Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Taming the Beast

I can't believe I'm saying this already, but I think the machine quilting is...done!  It wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it'd be, once I got started.  Admittedly, my stitching looks like crap next to yours, but you know what?  For a first attempt (and with no Momisms to guide me) I think I'm doing pretty well! 

I started making the ladybug buttons last night, and I got maybe 2 to come out even remotely cute...most of them were just black and red blurs.  We'll see if I decide to keep going with that one.  There's a big open space with no quilting above the thumb, so I might need to figure something out for that. 

Anyways, without further ado, here are the latest:




The back, midway through.




The back, done!  I outlined the hand, heart, and borders.  All things considered, it looks ok.  There are a few areas that could have been better, but I'm sure you'll advise me later on how to improve.  :-)  I'm proud to say though, that there's only one small strip that has any kind of double stitching across it, and most of this is continuous...like, just kept going around the corners, stuffing the quilt through the hole that seems so much bigger without half a quilt stuffed in it.  The borders were a piece of cake compared to the hand!




And, of course, the front all stitched up.  The pins are still in, as you can see.  I can see the stitching the most in the borders, but that could be just me.

Anyways, the next steps are whatever hand quilting I decide to do (I'm still not sure what I want to do yet), and the border. 

I've also started working on Grammom's bag...it's a fun spatial puzzle to figure out, especially the drawstring closures.  I'm thinking about putting some kind of "hook" on the corner of each compartment too, so she could put a little loop of yarn there to hold it while it's not part of the pattern, but so it'd be easy to grab when she's ready (as opposed to digging through to find the end of the skein). 

Anyway.  Bed time!  I can't believe how quickly this came together!  I thought I was going to be down to the wire, but it's really not so bad at all...but I gotta say, I really do have a deeper appreciation for all the quilts you've made me over the years! 

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