Quilt-Cam! 1/15/2017

We had Quilt-Cam via Facebook Live this afternoon – for about 40 minutes! LOL!

So we were shorted by a quite a bit, but SOME Quilt-Cam is better than NO Quilt-Cam!

What happened?  Well, you’d have to understand my set up.

I use my Samsung Tablet and it has one micro USB port used for charging AND for attaching the external web cab so that everything is NOT in mirror image during Quilt-Cam as is what happens with Facebook Live. 

In other words, if the camera is plugged into the USB port, you can’t also charge it at the same time.  It’s one or the other.

And I forgot that when I got home from Arizona that my tablet was still in my backpack.  And an hour before Quilt-Cam when I discovered this, I plugged it in to charge it as much as it could before we went live.  Did you know that things charge faster if they are in the OFF position?  Tablets take longer to charge than phones do, but by having it totally shut off I was able to take it from 6% to 30% in an hour.  And that gave us 40 minute of Quilt-Cam time.

The best part of Quilt-Cam is I get to see the view of where you are sewing away, if you send me an email with a photo of what you are working on, the way that Kathy did here!
She writes:

Do you ever get an inspiration for a quilt in your head and it just won’t shut up until you get something on paper and/or in fabric?  It happens for me with alarming regularity!  I saw this quilt a couple of years ago and it came back up when I saw something on Pinterest recently.  It’s always in the back of my mind – how do I use up these HST I have cut for Quilts of Valor.  I went on a cutting binge with my friend’s Accuquilt Go when I was cutting fabric for a quilt, and ended up with hundreds, no probably a thousand 3 ½” (cut) and 6 ½” (cut) red and blue (a few gold) triangles.  But I digress….  

I saw this quilt and wanted to make it as a QOV.  I had some 6 ½” (cut) HST already made, so I started with the blank design wall to lay out the quilt.  Well of course I didn’t have enough ready, and I was having a hard time making the pattern work, so I went to my Quilt designs Excel workbook and laid it out to figure out how many of each I still needed (needless to say, I still need about 20 of each).  Then I wondered how I was going to sew it, and saw that I could break it into a 9 patch with 2 different layouts.  It wasn’t until I printed and counted all the different 9 patches that I realized it’s the SAME 9 patch block, just rotated 180 degrees.  What a BLONDE moment!  (Did I mention I was a blonde before I went gray?

Having a 30+ kid in the Army does that to a Mom!)

Since all my 6 ½” triangles are boxed up to go with me to Mom’s I dug out some bonus 2” (cut) HST  I have just waiting for inspiration and started sewing them into the blocks while watching QuiltCam.  I’m having a hard time figuring out pressing to make the seams nest. Any words of wisdom when you’re turning essentially the same block around to make the pattern?  I’m a little stumped here.  It probably won’t be so difficult to just twist a seam here or there with bigger squares, but these 2” (cut) the seams are really close together anyway.

Thank you for all you do for the quilting community.  My En Provence is already boxed up too, I’ll work on that at Mom’s – going to be there a while, I think…  I love reading your blog and watching your travels.  I keep checking your calendar to see if I can find a place you’re teaching either near me, or my folks so I can meet you in person. You are such an inspiration.  Keeping my fingers crossed, one day our calendars will sync up…

Safe travels on your trip to SC.  I’ll be leaving Wisconsin for Virginia on Tuesday, to arrive on Wednesday for 4 fun filled weeks of doctors appointments (mostly check-up/follow-up appointments) and quilting.  The quilting keeps me centered and more sane. 

Kathy Crofoot
Platteville, WI

I love this Kathy!

In answering your question, I had the same kind of thing going when I first made Blue Ridge Beauty from Adventures with Leaders & Enders.  When you are stockpiling blocks, and you don’t know exactly where they will end up in the quilt, it’s hard to know which way to press seams.  Sometimes units within the block nest when putting the blocks together, but then when you join block to block, they fight.
 
Sometimes it becomes a design wall challenge, with groups of A blocks, B blocks, C blocks and D blocks all pressed in different ways so they work when placed together.  WHAT a headache.
 
Can you press the red blocks in the opposite direction that the blue blocks are pressed?  Sometimes that means you are forced to press to the light.  That doesn’t bother me.
 
Sometimes as a last resort I will twist the seam if it is long enough, nesting where I can and pressing with a hot iron and steam to get it to lay flat.  As I do not quilt by “stitch in the ditch” it doesn’t bother me. You can’t see it from the front of the quilt, and I feel more secure with a twisted seam allowance mashed flat than I do with a seam allowance that has been clipped to reverse the direction of the seam.
 
Clipping a seam and pressing to reverse it is a LAST case resort for me because one good tug on the quilt could cause stitches to pop and seams to come undone if I have clipped too close to the seam.


Pressing SOME seams open might also be another way to handle it.

What I would do is take two blocks, place them face down next to each other so the seams are on top and in plain view and see if there is something you can do to press them in a way that would help them to nest.  It feels like a puzzle!  Remember, it’s not always possible.  It depends how the blocks will turn in the quilt and which block ends up next to what.

Sew Martha, Sew!!

It’s great to be able to share some of the photos and stories and questions that come in during Quilt-Cam after the fact when I embed the feed below.

Martha says hello, she is working on your 2016 mystery quilt right now. We are loving you live, Geri is working on her quilt and Nancy and Sheree are watching you!
Keep up the great quilting, we love it!
Martha, Geri, Nancy, and Sheree

Have a fun retreat ladies!  Oh my, that is ONE BIG SCREEN! LOL!

Cheryl R and her buddy Roxie keeping watch!

Working on four in nine block while watching using a 1958 99k and my dog Roxie keeping watch.  You started me on vintage rescues and I'm up to 12 machines now! Thanks for quilt cam!!

 

My ride today!

 

It wasn’t my first choice.  I had started out with a 1950s Husqvarna but it was having motor slow-down issues, so 10 minutes before Quilt-Cam I’m grabbing ANYTHING I know will fit this cabinet, anything that works that I can get threaded up in time.  These are borders for my Dawn’s Early Light Quilt.

 

And I also stitched binding together for this, shown a bit more during Quilt-Cam:

 

Garlic Knots is quilted, and trimmed waiting for binding!

I'll share more on this finish in tomorrow morning's post.

 

And from here I take you to our lovely SHORT Sunday Edition:

Next time.  I promise I’ll have that tablet charged all the way.  Remember, I can’t do both.  I can’t charge the tablet AND use the external camera at the same time because the camera uses the charging port.  And I will always be just that much blonde.

 

Thanks for hanging in with me!  Have a great evening!

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