips only to the bottom of the square (but not to the bottom square on the right hand side).  I then sewed the first three squares of each column (vertical) together.  Then I sewed each of the columns together - the top was now half sewn together. I then did the same thing to the bottom half.  Once the top half and the bottom half were sewn together, I sewed the top and the bottom together. What this did was give me one intersecting seam at all of the intersections of the sashing to match! I have done sashing the 'traditional' way and it looked ok but I have to say this top turned out way better and I did not have to rip any seams due to mismatched columns! Big woohoo! If you want to know more, and this makes absolutely no sense, email me or leave a comment and I will get back to you :)

OK the other thing I figured out when matching those seams - I did not put the pin all the way through so the pin came back out to the top.  Does that make sense? I put the pin in through the seam that was on top and then through the seam on the bottom, making sure that the edges of the fabric was matched.  I did this right before the fabric came to the foot (I have a pretty big bed so probably 3 inches prior to the needle).  I found that this gave me a very accurate seam match because I was able to keep the pin in until after the needle had passed the seam.  Again, I did not rip any seams and there might be three in the entire top that are about three threads off - not bad!

One more thing that I think totally helped with my accuracy with this top.  I used my accufeed foot (I have a Janome 7700 and this is their version of a walking foot. Honestly, I don't think I will ever piece another top without that foot attached!  Janome does make a 1/4" foot for the accufeed system. I do not have the special foot.  I don't like those side flanges.  So I fiddled with the needle position and the fabric position until I got the quarter inch, before I started piecing of course ;) Don't you hate it when you start with fabric that is exactly the same length and you get to the end of the seam and they are not the same length anymore?  This did not happen to me ONCE in piecing this entire quilt!  I would think any walking foot would work.  I know Pfaff has this built into their machines. . . NO I cannot go machine shopping LOL

OK, I am off to get that bargello sandwiched.... OY! I have decided I am going to do a spiral on the quilt.... I had thought about doing this but when I saw the tutorial Crazy Mom Quilts did last week, the decision was made! . . . I have done this on a smaller scale - this is a large king size top but I think it will be painful initially although using the free motion foot in the center makes a lot of sense to me.  You can bet you will be hearing all about it!

Linking up with Merelize over at Stitch by Stitch for Anything Goes Mondays.  Head on over and check out what other peeps are doing!


Until next time, keep on quilting!!