My turn for the finished-projects dance!

Good for you, Louise!! Done is good!! And 2 in one month is fabulous!

Don't even try and get out of your LQS without buying something - even if it's just a spool of thread, or some needles or a pattern - it's just better that way. You know, supporting your local economy and all......... :-)

Patti in Seattle

I think that's called "being an enabler of my addiction" ;-)

Well I will see what I can do. Books, buying books is always good.

Louise

I always wash mine before I send them on to their new owners and I always worry they'll fall apart in the wash. So far, the only one that has was made from flannel without the requisite deeper seam allowances and consequently I refuse to ever sew with flannel again;-) Otherwise, no problems!

I also wash before giving away - I look at it like this: if it is going to fall apart in the first wash, I would rather it be while I have it (and can repair) then when I have already given it away.

I'm tough on my quilts (most are baby quilts), and so I wash them as I imagine Mom is going to wash them, not too gentle and with normal colour detergent (all liquid in this house). That way I can give them away and say confidently that they take washing and drying no problem.

But dang, I wish I had a dryer so that I could prewash my batting - I'm getting to like the slightly crinkly look of prewashed fabric/non-prewashed batting less and less...

Hanne in London

That's no doubt why they give a free lesson -gets you back in range of temptation!

Your seams will not fall out. Got a gentle cycle? Maybe a kind friend with something less aggressive than a laundromat machine? Don't forget to toss in a color catcher, that's always my biggest worry. But mine always get washed as soon as the last stitch goes in -then it's Really Finished! Roberta in D

"Louise" schrieb im Newsbeitrag news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

Like you, I always wash my quilts when they're finished -- I don't really consider them finished until they've been washed! Baby quilts and bed quilts get washed the way they'll need to be washed for normal use -- those can't be coddled. However, sometimes I'm a bit more careful with wall hangings, in hopes that they'll last a little longer if washed in Orvus and on a gentle cycle. Still, with the dust we have around here, they do need to be washed!

Hanne, I'm with you in that I prefer the look of a quilt made with prewashed fabric and preshrunk batting. I'm lucky, though, that I do have a dryer.

Congratulations, Louise! Do we get to see these quilts? Have fun with your new machine -- and go ahead and buy something; there's no use resisting. ;)

Louise wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Always. I've never had it happen but my fear doesn't prevent me from taking a picture of it prior to washing. That way...well...you know...

Are there any

Yes. Keep your husband _away_ from the washer. If he's anything like mine he'd never intentionally harm it but a cloud of bleach and hot water follow his laundry intentions whenever he takes a notion to do operate the washing equipment.

LOL, solved that one. The hot water isn't even turned on our washer. And bleach is only used in the kitchen when needed. And DH does his own laundry only. (His idea from when I was working 40++ hours a week.) And I try to keep him "informed" of new products and such. He trys. I also like to wash quilts before giving them away. Don't always wash as soon as finished because the do look a bit "better" as class samples before washing for some reason.

Pati, > Yes. Keep your husband _away_ from the washer. If he's anything like

Oh, yes. I just washed the quilts that I hand-quilted a year ago. They turned out beautifully. I just used mild detergent (and really hardly any detergent), no fabric softener. I draped them over both clotheslines upside down so the sun wouldn't fade the colors on top. All three turned out fine. Two were 80/20 cotton and one was wool batting.

I think you're actually supposed to dry them flat though. The knock- around quilts I've made, I put in the dryer.

(as for your second question, IMO if you don't buy *something*, it's a total wasted trip.).

Sherry

Okay, so what can I do if a piecing seam has come out? It's a seam about 3 inches long. I thought of blind-hemming the two pieces together by hand and then repeating the machine quilting along the seam. Or maybe there is a way to do that all at once by machine. Help!

I can see that the fabric that failed me was a cheap fabric from Fabricland that's a little flimsier than most of my quilting cottons. So I've learned something. Maybe those fabrics need bigger seam allowances.

I think the rest of them look okay - I stuffed them in the dryer on gentle without looking too hard.

Louise in eastern Ontario

You don't have to ask me twice!

The first six pictures (three per quilt) on this page

. Both of thesequilts are from books. The big one is "Out of the Box", from Modern Quilt Workshop by Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr. The only change I made was to add the scrap-pieced border, and I'm really pleased with the way that made it look more "pulled-together". It's supposed to be twin-bed size, but here it's photographed on a double bed. The colour scheme is my own, of course!

The wall-hanging is adapted from "Optical Illusions", in the book Strip-Pieced Quilts by Maaike Bakker. The pattern in the book is done all in blacks and whites, and has an inner border which I omitted. Also, in the book it had wider strips and more vertical repeats, and the instructions in the book wasted a lot of fabric by starting the strip-sets square rather than angling them. But I just used as many

1.5 inch strips as I could get out of fat quarters, and laid them out on an angle so I wasn't cutting off much scrap each time. I had so much fun making this that I couldn't stop - I cut and pieced everything except the border in one weekend. I'm especially pleased with the way the machine quilting looks on the back.

Louise in eastern Ontario

Well, thank goodness! You should know by now that we love to see pictures -- just shoot us a link, and off we go!

Oh, I like both of these! :) Out of the Box looks very dimensional, and I agree with you about the quilting on Optical Illusions -- it's wonderful. :)

Love them both but my favorite is Optical Illusions!!