On occasion I will write about technology here on my quilting blog assuming that it relates to my quilting life. This is one of those occasions.

I am a lazy-assed hand stitching English Paper Piecing bitch who would sit on her butt for hours at a time unless something happened to pry me away from the couch. So the Apple Watch definitely impacts on my quilting life. It reminds me to stand up every hour to fill a blue ring in the Activiy app.  Okay, that is stretching it a little. I really just WANT to write about the Apple Watch, and so I will.

Let me begin by saying that I have been a wearable fitness junkie since 2009 when I bought my first fitness tracking device called the Go Wear Fit armband, which later was renamed Body Media Fit. It is a device that you wear 24 hours a day to track steps, calories, and sleep. It requires a subscription to its web site to house your data at a rate of about $7.00 per month, although you can buy longer periods of time at lesser rates per month averaged out over the longer subscription.

I wore the armband for five years, but the subscription was pricey, and the device itself was obvious when worn with short sleeves. The armband was a real conversation piece because people usually noticed it and asked about it. I didn’t mind that, but what I did mind was that the armband left a bit of an indentation in my upper arm on the occasions when I decided not to wear it, like at the pool.

I decided to stop wearing the Body Media Fit about a year and a half ago, and I immediately got lazy because I no longer had my data. I stopped running, I moved less, and I gained weight. So I know that these wearable devices really do motivate me to be more active and fit. I had considered getting a Fitbit, or a Jawbone when I stopped using the armband, but I knew that the Apple Watch was on the horizon, and I decided to wait for it. I did use a pedometer for awhile to try to motivate myself to keep walking while I waited for the Apple Watch.

When I went in for my watch appointment at the Apple Store I started out with the Stainless Steel Watch with Milanese loop. My impression was that it was dressy, and that it went well with my 18 karat gold bracelet.

I tried on a Sport Watch too, but rejected it because I wanted to eventually buy more bands for the watch, and I didn’t feel that the aluminum case would go well with some of the bands. I expressed an interest in the modern buckle and was shown the pink leather modern buckle band. These bands can only be used with the 38mm case. I was amazed at how much I liked the modern buckle, but it would have added $200.00 to the initial cost of the watch over the purchase of the stainless steel Apple Watch with the sports band.

I decided to pre-order the Stainless Steel Apple Watch with Black Sports Band in order to get the watch as quickly as possible. I figured I would want a sport band for serious workout sessions anyway.

My order was placed only a half a week after preorders began, but by then the wait was eight to twelve weeks to get the watch I finally ordered. The wait would have been into July if I had ordered the pink leather modern buckle band that I really wanted. Plus there was a level of sticker shock on that pink band, the cost of which approached the cost of a Sports Watch. Therefore, I chose the sports band in order to have the watch on my wrist as soon as possible at as low a cost as possible. I can always accessorize later, and I will.

So, now that I have worn the watch for a week what do I think?

I love the Activity App and the Workout App. For the rest I could just as easily pull the phone out of my pocket. Those two apps alone, however, are well worth the price of the Apple Watch in my opinion.

I had been a constant watch wearer during my career as an art teacher. It was essential to me to be ultra aware of the time. I had to start clean up at just the right time to get as many as 30 teenagers finished cleaning up with minimal time left for them to be unoccupied enough to get into trouble before the bell rang to change classes. After I retired I stopped wearing a watch because the time of day was only slightly more interesting to me than the day of the week, all of which could be obtained by reaching into my pocket for my phone.

When I paired my watch to the iPhone I chose not to bring over apps to the Watch that existed on my phone. I decided to start out with the preinstalled apps only. I figured it would be easy enough to bring over one app at a time if I decided I needed them. I did eventually bring over the Evernote App and I installed the Nike App after looking at the fitness apps available through the Watch App on the iPhone.

You can see the Evernote app in the lower right of the screen capture above. By the way, you can take a screen capture by holding in the two buttons on the watch simultaneously. That’s how I got some of the images for this post. I read about a way to make all of the icons the same size by going to General>Accessibility in the Watch App on the iPhone and choosing to Reduce Motion. I may do that and arrange my icons in a narrow long strip.

The first thing I did when I got the watch was to try out the Micky Mouse clock face. I like it as a novelty, but I chose an analogue watch face because I wanted to add the Activity App to the face so I could check on my progress easily without going to Glances or the Home Screen.

You can see the Activity App in the upper right above. I have local time in the upper left, which is rather redundant, so I may change that to something else. I also have calendar events. This shows that I really do not have a life. Instead of saying “NO EVENTS TODAY” could it just be blank, or maybe say “LOSER” instead?

Speaking of Glances, the watch comes with quite a few of them installed. To reach them you swipe up from the bottom on the watch. I ended up turning off all but a few. I have Now Playing, Heartbeat, Battery, Activity, and Calendar as being active. These are probably more than I actually need. I can get to Activity from the watch face, so I could take that glance away and not miss it. I wouldn’t miss Calendar or Battery either.

Having strapped a watch on my wrist after so many years, I do find myself more interested in the time of day than I was previously. This may be for no other reason than that I know that I will likely be asked to stand up at about ten minutes before the end of each hour. The watch prompts you to stand up if you have not already earned a minute to help close the blue circle for standing in the Activity App. This can be annoying, yet I really want to close that ring, so I am usually glad to receive the reminder. It not only reminds you to stand up, but it also lets you know when you have earned that minute.

When I first got the watch it did not seem to be well attuned to my calorie burn. Now it seems to be giving me more credit. I was disappointed when I used the workout app for an outdoor walk and was not given credit for as many minutes as I thought I should have been. It isn’t obvious what criteria are being used to determine which minutes count for activity, but I suspect that heart rate is the most important thing being taken into account. The fact that my resting heart rate is between 60 BPM and 65 BPM might make it harder for me to be getting credit for exercise because I have to raise my heart rate to some arbitrary goal that is much farther from my resting heart rate than some slouch with an 80 BPM resting heart rate. Oh well.

What was even more disappointing was when I used the Workout App to track the first bike ride I had taken in a couple of years. The ride lasted about 17 minutes, and covered nearly two miles. I was huffing and puffing on the inclines because I had forgotten how to change gears. I got home dripping in sweat all excited to see how I had done. I had been credited with one minute of activity for the green circle. WTF? I will replicate this bike riding experience at some point in the future.

My experiences with credit for activity minutes in the Workout App made me decide to do a search to see if others were experiencing similar problems. I came across a post in the Apple Community addressing this problem. To make a long story short, it turns out that if you select “Other” as the workout type you may end up with more credit than if you choose an outdoor walk or run.

The day before my watch was delivered I got an email inviting me to set up an appointment online to set up the watch. I saw that the first available appointment was two days hence, so I decided to wing it, and I did just fine setting up the watch.

After living with the watch for a few days I decided to make a pilgrimage to the Apple Store to see if someone there would walk me through basic features to see if there were things I might have overlooked. Jason was very helpful, and he showed me a few new things including how to use the watch as a camera remote, which is one of the things I had not bothered with yet. I thanked him for that, and told him that this was precisely why I came in to the store for the full watch experience.

Thanks Jason for giving me the opportunity to show the world how old and fat I look in this photo. It’s not the best angle. I did question Jason about whether he thought his tattoos were going to be an issue with the Apple Watch. He told me that he had tried one on and that he is lucky that he has an empty space in the sleeve at just the right place, so the heartbeat app won’t be an issue for him. Before I left the store Jason helped me try on a modern buckle in the medium size in blue. They only had the pink on hand in a small. Jason recommended that I purchase a large since the medium was set nearly as large as possible and did fit. He said I would have more latitude with the larger size. That was good to know. That purchase is still months in the future, however. The Milanese loop may be next.

After my difficulties with the Activity app I decided to try an experiment with “Other” in the Workout App. I started an open ended “Other” workout and took care of feeding my cats, scooping the liter box, sweeping the kitchen floor, and mopping the kitchen floor. After 17 minutes I had earned 72 active calories and 28 resting calories for a total of 100 calories. I had been credited with all 17 minutes of activity during which my average HR had been only 94 BPM. I think that “Other” is more generous than outdoor walking and outdoor cycling because the watch doesn’t really know what to expect, and it takes you at your word that you are doing something active for the full time you are doing it. If my heart rate had been really low that might not have been the case, however. More experimentation is required.

Here is a screen shot of my day the first time I was able to close all three rings. The blue standing ring was the biggest challenge. If you miss an hour here and there it is really hard to close that ring. I have also noticed that sometimes it takes a long time for the watch to recognize that I have in fact stood up and moved. On one occasion it took about six minutes of walking before it was willing to acknowledge that I had stood for a minute. I have also had the watch fail to notice that I have been on my feet the entire hour. The standing ring may be the weak link in the activity trio. I hope this improves over time.

 

After one week with the Activity App I was asked if I wanted to change my Move goal. I decided to up my goal to 320 calories, up 40 calories from the 280 calories I had started with. The watch now seems to be giving me more exercise minute credit than it did initially. I think it must know me better. I have six minutes so far today and I have simply been moving about the house doing light chores like loading the dishwasher, taking care of the cats, and putting a load of wash in the washer.

I do not get a lot of VIP emails, nor do I get a lot of text messages, so I have not really cared much about those features. Yet it has been nice to be able to look at my wrist on the few occasions when those alerts come through and to know if they are critical or not. Sometimes I don’t bother to pull out the phone to respond to an email that can wait. Without the watch I wouldn’t know I didn’t have to pull out the phone.

It took me about three days to really start to “feel it”. Up until then I thought, “I don’t need this, and I am not even sure I want it.” Now I know for sure that I want it, and at some point I might even feel as if I need it. But wanting is enough for me, so I’m happy.

Here is my Stainless Steel Sport Band Watch alongside my 18 karat gold bracelet. It may not be obvious, but this bracelet is a combination of white and yellow gold links. I would really like to see this bracelet paired with the Rose Gold Edition with the Modern Buckle. That would show all three colors of gold together in one place. If only I had $17,000.00 to burn.

Jason informed me that they now have Apple Watch group lessons, so I signed up for one. They also have sessions for One-to-One with the Apple Watch so I may sign up for one of those too. I’ll do the group session first though to see how it goes.

 

 

I finished the one border of burgundy hexagons that I was working on when I was at the First Slow Stitching Movement Getaway last month. I have since put the Batik Flower Garden Quilt aside so I could focus on my new Janome Skyline S5 sewing machine.

You may recall that I was experiencing some significant stash envy as I was preparing to go to the stitching retreat. I call it a stitching retreat because the Slow Stitching Movement embraces those who knit and embroider, not just those who quilt and piece. It would be wrong to call it a quilting retreat.

Above are the strips that I cut to take with me to the retreat for the daily sewing activity. It turned out that we used the one inch strips to do log cabin blocks. I can’t do justice to the activity by trying to describe it. You kind of had to be there, but it was meditative, and there was a different emphasis on the thought process each day. Our log cabin stitching work occurred in the morning following our morning writing, which is an exercise taken from the book “The Artist’s Way”.

I completed about two and a half blocks while I was at the retreat during the stitching exercise segments and also while I was using the machine trying to decide if I wanted to buy it or not. When my machine was delivered last Wednesday I set it up on my dining room table and continued to work on the log cabin blocks in an effort to familiarize myself with the machine.

Below you can see the state that my dark and light strip collections were in after I finished four blocks. I didn’t cut any new strips while I was creating those blocks.

 

I have to admit that I am quite intimidated by the machine. I have not yet scheduled my class with Pocono Sew and Vac, and I will do that soon. Until then I am getting to know the most basic features of the machine. I have not tried any fancy stitches, nor have I tried any feet other than the one that was installed on the machine when I got it. I haven’t even threaded the machine or loaded the bobbin since I am still working with the thread installed on the machine as a demo unit.

I love the needle up/down feature.

I love the thread cutter.

I have used the knee lift, but don’t really feel the need to use it. I think maybe I need to adjust the angle to get the best use out of it, and if I were doing free motion quilting I bet it would come in handy. At first I used the foot pedal to control the speed, but decided to give the “Start/Stop” button a try. You have to unplug the foot pedal to use the button to start and stop the machine. It took some getting used to, but I think I like using the button instead of the pedal. I set the speed relatively slow because once you activate stitching with the button it speeds up to the maximum speed you have it set for. In the photo below you can see that I have it set fairly slow. When you first touch the button as long as you keep your finger on it, it goes quite slowly. When you take your finger off the button it speeds up to what you have set. You can slow the machine down when you decide to stop stitching by holding the button and releasing it on the last stitch.

Using the “Stop/Start” button would allow me to place the machine on a counter and sew standing up, which would be a great benefit in terms of fitness.

I watched the DVD that came with the machine, but taking the class is really going to make a big difference for me. I will be able to ask some questions about free motion quilting. I have no idea how to get started with free motion, or even with a walking foot. I definitely want to know whether I should be purchasing add-on feet for quilting or using the provided feet for quilting. The machine comes with a basic darning foot that looks like it could be used for free motion, and with an even feed foot, but Janome makes add-on feet as well. There must be a reason for that.

I made four blocks and decided to add them together with the darker portions in the center. It is my goal to bat and back this unit, and to do some machine quilting on it, perhaps with the provided even feed (walking) foot.

The one design decision that I did make when piecing was to be sure that I included some crimson on all four squares. I also ended two of the squares with the very dark blue fabric. That paid off as a unifying element when it came time to join the blocks, especially since the two other squares used the crimson fabric along the edge.

I sure did sort my strips well by value. Look at the way that dark section pops! I can’t say I am in love with this piece as an aesthetic object. However, I am really enjoying the process, and I am enjoying learning about the machine too. I want to learn how to do new things.

I showed this piece to my husband after I was done putting the four units together. He had seen me working on it. His comment was, “You really did put that together quickly with the machine.” He is used to observing me sitting on the couch with English Paper Piecing for hours with little result. I must say that the speed with which this came together gives me pause. Where is the money going to come from for all the fabric I would consume if I were to get serious about using the machine?

Hmmmmmm. I knew there was a reason I liked paper piecing. One of the reasons I chose to work with hexagons is that I knew they would not break the bank. Speaking of breaking the bank, I made a serious investment in new fabrics at the retreat and at the Pennington Quilt Works on the way home. I bought them specifically to expand my horizons in hexagon work. I may be showing those fabrics off soon.

Is there anyone reading this from the Slow Stitching Movement Retreat who also purchased the Skyline S5?

This is the panoramic view from the ballroom at the First Slow Stitching Movement Getaway. It was held from April 21st to April 24th in beautiful Lambertville, New Jersey at the Lambertville Station Inn. Below is a shot of the Inn taken from the bridge returning on foot from New Hope in the early evening on Thursday.

Below is only part of the ballroom where most activities took place.

Here is my station with the Janome Skyline S5 that was on loan to me for the duration of the event thanks to Pocono Sew and Vac.

 

The demo units were offered to us at the low price of $899.00, and upon returning home I decided that I wanted to purchase my unit, which happened to be unit #1. They shipped it to me and it arrived the following Wedesday.

This event was fantastic. It was filled with activity, yet we had time to do our own thing. I managed to make some friends and will stay in touch with them via the Slow Stitching Movement Facebook page. If this event is offered again, I will be sure to be there, and I recommend it to you as well. There was no pressure to be modern, and there was respect for hexagons. It was nice to see some people embracing hand work over machine work, although machine work was certainly in evidence as well.

During the Wednesday evening trunk show we were each encouraged to share one piece that represents our slow stitching journey. I shared my Batik Flower Garden Quilt. The photograph below is credited to Mark Lipinski. It shows the back of the quilt, which he wanted everyone to see. This photograph was originally shared by Mark on his Slow Stitching Movement Facebook page. Thank you Mark for appreciating my work.

There was no pressure to participate in any of the activities, which was really nice, so you could be as active as you wanted at the getaway. I spent a great deal of time sitting in the best lit area of the ballroom hand stitching with others.

I felt as if I had found a group of kindred spirits at this getaway, and I hope to see them again in the big stitching community.

 

Delaine.

She has won the autographed copy of the book, and will be receiving it through the mail shortly.

If you liked what you saw during the blog hop, and really wanted to win this book, then please head on over to Amazon where you can get your own copy.

By the way, the item above is no longer in my collection. I took it with me to the First Slow Stitching Movement Retreat where I used it as my entry in a Yankee swap. I had never participated in one of those before, and I wanted to give something that someone would appreciate even though the idea is to give something funny. The container was definitely appreciated, and it created a little buzz for the book at the retreat.

I took all of my finished objects with me to the retreat and placed them out on my table along with the book so people could see them. I also prepared the units necessary to make another convex vase, and completed that at the retreat. I even brought my bag of templates for that project with me so I could show them. When my convex vase reached the end of the “octopus” stage I set it out on the table and left it there for awhile, which drew additional attention. I kept it low key, but it was really nice to be able to hand out my business cards when people commented on the work, and to tell them that they had a chance to win the book since I was keeping the comments section open until the end of the retreat.

As part of our activities for the Slow Stitching Movement Retreat coming up this week we are supposed to bring 24 light 1.5 inch salvage to salvage strips, and 24 dark salvage to salvage strips. Mark Lipinski will be leading us in some “slow stitching” exercises with these strips.

Because I buy fabric mostly to work on specific projects, and when I do buy spontaneously I tend to pick up sets of fat quarters, this was a bit of a challenge for me. Mark forbade us from buying fabric for this. He told us we had to shop our stash.

I ask you what stash? Am I the only quilter out there who doesn’t have a stash?

Luckily I had occasionally bought value ranges of various Kona Solids in order to select colors for projects. I have very few print fabrics in yardage format so I decided to limit myself to solids.

I gathered together my Kona Solids, and I found that I had enough so I would only have to cut two strips from each piece.

I separated out my lights from my darks before cutting.

After cutting I packaged my strips into neatly banded units.

I’m almost ready for the retreat. We have been having a lot of fun chatting among ourselves for the past few weeks in our own private Facebook group.

We are supposed to make three things with these strips. I can’t wait to find out what we will be doing with them.

I was pleased to be asked to participate in the blog hop celebrating the one year anniversary of the publication of the book “Contain It! English Paper-Pieced Accessories” available from Amazon.

Don’t order the book just yet though, because if you comment below, you will have an opportunity to win an autographed copy of the book created by the mother/daughter team Linda Chaney and Laura Gerth. Make sure you visit the other five blog hop destinations to optimize your chances of wining. I’ll be listing those web addresses further down.

I’ll start by saying that making containers was a bit outside my comfort zone. I had never worked with stabilizer before, and I had never made any dimensional objects with fabric, not even a hand bag. My experience with English Paper Piecing helped me a great deal in grasping the fundamentals put forth in the book, yet I wasn’t sure that I was going to be able to pull this off. I did all the work using hand stitching even though some of the steps could have been achieved using a sewing machine. The book includes clear instructions on how to make a great variety of projects, and I was drawn immediately to the convex vase collection. However, I decided to start off slowly, and easily, with a flat hexagon coaster. I finished up big with a convex vase with a hexagonal base. It is only fitting that I should have started off and ended my journey with hexagons.

Here is a group photo of the projects I created from the book:

Which of these it not like the others? I obviously deviated from my color pallet somewhere along the line.

Here is my first project, the comfortingly flat coaster.

I was very proud of myself after making this little object, and felt that I had built up enough confidence to try making a cube shaped container.  I was definitely NOT yet ready for curves.

Here is my cube viewed from the top and from the bottom:

I might point out that sewing up the side seams of the cube required a major leap of faith on my part because I could not imagine how I was going to be able to fold back the outer sides to cover the inner sides. Remember my lack of experience with stabilizer material?

I was so proud of myself after making the cube and feeling a great deal more confident. I decided that it was time to tackle curves. All projects in the book require that you create plastic templates by tracing patterns provided in the book, which happens to be the most difficult step, in my opinion. That step becomes harder when you make containers with curves because you have to freehand your tracing on the plastic template material with a permanent marker. You can’t rest your marker against a ruler or a quilting cutting guide. Don’t let that put you off though. Sure, I was nervous free handing it, especially for the stabilizer shapes, for which accuracy is most important, but I relaxed and got better at the task. You will too. Using doughnuts of removable tape to hold the plastic to the book helps.

I also used doughnuts of tape to hold the templates in place while cutting around them on the stabilizer material and the fabric.

Here is my first convex container:

After making the above container I ran out of template material and had to order more, so I deviated from my color pallet and made another convex container using the same templates as I used for the container above.

Here is where you get to see a few process photos showing how the outer sides actually DO fold down over the inner sides. You will not need to make a leap of faith after seeing this:

 When the top gets close to the bottom it almost pops into place.

I have to say that making the same container a second time made me realize that even that small amount of repetition makes these containers a great deal easier to make. I developed a workflow. The basic concepts sank in for me, and I didn’t find the need to keep checking the steps in the book to make sure I was doing things correctly. I found the process quite relaxing once I really knew what I was doing.

Things really fell into place for me on the final project, and I had a great time making it.

What’s next? I am definitely not finished with containers. That’s for sure. I’ve got my eye on the Scalloped Bowl Collection.

I have taken a great number of process photos for these projects that will give you an idea of what is involved in making them. You can find them in a Flickr Album entitled Containers.

For me these containers are the ideal Guild exchange project. Our guild has an annual Christmas Secret Santa event that I never participated in because I didn’t know what I could make that would take a reasonable amount of time, reflect my personality, and also be appreciated. Now I think that the Large Convex Vase with Hexagonal Base will fit that bill nicely.

Add a comment below for your chance to win a copy of the book, and don’t forget to visit the other stops on the blog hop for more container fun. I will be keeping the comments open until next Friday, so check back to see who wins the following Saturday. Make sure that your email address is associated with your comment, or appears in body of the comment, or I won’t be able to contact you if you win to ask for your mailing address.

Blog hop participants:

April 13 Daryl Perry of Patchouli Moon Studio

April 14 Debbie Voigt of Around the Strawberry Patch

April 15 Christa Watson of Christa Quilts

April 16 Andrea Taddicken of Knitty Bitties

April 17 Terri Schurter of Hexy Lady (That’s Me, and you are here.)

April 18 Ren Murphy of The Inspired Wren

 

Disclosure: I received a free copy of the book so I could participate in the blog hop, but the opinions expressed are my own.

I spent a good deal of time this week basting more burgundy hexagons to take with me to the upcoming Slow Stitching Retreat next week. I’ll be adding to the borders of my Batik Flower Garden Quilt while there.

In addition to that I spent a great deal of time last week and this week creating fabric containers to show off in my first blog hop experience. I am participating in the “Contain It” blog hop taking place this week. My day is Friday, so please come back to see what I made. I am using the horse themed fat quarters that I purchased awhile back as the fabrics for my containers. If you come back and comment you will have a chance to win an autographed copy of the “Contain It” book. If you head on over to Prairie Sewn Studios you can catch links to the first two stops in the blog hop and comment there.

Clicking on the image below will take you to Amazon where you can read a description of the book and order it if you like. If I were you though, I would visit all six of the blog hop sites to comment for your chance to win a copy first.

This is where I get to share with others who are participating in the once a month Star Count link back from Jessica’s Life Under Quilts blog.

What has happened since last month at this time?

I went back to the mattress store to do another photo shoot for the Batik Flower Garden Quilt.

I bought a Janome New Home 720 sewing machine from Pocono Sew and Vac to use at the Slow Stitching Movement Retreat in April.

I posted about fleshing out the edges of the Batik Flower Garden Quilt.

I cancelled my Janome 720 Order.

I bought some wonderful 108 inch wide backing fabric for the Batik Flower Garden Quilt.

And I did some math to figure out how much shrinkage I can expect on the Batik Flower Garden Quilt, and to determine how many more rows of hexagons I am going to need to add to the three overhanging edges.

To see all the photographs and details concerning the above happenings, and enjoy the posts in the order in which they were written, I recommend that you scroll quickly all the way down to my March 2nd post, and then scroll slowly back up again until you get to the top.

Enjoy.

 

 

First of all, the background fabric has arrived for the Batik Flower Garden Quilt, and is pictured above. I purchased three glorious yards of this 108 inch wide fabric from fabric dot com for this project. I think it is going to work beautifully with the burgundy bias binding that I will be applying, which is the same color as the hexagons pictured above.

Now for the math…

Over a year ago I did a post about shrinkage. I needed to wash a panel I had created to keep cool air in my living room and out of my hallway. When I washed that project I took measurements before the wash and after the wash because I thought that might help me estimate shrinkage of future paper pieced hexagon projects. My experiment showed me that there is more shrinkage in one direction than in the other. Who knew?

My previous shrinkage experience with my panel tells me that I can expect shrinkage of the Batik Flower Garden Quilt project in a width wise direction that will amount to one inch of shrinkage for every 22 inches of width. At the present time the quilt top is 80 inches wide, which means that I can expect 3.5 inches of shrinkage, 1.75 inches of which will be on the left overhang, and 1.75 inches of which will be on the right overhang.

My previous shrinkage experience tells me that I can expect shrinkage of this project in the length wise direction that will amount to one inch of shrinkage for every 18 inches of length. At the present time the quilt top is 92 inches long, which means that I can expect 5 inches of shrinkage, which must all come from the bottom overhang, as there is no top overhang.

It is actually a bit unfortunate that I faced the hexagons in the direction I did. Because if I had faced them in the opposite direction I would be dealing with the greater amount of shrinkage in the direction with two overhangs. My bottom overhang shrinkage would have been only 4 inches, and my side overhangs would have increased to 2.25 inches each making the shrinkage amounts closer in size for all overhangs. I’ll file that information away for future reference.

I could easily be done with this quilt top and baste it now, and it would look good. However, since I hope to create a skirt covering the boxspring to go along with the quilt, I definitely want the washed version to extend below the space where the mattress meets the boxspring. I’ve worked too hard to take a short cut now. Therefore, I am planning at least two more rows of hexagons along the bottom overhang, and at least one more row along the left and right overhangs. This means that I will not have this quilt basted in time to take to the Slow Stitching Retreat coming up in April. I will take it along to work on adding the final rows of hexagons.

The good news is that I now have extra time to work on pieces for the blog hop that I will be participating in very soon. I went to Pennington Quilt Works today and bought supplies for that mystery project. Stay tuned to see what I make.

I will be ready to baste the Batik Flower Garden Quilt in a week or so at the rate I am going. I’ll probably just be adding one more row of hexagons to all four sides, maybe another additional row to the left and right. However, soon I am going to have to back this baby and baste her.

I recently learned about the 108 inch backing fabrics that make it unnecessary to sew together lengths of yardage for large quilting projects. I decided to take a look over at The Fat Quarter shop to see what they had. I order my Kona solids from them. They didn’t have many wide fabrics, and nothing I thought suitable, so I headed over to Amazon on a hunch. I was amazed at how many fabrics they had. I started saving ones to my wish list that looked like likely candidates. Then I came across the gorgeous fabric pictured at the top of this post, and it was love at first sight. The fabric is named Essential Dotty Waves. The darker color in the background looks as if it will nearly match the burgundy I will be using for the binding. The large swirls will work beautifully with the circular quilting that I plan to echo the the hexagon flowers. I did a sample quoting piece, and posted about it earlier, but I will include a photograph of the quilting design below:

 

I noticed that the order was going to be fulfilled by fabric.com, so instead of ordering from Amazon, I decided to head over to fabric.com directly and search for it. I ordered three yards of it, got free shipping on my order, and stated an account with the site.

While I am a supporter of my local quilt store for patterned fabrics, they don’t have much in the way of solids, and I doubt that they have any 108 inch backing fabrics at all.