Explain and Ask

Oh dear, it does look as if the alt-web ring may be permanently gone. They aren't answering emails and are still kaputzo. Stash Quilts has moved over to Ring Surf and I wonder if Quilt Mavericks should move to a new ring, too? I don't want us Mavericks to lose sight of one another!

SewCatherine asked about making the Yo Yos; thank you, Catherine...well, looking at this photo , I fused the square to the circle (cut circle twice as large as you want the yo-yo to be). I used a circle of fusible netting smaller than the base circle I'm about to sew, then sew a circle that is a bit smaller than the size of the final yo-yo. This is so that the yo-yo will still have its nice fluffy outer rim rather than being all sewn down. Then sew a large stitch 1/4" from the outer edge of the circle, leaving some ends to pull, knot the two threads on one side, then pull the two threads on the other side and secure. If I do any more of these, I would put a tiny circle of fusible underneath the gathered-up center to hold it in place, then sew around the center circle to secure the yo-yo. I'm intending this to be a frequently-washed quilt, so I was trying to make the yo-yos as secure as possible.

Does anybody else use a Grace Z44 hand quilting frame? Do you use the 4th pole for the batting and did you make leader and ender fabric strips? They recommend unbleached muslin for the leader/ender; is that really strong enough? I have quilted a few quilts on my Grace, but they were already sandwiched and pinned or basted, so I put them on as is and in fact have never put on the 4th pole.

As long as I'm asking questions, has anybody had any luck sharpening their orange Fiskars? Mine don't seem to sharpen up at all.

I pulled out this quilt top yesterday. Put together a few years ago. Obviously, I have experienced a quilting learning curve over these past few years, because I would never end up with such a goofy quilt top these days. Can you see the block centers pouf up into the air?? And the sashing strips are a bit puckered.

Because the blocks are billowing into the air like clouds, I have decided to hand quilt this one in crucial patterns, at least until it is tamed. Then maybe I can machine quilt in the ditch or whatever. My seams were not a consistent 1/4", because the blocks are 7 3/4" rather than 8", and the strips are oh my 3" in some places, 2 7/8" in other places, too confusing to figure out what the border strips should measure but I got them on last night and it looks very nice. The border is a very nifty crackled dull green that is supposed to look sort of like an antique book cover to go along with the centers of the blocks.

Oh, for a longarm so that one could just toss on a quilt and meander it that very day. I'm getting sort of fond of hand quilting on a quilt, though, it's just that it takes a long time to do.