Friday, August 23, 2013

Picadilly to the Nines quilt top is complete.....or is it?

I spent the day putting sewing the nine patch hourglass blocks together for the border of Picadilly to the Nines. The hourglass blocks are sewn into nine patches and the 2" hourglasses are supposed to be alternated so that that the nine patch looks like this.


The first hourglass is on it's side and then in the next standing up and so on. I was making the nine patches and I was in the zone. I got them all done! I started sewing the blocks together I ran into problems The weren't all fitting together so that the alternating pattern in the nine patch wasn't correct.


The bottom row in the picture above is wrong so I had to do quite a bit of "reverse" sewing. Actually I had messed up on quite a few blocks so there was actually a lot of reverse sewing! Darn!!!! But I did get it all done and the borders were made and I've now attached them to the quilt.

I took the quilt out to the garden to take pictures. I spread it on the bench and look who showed up! What is it with cats and quilts? He was keen to jump up on it but he is just going to have to wait until it is quilted!


And here is the finished quilt top!


I was thinking that the hourglass border would be the final border but am having second thoughts! I still have more green striped fabric left so I placed it next to the outside edge to get an idea about how it would look and I think perhaps I will repeat the inner striped border on the outside. Now that would be a fine finish!


And as I look at this picture I realize there is still a problem with the direction of the hourglass blocks and I just figured it out! In order for the blocks to be able to alternate all around the quilt I needed an odd number of hourglass blocks and my quilt was based on an even number!!! Darn! Oh well - I think I can live with it!

I didn't use my sneaky mitred corner method for mitring the stripes. I stitch the borders to the quilt as usual. As you can see ends are loose.


I turn the top so that the wrong side of the border is down and the quilt is facing up.


I pull the edges together so the corner comes to a point and I pin.


I line up the ends of the borders and pin them as well.



I stitch from the stitching at the top edge out to the corner. It is only two inches so I just eyeball it but if you are more comfortable you could make a line from the stitch at the upper left to the corner and the lower right.


And this is what it looks like when opened up!


Once it is pressed it will be perfect!

I overheard Jack and Bunny in the garden this afternoon. She was talking about a huge carrot that a friend dug up in the neighbour's garden. It was huge! "It was this big - I've never seen anything like it before!" said Bunny. Jack found it difficult to believe. He knew that Bunny was prone to exaggeration! And he also knew that her eyesight wasn't that great either! He just nodded and smiled!


Having recently been chased up a tree by Teetoo the Grey Panther the rabbits are skittish! They heard movement in the garden froze! "Whose there?" said Jack. There was no reply. "I've got sharp pointy teeth and I'm not afraid to use them!" he shouted!


You won't believe who was snooping in the garden! Tune in tomorrow to find out!

Until I post again, happy sewing!

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