Finished Manx square projects...

Finally, I finished a couple of projects using Manx squares I created months ago.  

One square had been completely stitched before I realized the directional fabric I'd used for the back side had not been placed going in the direction that corresponded to the front.  Not exactly an end of the world problem, but it bugged me enough that I just put it aside and contemplated never doing anything else with it.  Until last week.  Watching a tutorial on how to sew an envelope pillow cover, I was inspired to try it.

A super simple, but very effective back to use when you want to be able to remove a pillow cover.

You can't tell from the first photo that the pillow is really too small for our largish blue sofa, which at first seemed to be the obvious place to park it, but it looks kind of cute on the red recliner in the same room:

The only problem is, it's not a practical pillow.  I'm not going to want people sitting against it, smashing all those folds made by hand-stitching every piece of fabric. Since I'm not into having pillows I have to move just to sit in a chair, I'm not sure how long it will take up residence in the red chair, but for now I'm enjoying seeing it finished.  It will probably float around the house for a while looking for its perfect home.

I also finished the project I made with the four coordinating Manx squares I was working on a couple of months ago: 

This, I decided to finish into either a table-topper or a wall hanging.  I added triangles to the back corners where a dowel or even a flat piece of wood can be used to hang it.

Can't see them?  

Here's a closeup of one:

Now, normally, one would only need to put these triangles into the two top corners, but some may recall me mentioning how my Manx squares skew into something less than square by the time I finish making them.  I can trim them down more or less square so they look decent individually, but they are not perfect matches of each other. Well...  imagine sewing together four imperfect squares, and you may understand how my finished project can look more or less wonky depending on how it is hung. Since it was nearly impossible (holding it out at arm's length) to figure out which side would be the best to hang it from, I decided to just sew a triangle into all four corners so I could figure it out later - when I can hang it and stand back to see if there is a better side to hang it from.

Ah!  Another idea just popped into my head!

It is only just now occurring to me as I'm typing that this may actually look better (and less obviously wonky) hanging diagonally.  In which case, I should be able to place a wooden slat (maybe a dowel, or even a sturdy piece of carboard) going across the middle into opposite corners, that can hold this taut as the whole thing hangs from a ring sewn into the top corner.  

Here, I just snapped a picture of it on the diagonal (though I think it looks better held up on light wall):

Oh my goodness!  I like that idea a lot!   I just went from being glad it's finished, but not sure what to do with it, to being downright excited to find a spot for it!

That's all I've got on this blustery Sunday.  Snowflakes are falling, but melting as soon as they hit the ground. We'll see 50's and 60's again next week, but today I am (too soon) feeling in a wintery mood.  Brrrrr...

Learning new skills...

When I was last here, I was chomping at the bit to finish a baby quilt I was helping a friend with. My friend picked out fabric to bind the quilt with, and I did my best to calculate how much would be needed.  I felt so sure I was bringing home a sufficient amount of fabric - actually a smidge more than needed because you know...  you just never know...  

With fabric cut and bought, I thought I'd get the quilt done lickety split.

Now might be a good time to mention, if I haven't already, that I've never made an actual quilt before, and I had never actually properly bound anything before.  My previous lick-and-a-prayer hot pad bindings became kind of embarrassing as I watched video tutorials of quilt makers working their magic to make beautiful mitered corners, and niftily joined binding strips.   

Another thing I might mention is that while I can be meticulous when it comes to details of many things, and I'm a big "measure twice (actually thrice) and cut once" sort of gal, it might surprise some that math is no where near my favorite thing to do. 

I confess... my eyes glazed when watching videos as quilt makers rattled off the math used to figure how much fabric is needed to make binding.  "Way too complicated", I thought.  The formulas seemed unnecessarily confusing, and I just couldn't summon the mental energy to try to understand what was being explained.

 
Knowing I had brought home a smidge more fabric than I thought I would need, I was confident there would be plenty.

After watching numerous videos, I began to appreciate things like... the amount of fabric that is lost when stitching strips together to create the entire length of binding, how much fabric is folded into a mitered corner, the seam allowance that is required when sewing the binding on, and nevermind that I knew I'd have to iron the binding folded over double - it just didn't dawn on me, that I needed to cut each strip of binding twice the width of what would actually show, and I had to take the seam into account twice - even though I was only making one seam. If that last bit confused you, I understand. 

By the time I had watched half a dozen videos and felt confident about proceeding, I realized I was going to need more fabric.  

Since Hobby Lobby puts their fabric on sale every other week, and there is no hurry to finish this blanket, it has been on hold until I can get in there this week and purchase what is needed to get this project finished already.  I only need to buy a smidge more.  😄

 

The learning curve in making this simple baby quilt has been steeper than I imagined, but it's been worth it.  I almost feel like I could go back and tolerate watching the math of calculating binding and understand it now.  Some of us just learn better hands-on, you know.

And I've not been twiddling my thumbs.  As I watched numerous videos on how to create and sew on binding, I remembered that I had some potholders I started making a year ago for gifts, but hadn't finished.  

You know what they needed to be finished?  

Binding. 

 
So, with a video at the ready on my phone beside my sewing machine, I set to work - perfecting mitered corners, and joining the ends of the binding.  

One of these days, I'll show the fun potholders I've made, but that will be after they've been given away.  My guess is the potholder recipients don't bother themselves with the fact that I have this blog, but on the off chance they do...  I'm keeping the pictures to myself for now.

In addition to binding the potholders that had been languishing in the "finish-it-already" basket, I made a binding and attached it to the colorful Manx square hotpad I showed in my last post.

It's not perfect - as a close-up of the back exposes, 🠋 but putting it aside and after not staring at the stitching for a day or so, I've concluded the person I give this to (and hopefully, I'll manage a second one) will love it simply because I made it for her.

While all this sewing has been going on, in the quiet, usually late hours, I often knit dishcloths.  I've made a dozen or more since turning my attention to autumn colored yarns, and these were given to youngest son for his birthday a week ago:

For anyone who might want to know, the dish towel was purchased at Hobby Lobby.  I knew son would love the dapper doggies.

And lastly, my fun fox got some stitching love recently, and I'm feeling the draw again to (hopefully) complete the pillow I want to turn him into.  We'll see how long that draw holds...

Sometimes it seems ridiculous to have multiple unfinished projects waiting in the wings, but then I have experiences like with the quilt binding, and I realize it's nice to have other things to easily put my hands to when plans don't go as I expect them to. 

Are you a one-project sort of person?  Or do you have multiple hobbies and projects started at any given time?

Some unexpected fun projects...

I mentioned in my last post (about sewing with a friend) that I had a second friend who recently asked me to help her with a sewing project. Well... time flies, and since I was last in here my friend Marti has been to my place a couple of times to work on a project together.

With Marti's permission, I will share the backstory...  

When Marti was in highschool, she made a baby blanket as a sewing project for Home Ec class.  When she had her first baby a few years later, she was able to wrap her sweet little baby girl in that blanket she'd made with her teenage hands.  I think it was when Marti was pregnant with her second child (and she learned it was a girl), she bought and cut out fabric to make a similar baby blanket for Baby #2.  But, as we've all experienced, life got busy, and her plan didn't quite pan out. The second blanket was not finished. 

Now...  leaping forward 37 years, my friend's second child is pregnant with her first baby.  Recently, when Marti was at my house, I showed her some things I'd made recently, and with a glint in her eyes she told me her story of the unmade baby blanket.  Telling me she had kept the fabric and cut-out squares all these years, she asked if she could pay me to sew it up into a baby quilt.

A reflexive "No" came out of my mouth - mostly because I have made it something of a policy that I don't make things on commission.  There was also the fact that I'd never sewn a quilt before, and I knew I'd feel stressed if I took it on with the expectation of being paid.  Knowing her daughter, though (since she was a young girl), I was excited by the story, and knew I'd love to have a hand in doing something so special. I readily offered to give it a try, and if I thought it was something I could do, I'd be happy to make a blanket for Marti's newest grandchild - as a gift to Marti and her daughter.  And then...  another thought popped into my mind, and I suggested, "I have two sewing machines!  What would you think of us work together on the blankets!?!"  The baby blanket would get finished, and we'd get to spend time together!

I'm happy to say, she said yes, and soon after, we began.

Now, for a little more back story (again, I share with Marti's permission)...  The reason my friend even asked me if I'd be willing to take the fabric squares she had cut out many years ago and sew them into a quilt is because sewing them together herself had become nearly, if not completely, impossible. My friend has been losing her eyesight for years, and recently was diagnosed as being legally blind.  If I understand correctly, it is perhaps a hereditary, maybe even congenital, condition that is causing her loss of eyesight.  

While Marti has been present each time, and has been a big help in the making of this baby blanket, it became apparent at our first working on it that actually sewing wasn't something she could easily do. 

Marti had already done the hard part - once upon a time cutting out all the squares for this blanket. While we worked together, she also picked out some seams that hadn't come together well in the first attempt, and just a couple of days ago, we pinned the layers together and tied every single corner with a sweet piece of white yarn.  

Tomorrow, hopefully, we'll go together to pick out a fabric that will work well for a binding.  I can't wait to see it finished.  And I can't believe I now want to start my own quilt of some sort!

But there is another project I want to finish first. Some time back, when I was first working on Manx squares, I was telling a couple of friends about them.  One of them, a retired Home Ec teacher, showed so much interest, I thought right then, "I think I'll make her a couple of Manx hot pads!"  Recently learning she had had her kitchen painted - in yellow and green - I asked her if she could send me a picture.  She also has a piece of colorful artwork on the wall in one picture, and having been to her house before, I knew she liked color. 

So, I dug through my stash, and bought a few more colors, along with some insulating "batting" to finally make her a couple of Manx square hot pads.  Except for the binding, I've finished the first one.  

I wish I fully understood why these squares skew so badly as I'm making them.  Here's a picture to show you the skew:

Anticipating this, I chose a non-directional fabric for the back, and I can "fix" the skew by trimming it down square.  But I wish I knew why mine do this when none I've seen online seem to turn out this way.

Or maybe other sewists just don't show them untrimmed.  🤷

Hopefully, next week, I'll have at least one of these projects finished.  

Back to my Manx...

I decided yesterday, it's time to finish a project I have started in recent months.  I'd like nothing more than to share a finished project with you today, but I'm still not quite there yet.

One of the things that has stalled me from finishing my second (or is it my third?) Manx project was that when I sewed the squares together (a few weeks ago now), I realized (afterwards) that I should have trimmed them all down first.  They finished differently sized, and while I got the fronts of the squares sewed together, they didn't match up all that well, and the extra fabric on the backs was just too much to deal with.

So, I took them apart, and went back to the cutting board.

With squares that now approximated each other in size, I set myself again to the task of sewing the fronts together.  My pictures don't do justice to how complicated it was to put these together properly.  I honestly don't know how people made these before modern sewing equipment, and things we take for granted like fine straight pins and electric irons.

I was thankful I had recently purchased some heat resistant straight pins, so I could pin and press to my heart's content, in order to manage the many layers.

If you find the multiple layers confusing, believe me...  you are not alone.  Once I committed to sewing each seam, I just hoped I didn't catch any extraneous fabric in the stitches.  

With the fronts of the squares all sewn together, the backs were a bit of a mess.

After much contemplation (i.e. turning this thing in multiple directions, folding, refolding, head scratching and finally pressing and pinning again), I figured out how to finish off the back. 

The back had to be hand-stitched, but I had to decide which long seam should be stitched first.  Once I committed to a plan, pins held all the back pieces together as I wrangled it all, trying not to be pierced by these very sharp thin pins.

Finally...  that part was done.  It's not perfect, but I'm satisfied.   I will note that when trimming these down, I should have left the backs slightly larger than the fronts - like even an extra 1/4 inch - just to provide more fabric to fold over for seam sewing.  As is, this will suffice as a decorative piece, but I don't think my hand-sewn seams on the back are substantial enough to hold up to the kind of use a full-sized quilt would see.

I cannot believe I contemplated for even a few minutes that I might like to make a full-sized quilt of these squares.  My hat is off to anyone who has done so.  I marvel at the finger dexterity and fortitude that would take.  And really... it is beyond my comprehension that people in the 1800's would have made these elaborate-looking squares from scraps of fabric, all completely sewn by hand, likely without the aid of a decent iron for pressing in the folds.  Even if a person had an iron, I doubt they employed one in making this.  It was a bit tedious for me to press each strip before and after sewing - I can't picture someone doing that with an iron that needed retrieving from the fire or stove.  I'm pretty sure they simply finger-pressed as they went.  Which makes this construction even more impressive.

This is the last time I intend to share this project before it's finished.  Here's a tease of the front: 

Practicing Making Manx Squares....

I know this week's pictures don't look much different from last week's, but I have been practicing making a few different sizes of Manx squares.  For the record... not that anyone's keeping a record, but last week's finished hotpad was about 10 inches square.  

Wanting to make some different sizes, I cut more 2 1/2 inch strips.

With the goal of making a larger square than the first one, I kept stitching until I finally ran out of room with my backing fabric.  I finished when it got to about 13 inches square, but sewn into something it will likely end up being around 12 inches square.

I have no idea what to do with it.  When I first set out to make a larger square, I though maybe I'd make a blanket of them.  But about half-way through, I began to have serious doubts I had it in me to hand-sew a whole blanket of Manx squares.  At a minimum, I'd need to make twenty squares, and that would only make something the size of a throw, not an actual blanket. 

It's not padded enough to be another hotpad, and it's kind of small for a pillow. I could possibly add one more round and get it to almost 14 inches square, but for now, I've set aside and I'm counting it as learning experience.

Still wanting to make enough to sew some together, I decided I would make four smaller squares.

One 8-inch square finished.  Three more to go...

Meanwhile, I have the itch to cut up some more colorful fabrics in my stash and make more hotpads - in fun colors - maybe to give as gifts?  

Or... another totally respectable choice is to just move onto something else.

~~~~~

On the weather front, it's been gorgeous since late last week, and I managed to do a massive weeding of the strawberry bed.  Once again, I failed to take a before picture, but trust me, it was incredible - grass up to my waist, dandelions with roots the size of carrots, one stealth thistle that I really should have had leather gloves for (ouch!), and a particularly pernicious viney ground cover weed that entangled itself with the strawberry plants.  It required that I dig up the strawberry plants and separate them from this awful invader.  There were a number of strawberry plant casualties by the time I was finished filling over two industrial-sized garbage bags with the weeds I pulled out.  

Last autumn, I prepped the two back sections (above) and mulched them with straw while I left the first (front) section of this strawberry bed to fend for itself all winter.  It did pretty well, but the weeding I had to do this spring was crazy.  I told myself to not let the weeds get that out of control again.  I had such good intentions in April and May, but with temps in the 90's for weeks, and humidity often in the 90's, for most of June and all of July, the strawberry bed sat out there doing its thing - on the other side of the detached garage - somewhat out of sight, I happily put it out of my mind.

Until it turned beautiful on Thursday - and looked like it was going to be like that through the weekend.  Knowing we wouldn't likely have temps like that again until September or October, I got out there on Thursday and Friday, and whipped it into shape. I still need to thin out and transplant some of the plants in the back two beds, then put straw down for weed control, but after that (hopefully) all I'll need to do come November or December is to cover it all with more straw, and tuck it in for its long winter's nap.  

Oh, yes! And I hope to plant some garlic in there, too.  By thinning out the strawberry plants, there is plenty of room for garlic to grow, and be dug out by the time the strawberry plants want to start spreading.  At least that's how I'm picturing it working.

And lastly...  I leave you with a picture of the cutest little watermelon: 

Or maybe I'm partial since it's a first for me.  I hope it is successful at growing into a big delicious watermelon and I can tell you all about it in a few weeks.  :)

Have a great week, everyone!

Manx Quilt Square...

I've been itching to stitch up something with fabric for weeks.  As I was dragging my feet with the Celtic knots, I came across the Manx quilt block.

The Manx block is very similar to the Log Cabin quilt pattern in construction and its final look, and it also has some similarities to Kawandi stitching.  Having a bunch of coordinating blue fabrics that I brought home from my mother-in-law's home (five years ago, now!) I decided this would be the responsible choice for making something Manx.  

Unlike the Kawandi, that starts on the outside and goes around in a spiral toward the center, the Manx square starts in the center and fabric is laid in a spiral toward the outside edges:

Normally a Manx square is not made with batting of any sort, but not sure if I'd make more than one, I decided to make this as a hot pad, so I pieced together some leftover batting (of my late MIL's) and set to work.

Similar to making a Kawandi, the stitching is traditionally done by hand, stitching one piece of fabric on top of another, all stitched directly to a backing fabric - creating a quilt-as-you-go construction.  But that's where the similarity to Kawandi ends.  In a Manx square, the strips are stitched on with the front sides of each fabric strip facing, and after stitching, the fabric strip is folded up to create a pleat.  For anyone interested in more detail or greater clarity, I will provide some links to tutorials at the end of this post.  This is not a tutorial.

Other than the fact that I needed to stop and think about everything as I made this first Manx block, it was actually pretty quick work.  

Unfortunately, and I don't know why, the stitched-on pieces started going wonky.

I could tell it was happening by the second round of strips, but I didn't know just how badly it wonked until I was finished.  Fortunately, I started with a larger-than-needed backing fabric, so I could trim it more or less square (if not on grain).

And still with enough backing fabric left, I was able to fold forward the backing and create a binding for the square.  For ease and precision, I machine-stitched the binding.

It's actually not completely square, but you can't tell from the picture, and I doubt you'd notice it right off if you were looking directly at it.  I have to admit, even though it isn't perfect, I am pretty pleased with my first hand-stitched, (except for the binding) Manx square.  

While the fabric strips are stitched on in the same order as a Log Cabin square, you can see that this Manx block actually forms pleats, instead of the flat piece of fabric that is created with traditionally pieced together strips of fabric for a Log Cabin.

The dimension created by the pleats is what makes the Manx square special.

And like the Kawandi, when you're done stitching the block, your quilting is also done.

With the square finished, but not being sure how those pleats would come through machine laundering, I washed and dried it with jeans, thinking that would provide plenty of agitation, and opportunity for the pleats to get messed up.

I'm happy to say, it came through the machines perfectly crinkled and wavy like any other cotton quilt comes through the wash.  Most importantly, the pleats were not mangled:

Before washing & drying ↑

↓ After washing & drying 

Before ↑

↓ After 

Before ↑

↓ After 

Before ↑

↓ After

Yep, I'm sold.  It's a fun pattern to stitch, it's a great use of scrap fabric, and it comes through machine laundering like any other cotton quilt.

So I've set myself to making another block - this time, more in keeping with a traditional Manx square with no batting between the layers.

Time will tell how many more I'll make.  A wall-hanging's worth?  A blanket's worth?  We'll see.  And when I start joining them, I'll be back to show pictures of that.

Meanwhile, if you're interested in checking out some resources I found helpful, here you go:

Jackie Loos - JunkGal63Studio (video) :  

How to Make a Modern Manx Quilt Block with Fabric Scraps

k3nclothtales (video):

Manx Quilting - Making Blocks

Ice Bear Quilts (Blog)

Manx Log Cabin - A Special Technique

Diary of a Quilter (Blog)

How to Make A Manx Quilt Block

There are other resources online. I only posted a few of the ones I visited (and revisted) before and after I started stitching.

Now - off to make more Manx squares!