Quilting Novice

I woke up this morning with a plan.  Well, actually I had been planning it all week, but today was the day to finally do it.  I have been working on a quilt for my daughter and I finally made it close to the quilting part.  All I had to do yet was pin-baste the sandwich together.  For the third time.

The first time I pin-basted it, I took a shortcut and attempted to accomplish this on my living room floor, which is carpeted.  Okay, that's not gonna work.  As soon as I looked at the back panel, I imagined myself ripping out puckers, and just the thought of it made me want to scream in frustration.  This will not do.  This will not do at all.

The second time, I attempted to redo all the pinning on my dining table.  This is a King size quilt we're talking about here.  So, on my table, pinning it had to be done in sections, which means moving it around and always having most of it hanging off the edges of the table.  After I got it all unpinned and re-pinned, I checked the back panel.  Better than before, but still.............I imagined ripping out puckers.

So much for doing things the easy way.

My last alternative was to do this job on my wooden kitchen floor.  This would entail moving the dining table into the living room (need hubby's help for that), and then scrubbing the kitchen floor to make sure it's clean. (This is why I had to wait for a Saturday.) I knew this was the LONG way of getting the job done, and that it was gonna take most of the day, AND that my body is too old for floor work, but I also knew, it was the ONLY way, and if I wanted this quilt to turn out RIGHT, I just had to suck it up and enjoy the extra steps of labor.  Yeah.................

So, table removed, floor scrubbed clean, back panel carefully stretched and taped to the floor (no puckers!), sandwich made, now for the pinning part.

Mind you, this is not my first quilt.  It is my second.  The first quilt I made was for my son, and being my first quilt, I made that one a tie quilt, so I did not go through all this kind of work with that one.  But for this quilt, I wanted to expand my quilting skills and attempt machine sewing.  Thus all this work.  Little did I know just how many PINS it was gonna take!!!  Do the serious quilters have coffee cans full of basting pins sitting around?  Cuz apparently that's what it takes and I'm gonna have to build up my supply of these pins.

First I used up all the pins I already had on hand, maybe about 200 pins.   I knew from the get-go that it wasn't gonna be enough, so I wasn't surprised at all when I had to run to the store to buy more pins.  So I make a quick run to Wal-Mart, luckily only about 3 miles away.  They didn't have the bigger curved pins that I was getting used to, so I had to settle for their smaller sized ones.  They had six boxes of 40, so I took 4 cuz I didn't wanna clean them out - trying to be considerate of the next poor soul that might come in to look for some.  Okay, so that's 160 more pins for me to work with.  I got back home, and went through all 4 boxes in no time, still with lots of unpinned sandwich left.  But I knew I HAD to get the job done TODAY so we could put the dining table back in it's proper place.  How am I supposed to watch Netflix tonight with that table in my way?

So I was back to the store.  This time I went to JoAnn's since I already knew that Wal-Mart only had two boxes left.  JoAnn's was selling some boxes of the bigger sized ones that I like better, although more expensive. So I took 4 boxes of those home and went back to work.  (oh, my achy body!)

I was trying to keep them a fist-width apart from each other cuz that's what "they" say you should do. Well, for a King size quilt, that's a lot of pins.  But as much money and time as I already put into this quilt, I wanted to make sure it was done right.  So I went through a lot of pins.  Lots and lots of pins.

Pretty soon, I ran out of those too (and my finger tips were getting pretty sore).  My hubby was out in the garage this whole time, in his own little hobby world, and I informed him that I ran out of pins again and have to buy some more.  This being the third time he saw me leave, he wasn't too happy, but what can I do?  This time, I tried the quilt store just up the road from my neighborhood, and the lady there said they didn't have any.  And that's probably better because she was looking on the back wall behind their counter, and I knew it would've cost a fortune to buy 4 more boxes from that place.  So I went back to Wal-Mart.  Forgetting about the next poor soul who might look for curved pins, I took their last two boxes, and also their last 3 boxes of basting pins.  Went back home hoping these 5 boxes would be enough.  After diligently working, and after my aching body could hardly take it anymore, I finally ran out of quilt sandwich.  With ONE pin left!  

I even looked for a place on my quilt sandwich to put it, and it all looked well pinned, so can you believe I didn't need it? Now that's what I call working down to the last pin!  Quite literally.

So, including the three trips to the store, it took me about 6-7 hours to get it all done.  With no puckers on the back.  Woo-HOO!  Here it is.

All pinned and ready to quilt.  Now, novice that I am, I'm trying to think up a good quilting design for it.  Something easy, but somewhat creative.

At least for my NEXT quilt, I will already be stocked up with all the pins I'll need.  If you're looking for curved pins, don't bother looking for them at Wal-Mart.  They're all stuck in my quilt.

Welcome back!

Well, here I am again.  It's been how long?  I assure you that it was not my choice to stay away.  I tried to get on and stay in touch, but something somehow changed in my settings, and me being so tech savvy - NOT!, took this long to figure out what the problem was.  And now I am so so so so so far behind and  you  so totally missed my Halloween!!  Not that anyone out there really cares anyway.  I know that my loyal attentive audience consists of a very large crowd of one or two people.  But that's okay, I write mostly for my own gratification anyway.  Kind of like a not-too-personal diary.

Well, what should I catch up on?  Should I start with my garden?  Because of our moose visitors we didn't get a whole lot.  But we did have a lot of beautiful tasty sweet carrots.  I don't know if the moose don't like carrots, or if they just never found them growing next to my deck, but I was pleased to have the carrots cuz they were SO sweet and YUMMY!  We had so many of them I thought I would freeze them, but we actually ate them all before I had the chance to freeze them. I will definitely repeat the carrots this summer!!  Also, a big surprise:

I actually reaped THREE pumpkins!!  Yeah, they were still green when I picked them but the first winter frost was imminent, so I decided to bring them inside and see if they would finish ripening on their own.  I cut one open around Halloween time and it was still green inside the ridges.  I baked it and used it in smoothies, and also learned how to make a healthy version of pumpkin spice lattes.  The second one was cut open after Thanksgiving.  The outside was less green, but I could tell the meat still wasn't as ripe as it should be.  Again, I baked it and used it for smoothies and lattes.  I wanted to wait for as long as it took to let the last one ripen, so I waited until January.  And it was perfect.  No green inside the edges.  And it smelled just like a pumpkin should smell!  

What I learned from this:  even if it seems too early, start them even earlier than last year (inside the house) cuz they obviously need more time outdoors before they should be picked.  And also, after I do pick them, I still need to allow plenty of time for ripening.  Luckily, if kept dry, pumpkins can last for months and months before going bad, which makes them great long-lasting props for fall decorating.

Okay:  next topic - Halloween.  My theme this year was Skeletons.  I wanted the "restaurant room" to look sort of like an outdoors graveyard scene, so I brought in lots and lots of trees/branches that I salvaged from our burn pile.  Real trees make GREAT indoor decorations, but they do make a huge mess to clean up afterwards.  Leaves and little twigs everywhere!  I places trees inside the entry way and all over in the "restaurant".  There were so many trees in there you had to duck in some places.  I also crowded up the front deck with trees to make it spookier for trick-or-treaters. Here is me dressed in my costume.

Since we were doing a skeleton theme, I finally splurged on buying a life-size skeleton.  I've had several smallish/medium sized ones, but I've been wanting a life-sized one for years, so this year I just HAD TO have one, and surprisingly Chuck was okay with it.  (it wasn't exactly cheap, even on sale!)

As you can see, we had a lot of fun with it.  I still need to think of a good name for him/her.  I really wish I was blogging you through the Halloween season cuz now all I can do you give you the highlights.  Here is a picture of Bossy.  She found a lap to sit on while she watched me do my decorating.

There is so much more than I regret not showing you but I have to move on to the next highlight.  Christmas.  At church they were having a gingerbread house contest, which Chuck and I entered.  Here is what we ended up with:

Pretty pathetic, huh?  Actually, it looked a lot better in real life than the picture.  But, we had  no idea what (who) we were up against when we entered this contest.  We have some ladies in our congregation that are VERY talented. Here is the one that made first prize:

There were about a dozen entries and some of them were pretty amazing.  

I wish I could spend more time and share more pictures of recent events, but that would be one long blog, and I know how easily I can get carried away.  Now that I know what the technical problem was, I should be able to focus on just one topic at a time, and bore you to death.  But no one is forcing you to read this, ya know!

Happy 2015!

snowshoeing at the cabin

Testing, testing.

This is a test.  Please stand by.........

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!