Grandma to the rescue

… or actually not grandma, but grandma’s!

The old Pfaff, that used to be my grandma’s, was still purring with joy when I worked on her this evening. I made one more heart shape block.

This time I tried to use a different feather technique. Here you bump back from the top of the feather to create a new one. Every other feather has the backtracking on the top. I found this harder to do, compared to the normal backtracking (back to the spine of the feather). I think I prefer the other technique even though that uses much more thread…. the curves come more natural to me that way…and I am just not that great at backtracking yet!

There are still two more blocks to do!

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And because I felt like it, I started the assembly already…

I used this video tutorial for assembling the blocks with the Quilts As You Go technique. (QAYG). The only thing I changed was the size of the strips. The old European Pfaff does not have a quarter inch foot; it is almost 2 mm wider. I used one strip 1,25 inches and one strip 2,25 inches.

I decided to stitch the join on the front, but you could do it the other way around if you want to. The orange strip is the join between the two blocks. On the front is the wider strip that is folded in half and then stitched down.

The back:

The smallest strip is used on the back. You can see the stitches from the front directly next to the orange strip, on the left. Pretty neat, he?

I have found when using this joining technique you end up with lots of layers of fabric. There are spots were there are NINE layers of cotton and a layer of batting…. I am sure my Janome would have protested, but the old Pfaff goes through these layers as if there is nothing wrong! The orange fabric is also thicker than normal quilting cotton too! Amazing machine!!!

YAY for Grandma’s!

Here is what the whole thing looks now on the design wall!

I am so glad that I selected orange for the joining strips. It works so well with all of the blues and all of the oranges and reds on the back. The colours are not really this bright. The orange is more of a subdued brownish orange. The late-night-photographing does this to my colors, ha ha!

I wish you all a wonderful week full of joy and sun!

A big thank you to those of you who have participated in the McTavish Along for visiting my blog and cheering me on! I loved to be part of this learning curve. On to the next pattern! Flowers, I hear!

(There are no new blocks using the McTavish pattern in this blog post, but I thought you would like to see how they looked in the set!)

Esther

I am linking up with Sew Cute Tuesday at Blossom heart Quilts, Wip Wednesday  at Freshly Pieced Modern Quilts

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