And now, back to the previously promised crafty content.
When my parents came over here yesterday to enjoy the benefits of electricity, my mom brought the next in her never-ending series of white-on-white quilts that she hand quilts for her church every year or two.
This was part of the reason that we picked up those three eight-foot tables at Costco. I knew that my M&M quilting buddies in Los Angeles had successfully used this plan to pin their quilts after Bearly closed in May, and I had measured out my basement furniture layout to make sure they’d fit since we can’t count on Pasadena weather to pin outside :-)
Mom’s quilt top is queen size (108x90”) and I knew that my bolt of Warm & White was only 90” wide. So I dug under my cutting table and found my Quilters Dream Select queen size batting and we got things started.
The top was longer than the tables (in both directions), so we couldn’t totally check the edges before we started pinning. This proved to be a problem later.
Mom and I got the back, batting and top all laid out, then called my dad and the Hubster downstairs to help pin. After remarking that "there must be 100 better hobbies than this," my dad threatened me if I got him in the picture, so that’s his hand way over in the corner on the left and mom pinning away.
We finally got finished with the main part, sent the boys back upstairs for football-watching and shifted the quilt. Ruh-roh Shaggy! We were about 2-3” short of having enough batting to cover the bottom edge of the quilt. At that point, we were both tired so we decided to punt until today. Ironically, the quilt top was 108x90 and the batting was 108x92 and we were fine on the width. It was the length that was the problem.
After various errand-running this morning, I went back down into the dungeon to try to fix the problem. I cut about an 18” swath off of my bolt of Warm & White and started the surgery.
I tried to machine sew the cut together and it was pretty much a disaster. We wound up re-cutting the edge and mom whipstitched it by hand before we finished pinning the quilt top this afternoon. She is now ready to start hand quilting The Monster!
See the really heavily pinned part there? That’s where mom started :)
Next up will be pinning my Row Robin quilt from a year ago, the one that was featured on my very first blog post! Mom agrees that she owes me some pinning time, but neither one of us was up for that project today, so we’ll tackle it later in the week.
Off to finish my second Monkey sock, since I think that pair is about to morph into a Christmas gift. I doubt I’ll post tomorrow, so I wish everyone a very Merry Christmas or a great Tuesday, whatever your preference. :) Meanwhile, I’m off to watch NoradSanta!!! (and remember ... happy thoughts for Delta making it home safely!!!)
4 comments:
Holey Moley, that's a whole lotta pinning! And, as a quilter, I've done my share of pin-basting. But NEVER to that extent! You had to have used POUNDS of pins. (Did you wipe out all the pins from all the quilt stores in the county???)
ANd the short batting, I can relate. Whipstitching really is the best way for that. Is this going to be hand quilted or done on a long arm? Or even regular machine quilted?
Have a Happy Christmas!
I hope that Bill finds Delta soon! Also hope that you hear back about the job soon. Good luck and Happy Holidays!
Oh no! Any luck with Delta?? I hope she finds her way home soon. Next time you have a pinning party, call me! :)
I think pinning is my least favorite part of quiltmaking! At least it helps when you have tables to work on, and company to do it with. I remember hand-basting a couple of king size quilts on my family room floor--there's a tile pattern on it so at least we could pull it straight!
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