Well, I found a problem challenge with using fused fabric pieces on a quilt. Not only are they hard to bend and fold for the edge, they are really hard to sew through by hand! On the flip-side, they stayed in place while quilting without the need for hundreds of pins. There are pros and cons to every method, I guess.
I bent, folded, pinned and ironed quilt top edges, then decided that basting was the only way to keep them lying where I wanted them while sewing the backing fabric in place. My regular sewing machine came in handy for that:
I bent, folded, pinned and ironed quilt top edges, then decided that basting was the only way to keep them lying where I wanted them while sewing the backing fabric in place. My regular sewing machine came in handy for that:
Next it was time to sew the backing fabric just an eight of an inch in from the edge. That's when I found out how difficult it is to push a needle through the fused fabric, especially tightly woven batiks. I struggled with it, as both pushing and pulling the needle were hard to do. The first edge took "forever" and I was moaning about it to my eldest who asked why I wasn't using a thimble. Normally thimbles and I don't get along -- they are clumsy and don't allow my fingers to do what I want. Today, however, my thimble became my new best friend and the remaining three sides were finished in the same amount of time as the first side took.
Tomorrow I shall start to quilt the final squares along the edges; the ones I left unquilted so I could turn the fabric under as far as I needed to. In the meantime, I shall retire for the night, happy that yet another step is finished.
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