To Prewash Or Not To Prewash...

...that is the question...

Do you prewash your fabric?

I do!  I am terrified of fabric colors running into each other in my finished quilt after I've done hours and hours of stitching and even more hours and hours of hand quilting.  Any piece of fabric F8 or larger gets prewashed before it EVER gets to meet my stash.  So, guess what I did today... I prewashed!

I guess I don't really have to prewash white/neutral fabrics, but if everything else is prewashed, I feel like I should do these too so that they are not the only fabrics in the quilt with shrinkage.

As the fabric comes out of the dryer, I always trim up the edges (cutting off all the strings) and hand press (I don't bother ironing yet - these fabrics may stay in my stash for a while before being used).  Can you believe the pile of strings that come off of just 3 yards and 10 FQs?

Up next was the blue/purple/green batch washed with a color catcher.  1 yard and 20 FQs here.  Not much dye came off of these.  But...

...check this out!  Reds ALWAYS bleed in the wash.  Just look at that color catcher!  This was 1 yard of red backing fabric and 10 brown FQs.  I love color catchers!

And, before I give the quilt away or put it in my cabinet for use cuddling on the couch at home (see my avatar above - that's the cabinet!), I always give my quilts one good wash with a color catcher.  I would hate to have the recipient of any quilt have colors bleed in the wash, feel bad about it and/or not know what to do!  Just my thinking!

What do you do?

Easy Street Link Up - Part 5

Easy times on Easy Street this week with the completion of 64 house (turkey, etc...) blocks.  These were fun and relatively quick to churn out.  As usual, I still need to trim them up and measure to be sure they are a perfect 3 1/2," but they look pretty good!  

ES Pt 5 - 64 House Blocks

While adding the corner squares, I also sewed a scant 1/4" to the right in order to save the bonus triangles in HST units.  These babies measure up at a tiny unfinished 1 1/2" (just 1" finished)!  Now, where to use them, hmmm....I've still got more crumb blocks to finish!?!?!!!!

And...I'm linking up my Part 5 progress with Bonnie at Quiltville and Judy at Patchwork Times for Design Wall Monday.  Check out their websites to see the progress others are making on their Easy Street Mystery and other projects!  

Happy Holidays!!!

Easy Street Link Up - Part 4

This week, Easy Street began with 64 double flying geese units.  I used BH's method, again, since I have the easy & companion angle rulers.  And this time I had better success.  Just simply being sure the dark line was ON the fabric and moving my needle one position to the right put the geese at the perfect measurement.  I did have to fudge those earlier geese in a bit by sewing SCANT seams, but I think they're looking good and will fit well.   I still need to trim them up (a bit hairy as Bonnie would say), but they are measuring up right at 3 1/2"!  No headless geese!

ES Pt 4 - 64 double flying geese

Also, included in part 4 was a bonus clue...another head start on another step!  So I cut up those 145 squares of green.  Anything to get a bit ahead!

ES Pt 4+ - 145 green squares

As usual, I'm linking up my Part 4 Easy Street Progress with Bonnie at Quiltville and Judy at Patchwork Times for Design Wall Monday.  Check out their websites to see the progress others are making on their Easy Street Mystery and other projects!  

Have a wonderful week before Christmas!

A Sampling of America

I always loved to participate in swaps each year with the members of the Quilts Your Way Forum.  Even though the board is not active anymore, I still think of that group of quilters fondly every now and then.  Especially when putting together a quilt that was inspired by or begun by them.

"A Sampling of America" - finished quilt & tag

This quilt, for example, began with a "squishie swap" back in 2009.  The way the swap worked was each member sent the other members of the group a F8th of fabric.  The other members of the group would make a quilt block using the fabric and any special instructions given and send the block back to the original fabric owner.  In the end, we ended up with several coordinated (by fabric & special instructions) sampler blocks.

I finally quickly put the blocks together - I feel like it's been a UFO forever (it's my December UFO project chosen by Judy over at Patchwork times) - and I'm giving it to my in-laws as one of their Christmas presents.  I named it "A Sampling of America" because it's a sampler and the blocks were made by women from all over the USA!

Easy Street - Link Up #3

It's still a mystery, but this week, Easy Street began with 64 shaded 4-patch units.  I again used Bonnies's method since I have the easy & companion angle rulers.  They did come out better than last week's flying geese, so that's good.  I still needed to trim them up, but just barely.  Overall, an easy week on Easy Street!

Easy Street - Part 3

 Also, to jump ahead for another clue, BH told us to cut 4 half-square triangles in green...

Easy Street - Part 3

So, all caught up and so far the units are looking relatively good together.  Still not sure about my "grey."  It's not really grey, but a greyish-aqua printed with a grey floral motif.  Hopefully it will work out ok, but kinda wishing I went for a darker grey.  The good thing is that there's not all that much of it and grey is the only color we know for sure that we're done working with!

Easy Street Progress - Parts 1-3

As usual, I'm linking up my Part 3 Easy Street Progress with the Mystery Monday Link Up hosted by Bonnie Hunter at Quiltville and Judy Lacquidara at Patchwork Times for her Design Wall Monday.  Check out their blogs to see the progress others are making on their Easy Street Mystery and other projects!

Easy Street Link Up #2

Linking up my Part 2 Easy Street Progress with Bonnie at Quiltville and Judy at Patchwork Times for her Design Wall Monday.  Check out their websites to see the progress others are making on their Easy Street Mystery and other projects!

This week, Easy Street began with 128 flying geese units.  I tried BH's method since I have the easy & companion angle rulers.  They were easy to cut with...even for a lefty...but I'm not sure I love how the geese came out.  I still need to trim them up (or at least really measure for accuracy), but I'm not lovin' the amount of seam allowance I've got on top.  When they get sewn into their blocks it will be with a scant 1/4" for sure, otherwise I may end up with a flock of headless geese!

Easy Street Part 2 - 128 flying geese

Also, included in part 2 was a bonus step...kinda like a head start on the next step!  So I cut up those 64 bricks of black on white...

Easy Street Part 2 - 64 bricks

All caught up for now except that I really need to go back and square everything up, so that's the plan for the remainder of the week!