It is cute, I was given one several Christmas's ago, it also remained in the box for a couple of years.

Jo

How big would you make the letters?

 I want to make a wallhanging from a quote I found, it would be five lines, the longest line would be 25 (type count) words.  I always seem to make original artwork to big, so would like some thoughts on how big you would make the letters.

Jo

I don't understand why you need to rip it.  First of all, it is a wonky quilt.  You could cut it straight and let the cubes be slightly off kilter and it would look great.  If you want them straight, cut the background fabric slightly off kilter so it winds up being square.  Then quilt as desired.  It would waste some fabric, but I publicly promise that if you deplete your fabric stash, I will buy you some.

I think I'm missing the issue here.  Then again, I am the president of the half ass club, so there is that to consider.

I wondered why you hand basted it.  I would have loaded the wide fabric on the long arm and basted it there, but again, I don't always understand what y'all are talking about.

I can answer these all important questions since the project is mine.  :-)   Not Ami's.  :-)

Re wonky quilt: it wasn't supposed to be wonky.  It inadvertently turned out that way.  It offends my sensibilities that the placement defied my dictates.   I don't mind that the shape of the hexagons isn't rectangular ... *that* part was intentionally asymmetrical and I like that.  But, doggone it, the hexagons themselves ought to on the straight and narrow!  No drunken hexagons!

Re cutting the background off kilter: yep, I considered that.  But having the background off-grain, once again offends my sensibilities.  I worry that when I quilt it to an on-grain backing, what kind of horrors will I experience?  Perhaps none but I'm looking at the glass half-empty.  I know the other shoe is gonna drop and reveal itself when the quilting is done.

Re President of Half-Ass Club:  I salute you.  I hope you find the other half.  :-)

Re hand basting vs basting on the longarm: I thought about this and here's the scenario that I came up with.   I'm worried that I'm gonna get bubbles in the hexagons if I just lay the hexies on top of the background fabric and baste.  I'm worried that the hexies will "travel"" on the top because I'm basting as I go with nothing to hold the hexies in place.

I had thought that if I hand baste the hexies first then hand applique the perimeter, I can then cut away the background fabric underneath the hexies. In this manner,  it would be kinda like if I had put borders only all the way around the hexies.   Then I'll have only one layer on the longarm.   

If I leave the background fabric under the hexagons, there will be a LARGE expanse of hexies on top of the background fabric, attached only around the perimeter.  I think that is a disaster waiting to happen because the tension on the background fabric will be different than the tension on the hexagon applique.

So, that was my thought process.   Convoluted and quite possibly over-thinking it, but that's the way my brain operates. :-) 

You and Mishii crack me up!!!

You and Pirate crack me up!!

I understand both of your perspectives-ROTFLMAS

This morning has been an interesting time.  In some donations came this HUGE quilt top of foundation-pieced 5” blocks. It was in one huge piece and a Long row of 3 blocks strip.

i didn’t really want to make more blocks.  But, I didn’t want to waste any of them.  Adding 3 rows to the big piece made it HUGE and HEAVY.  I knew my ladies would NOT like finishing that.  So I figured out I could rip both pieces in half and then join the 1/2 strip to the smaller quilts.

so, I have 2 of these.  They are about 50 x 70 each.  Somebody did some crazy piecing!

You are a clever woman to figure out a solution like that, Ellen. 

I was amazed the math came out right with minimal ripping!  I did have to restitch quite a few ends of seams though.

bornblesse2 said:

 I did have to restitch quite a few ends of seams though.

depending on how far into the seam the separation went, sometimes you can simply edge stitch the perimeter instead of re-sewing all those tiny amount.  Once it gets quilted, edge stitched again (to hold the edges of the top to the batting/backing) and trimmed, that edge stitching will be concealed by the binding.