Episode 42!
42… The Almighty Answer to the Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
A good number!
Christa Watson at Christa Quilts shared on her Instagram account that she likes to batch her process. Make a bunch of tops, then baste them all at the same time, and after move on to quilting.
This sparked a conversation between Dori and I about what our preferred process is. And we decided to include our friends and followers in this conversation through Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. We got a lot of great info and we highly recommend that you head over to our pages to see what’s been happening.
Jenny on our Facebook page shared Bonnie Hunter’s leaders and enders process. This was new to both of us and we greatly appreciate the suggestion from our followers to check it out!
And Lorinda from Laurel Poppy and Pine shared that she has multiple projects in process at different states so she really just goes with the flow and works on what makes her happy.
I agreed with this process and called it, lovingly, ADD quilting!
For our quilt and coffee chat portion of this post, we’d like to shout out to a few local quilters we hope to see around the So Cal Quilter’s Run starting next week!
Check out Zina over at Zanymouse Creations on Etsy. If you are like me and really into geek/pop culture she has a great shop full of fun items! And we hope to meet her on the run!
And we hope to see Melanie from Thousand Needles somewhere along the way, too. We’ve been lucky to run into her at Road to California and QuiltCon and it would be great to see her too!
Don’t forget to check out Laurel Poppy and Pine later today. Lorinda is hosting a giveaway
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Thank you for the shout out! I do hope we run into each other on the quilt run.
We hope to bump into you too!
😪I’m not making it to the run this year! I’m leaving for Florida for an extended vaca and will not be back until after the run! So sorry to miss out… but will you guys be heading to Savannah for QuiltCon? I think we were up in the air about it last but I’m seriously thinking about it now….
Enjoy your vacation!! I’m bummed that you’ll not being “running” this year but I hope you have a great time. I think we’re passing on Savannah next year but we plan to go in 2018. I think it’s back in Pasadena then.
Thanks for another fun episode!
I am like Katie, I need a ton of different projects all at different stages at all times. I also really like to have many techniques ready to go (traditional piecing, paper piecing, embroidery, cross stitching, applique) because my mood changes, sometimes I feel tired and I don’t want to hear the sewing machine noise, sometimes I want to work fast and I cannot stand hand stitching projects… so a little bit of everything is cool!
About Leaders and Enders, I am not an expert, but I tried it… it didn’t work for me.
As Dori said, usually the pieces that you use as leaders/enders are for a separate project… for example, you know that in the future you will use some scrappy nine patches, and instead of waiting to make them all together you piece two squares in between the main project that you are working on, and these squares add up!
The supposed advantages of this technique are 1) you waste less thread (as pieces are always connected in short chains), 2) you don’t have thread knots at the beginning (you know, when your sewing machine is trying to eat your HST starting point 🙂 ), 3) you make a lot of units without really thinking about it (as you are thinking about the main project).
What doesn’t work for me is the following: 1) having the extra thread “wasted” is actually securing my begin/end stitches because I never backstitch so using this method I realized that I have stitches coming off easier when I break the chains, 2) sewing the leader/ender distracts me from the main project! Even if it is scrappy and you can just stitch whatever, it interrupts the flow of my thoughts about the main project so I end up needing more time to complete it!
I think it is a technique that could work in certain settings, but it’s just not for me!
Thanks again for a fun episode! Hugs!!
Thanks Alida! Those are great points to consider and I totally laughed hard when I read your comment about your machine eating HSTs. HAHAHA! I hate when that happens. Thanks for stopping by and sharing your thoughts. It’s always great to hear from you!!!