Wednesday, January 31, 2018

More Canada Blocks and finishing the Quilt June 2017


Canada Quilt 




More Canada Blocks
Top stitching the province/ territories blocks was a challenge but proved to be rather enjoyable, too. It meant a lot of thread and bobbin colour changes and a few times I used the thin almost invisible filament thread. That is quite challenging!
I practiced the tension on a swatch of sandwiched pad to get the tension right. I figured out that on my machine I need to set the tension to 2.5 or 3 in order to do these appliquéd blocks.
I found that the best way to do these blocks was not to leave all the top stitching till the end, (which, to me, was the more difficult part), but to try and do some in between creating new appliqué blocks.

It was fun to try and anticipate that the new blocks might look like before they actually arrived. I was pleased with most of the blocks that Shania Sunga had created.

Heat Bond problems-
Part of the problem was the Heat Bond that I had used to adhere the fabric pieces. I had the 'heavy' type which made everything stick really well onto the back fabric of the blocks, but it was quite thick and made the scenes quite stiff. After running out of that I bought more Heat Bond, but it was the light variety and I made the mistake of leaving the iron on too long on some of the appliqué pieces and the refused to stick at all so I had to remake some of them. I even used my glue stick a few times to stick down parts.



Nova Scotia Block

PEI Block

I really enjoyed making these two Maritimes blocks.  The Sunset was a lot of fun to put together and I really liked making the Lady Slippers and the blue jay on the Prince Edward Island block. I like the feeling of depth created on the side of the landscape in PEI block.  The Nova Scotia block looks quite 2 dimensional in comparison.


Alberta Block depicting the Rockies and the ranching aspect.

Alberta Block- I like how  this one turned out. I left out the dark blue pond from the lower left corner and moved the horse over further to the left. It seemed to open it up a bit more and make it look less busy. I love the mountains in the background! :)


Nunuvut

 Nunuvut was a very easy appliqué block to create, the pieces were large and there were fewer of them than some of the other blocks.


Note to Self:  Use Steam a Seam 2 to adhere the applique pieces instead of Heat Bond.   The pieces will stick temporarily where you place them and you can still move them around until you press them on. The you're stuck with your decision!  Heat Bond doesn't make the pieces stick at all until you use your iron them,  so they tend to move around somewhat and in two of my blocks (Quebec and Nunuvut)  I had a bit of a problem because the pieces moved apart and were barely touching each other when pressed on,  and a tiny bit of the background could be seen.  :(   

I fixed the Quebec block, satin stitching some of the questionable edges. But I didn't even notice it on the Nunuvut block until I had the quilt already madeI I restitched the Nunuvut block afterwards right through the quilt.

Another note to self: Be more diligent about checking EVERY block before using it.


Quebec Block



Ontario cottage country block

Saskatchewan Block- depicting Saskatchewan farm country

Saskatchewan Block 
Last but not least…

British Columbia, depicting the beautiful Spirit kodiak bear and the Orca whales.




Then it was time to sew all the blocks together and add the borders:


Canada 150 Provinces Quilt completed June 2017

Heartland Quilt show
Second place for medium sized quilts 



I was pretty pleased! 
















0 Comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home