Tip toe through Hexagons Cutie Style, layout etc.........
03-31-2010, 12:03 AM
#731
Senior Member
Join Date: Feb 2010
Posts: 611
Thanks for all the advice, people! I'll give the starch a try and see what that might do.
Fireworkslover, thank you. My little border fabric is indeed a Kaufman, from the Imperial Collections, but an older one and no longer shown on their site. The shop I bought it from no longer has it in the right colorway. I've chased Imp Collections around the internet and haven't been able to find this one. Ah well - it's from my first cautious forays into fabric buying when I would just get FQ. I tend to buy by the yard or two now...
It's ok. I have so many other things to try. Maybe I'm just not meant to do a third OBW just yet!
Fireworkslover, thank you. My little border fabric is indeed a Kaufman, from the Imperial Collections, but an older one and no longer shown on their site. The shop I bought it from no longer has it in the right colorway. I've chased Imp Collections around the internet and haven't been able to find this one. Ah well - it's from my first cautious forays into fabric buying when I would just get FQ. I tend to buy by the yard or two now...
It's ok. I have so many other things to try. Maybe I'm just not meant to do a third OBW just yet!
03-31-2010, 01:53 AM
#732
Power Poster
Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: Somerset, England
Posts: 10,686
Salmon that turned out beautiful! Regarding the ripple effect, that could be that some of those edges on the 60° bias got slightly pulled out of shape - it happens! Try the starch and press gently, NO WIGGLING! :lol: Next time, (and I'm sure there WILL be one!) you could try starching your layers before you cut the strips/triangles and maybe a be a bit more gentle with those poor little triangles! Did you turn them here and there rather than keeping the straight of grain always on the outer edges? Of course, you CAN turn them but I find that then you have to be really careful not to pull them out of true. I only do the turning thing if I feel I have to, because of this. :-D
03-31-2010, 04:32 AM
#733
Super Member
Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: St. Cloud, Minnesota
Posts: 1,653
Originally Posted by k3n
Salmon that turned out beautiful! Regarding the ripple effect, that could be that some of those edges on the 60° bias got slightly pulled out of shape - it happens! Try the starch and press gently, NO WIGGLING! :lol: Next time, (and I'm sure there WILL be one!) you could try starching your layers before you cut the strips/triangles and maybe a be a bit more gentle with those poor little triangles! Did you turn them here and there rather than keeping the straight of grain always on the outer edges? Of course, you CAN turn them but I find that then you have to be really careful not to pull them out of true. I only do the turning thing if I feel I have to, because of this. :-D
03-31-2010, 04:42 AM
#734
Super Member
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Jacksonville, North Carolina
Posts: 5,941
I know that's part of the problem with mine. I opened all my seams, they were starched before sewing and during the sewing of the the halves together. I like starch it's a quilters best friend.
I'm going to change the borders on mine maybe today, then bite the bullet and just put it together and quilt it. I love the colors, I love the look of it, and I'm ready to have it on my bed. :D
I'm going to change the borders on mine maybe today, then bite the bullet and just put it together and quilt it. I love the colors, I love the look of it, and I'm ready to have it on my bed. :D
03-31-2010, 05:58 AM
#735
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Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Outside St. Louis
Posts: 38,213
Possibly if you can clamp it down while sandwiching it you can gently tug it into being straight and try getting the top and those edges to be straight and put in tons of safety pins and when quilting only take out a few pins at a time and hold taunt with hands as you quilt it. Do the above on each side. I almost only do FMQ and think it hides alot of flaws after the quilt is washed and dried. Kind of hard to put into words. It is beautiful and I'm sure you will be able to get it to turn out and it won't be noticeable when it's finished.
03-31-2010, 06:22 AM
#737
Senior Member
Join Date: Feb 2010
Posts: 611
Ok, for reference, I'm sure it's a combination of several things that is making my center a bit bubbly. Some I'll be doing differently in the future.
Cutting - I'm a newbie with the whole rotary cutting thing. I knew my triangles varied a tiny bit, I was just hoping it would even out across the top. It mostly did, but not enough!
Two things I think contributed:
First, ruler lines. I remember reading discussions on this board about "which side of the line" on the ruler to use to measure with. Couldn't figure out what that was about! By now, every time I cut I'm grumbling about how thick and wishy-washy the lines on my ruler are, lol! Since I cut those cheetah, my eye has developed to see more quilt-relevant precision.
Second, sliding the triangle ruler over, to cut two in one go (instead of swivelling it round and measuring and cutting painstakingly one by one). It's fast, Cute does it, it appealed to me. But for my personal skill (read: lack of it! lol) at this stage, it didn't give me precise enough triangles.
Aligning hexagons by pattern, not grain - yep I did. And will, again. I auditioned and re-auditioned each block, individually and in context with all the others I was cutting. This was a large part of the fun for me and I'll definitely keep doing it if I do more OBW. There has to be a way to do this and still end up with a viable result! Paula Nadelstern cuts the tiny fabric pieces for her super-complex kaleidoscopes every which way, looking only at the print and not the grain.
Seam allowances - I don't think this is a problem here. I pressed each seam open, from the reverse and then from the right side. (Another clothes-making habit.) So any bulk from seam allowances would be evenly distributed across the centre, not creating bubbly bits.
Pressing - possibly a factor. Although I've made tons of clothes and so have always worked with curves, bias and such (and yes I press, not iron, seams when I make clothes), so I don't entirely think I do a bad job pressing bias edges! I did find it hard to press enough to get the seams joining the strips entirely flattened out, so I'm thinking you ladies may have a point suggesting pressing with starch again.
There's a whole another saga beginning, with the starch. I don't like chemicals on my fabric and the commercial spray starch I could find locally stinks to high heaven. Yuck.
I've now found one that's supposedly natural, ordered it online... and it's going to take a week to be delivered and is costing me the equivalent of $15 for one spray bottle!! I sure hope it is good to work with, at that price. Well well, on to the next learning experience!
Cutting - I'm a newbie with the whole rotary cutting thing. I knew my triangles varied a tiny bit, I was just hoping it would even out across the top. It mostly did, but not enough!
Two things I think contributed:
First, ruler lines. I remember reading discussions on this board about "which side of the line" on the ruler to use to measure with. Couldn't figure out what that was about! By now, every time I cut I'm grumbling about how thick and wishy-washy the lines on my ruler are, lol! Since I cut those cheetah, my eye has developed to see more quilt-relevant precision.
Second, sliding the triangle ruler over, to cut two in one go (instead of swivelling it round and measuring and cutting painstakingly one by one). It's fast, Cute does it, it appealed to me. But for my personal skill (read: lack of it! lol) at this stage, it didn't give me precise enough triangles.
Aligning hexagons by pattern, not grain - yep I did. And will, again. I auditioned and re-auditioned each block, individually and in context with all the others I was cutting. This was a large part of the fun for me and I'll definitely keep doing it if I do more OBW. There has to be a way to do this and still end up with a viable result! Paula Nadelstern cuts the tiny fabric pieces for her super-complex kaleidoscopes every which way, looking only at the print and not the grain.
Seam allowances - I don't think this is a problem here. I pressed each seam open, from the reverse and then from the right side. (Another clothes-making habit.) So any bulk from seam allowances would be evenly distributed across the centre, not creating bubbly bits.
Pressing - possibly a factor. Although I've made tons of clothes and so have always worked with curves, bias and such (and yes I press, not iron, seams when I make clothes), so I don't entirely think I do a bad job pressing bias edges! I did find it hard to press enough to get the seams joining the strips entirely flattened out, so I'm thinking you ladies may have a point suggesting pressing with starch again.
There's a whole another saga beginning, with the starch. I don't like chemicals on my fabric and the commercial spray starch I could find locally stinks to high heaven. Yuck.
I've now found one that's supposedly natural, ordered it online... and it's going to take a week to be delivered and is costing me the equivalent of $15 for one spray bottle!! I sure hope it is good to work with, at that price. Well well, on to the next learning experience!
03-31-2010, 06:25 AM
#738
Senior Member
Join Date: Feb 2010
Posts: 611
Originally Posted by Jingleberry
Possibly if you can clamp it down while sandwiching it you can gently tug it into being straight and try getting the top and those edges to be straight and put in tons of safety pins and when quilting only take out a few pins at a time and hold taunt with hands as you quilt it. Do the above on each side. I almost only do FMQ and think it hides alot of flaws after the quilt is washed and dried. Kind of hard to put into words. It is beautiful and I'm sure you will be able to get it to turn out and it won't be noticeable when it's finished.
I'm planning to MQ large meanders across the center and I've done that on my practice sandwiches without even taking pins out, just flowing around.
03-31-2010, 06:40 AM
#739
Super Member
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Central Washington State
Posts: 5,997
Originally Posted by salmonsweet
Originally Posted by Jingleberry
Possibly if you can clamp it down while sandwiching it you can gently tug it into being straight and try getting the top and those edges to be straight and put in tons of safety pins and when quilting only take out a few pins at a time and hold taunt with hands as you quilt it. Do the above on each side. I almost only do FMQ and think it hides alot of flaws after the quilt is washed and dried. Kind of hard to put into words. It is beautiful and I'm sure you will be able to get it to turn out and it won't be noticeable when it's finished.
I'm planning to MQ large meanders across the center and I've done that on my practice sandwiches without even taking pins out, just flowing around.
if your quilt is laying on a flat surface, can you put your hand down and almost contain all the bubble in one, relatively small area? Then, you might consider in JUST that area, doing some following the seam lines before you go into flowing lines, working out from the middle ... sort of a fine line - - have to at least anchor the bubble down, but you don't want to flatten it out so much that the bubble GROWS as it moves away from the area ...
the more space between your quilting lines, the more likely that the fabric will "level" out following the washing and drying event.
Hope I haven't confused you <wave>
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