Monday 27 July 2015

Big Mama Melon Progress

I thought it was about time I reported in on my progress of my Big Mama Double Wedding Ring quilts,  its been a few weeks.  

So last time I was all cut, ready to start piecing.  

Now don't get me wrong, I love these templates, but the big melon didn't come with instructions for lining up and I had to do a little guess work.  Fortunately for me, I guessed right. 

You see, these really are BIG melons, like really big!  and on the side are notches in the plastic, not huge, tiny little notches that you can just get a pencil point in sideways, enough to make a mark on the fabric.  If you line up the pointy end of the concave square with the mark you made on the fabric, at both ends, and pin, pin your centers you are ready to sit and sew.  Really, just 3 pins.


If you have the melon on the bottom and the concave square on the top, the bias in the fabric allows you to ease in the top fabric edges to meet the bottom, so a quarter inch seam is always possible.  it also means you can control the bulk of the excess fabric on the top far easier too!


I laid out all the pieces on the floor in the house, no mean feat given the dizzy situation!  I realized that as a 3 x 4 piece, it felt, well, small!  so I did a bit of rummaging in the stash and came up with a bunch of extra fabrics that meant I could keep the colour wash theme running through from light to dark.  


It didn't take long to get the rows sewn together.  and then sew the rows to each other.  I took the time to do the curves of the rows piecing the curved bits, then going back to join the long melon ends, this was so when I pressed the seams, all the melon seams would go in towards the melon and the end bits could be pressed open.  


So once it was together, the prospect of loading it onto the frame with all those curves didn't thrill me, let alone the prospect of binding it!  So I have chosen to add borders to square it up.  I have hand stitched the quilt to the borders that have had the corners mitered.  I will trim off the excess on the back before I load this up for some quilting action.  But not this week eh!


I can honestly say, this really is a quick pattern, and is great for highlighting large print fabrics or where you want to see more of them.  I can highly recommend the templates for ease of use and the size for ease of piecing too!  I can see more of these in my future!

So how have you been getting on?  Have you made as start yet?  I'll try to sort out a Linky thingy soon so you can all share your progress.  

6 comments:

Judith, Belfast said...

These look great! I wish I had more time to even look at my dwr let alone make a start! One day! Jxo

Sarah said...

lovely big melons there troods!

Nicky said...

Excellent progress! Love it and really can't wait to see how you will quilt it! Mine has taken a back seat for now as I need to do the joining up bit next....

Doris said...

I love this Trudi, the gradation of colors makes it sing!

Archie The Wonder Dog said...

I love it!

P.S. Have the dizzies got the message and bu**ered off yet?

QuiltSue said...

Your quilt looks great. Sorry the dizzies don't seem to have gone yet.