Setting a Quilt on Point

Quiltbug.com has a handy page about setting a quilt on point which includes a table on what size to cut the triangles. It was very useful for the modified Dolly Madison Star quilt which I started not too long ago.

Modified Dolly Madison Star 9 inch blocks laid out

I am now sewing all the blocks together after laying the components out on my quilt floor (I don’t have a quilt wall.)

The end is in sight, apart from the quilt sandwich, the quilting and the binding of course. OK, so maybe the half-way mark is in sight.

This quilt will be quilted in a combination of stitch in the ditch and hand quilting as I need to save the long arm jobs for my biggest quilts. After my last visit to the long arm quilter I decided I needed to take responsibility for my own quilting. This delightful hobby gets too expensive otherwise. Pam, the professional longarm quilter does a wonderful job and I will continue to use her services, just not for everything.

I am in the market for a 12 inch quilting hoop so I can hand quilt using it. I went to Spotlight yesterday but didn’t buy as the quality was horrible (wood splitting and rough, already) and the smallest hoop they had was a 14 inch diameter where I’ve decided a 12 inch diameter is where I want to start. I’ll most likely add a hoop to my next online order.

For anyone attempting to set a quilt on point, with some order assigned to where all the blocks go, I recommend to check and check again that you’ve remained true to your intended layout. Its amazing the mismatches that can occur between the quilting floor and the sewing machine.

Omnigrid 96L

I saw from my blog stats that someone found their way here after doing a search on Omnigrid. I had recently been looking for an Omnigrid myself and had trouble finding pictures or information.

The reason for wanting to research the Omnigrid 96L is that this is the half square triangle ruler recommended in the Jelly Roll Quilts book that I posted about a couple of months ago. Specifically they recommend it for the friendship braid quilt featured on the cover of that book. I desperately want to make that particular quilt and having ‘earned’ some money by selling off a couple of bits and pieces on eBay recently, I decided to go ahead and get the Omnigrid 96L. Here it is.

Omnigrid 96L Half Square Triangle Ruler

As I’ve mentioned before, the jelly rolls at Spotlight, my local fabric and home furnishings store are thin and not to my taste so I have little choice but to cut my own. Their half square triangle ruler (choice of one, if my memory serves me correctly) didn’t impress me either so I turned to eBay and bought mine from Getta Notion in Creston Iowa.

Now, I’ve been to Iowa and I know it’s a long, long way from my home here in the South Pacific. I was delighted when the delivery took just over a week. The price, including that lightning fast delivery, was only a couple of dollars more than what Spotlight would have charged, for a different (and to my eye, inferior) brand.

The friendship braid can’t start until I’ve finished the tumbling spools quilt top, where I have three more spools blocks to go, and the jelly roll sampler quilt along, where I have two blocks to go.

In the next couple of weeks though, there will be more cutting and house cleaning done than piecing because my Husqvarna Viking is going in for a service. Maybe it’s just the cold weather but it seemed to be struggling a bit just lately so I thought a service might be in order. Here’s hoping that all is well with my machine and that those other chores get done while it’s away.