Friday, August 10, 2012

Grandma's No. 2 Fan

I did it!

I completed 90 fans for my Grandmother's Fan quilt. After 25 hours of intense work this week I am finally done with that part.Now, I'm on to the rest of it...

I just found a cool way to do the center of the dresden plate here. Elizabeth Hartman explains it in such a way that seems so simple.

Until I tried it.



The centers turned out just fine thanks to her method explained in the tutorial. I did exactly that and then just cut them into four sections so that I could line up the right angle of the 1/4 circle to the right angle of my quilt block.

I think it looks great.

Here is the problem however. My tiny little 3/4 size Janome Harmony has a hard time sewing sometimes. She's a great machine, don't get me wrong. I've had her for 8 years and she's only let me down a couple of times.

However, the little zig-zag on my machine sucks when it comes to bulk. (Which my dresden fans have because I didn't see that I was supposed to clip the corners before I turned them. But, I digress. That's a different story for a different day.) The button hole stitch also sucks.



 So now I have to figure out how I am going to stitch these fans to their backing without making them look bulky or just outright gaudy.

I worked so hard on this already, I feel stuck. I could use my sister's machine potentially, or I can just hand stitch it. I'm not concerned about the amount of work it will take to hand stitch the machine but I am concerned about the integrity of my stitches. I would be so upset if I gave this away, had this big ol' production and hype about it, and then have my craftsmanship fail after only a little use.

My hopes are that this will last longer than my marriage, which is saying something. I am marrying him for life.


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