Sunday, November 23, 2008

Lap Quilt #3 = fleece

I actually started this fleece construction process last year. I tried putting the pieces together like one would put cotton or other quilting fabric. The fleece is much too thick. I got so so frustrated last year that I just put the fleece back into bags. Below are a couple of examples of my first attempts.


This year I decided I needed to get those bags of fleece out of the way. Fleece takes up a lot of room. I would have to overlap the pieces. Someone suggested I try to lap the stretch grain with the non-stretch grain. That was a good suggestion which I tried to follow. After quilt #2, I decided to just use the fleece alone.

Cutting this stuff straight is a BIG challenge on the stretch grain. The fleece ruffles and wiggles and seems to have a mind of its own. The blade will often bounce, catch, and jump. Cutting with the non-stretch grain is a lot easier; only have to deal with the curling. I cut rectangles and squares from all of the rest of the fleece in the pile. Then I sewed the pieces into strips 36" long. That length will become the width. It is easier to work with that length than longer because I just laid the pieces out on my cutting board. I have actually finished that process with the rest of the pieces, so the quilts should be coming in a bunch very soon.

Although I am happy with this result. I would not ever recommend anyone work with this stuff on a regular sewing machine. Someone said a serger would be easier. Not sure it would solve the stretching problems.


For all of us puzzle addicts, I picked a challenging cut because the quilt is so simple. ENJOY!

Click to Mix and Solve

2 comments:

Norma Schlager said...

Maybe it was a pain in the neck to do, but the finished product looks very good. I made some scarfs a few years ago that were embossed velvet on one side and fleece on the other. I don't know which side was the more frustrating to work with, but the completed scarves were quite nice.

Leslie said...

Very kewl. Thanks for sharing the fleece bits and the puzzle. I like the colours you put together as well. I know that fleece does take room, it lints like crazy and it snaps, crackles, pops here in dry Colorado.