Needles and a Pen » Knitting, Sewing, and Nursing School

My diamond quilt is progressing, even if I failed miserably to finish even ONE piece of clothing in the alloted 7 hours for kid’s clothing week and feel like a sewing loser this week.  My sister-in-law and brother-in-law came to visit this weekend (hi Erik!), and I kept my diamonds on hand for sewing while driving to our hike, while waiting for my turn at Settlers of Catan, and while watching Tangled.  At first Heather was pretty sure I would never finish this quilt, but I got through so much sewing this weekend that now she’s convinced I can whip it out in about a week.  My estimate is that the quilt top will be done in a year and the whole thing done in two.  (You can’t machine quilt a hand pieced top!)

I am having a ton of fun with it, and love that it’s the sort of project that you can work on while hanging out with family members, watching the kids take a bath, or losing at board games.  (It hurts less to get spanked three times in a row if you have a new star to show for your efforts!)  It’s incredibly addictive and today is actually the first day where I haven’t cut diamonds, basted diamonds, or sewn diamonds.  (Instead I made 2 3/4 skirts!)

Notes for other EPP quilt-along-ers:

1)  I’ve cut a TON of diamonds–I think I have more printed diamonds than I’ll even use at this point.  I do them en masse–cutting a bunch of 2″ strips, lay them on top of each other, and then slicing 8-12 diamonds at a time.  Since the actual cut doesn’t matter too much (you’re basing your sewing off the template vs using the cut plus a 1/4″ seam allowance as your sew line) it’s okay for a thick stack to make the cut a little less accurate.

2)  I did a little test of Gutermann vs Mettler 100% cotton thread.  I use long pieces of thread (I’m lazy) and the Gutermann was knotting like no other.  I thought about being less lazy and cutting shorter pieces, but then I remembered how my sewing machine guys feel about Gutermann (that it sucks) and thought I’d try Mettler.  There was a huge difference–Mettler knots a tiny fraction of the amount that Gutermann does.  It did break on me twice as I pulled it through a particularly dense section of seam allowances (I’d never had the Gutermann break without a knot as the cause), but I’m very impressed by the lack of knotting.  I just got some Thread Heaven to try and see if that helps, too.

3)  I tried out some Kimball’s needles (wanting to use sharps instead of the Roxanne Betweens I’ve had on hand since high school) and I was shocked at the quality difference.  I’d forgotten in my decade’s break from quilting how very much better Roxanne needles are.  I’ve gone back to using my Betweens!