Headrest Final Steps

Good morning, my friends. We're back to sunshine this morning. We're expecting temps in the 70's today, and even a day in the 80's by this weekend. It's going to be good weather for making quilt sandwiches. That won't start until tomorrow. I've been anticipating it long enough that I'm ready to get started. As I've mentioned, my goal is to do four per day until they're finished. If there's time for other sewing, I'll work on finishing off the small quilts I made while we were traveling last time.

Yesterday, I took the first stitches on Block 7 for Le Jardin. It was mostly satin stitch and French knots, and so it doesn't look like much.

In the sewing room, I still had one headrest to quilt. Having done this once already, this one went faster.

With both of them quilted, I needed to mark a line all the way around where the stitching would be. This was in preparation for squaring up the edges and finishing the back.

To make sure everything was centered and even, Smitty manned the calculator and rulers. (He's very good at math.)

It seemed a good idea to stitch all around the outer edge. The quilting went all the way to either side, and I worried when I cut that, the stitching would come loose. A stitch all the way around would help to tack it down until I could sew the final seams.

When the stitching was finished, I made the "tabs." This is where the Velcro will go. I needed a minimum of 2-1/2 inches to accommodate the width of the Velcro. I made these by cutting two 7-inch strips, folding them in half, sewing around three sides, and then turning them to the right side.

And just to satisfy myself, I measured what I had with the Velcro. This will work nicely.

Next, I pinned it to the top of the headrest. From there, I was ready to trim all around the outside.

So, I first laid the back under the top, as I would if I were sandwiching any quilt.

Then, I trimmed both top and bottom together to ensure an exact fit.

From there, I moved the bottom to the top...face down...and then stitched all around, except for

 a few inches at the bottom.

And then, I could turn it right side out and finish sewing the bottom edge. And voila! It is finished, except for the Velcro.

Here's how it looks from the back.

They're both to this point now, and I'll be able to sew on the Velcro today. Velcro can be tough, but I think I know how to do it. I'll use a heavy duty needle and some 40 weight thread. Hopefully, it'll all go smoothly.

We took them down to the RV just to see how well they would fit. They ended up a little longer than expected, but we can simply move the Velcro a little lower on the back of the chair and it will be fine. While we were out, I noticed the Poet's daffodil has bloomed. It's always the last of the daffodils to show itself.

So my highest priority today is to finish sewing the Velcro to the headrests. It's a PT day, and that will pretty well take up the whole afternoon. We're going to mop the floor this morning...oy...and then I'll be able to get back to my sewing. I should have time to finish the Velcro before I need to leave for PT. 

I'm in a good stopping place with my sewing projects for taking several days to sandwich the next ones for quilting. Usually, I start with the largest quilt first, but one of the quilts is taking cuts in front of everything else, both for sandwiching and for quilting. A friend has spoken up for the Merry, Merry Snowmen. Ordinarily, it would have six quilts ahead of it in line for quilting, but I'll start with this one.

As I've mentioned to a few of you, each time I set aside time for sandwiching quilts, I have more than the time before. Over the next year or so, I'm going to try to do some quilting every day and finish off this backlog of finished flimsies. I'd like to go into my next sandwiching operation with fewer quilts. And since my wrists and hands have the final say on how much time I can spend quilting, I'll limit my sessions to a certain number of blocks, or else a full hour. 

When I'm not quilting, I have several small projects to finish off. These were some I made while we were traveling last time:

Hawksbill Honu:

Vintage Valentine:

Tulip Time

and Bunny Bait.

Also, since we've been home, I stitched up this Cozy Quilt:

The others are ready for sandwiching and quilting. As small quilts, I'll do them on my domestic machine. Cozy Quilt still needs to be turned into a little quilt top. So, you can see there's plenty to keep me busy when I'm not sandwiching or quilting. 

So, off I go. It's a busy day ahead, and I really want to finish off those headrests today. Before I can do anything else, though, the day commences with slow stitching.