ANOTHER QUILTING STORY

Well we are in the middle of a heat wave here in So. California!  95 today and will be the rest of the week...sigh.  I have the air conditioning cranking which while I am soo grateful we have it, I see little dollar bills dancing all over the ceiling.  This unit we have NEEDS to be replaced as it is old and NOT energy efficient.  And then we REALLY NEED energy efficient windows put in too.  I try not to dwell on the fact that we had just put these two money saving things in at our old house, and I know personally what a difference it makes in the bill.  But, unless I stumble on several thousand dollars somewhere I am not sure what to do with (besides save for retirement!) I don't see it happening this year either.  I do keep the thermostat at 78 (which is kind of warm if I am being honest) but it has run A LOT today!  I guess it would help if I wasn't always kind of hot anyway.  THOUGH! the new stuff the health food woman has me using and taking is helping with those hot flashes and heart palpitations sooo much, they are almost non-existent now.  How grateful I am for that too.  I guess I just need to stop my whining, and be GLAD I have a roof over my head and "coolish" type air to be in, lol.

So let me tell you what's been happening with my quilt.  I know you are on the tips of your seats, so I will just get to it, lol.  I know I have said more than once how different (for me!) quilting and garment sewing is.  I have had that hammered home AGAIN with this quilt.  I have done soo much sewing that I seldom measure or pin anything.  I can set in sleeves, set a collar on, make cuffs, and even hem things with NO measuring and usually NO pins.  Soo I guess I thought I could do the same with quilting. Uumm that would be a BIG NO WAY.  Now I was super careful with the center of the quilt because I knew from making my runners that I needed to be super exact and careful both with my cutting and my sewing.  I told you I even pinned and left them in etc.  Well, I got to the borders and honestly I couldn't see ANY reason to measure out my sides or to pin them etc.  Yes, even though EVERY tutorial I watched told me to do just that.  (I always think I know better...wait, did I say that?)  I simply cut my border pieces the width I needed them, and whipped them on.  Truthfully I did do that with my runners and it worked just fine.  But looking back I am sure it was because they were NOT very big and were probably VERY even. Anyway once the borders were both on I knew there was something VERY wrong with the quilt. It rippled and rolled and wouldn't lay flat.  And just to show you how clueless I really am, I had NO idea what was wrong with it.  I packed it up and went over to the local quilters for help.  They were very nice and of course explained the errors of my ways.  Told me really it was a common mistake for first time quilters, and the rest of the quilt was indeed "perfect".  I think they were just trying to be nice, lol.  Well, needless to say I had to take it home RIP all those borders off, MEASURE carefully, PIN carefully, and basically do it all over again.  Took me an hour and a half of time just to rip it out!  But I carefully, carefully did it and it has worked perfectly!  YAY!!  It is totally flat, no ripples or waves, and honestly was so easy to do I don't know why in the world I didn't just follow the tutorials on how to do this in the first place.  Oh well, live and learn!  Trust me, I WILL NOT make that mistake again. Soo let me show you the quilt top...

FIRST I KNOW IT IS A CRUMMY PICTURE...AND I KNOW IT "KIND OF" LOOKS LIKE IT IS NOT FLAT, BUT IT IS BECAUSE IT IS ON THE CARPET AND TILE WHICH IS NOT FLAT, AND I CANNOT CRAWL AROUND SMOOTHING IT ETC WITH MY KNEES, (SO YOU WILL JUST HAVE TO TAKE MY WORD FOR IT, LOL)  I NEED HUBBY TO MEASURE IT EXACTLY NOW SO I CAN MAKE THE BACKING FOR IT SO I PUT IT HERE AS I HAVE NO TABLE LARGE ENOUGH TO SMOOTH IT OUT ON

Soo now I just have to piece the back together and get it over to the quilters.  I already talked to her about it and she is going to it LIGHTLY in big flowers and white thread.  I cannot wait to see it.  Then I just have to square it up and put the binding on.  I think I will CAREFULLY follow the tutorials on how to square it up though.  It was pretty easy with the runners, but again, they were very small in comparison.  I am making a promise here (mainly to myself) when it is COMPLETELY done I will drag out my good camera to take a picture with it.  Meanwhile I need to make a birthday shirt for my nephew whose birthday is this week-end, and get started on my seat cushions so I am going to be pretty busy still.  I have figured out how to machine applique with my embroidery attachment, and I am going to try it out with Jacob's shirt.  If this goes well, it will open up even more possibilities to make things. I am very excited about it.

Hope you are all having a good week.