Last week on my 31st wedding anniversary I decided to purchase paper pieces to make a double wedding ring quilt.  I also bought the acrylic templates for the pieces.  This particular set of pieces is only for the arc units, so I will be appliquéing them onto background fabric.

A screen capture from the web site shows the current price of $35.00 for the paper pieces.  However, they were on sale last week for $26.25, which is why I jumped on the purchase.  I have been looking at double wedding ring quilts for a long time, and the idea of being able to do one with English Paper Piecing really appeals to me.

These are large rings, a bit bigger than 15 inches in size.  I might try something really modern and make all of the pieces with solids. I may vary the color of the background units as well as the arc pieces. One possibility that comes to mind is to do the arcs in warm colors and the background in cool colors.  Something a little more subtle might be to use greens for the arcs and blues for the background.

I’ll probably start by doing six rings to create a piece suitable for a baby quilt, which I can appliqué onto a piece of yardage and bind.

My actual work for this week consisted of binding more hunter green hexagons.  There are quite a few more hexagons in my container now.

 I am linking back to the Monday Morning Star Count at Life Under Quilts.

Table Runner Number Three is bound.

Here are some details of the binding on this piece.

I’d like to show this binding beside the binding for my Table Runner Number Two, details of which can be seen here, and here.

The tape measure has been included in the photograph above to provide a sense of scale.  The seams perpendicular to the edge in the wider finish come to about 3/4 inch.  The same seams in the narrower finish come to about 1/4 inch.  I like both finishes and would choose one over the other solely based on what I think would work best with the design of the item to be bound.

In addition to this table runner finish I have been basting a great number of hunter green hexagons.  I may be using these to finish off the Diamond Quilt eventually, or they may go into some other project.  I’m trying a new method of basting hexagons.  Up until now I have pierced the paper when binding my hexagons, which allows stitches of the basting thread to show on the front of the hexagons during piecing.  For these green hexagons below, I am trying a method that doesn’t pierce the papers, and which will make it unnecessary to remove the basting stitches to remove the papers.  I have to admit that one of the reasons I am trying this other method of basting is because it will make for more aesthetically pleasing progress photos.  It takes longer to baste this way, but I think it will be a wash because I will probably recover the time by not having to cut basting threads and remove them later.

When I first started to do English Paper Piecing I had a sewing basket full of old spools of thread which my mother and I had purchased to complete garment sewing projects in the sixties and seventies.  I used these freely to baste my first hexagons regardless of thread color.  These threads were mostly polyester blends. I still have quite a few hexagons basted with colored threads that are over forty years old.

As the supply of my vintage thread started to dwindle I came upon a blog post, which I can’t locate at the present moment, lauding the value of a particular basting thread.  I purchased three spools through Amazon on September 30, 2013, and assumed that it would last me for a very long time indeed even if I used it for basting projects to be quilted in addition to hexagon basting.  As you can see from the image above I finished my first 1,250 yard spool, and am just about ready to break into my last one.

I’ll be ordering this thread again soon.  Shipping on one spool exceeds the cost of the spool itself, so I’ll get three spools or more again when I order.  It makes sense to order in bulk since it takes me less than a half a year to exhaust a full spool.  Because this product is not eligible for Amazon Prime free and speedy shipping it may be worth it for me to order directly from the WAWAK web site.  The code for the item is CBT1WH incase you feel like looking for it there.

I really like this thread.  It has a stiffness to it that makes threading the needle easy.  It also has a bit of roughness that grips the fabric a little bit, which helps in basting for hand quilting.

I did the binding for Table Runner Number Two.  This is the runner that I edged with partial hexagons rather than cutting away excess from a full hexagon border.  I am feeling really confident now about my binding skills after completing this binding.

I bound my ugly little piece and threw it in the wash for the first time today.  I have set a notepad and a pencil on the washing machine to keep track of how many washes this piece endures by the end of August.  I’ll be making hash marks for regular and gentle cycles.  My husband sometimes throws a load in, so I will be instructing him to include the ugly little piece whenever he washes something.

Following are photos of the binding:

First off, I forgot to show the fabric I chose for the backing of this piece.  This has to be the ugliest fabric I own.  My apologies to whoever designed it.  Maybe in the right setting it would shine. At some point I may challenge myself to create something with the yard I have left of this camouflage batik.

The binding has been sewn into place o n the front, and is ready to turn and hand apply to the back.

I love my Clover binder clips.  I have some of the big green ones too, which are great for holding like units of hexagons together while planning a layout.

The binding definitely approves the appearance of the front.

It even makes the back look moderately acceptable.

This is how it looked after two regular washings and regular dryings.  It is a whole lot more crinkly than I would expect, but I would never wash and dry a quilt on normal anyway.  The seams are holding up just fine.

Yesterday morning I felt pain in my right wrist when I did a few simple tasks.  It might have been from helping my husband install the window unit air conditioner in the dining room.  Perhaps hand piecing hexagons has caught up with me.

My husband had the pictured brace from when he needed to immobilize his wrist after straining it lifting the garage door repeatedly for a period of time.  He has one for the left arm incase I need it.  I’m hoping it is just a temporary problem from lifting the air conditioner.

I have been piecing intensely now for nearly a year with no problems, so I am really hoping that hand sewing is not the culprit.  I’m wearing the brace to bed and during long stretches of the day.  When I am not actively doing anything I am taking it off.  Hopefully, this will not last too long.

Last week I decided to create a piece that I would bind with the method of cutting off half of the hexes that compose the outer border of the piece.  It was my intention to throw that piece into the washing machine with every load for the next two or three months to totally torture it.

To that end I spent significant time creating this…

… but when I saw it in all its glory, I knew that I had overdone it again. It now needs a name, and will be called “Table Runner Number Three” to indicate that it has become something. I will surely finish the piece, but I can not bring myself to torture it.

Intent on creating something insignificant enough to torture, I grabbed two ugly rows of the units I had assembled a couple weeks ago when I started work on Table Runner Number Two…

These would be the top and bottom rows pictured above, which I proceeded to join. I then added some hunter green hexagons along two of the sides.

… and then I basted it.

… and quilted it.

This is a small ugly piece, without significant emotional investment, that I can bare to torture, and I will. I’ll be washing it with a vengeance with agitation during the washing and heat during the drying that I would never ask a quilt to endure, all to see if those little tiny seams along the edge can take a beating. After giving the piece more torture than a quilt would experience in a lifetime I will make my final decision about the binding of the Diamond Quilt.

I’ll be binding my ugly little piece this week.  After the torture is over, it will find a place on my husband’s desk where it will become a mug rug. Obviously the border of my Diamond Quilt will be on hold for a few months, making it a UFO for the time being.  However, I can’t see myself living under a queen sized quilt top during the summer regardless of how high I crank up the air conditioner.  So maybe this is all for the best.