Project 4 - Harriet's Triple Rail Fence Quilt

The next project is not unlike the first one except it uses 5 fabrics and 2 different strip sets.  Here is Harriet's version

Harriet says the secret to a good Triple Rail Fence quilt is the fabric selection.  She suggests using a large scale print fabric and 4 others which play well together.  She also strongly suggests making a mock-up of the blocks first, as colour placement can make or break this pattern.

A mock-up consists of sticking bits of your chosen fabric onto graph paper and making up blocks to scale.  I kind of did this - instead of using fabric, I took colour photocopies of a selection of fabrics and pasted those onto graph paper in the triple rail design to see the effect.  Due to my being stingy with printer cartridges, the colours are very washed out (red looks pink) and the mock up is not to scale, but the technique seemed to work.

This is the first fabric combination I tried.

I wasn't overly happy with the effect (you need to squint at it or look at it from a distance - I ran upstairs and looked at it from there) so I got rid of the green/yellow print and tried a yellow gold fabric instead.

I liked the gold fabric better.  The fabric which looks black in the mock up is actually green on dark green. 

I didn't have enough of the red/black print, having only a small piece in my tiny stash, so I headed back to The Quilted Crow, only to find it had been sold out.  Leonie found a red/ivory fabric instead. So here is my final fabric selection - one large floral print (used in both strip sets and the border) and 4 others which hopefully will play well together and not end up in a major clash.

Project 2- Fence Post Blocks (Harriet's Woodland Winter)

This project is a small quilt 84 cms square (33 inches) without the border.  It uses 3 fabrics plus 2 borders.

The quilt is made from strip sets and solid blocks - not hard to do but excellent practice for making accurate blocks.  I had a bit of trouble with the strips distorting from pressing.  I found the steam on my iron was set too high and adjusting this made some difference, but there is still a problem in the pressing stage with distortion. 

I originally intended to make the alternative version of this - using a panel print - but that is another story!  Part way though making the alternative (which veered a lot from the original exercise) I thought I should stick with the program and make the one from the book.  I popped down to Spotlight and selected a couple of fabrics which were on sale ($8 - $10 per metre) and put together the quilt top pictured below.

You can see some of the distortion caused from too much steam when pressing (click on the pics for a larger, more detailed look).  Making this top was the first time I tried chain piercing - Harriet has a method to keep everything in order, and it worked pretty well - as in I managed not to mess up the pattern!  I still have some way to go on butting seams, but the more I do it, the better it gets - so practice, hopefully will eventually make perfect.

Borders are not added to this quilt top yet (by order of Harriet) but I have chosen the fabrics and put them aside.  I bought enough of the zebra print to use as the backing.

The finished top will have a small tan border - another a bit wider in red then a 5 inch border in the feather print.  I call this quilt top Beasts & Birds.

Project 1 - The Sampler

The sampler is to be completed over Vols 1 & 2 of the book series. This is to have a 'try out' of the techniques before cutting into a bigger project, such as a quilt top.

The centre block is the part to be made in Vol 1 - Freshman Year. It give you practice on various techniques such as preparing fabric, accurate cutting, measuring, pressing, and that all important seam allowance.

It was not difficult to do and didn't take very long. I should I think re-do this as there is some distortion from pressing.

Project 3 - Alternate - Fence Post Blocks with Panel Print (Carrie's Cowboy Corral)

I decided I wanted to make the alternate version of the first project - using panels instead of solid blocks.

Carrie's Cowboy Corral

Next time I popped into my fav quilt shop in Hobart The Quilted Crow I asked about a panel print.  They didn't have any, but Leonie came up with this as an alternative.

I liked the fabrics we put together and happily started on the project.  I had to tea-dye the red fabric as it was a little too bright, and it ended up ok.

Hmmmm - the panels were not actually square but rectangular, nor were they large enough for the Fence Post Blocks to surround them.  With the aid of my mathmatically minded husband - we figured out how large to cut the strips (2 3/8ths on the sides, 2 5/8 top and bottom).  Okay, it already didn't look anything like the project in the book.  I had to add 'posts' to the top of the 'sashings' making the top and bottom Fence Posts five pieces long instead of 3.  The size of the blocks had grown from 4 1/2 inches square to 10 1/2 inches square.  I ended up with this block.

After putting all the blocks together on the table to see the effect,  I decided I wanted to alternate the red & blue squares, just to add a bit of interest.  I unpicked all the alternate blocks and re-sewed them (after buying a bit more of the blue fabric (hey nothing wrong with a bit of extra practice).  Now that I had extra red squares and more of the blue fabric, I sewed up 4 extra blocks.  Again, I laid it all out and pondered a suggestion Leonie from Quilted Crow had made.  I added sashing to the outside of the blocks.  Now they looked like this....

Hmmm - not a lot like the project sample!

I tried chain stitching the blocks together - sewing the horizontal rows was fine, but when it come to sewing the vertical rows, I struck a problem.  Harriet advises that while pressing the seams between rows, to just let the rest of the quilt dangle over the edges of the ironing board.  Probably because of the size of the blocks and the weight of them, by doing this, the sashings stretched where they had been chained together - and I mean stretched badly.  I nipped all the chained rows apart but the damage was done.  I cheated and did what Harriet says not to do - and trimmed those stretched borders back into line.  You can see some of the stretching here (and that's after it had been trimmed back into shape). What a shame!

About half way through this project, I made up the Project 1 quilt as per instructions in the book.  After this effort, it seemed easy enought and was pretty quick to put together.

The final quilt top looks like this - it's huge - check it out draped over the couch.

I suppose this design has a name, but I don't have a clue what it is.

Quilter's Academy - Freshman Year

Now that I have retired, I am going to learn to quilt.  After a couple of tries at doing this with the help of a book or two and a class here and there, I am instead going to be using Harriet Hargraves Quilter's Academy series.

Harriet Hargrave is a master quilter who has been teaching her art for over 30 years.  Harriet, along with her daughter Carrie, have begun a series of books which incorporate all these years of lessons into what will eventually become 6 volumes of teaching books.

Quilter's Academy Vol 1 - Freshman Year is the first in the series and as yet, the only one to have been published so far.  It covers the basics - tools, drafting, cutting, sewing and pressing - with emphasis on precision.  Only strips and squares are used for the 11 projects in the first book.

Over the 6 volumes in the series, skills will be built in order.  By the end of the entire 'college course' I should be able to draft, design and sew up any quilt I want and have a PhD in Master Quilting.

Hahahahahaha

So much for the intro - the reality will be dealt with here.