texasannie

I purchased one of those pre stamped cross stitch quilt projects....Tractors ..... I am having a terrible time getting the squares uniform and squared up, as well as trying to do the squares into triangles to match....I need some advise on this??? Can someone tell me what I am doing wrong? I've pretty much taught myself the very littel I know, and as you can tell, I need some teaching!!

Bobbinwinder

These are really cute! You've run into the same problem many have experienced...the stitching draws the fabric in some cases. And the fabric is sometimes not as stable as we'd like since it is not as tightly woven. Those designs with straight borders are tough for just about everyone. Since that border is not that important to the design, I'd be for taking that stitching out and trimming the block again...leave the block as large as possible but make sure the unused printing will fall within the seam allowance. For future projects of this type, try to avoid straight border designs, stiffen the fabric a bit before stitching, and/or baste the block to another piece of white fabric that has a tighter weave to reduce the degree of distortion.
Hope this helps. Those tractors are really neat!

texasannie

Thank you! There are supposed to be 30 of these blocks. Think I will stop here (pillow sham maybe?) and follow your advise on the quilt part. Again, thank you so much!

littlehud

What a great idea for a quilt. And you are combining two loves. I agree with the fact that it looks like your fabric pulled up where you did the cross stitch. It is just the cross stitch border makes it more obvious.

mom-6

One of the things I noticed about stamped cross stitch kits is that they are rarely stamped on grain, so everything is a little catawampus from the get-go...main reason I won't buy them.

texasannie

Actually, it is three loves. This is for my dear sweetest husband in the whole universe! He loves tractors, and he is so good about not saying "much" about my staches that I have, but have not started "quilting" with......He is so excited about this that he put this picture on his phone to take to work to show off! .....GOT to make this so special for HIM! But I se Now, that you both are so correct....the edging really shows it, so it will have to go! One more unsew on this, but onward !

texasannie

Well I bought two different types of tractor patterns (one John Deere, and this one), so will learn how to make lemonade from lemons on these projects.

I told my husband I would do this tractor set in green and yellow for John Deere, and he informed me of what kind of tractor this was, and it would only look right done in the red, because that is how these came! LOL....I'm getting him hooked on this quilting, step by step, inch by inch!! LOL

Tippy

So... are they International Harvester, or Allis Chalmers?..lol When you are getting ready to cross stitch these you can spray starch them to get them to hold shape a little better, or you can put a VERY light interfacing on the back. they will shrink a little when you wash them.. a peril of the pre-printed square nowadays. They just aren't as good a fabric as they used to be. If you have others to do.. I'd just ignore the border all together.. it usually just washes out in the end. I wouldn't even worry about it showing.

Oklahoma Suzie

cute

texasannie

No, these are Farm All's, DH thinks they were made by Allis Chalmers. I will try the spray starch on the next square.....