Hi, guys! Welcome to the tail end of week 2 of the Color Catcher Quilt Along. I’m late, of course. I have a terrible habit of chasing squirrels, and last week when I should have been cutting and sorting, I was launching a Kawandi Style Quilting on-demand class. Then, this week was just rough. I have just two weeks of college left, ever, and that has been taking more time than expected. So, welcome to the belated Week 2 of the Color Catcher QAL.
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I have a video for you this week. I did one all about sorting my fabrics, so you can see how I deal with fabrics with multiple colors. Basically, just relax is my advice. If you can’t decide if something belongs in one pile or another, just pick one and move on. No decision should take more than a second.
To keep my colors separated I picked up a set of clear plastic bins from JoAnn’s. Of course, you can use things you already have (I’ve seen folks use paper plates with good success), but I love to buy containers. These will look great in photos and on my shelves, always a critical issue for me.
This week we are doing the easiest and most boring part of the project. Once your fabrics are all sorted, it’s time to stitch them together. I take each color set separately, and just sew the rectangles into pairs.
Because I’m working through my scrap bin, I have multiples of many of the fabrics. All I do is spread the pile out a bit, and try to make sure I sew a variety of sets together. Again, no agonizing, just quickly sewing the pairs together. No pins, no fuss. Sometimes I run across a piece that is too small – that’s a cutting remainder from fan-folding oddly shaped pieces on the AccuQuilt. I just set them aside.
This is when I love to put on a music or an audiobook (Audible is my favorite!) and just chain piece my heart out. I also like to blast through my half filled bobbins. This quilt is so scrappy that those thread colors will blend right in, and I feel the virtue of not wasting an inch of thread.
One thing I definitely recommend when chain piecing – do a test block. Stitch one, press the seams open, and make sure it is the right size. 4 ½” square in this case. If not, figure out how you need to adjust. Chain piecing is an effcient way to get through a lot of easy piecign, but it is also an efficient way to make a ton of mistakes really fast. Please. Learn from my mistakes.
I press my seams open on these blocks, and probably throughout this quilt. I do sometimes feel lazy on long seams, but I much prefer the really flat look of an open-seam top. My lognarm appreciates it, too.
I have a few different pressing options I use, none is better than the other, just different.
Sometimes I use this little wood presser. It’s easy, fast, and requires no electricity. Perfect for a more sustainable quilting practice. Not fantastic for doing a ton in a row, unless I want to take my stack of pieces downstairs and press them in front of the TV.
My next option when I’m at my sewing machine and don’t feel like standng up is my Cricut Easy Press Mini. I like it so much – look at how cute it is! It has an auto-off setting and a sturdy ilttle base. It is pretty expensive, but I love it.
Finally, my main squeeze is my Reliable steam generator iron. Lots of steam, and I have an excellent pressing station with a wool mat on an old dresser. Very sturdy and large. Combined with my clapper, my seams are FLAT.
If any of my fabric doesn’t cooperate, I like to use a little blast of spray starch.
So, that’s it. That is all of my wisdom for this week. Get your color groups stitched together into squares. It’s going to take a little while, and you can catch up next week, because next week we start putting the pieces up on our design walls and doing to design work.
Thanks for your patience! I will be stitching and writing all weekend, so my next post will be up on Monday, as originally promised.
Need the pattern? You can find Color Catcher in my Etsy shop at https://thedizzyquilter.etsy.com
Want a finger presser like mine? https://amzn.to/46uc6aN