Turkey Tracks: July 15, 2017
“Big Star” Quilt
I’ve wanted to make Jen Baker’s “Grand Vintage Star Quilt” (free on her blog) for some time.
Why not make it with selvages?
Well, for one thing, the blocks shrink up a bit when sewn with selvages. I lost a few star points in that process. But, I also learned A LOT. Next time I’d cut my background (the charcoal) a bit bigger, and I’d draw a line for the first strip that is the true center of my finished block–never mind the extra bit on the edges. Then I’d trim where needed, but keep my center line on target. I think that might work.
I had a lot of fun quilting this quilt. I did the selvage bits on the long arm. I had to rock back and forth a bit as my long arm has an 18-inch throat and the selvage hals-square triangles are longer than that. Rocking worked fine. Then I pin basted the quilt as I unrolled it, which works well to keep everything straight for sewing on the domestic. My Janome 8900 has a stitch that will lock at the start and at the end automatically and does not leave a big knot–IF YOU BRING UP YOUR BACK THREAD FIRST as you would with free motion quilting. You can trim those threads from the front and the end of the line from the back. So, I sewed each line separately, which meant I did NOT have to keep turning the quilt.
Nice, yes?
This middle part, as you can see above, was STRETCHY. But it all came out nicely in the end.
The back has a lot of texture as well:
Thank you Jen Baker.
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