I like a challenge. And, I thought, there is no way I am going to let this quilt sit one moment longer, once I realized how many years it had already sat. (2005? That's not that long ago...uh, yes it is...8 years!!) Besides it will look lovely on the bed in the guest room/sewing room in our Florida condo! So, here is the first method I came up with for the first sawtooth border. It is from the book, The Border Workbook by Janet Kime. It reminds me of seminole piecing that I did years ago. I cut 2.5" strips of each fabric, making the most of my striped twill, since I needed the blue part only:
I sewed these together, and then drew a line 1/2" down from the top edge on the prairie point fabric. I cut them apart in 2.25" sections, and then joined them in pairs, matching the drawn line on one section to the seam on the other. Sewed the pairs together into fours, etc., until I had a strip the length of the side of the quilt. You can see the strip below. From here I cut the strip into the prairie points, leaving 1/4" seam allowance above each point. This gave me my 1.25" high (finished) dogtooths (huh? dogteeth? Never mind. Prairie Points!)
Next, I sewed the strip to each side of the side of the quilt, and then sewed my twill striped fabric strips on. I was really happy with how it turned out! However, I had a lot of waste with this method, and my checked fabric had dwindled alarmingly, so much so that I now think that I won't have enough for the binding. :-(
So, I cut a 3 3/4" strip of the checked fabric, and crosscut that twice on the diagonal to yield my triangles.
Then I made a template for the triangle and used it to cut triangles out of the striped fabric, ensuring the pink stripe would be in the seam allowance. I sewed these together into pairs, the pairs into fours, etc. until I had a long enough strip for each side of my quilt. Yay! A HUGE stumbling block had been overcome. This process took me the better part of two weeks. Maybe three. When the sun is shining, I have to be outside...
And so I embarked on the appliqué part of this quilt, again feeling really annoyed at the mistakes on the pattern (they indicated too many leaves to cut; the smallest of the roses did not seem to appear on the photo of the quilt, yet it asked you to make 4 of them, and so on). This took me WAY longer than I had anticipated. I would hazard a guess that it took over a month. I would not let myself sew on anything else until it was done. Such willpower! Wish I had it in some other areas of my life...
I used Steam-a-Seam, dabbed spray starch on the seam allowance using a Q-tip, and pressed the seam allowances under. Then I appliquéd around each shape using monofilament thread and a very narrow zigzag. For the centres of the roses (such small circles!) I decided to just do raw-edge appliqué with the monofilament and narrow zigzag. On the stars, I used a Sulky blendable in 30 weight and a straight stitch.
I wanted to emphasize the seashells theme a little more, so from the seashell fabric I fussycut several and raw-edge appliquéd them in a couple of places on the border instead of more stars. I really like the result.
So the top is now complete (see my very first post for a picture) and I have pieced the back. I also made a custom label. Here it is in the process of being written upon: