{"id":8194,"date":"2010-07-12T22:05:12","date_gmt":"2010-07-13T02:05:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/?p=8194"},"modified":"2012-03-18T18:58:16","modified_gmt":"2012-03-18T22:58:16","slug":"gingham-dog-quilt-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/2010\/07\/12\/gingham-dog-quilt-i\/","title":{"rendered":"Gingham Dog Quilt Part I"},"content":{"rendered":"

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This is one of my all-time favorite projects.\u00c2\u00a0 My dear friend, Suzanne Sawko, and I collaborated on the design, she digitized the straight line text and I sewed it.<\/p>\n

It was a major project and telling you about it will take more than one post.\u00c2\u00a0 I doubt many of you would have the patience or endurance to plow through all the details at one sitting.\u00c2\u00a0 However, those of you who seek new techniques might find some tidbit of interest in the non-conventional creation of this quilt.\u00c2\u00a0 So this is part one.<\/p>\n

The quilt celebrates the amazing capabilities of today’s computerized home embroidery machines. Uncommon sewing and quilting techniques make the project interesting and relatively easy. With the whimsy of a classic children’s poem, the beauty of fine heirloom fabrics and the charm of embroidered gingham dogs and calico cats, this quilt has delighted each of my grandchildren.\u00c2\u00a0 It hangs now in our upstairs nursery, next to the crib.<\/p>\n

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crib with quilt rack<\/p><\/div>\n

What makes this quilt interesting?\u00c2\u00a0 Well, the basic construction, for one.\u00c2\u00a0 I will never forget my original disdain for quilting, especially after hearing a non-quilter comment that to her\u00c2\u00a0it made little sense to cut perfectly good fabric up into little pieces and then sew it back together again.\u00c2\u00a0 At that time, I naively concurred.<\/p>\n

But there is none of that cutting up and resewing here.\u00c2\u00a0 This quilt is very non-traditional in every respect but the design.<\/p>\n

QUILT TOP CONSTRUCTION:\u00c2\u00a0 The foundation is a 50″ square of Swiss flannel,\u00c2\u00a0 a luscious but shifty fabric which creates its own challenges.\u00c2\u00a0 Pulled threads created a centered grid of 7″ squares.\u00c2\u00a0 After the threads were pulled, the entire piece was starched and pressed.<\/p>\n

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To create the triangles which form the frame around the poem’s text, four\u00c2\u00a0triangles were created.\u00c2\u00a0 This was done by cutting four rectangles 22 1\/2″ x 12″ of blue gingham pima cotton, starching and pressing.\u00c2\u00a0 1\/4″ was pressed under on each of the long sides.\u00c2\u00a0 A triangle was created by\u00c2\u00a0folding the two top corners on the long side\u00c2\u00a0to the center.\u00c2\u00a0 This created a fold on the bias side of the triangle which was then pressed.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0The excess, folded under portion of the gingham was cut away. \u00c2\u00a0Then\u00c2\u00a0they were\u00c2\u00a0set aside.<\/p>\n

Four small triangles were made for each corner of the center medallion in which the poem’s text is to be embroidered. The intent was to create a version of the popular snowball quilt square.\u00c2\u00a0 Four 3 1\/2″\u00c2\u00a0gingham squares were folded in half and placed in the corner with the folded edge toward the center of the medallion.\u00c2\u00a0 The raw edges of the triangles extended 1\/4″ beyond the pulled\u00c2\u00a0 thread which marked the 7″ blocks.\u00c2\u00a0 These raw edges\u00c2\u00a0were covered later by the folded edges of the larger triangles.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 The triangles were secured with pins or a glue stick, then basted in place.<\/p>\n

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The large gingham triangles were placed as shown, taking care to place the point of the right angle at the absolute center of its 7″ block.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 The sides of the triangle\u00c2\u00a0were made to cross the intersection of pulled\u00c2\u00a0 threads.\u00c2\u00a0NOTE:\u00c2\u00a0 Enlarge first photo for an upclose look at this placement.\u00c2\u00a0 These triangles were then basted in place, 1\/4″ from the folded edge.\u00c2\u00a0 The base of each large triangle covered the raw edges of the smaller ones.<\/p>\n

Now the all\u00c2\u00a0 the pieces of the quilt top\u00c2\u00a0were in place.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00c2\u00a0The top\u00c2\u00a0looks pieced but is in fact a whole cloth quilt with all the stability\u00c2\u00a0that imparts.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0It\u00c2\u00a0was spray basted to\u00c2\u00a0Quilters’ Dream Cotton Request, their lightest weight cotton batting.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0As I am a huge fan of hand basting, it was then basted\u00c2\u00a0both ways to Christmas with a handsewing needle and quilting thread.\u00c2\u00a0 That time was well spent, especially in\u00c2\u00a0consideration of the fluid nature of the Swiss\u00c2\u00a0flannel.<\/p>\n

NOTE:\u00c2\u00a0 This batting\u00c2\u00a0was put in place to serve\u00c2\u00a0as a stabilizer. The nature of the machine embroidery text files\/designs would make removal of tear-away stabilizers risky and extremely tedious. Cut-away stabilizers\u00c2\u00a0shadowed through the fine Swiss flannel (ask me how I know!). So after all the embroidery is done,\u00c2\u00a0a second layer of batting will be placed under this stabilizer layer.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0There is no\u00c2\u00a0removal of tearaway stabilizer\u00c2\u00a0nor is the back side of the machine embroidery\u00c2\u00a0shadowing\u00c2\u00a0 through to the Swiss flannel back of the quilt.\u00c2\u00a0 But back to the construction….<\/p>\n

HEMSTITCHING:\u00c2\u00a0 Through gingham, flannel and batting, pinstitch (width 2.5, length 2.5) was worked along the outer edge edge of the gingham square\u00c2\u00a0frame which\u00c2\u00a0was created by the four large triangles.\u00c2\u00a0The holes were stitched into the\u00c2\u00a0flannel and the reach stitch into gingham check. This was repeated on the inner edge of the gingham triangles.\u00c2\u00a0Finally, the\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0the two sides of the small triangles were hand whipped to the larger, overlapped larger triangles.\u00c2\u00a0 At this point, all the gingham pieces were in place.<\/p>\n

With a chalk marker, the pulled thread lines were re-marked, those which were now covered with the gingham. This reconnected the original grid.<\/p>\n

Machine made entredeux (width 3.5, length 2.5)\u00c2\u00a0 was stitched\u00c2\u00a0through both flannel and gingham along all interior pulled thread and marked lines which had not already been pin stitched.\u00c2\u00a0 Entredeux was NOT stitched (1) on the hand whipped sides of the small triangles or (2)\u00c2\u00a0on the perimeter of the 7 x 7 block grid, i.e. the outer edges of the top, sides and bottom where the ruffle\u00c2\u00a0was later attached.<\/p>\n

To be continued…………<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is one of my all-time favorite projects.\u00c2\u00a0 My dear friend, Suzanne Sawko, and I collaborated on the design, she digitized the straight line text and I sewed it. It was a major project and telling you about it will … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[16,28,19,18,33,38],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8194"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8194"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8194\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13252,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8194\/revisions\/13252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}