Fun and Games with a Trial Run

Four of us got together with a design for a quilt, the fabrics and the typical equipment that will be available to teams at the Festival of Quilts.  We had a lot of fun and we learnt a lot from the experience which we think is worth sharing with other teams.

On the plus side:

1. It was good to have a clear plan, the pattern worked out and even the order of the various stages numbered.

2. We were flexible with who did what and when - whoever was available did the next job..

3. We had not had time to meet up beforehand so it was good to be open to suggestions and flexible with decision making.

On the minus side:

1. If you must have text, little and large is best - a small amount of text and a large font size! We chose to abandon the idea of putting the whole rhyme around the border as it was taking too long.

2. Using shortcut methods to construct the quilt top would have been faster even if it would have used up slightly more fabric.  Strip/string piecing is faster than cutting out individual pieces!

3. We used Heat 'n Bond ULTRA to fuse the letters in place as it is a 'no sew' fusible that is supposed to be washable without fraying.  We also used it for small pieces of the cow but not the large white piece as that would have been too stiff even with Bondaweb.  Here we used 606 and just sprayed the edges of the large white piece of cow and the edges of the moon.  This meant we could still fuse them in place.  Pritt/fabric glue or 1/4" fusible strips would work as well to hold the edges down.

4. It is worth considering the various methods of binding/finsihing the edges of the quilt, eg turning the backing to the front and stitching down by machine or bagging (pillow case method).