Washing a Quilt

After Hannah disassembled the day bed upstairs and rearranged her room, she left a pile of bedding for me to contend with. Among the items is Sarah's quilt that she made in 2002, a purple and yellow twin sized quilt (Pattern: Yellow Brick Road by Atkinson Designs).

I decided to give it a soak and spin through the washing machine. I don't put a quilt through much of the machine's agitation/wash cycle because I am able to manipulate the dials and shorten the process. This helps the fiber in the fabric of the quilt to last longer, especially for those quilts that are getting daily use.

First step is to fill the washing machine with warm water. As it it filling, add some quilt soap. I use sodium lauryl sulfate which is a hard white soap that softens with heat. I open the jar of soap and let the machine's water fill the jar and then I dump it into the machine. I do this a few times to liquify enough soap, equivalent to about a tablespoon of soap. You can also spoon a tablespoon of the hard soap into the machine and the warm water will melt it.

When the machine has filled with water and begins to agitate to mix the soap, I push in the machine's button to stop the agitation. I lay the quilt in the machine and submerge it in the water. Then I let the quilt soak for about an hour. Then I move the machine's dial just a bit to the right, pull the dial back out so the machine will spin out the water. It then refills for the rinse cycle. There is agitation in the rinse cycle so I skip that and turn the dial to the final spin cycle. A minute or two of agitation is fine but putting the quilt through the entire cycle will eventually cause the quilt to wear out.

Once the soaking/spinning is complete, I put the quilt in the dryer on extra low heat for delicates and dry for 10-20 minutes. The quilt will not be completely dry but it will be dry enough to finish air-drying over a couch, chair, or bed. Just rotate the quilt until it is dry. On a warm day, air-drying outside will work well. Use a sheet to cover an outside area and lay the quilt on that. Just be careful if there are pets around. Avoid hanging a damp quilt to dry; it can be easily distorted this way.

Copyright ©2013, Sharon Baggs

Boston Commons Quilt--Revisited

After a week of determination and effort, the Boston Commons Quilt is finished! It was a project my friend, Felicia and I began two years ago. See the original post here.

Felicia did much of the stitching-in-the ditch of the center design. With the wool batting, the squares puff up nicely. I chose a simple cable design for the pink inner border and quilted a free form swirl design in the dark outer border.

I began with stitching-in-the-ditch along either side of the pink strip. Since the pink inner border is a focal point where the eye is visually drawn, I like to quilt a simple motif in this space. Also, there is some lift with wool batting, so a quilted design shows off the quilting. The cable template used here is designed by Harriet Hargrave (HH20- 1-1/4" 3cm Simple Cable). I used a washable blue marker to mark the design and removed the marks after quilting by dipping the border in water and wiping with a cloth. I used a walking foot to quilt the cable but it could be free-motion quilted as well.

The binding on the quilt was the same fabric as the backing. I cut 2-1/2" wide strips and pieced them together on the diagonal. Here's a view of the four corners completed.

To touch up some white spots on the fabric where the dye lifted, I colored those in with a blue Zig permanent marker, acid free, used for scrapbooking.

I'm thrilled to be able to give this completed quilt to my friend and get to the next quilt in my "to-be-finished" pile.

 

Copyright ©2013, Sharon Baggs

Back to School

Summer was a blur of activity and not much quilting. I did, however, make a poster for the summer swim team final and used some of my meandering drawing skills, learned from quilting, to fill in the letters.

Doodling is so helpful in teaching hand/eye/brain coordination when it comes to sitting down at the sewing machine to free motion quilt. I like using a white board so I can doodle and erase. Try it as a warm up and you'll feel more confident with the needle and thread.

Now it's back to school! Which means I have time to pull out all the fabric stored in various places and really see what's there...plan projects...organize...

Here's Baby Squid on her first day of high school! It was orientation day yesterday for the freshmen and today everyone is back.

I'm looking forward to being back into the routine that fall brings. In addition to school, Hannah is busy with running XC and rehearsing for a show at Northwest Children's Theater.

Becca started college a couple of weeks ago and is excited for this next phase of life. We enjoyed moving her into her dorm room and exploring a bit of Montana.

We got the lovely duvet cover (top bunk) from Ikea and amazingly her roommate chose similar colors. Really brightens up the room!

The summer was rounded out with both our anniversary celebration and Martin's birthday. Here we are enjoying some Red Velvet cake with our neighbors, George & Rae.

As the seasons change, I look forward to the beautiful colors of Fall and am reminded of walking around Seattle with Sarah and collecting leaves. I'll have to check out the trees in Eugene when we take David to school soon. Life is rolling along. Let's get back to quilting while we're at it!

Copyright ©2012, Sharon Baggs

Snow White Costumes

We recently finished a 2-weekend run of The Rockin' Tale of Snow White with Christian Youth Theater (www.cytvanport.org) Hannah was one of the 7 dwarfs. I made two plaid shirts for the smallest dwarfs...Hannah as Tip and Kyle as Big Mike. He was everyone's favorite!

In addition, I used this pattern and fabric...

to make these Bo-peep dresses for Emily and Madi:

I really enjoyed being on the costume committee for this show and working with these two ladies: Lowanna (our costume chairman) and Anne (the director & costume shop coordinator).

Copyright ©2012, Sharon Baggs