Dealing with a fabric bleed

Yay!!  My quilt was finished!  It was finished before the baby had arrived with a few weeks to spare.  And then...I took it out of the washing machine.

There was a fabric bleed.  This was from a bee block so I don't know where the fabric originated from, but let's be honest...I don't prewash my reds either so such a thing was bound to happen eventually.  I looked on the internet and found these two sources: from SuzyQuilts and Quilts of Love.  They both follow similar methods.

I filled up the tub, added some boiling water, and put a color catcher on the quilt.  I put the quilt in the tub, making sure the whole thing was under the water level, and waited.

When I checked it after...maybe four hours...the bleed was gone!  Yay!  However, there was a new color on the quilt. 

Do you see it by the third safety pin?  I think it was the pin that did it, but I'm not 100% sure.  (I would like to note that having the color catcher on top of the offending fabric was a good idea as it did bleed more.)  Anyway, after beating myself up a little bit for not being able to see the future, I tried putting it back in the washing machine with stain stick.  No luck.  I tried white vinegar + salt + sun.  No luck.  I finally decided to just add another piece of fabric on top of it and call it good, since this isn't a show quilt.

When I took the pin out, there was a small hole in the red part.  The applique blends in very well...I appliqued it on and then copied the quilting to secure the piece and to hide it better.  As for the hole in the red...I'm not going to do anything.  Since it is on the red part it doesn't stand out too much, and I'll take safety pins out of things prior to washing if they aren't needed.  Lesson learned.

quilt notes

I'm working on this quilt very intermittently, and am having trouble remembering what I'm supposed to be doing...

9" squares: turn into HSTs with white triangles.
8" squares": increase to 9" squares
misc: cut 5x to 10.5" squares and the rest to 9" squares

I need 19 little arrows, 5 big arrows, 1 big arrow head, and 5 arrow heads.

I have made, or have parts for...4.5 big arrows (2 made) and 10 little arrows (10 made)

The layout will match that of the picture below, but the fifth column will have the big arrow at the top and the last column will have the big arrow like the fourth column.

Quilting

I recently finished quilting a quilt that my mother-in-law is going to give to a new family member.

In the white areas I did a back and forth in white thread.  For the colored areas I used 'Chevron Peel' from 180 Doodle Quilting Designs complied by Karen Burns.  I used green thread on the outside squares, red thread on the middle squares, and blue thread on the innermost squares.

Chevron Peel is a new motif for me and it went pretty well.  I should have planned out the diagonal direction for the corners better though.  The ones shown here are nice, but there are a few corners that have the same diagonal twice in a row.

Pulleys

I tried to do pulleys, a pattern I saw in a book, on a border, but...mine ended up looking rather phallic.  Needless to say, I unpicked all the quilting. 

(Note: it looks fine in the book example.  I probably needed to make my pulleys narrower...but I'm also not sure I'll be trying this one again.)

Progress from May

May was surprisingly productive!  I'm not sure why: maybe I just worked on more projects than normal so it felt more productive or maybe I was close to milestones for several quilts and that's what made it productive.  In any case, I'll take it!

1. Robot quilt: Finished and in use!  I just need to get some 'official' pictures.

2. Bee blocks 2018 (HDD): I received the last of these yesterday, and quickly got them put together.  I was looking for something to get on the quilter soon, so this will be perfect.

3. Meshing solid HSTs: I've been excited about this one for a while, but other things have taken priority.  I need a bit more grey to finish up the background.

4.  Scrap bee blocks 2017.  I got started on these, but they're probably going to go back on the back-burner next month.  It was nice to make some progress though.

 
5. Baby unknown quilt (CKJ): Done, I just need to get the 'official' pictures of this one too.

6. Wedding quilt (JEM): I have 100/525 HSTs finished.  It's going to be huge and I'm not feeling as confident with the design as I often do. 

Things I haven't worked on recently (or haven't started yet):

7. Temperature quilt. 
8. Rainbow Log Cabin
9. Scrap quilt #2
10. Jeweled floors
11. Lost piece
12. Winter quilt
13. Fabric from Christmas
14. Pillow with green/purple fabric
15. Trying to fit in - left over triangles
16. Black scrap quilt.
17. Quilt Halloween quilt
18. Baby boy quilt (ZJN)
19. Joshua robot pillowcase

Grandma's robot quilt

I had the privilege to quilt my son's quilt given to him by my mother-in-law.  As the youngest grandchild, this is the last grandchild quilt...at least until everyone needs another one. :D

We chose the pattern together...the fabrics are the same ones that she used for my oldest's quilt.  Matching things are always so fun.  (Interestingly, in the six months it's taken me to post this I haven't really thought of them as the same colors.  The other quilt has a long more of the white/grey in it.)

I put back and forths in the white diagonals and in the white border.  I did figure 8s in the colored border in matching thread...there were a lot of tails to deal with at the end.  I also have a maze in the outermost border, but you need to look at the last picture to see that.

The part my three year old likes the most though is the robots on the back.  They're made from a soft minky, which makes them nice to snuggle up with every night.

Linking up with Finish It Up Friday.

Striped mountians

I finished striped mountains! 

I'll admit, it probably isn't my favorite quilt ever.  However, I do like the colors.  And I like the invisible border.  And I like the quilting.  So while not my favorite, it does have a lot of components that I like.

The original idea was from Jaffa Quilts.  I expect that we did the construction a bit different though, as I searched through my currently owned fabric and some of the colors didn't have much yardage.  But I made it work.

I backed it in a grey minky and bound with pink sateen.  For quilting, the grey areas have meandering stars...like a night sky.  The mountains have back and forths, like a switch back path.  A few mountains have a few extra fun things in them, like some triangles in the pink stripe on the lower mountain in the picture below.

Linking up with Finish It Up Friday.