Saturday, February 13, 2010

Getting Fleeced

This place has a load of names, but you know what it is!
I actually went there to buy fabric:
Please let me explain:
First of all, there are many people who like to buy fabric here and that's fine. We all should do what we decide is best, and there are reasons to buy here besides a low price (buyer beware in terms of quality!).
Also, this is near my house. The next Big Box O' Fabric Store is 12 miles away.
My main reason was I needed sports team fabric, and I was pretty sure I'd find it here.
Boy, did I ever!

Who knew there would be so many choices for each of the three major collefge teams for this area?
And that is just the point: unless you are alumi, you'd better be careful not to take any sides!
If I make a quilt that seems like it is the colors for one school, I'd better have the other, too. In this case, it's Florida State Seminoles and the University of Florida Gators...I can get off the Georgia Bulldogs hook, but just barely!
One of the Mystery Quilts I'm working on is team-oriented, so I have to have one for each team.
It's a smaller lap-size, perfect for a stadium quilt, so I thought it would be nice to skip the batting and the backing....and quilt the tops onto fleece!
This is what I found:
And this:


At first I thought it was a bit pricey at $9.75 a yard, but it's 60" wide, so all I needed was 1-1/4 yds. for each quilt. That's much less than if I had to buy both batting and backing!
I'll take some pics when I can, but in the meantime, I know what you are wondering...
How do you do it????
Easy!
Just baste the top to the wrong side of the fleece and quilt. And here's the Big News: you can use basting spray! Yes, that top will be totally fastened to the fleece, so you can quilt "as desired", even though the fleece has a nap and could be slippery.
Any quilt you do this way is likely to be a utility quilt and not have loads of fancy details, so it can be done reasonably quickly. I think it's an ideal choice for kids' quilts as the fleece is soft & cuddly and washes very well.
The nice touch is to finish with a binding as usual...though I have not liked handstitching on the fleece (it's not difficult, just different). This would be a great time to do that binding by machine finish!

There is an incredible number of patterns on fleece, something literally for everyone. I had some coffee motif fleece for my sister, and I have seen everything from famous paintings to John Deere tractors! So if you're looking for something faster, less expensive and really effective, you should check out the fleece aisle.

Though now I am wondering what a judge would say if one ended up in a quilt show!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Maybe attach the binding to to the back by machine, and do the hand-stitching part of the binding on the front?

Also, if you're entertaining requests for future blog posts, I'd love to see one about doing a binding entirely by machine. I'm sure I'd make more potholders if I didn't have to hand-bind each one.

E.

Becky J. said...

sometimes a trip to the 'cheap' stuff is soo worth it. Had to find some super heros fabric--only found here!