Not much progress has been made on my UFO yet this month, but I am prepared to make lots of progress this week. The first two sections of Votes For Women are quilted, and trimmed. This is not one of my favourite jobs. The three layers have to be trimmed, which totally dulls the rotary blade.
And then you end up with a pile of mess that looks like this. These are the cutoff edge pieces that have to be dealt with.
The batting scraps are cut with scissors (to save the rotary blade from further torture) into smaller pieces and tossed in the dog bed pillowcase, which is attached to my cutting table with binder clips.
The backing scraps are cut into useable sizes of 1", 1.5" and sometimes 2". These are all civil war reproductions so will go into that scrap bin.
Now that this step is completed and I'm ready to make some progress on this quilt!
12 comments:
Looking forward to your progress. I'm hoping to put a dent in my OMG quilt between now and Monday (President's Day) as well. Happy quilting, Kathy.
Cutting up all the leftovers is a very good thing! I like to use some of the cut-off for Binding. Your only halfway throughthe shortest month, you can do it!!
Ha ha--my mind sees that pile of batting scraps and I immediately think how many mini quilts you could sandwich with that! I often piece the batting on my minis, and I don't baste it together--just cut straight edges with my rotary cutter (haven't noticed that the blade feels tortured, but it is a short cut), and then butt them up against each other, smooth the top of the quilt over it and pin baste strategically to hold the two sides together while quilting. Your method of using up those scraps sounds quicker, though. : )
Ha, ha, ha. I chuckled when you called a 1" scrap useable. To each his own, but that's just too small for me.
Pat
That is a bunch of up front work for tiny scraps but your saver-extraordinaire system appears to readily suit! Progress is progress:)
cleaning up before a finish is a novel idea LOL
As a suggestion, what I do when I cut batting from when I am through quilting a quilt.
1. I make sure that I am using an old cutting mat.
2. I use the cheaper rotary cutter ONLY to cut the batting.
This might speed up the process and yes it may dull the blade, but you will not be using it for fabric cutting!
I am sure the quilt will be pretty - looking forward to see the finished product!
Love that you take the time to organize those scraps! I'm learning!
Hi Kathy, stopping by to say hello and see your blog post. I see you are still keeping those hands busy! connie xo
I never knew that cutting through the quilt layers and batting to trim the edges of a quilt dulled the blade of a rotary cutter. Wow! That is news to me. Not that I finish that many quilts but it explains my dulling blade. Thanks for sharing that info.
Your quilt looks great. I'm looking forward to seeing it finished.
P.S. I love the photo in your header!
Now that you've got the not fun stuff over, hope you've made lots of progress on your UFO.
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