The Wandering Way quilt – or ‘how to make the best of a bad job’

Disclaimer – this is an old kit and the pattern and fabrics may no longer be available.

So Mo had me dig out some of my kits, I have a few This is a Craftsy kit for a wallhanging, 31″ x 51″ from Robert Kaufman. I adore the fabrics – the butterflies, the feathers and the fabulous diamond-like pattern. I didn’t really want to cut it up but that is what we do…

I made such a mess of it – I cut the diamond fabric along the wrong side so I thought I’d not been sent enough. Plus for some reason I didn’t have bits cut that I needed even after ticking them off as I cut them – so did I cut a width wrong? And such ridiculous sizes, it was to be cut into 1 5/8″ strips, 1 7/8″ silly sizes like that. There’s no reason for it really, it could easily have been designed with whole or half inch wide pieces. I used the included binding fabric to replace some of the diamond fabric I thought I was missing. I trimmed some blocks down half way through to square them up so those blocks ended up smaller… I even cut far too many triangles for the corners and did a fair bit of ‘unstitching’ putting it together. It needed a bit more oomph though so I fudged the rest of the fabric to make sashing with cornerstones for the blocks I ended up with! Then I found a stash fat quarter to make a flange. Love a flange and  I have my own way of ‘flanging’ (see below) that is very handy with un-accurate edges – especially on a top with bias edges. I added some fab black butterfly fabric from my ‘I really don’t want to cut this up’ stash, as a border. I ended up with enough of the binding fabric to use as binding as well in the end, came out pretty good in the end I think. It ended up about 57″ x 40″

 

Then I tried to quilt it. Tried being the operative word. It took me 4 days to do two of the squares with a fairly simple stencil pattern. The thread shredded every two inches or made loops on the back. It drove me completely bonkers and I put it away… for now.I didn’t unpick what I just about managed to do. I’ll decide what to do with it some other time! Still, another top for the box and I’m happy with that. I added the leftover fabric to the box too, once it’s quilted and bound I was contemplating making it into a quillow, or a cushion cover to match.

The moral of this story is everything can be saved! By using a bit of your stash or putting it away until you’re ready to deal with it, or until you’re better at freemotion… Even if it comes out really ugly (I have one of those, used the fabric in the picture and it still looked really poo) one day you’ll be able to dig it out again and know what to do to make it better 🙂

Juliet’s Flange method 

This method of flanging works brilliantly if you have bias edges as in my quilt above, and at least the 1/4″ seam allowance. (It increases the seam allowance to 3/8″  i.e. 1/4″ + 1/8″) I did dream this method up but that doesn’t mean I was the only one to have ever dreamed it, and there are other flange methods out there too.

I always forget to take photos as I go, so this is my quilt top ‘in miniature’! You can see how rubbish the edges are. That’s pretty much how my top looked! When adding bias triangles I like to cut the triangles larger than the pattern states so I’m not stretching them at all to fit. Also I use plenty of starch to stop the bias edge stretching. If you do have any ‘thin’ seam allowances, iron a small piece of interfacing behind it to give it some strength

My flange is 3/4″ strips folded in half, right sides out. If they need to be joined to make them longer a straight seam will do but I like to use a tiny stitch, say a 1.5 so that you get enough stitches in that tiny seam. I use a washable glue stick (I always wash my quilts when they are finished) to stick the flanging down on all sides, following the points on my top,  making a nice straight rectangle and ignoring those rubbish edges. This way you don’t stretch anything and you can be sure your top lies flat and you get all your points in and lovely straight edges. Total cheat – I love it! I use a basting stitch less less than 1/4″ from the edge to hold the flange in place. Trim the edges to the flange strip and it’s ready for a border

Add the border as normal with your 1/4″ foot matching up to the flange raw edge and then press. The black and white fabric was a terrible idea for this demonstration so I did the other edges in blue

Admire your beautiful flange and congratulate yourself on a nice square (rectangular) top!

I hope you enjoyed that and I apologise for my awful photography, it is not one of my special skills! xx

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