Rug Done!

I love this rug! Design-wise, I was really winging it, but I couldn't have planned a better result. It actually looks three-dimensional, and the colors flow so nicely.

(Here's my previous post, which records most of the early steps in making it.) I purposely chose mostly medium colors, so it won't show the dirt as much as the larger one. These are entry rugs, so they trap the grit, wet, and general dirt coming into the condo.

In case you're wondering, washing one of these is not exactly easy, but it's not a terrible experience either. After a good shaking, I put it in the bathtub, add a little detergent and warm water, and then gently shove it around to get the dirt out. After several changes of water, when the water is clear and there's no more sand in the tub, I place it carefully into the washer, spin it, and pop it into the dryer. (I have a water-saving top-loader, so I can place the rug carefully around the sides to keep the strain minimal while spinning, and a very high percentage of the water is removed safely. Not sure how it would survive a front-loader.) I use cotton thread for joining the plaited strips, so I'm careful not to put too much strain on these rugs, especially when they're wet. I also overcast the two cut edges at least twice, and put two rows of wide multistitch zig-zags a little way in from the ends.

By the way, if you make one, make the plaited strips almost a foot longer than the desired rug length. After the plaited strips are sewn together, mark a cutting line on each end, do a straight stitch just to the inside of this line, then zig-zag over it before cutting. After cutting, do another zig-zag over the cut edge. If the cut line differs much from the marked line, add another straight stitch row and zig-zag row over the edge. I think that in every case, I've had to resew/recut the finished edges to make them more square. It takes some effort to keep the cut edges from expanding and ruffling. Add the two lines of multistitch zig-zag after you know you have finished edges. At first, the rug will not lie completely flat. It relaxes over the course of a few days.

Plaited rugs are not quick (they also eat a lot of thread). This one took roughly 35 hours (not including the ripping and resewing of the plaited strips, because the first time I couldn't be bothered to pin them), and it's only 28 inches by 57 inches. But they're beautiful, thin and flat, don't bunch up, light enough to wash and dry, and don't shrink or transfer dye to the floor. Definitely worth the effort.

Wedding Quilt Photos

I don't much like it, but I have to accept the fact that I disappear from the blogging world occasionally. When the workload gets heavy, and personal commitments multiply, blogging is simply one of the more expendable items. But things are more relaxed now, and I'm looking forward to catching up a bit.

Along with blogging, the wedding quilt got delayed, too. But, it turned out that personally giving it to the newlyweds a couple of weeks late was actually nicer than having it mixed in with all the other gifts. I had time to make a nice label. We got to chat about the fabrics and how I made the quilt. Having the more personal connection was very nice.

This quilt was a perfect fit for quilting each quarter separately and then sewing the quilted parts together. The method is a pain if you need to match the sections (actually, I've never been able to get such sections to match at all), but it's nice when matching isn't an option to begin with. I can't abide leaving overlapped batting in the finished quilt, so there's a lot of fussy trimming and hand sewing, but that's better than maneuvering an entire queen-size quilt sandwich, especially when using straight pins to hold the layers together. (Safety pins are too thick. They break the threads of the mostly tightly woven shirtings.)

I knew right away I'd do an all-over meander. I think it's a nice contrast to the hard, straight edges, not to mention that it's the one type of machine quilting I'm even somewhat competent at. I used leftover thread from my hand quilting of the linen quilt--variegated green and variegated yellow--plus a somewhat strange variegated pink-beige, gold, and green that worked surprisingly well.

This was a fun quilt to make, and I got pretty attached to it. It was hard to give it away!

The Rug Is Taking Shape

No significant quilt content today---I've been too intent on the rug. 

I really like the way it's turning out! Here's the first plait:

It's almost 4 inches wide and has 12 laces. But I need to back up....

To recap, I started with 12 pairs of pants and was able to cut enough 2-inch strips (actually, just a shade narrower, to allow better travel through the binder-making tool) for seven 7-foot laces from each pair (with only a few scraps left over). I folded the strips, pressed them, and stitched them into laces. The colors grouped into two sets of six---one with more grays, the other with more beiges.

I originally planned to plait 6 different-colored laces (graded from dark to light) into one plait. (The photo above and below show the laces sewn together at their tops, in these sets of six, ready for plaiting.) The resulting 14 plaits would then be sewn together to make a rug. Here's the beginning of one plait:

Nice, but the plait would be at most 2 inches wide. I wasn't liking the design possibilities. Besides, that's a lot of plaits to sew together. Time to rethink.

I had never worked with more than 9 laces at once, but I figured that I might be able to handle 12. What the heck. I tried it.

Much better!

I had put two laces of each color next to each other (six colors, and a total of 12 laces) and expected the pairs to stay next to each other throughout the plaiting, but they didn't. They would have if I had done what I normally do, which is simply put the leftmost lace over the one to the right and continue to weave it all the way across, diagonally. However, that leaves the upper right free of plaiting, and with 12 laces, that's a fair amount of wasted lace length. Instead, I started with the next-to-last lace from the right and put it over the rightmost lace, then worked with the fourth lace from the right, weaving it all the way to right, then the sixth lace from the right, and so on. This allowed the plaiting to go all the way up to the the upper edge.

Serendipity! The outermost pairs of laces did indeed move along together, but the interior pairs separated. So, instead of a clearly defined light-to-dark zig-zag, I got a more subtle but, I think, very nice gradation.

I'm mulling the idea of sewing the plaits together by hand instead of machine. The only workable way of doing this would be to slip a blunt needle through the outermost lacing edge and weave it back and forth between the two plaits. But my suspicion is that I'll run into problems because the outer "loops" won't always line up with each other.

In any case, I'd really like to get this project all wrapped up by the end of this coming week, primarily because I have to get back to the wedding quilt---the wedding is only 5 weeks away, and I have lots of non-quilt-related stuff to do during that time, too. I ordered batting, and it should be here in a few days.

Seduced by Cotton Twill

The plan was to dig through three bins that might have suitable yardage for the wedding quilt backing. To get to them, however, I had to get past a bin overflowing with cotton twills ("khaki pants" in their previous life). In fact, I distinctly remember purposely overfilling that bin with the cut-up pants I'd chosen for my next plaited rug, specifically so that I'd notice and, hopefully, make the rug.

I know myself too well. Those almost velvety surfaces, the dense but not too firm hand, the subtle colors ... irresistible. All quilts have been temporarily supplanted. And we really do need another rug for the entry.

I never posted photos of my last rug project, so here they are.

I chose the lightest, most subtle colors and a complicated design with bilateral symmetry. 

The individual strips have anywhere from three to nine laces.

I love it! It's perfect with our tile, too. Twenty-six pairs of pants contributed, with enough fabric left over to fashion a large coffee table runner (not plaited---just made from the 2-inch strips). Plus the inevitable scraps.

The new rug will be a range of somewhat darker colors, although it's hard to tell in this photo. The darkest fabrics haven't been cut up yet. At the far left are the remaining whole pieces, to the right are six bundles of finished laces (all of which will be plaited together). In the middle are two sets of strips ready to fold and sew into laces (plus one bundle of laces). 

I'm deep into the project but, now, almost regret starting it. I'll be so busy with work (courtesy of a small avalanche of freelance projects) that I won't get to any quilts but the wedding quilt anytime soon. Ah well.

A Quilt for Snowflake the Stuffed Dog and Friends

A couple of weeks ago, I suggested to my 7-year-old step-grandson that we could make a quilt for his stuffed animals. He's been fascinated by my sewing machine for years (along with nearly every other machine and gadget he comes across), and I figured he's old enough to do some simple, well-supervised sewing. He was delighted and a little awed. ("I'm really old enough?")

I chose the nine-patch pattern, got his input on the overall size (we decided on 12" by 12"), and said he could pick anything from a sizable stack of my shirt fabrics. With impressive sureness, he made terrific choices. This kid really does have a talent for art.

Yesterday, I cut the patches, he sewed them (after a few practice pieces, and all the while showing a healthy concern for safety), in exactly the layout he wanted, and I did the rest. Snowflake likes red (and, incidentally, so does his owner), so the quilting thread is red and the backing is a tiny red-and-white check.

Snowflake and his buddies will be sleeping cozily and in style.

Four Quarters Done

I've been happily picking fabrics, cutting strips, and sewing---and the four quarters of the wedding quilt are done!

I'm short on well-lighted floor space, but this photo gives the overall idea. Only a few fabrics were used more than once. Two (a very dark blue plaid, and the central orange) I used three times each. So, this top has more than 60 different fabrics.

Here are a few of my favorite fabric combinations. I love the peaches, tans/browns, and off-white next to the red.

I used mostly 2-1/2-inch strips, but sometimes I went with 3 inches, and sometimes on only one side (and the central squares are different sizes, too), so here, I added in the blue/yellow stripe fabric to make up some inches. 

Great rusty and brown colors! The rust and white plaid was all small pieces, so that strip has lots of crazy seams and grain directions.

At first, I thought that the intense red/navy/yellow plaid, the wild multicolored stripe, and even the bright yellow/blue/white stripe would be too much for this quilt, and I set them aside. But by the fourth quarter, I was ready for them, and they look great! 

Now, I need to decide on backing fabric. Time to dig through my stash and see what largish yardage I can find.

All except two of the quilt-top fabrics are clothing, and almost all are men's shirts, which means almost all the fabrics are very fine and tightly woven. Safety pins literally tear the fabric. So instead, I'm going to pin baste with large straight pins and be VERY careful while quilting. The plan is to layer each half of the quilt separately. I'm hoping that working on a 43-inch-wide sandwich, and free-motion quilting a simple, smallish meandering pattern will make the straight pins workable. Leather gauntlets would be nice, too.

One-Quarter of the Wedding Quilt

My original plan was to focus only on value, to have alternating light and dark strips without much if any regard to color. But right from the beginning, I was organizing by color. I couldn't help it even when I firmly told myself not to.

After my first few fabric choices, which had color linkage despite my efforts, I could see that I just wasn't going to pay attention to the plan. I kept thinking, "That group of four greens looks so nice, and they segue so well into the beiges, which pick up the beige in the red-orange plaid, and the yellow/white/two-blue stripe looks great with the solid yellow," and on and on.

OK. New plan: groups of color-related fabrics, with the occasional sharp shift.

That's when it got fun. And I really like the way it's developing.