Funny that it took a hurricane to get me to post...

A rainy day's breakfast.

But if it means I get two days off from work, AND I still have power? Post away!

The endless chains... I do not miss them.

So where was I? Ah yes, I was busily assembling the bear paw blocks for the DB quilt. Let me tell you, by the end of this quilt I was a past master at chain piecing and clipping and all of that assorted goodness.

Waiting to be assembled.

There were a few hiccups and curses here and there (surprise surprise, working with a white on white block makes it almost impossible to tell if you've got the HST's going the right way!), but together Faith-Ann and I persevered. Which reminds me, I owe her a serious oiling now that I'm in the new place, but that will have to wait until next post.

Planning the final assembly.

After doing so many flying geese blocks for the JT2 quilt, I knew exactly what to put in the gaps you see above. :D I now love flying geese blocks; they saved my butt in this case! It really blended well with the rest of the quilt without being too taxing.

Ta dah!

See? Except there was another gap--between the paws and the LRR border. D'oh!

Ta dah!

A scrappy little border will do. One thing I will say about this quilt is that it has really made me work at my accuracy. Since I did a lot of this in a "oh bugger, last minute fix" sort of way, I had to measure and measure and measure again to make sure everything fit just right.

Wheels!

I fused the wheels onto the quilt top first, and then used my Janome (shh, don't tell Gideon or Faith-Ann!) to secure it with a zig zag stitch. I think it works just fine.

A window and batting!

There was just enough space on the apartment floor to stretch this out and pin the sandwich together. The kitties had to step on the quilt to get by as they moved about, but luckily it didn't take me too long to finish.

Some practice stitching.

I took this picture because it's really hard to see on the quilt itself through a picture; I did the cute little cactus pattern on the white and blue borders (two separate rows of cacti) and the loop de loop on the bus part. I left the wheels and the window un-quilted because it wouldn't bunch up at all when washed due to the fusible I used.

Ah yes.

This is where I almost threw the whole project in the trash. I'd tried to sew an interlocking loopy thing around the circles of the LRR logo, but it looked awful. As in, it completely destroyed all of the hard work I'd put into the quilt before. So with less than a week to go until Canada, I sat down to watch the debate and tear each and every stitch of the godawful quilting out. It took the entire debate.

Rassafrassa.

It was a chilly night anyways, so having a nice warm quilt on my lap wasn't the end of the world. :D

Into the wash!

Finally, it came to an end. After a few emergency trips to The Round Bobbin ("I NEED TAN THREAD!... I NEED BLUE FOR THE BINDING!!"), the quilt went into the washers at the apartment. It was one of the last loads I'd pay for in quarters!

My first honest to goodness quilt label.

I'm going to have to come up with a better system for quilt labels; I would love to get an embroidery machine to do it for me! Of course then I'd get into a whole nother world of trouble for getting yet another machine. Oh well!

The masterpiece is complete.

Finally, on the morning of the day my plane was scheduled to fly out, I finished the quilt. All the threads were snipped, the binding was checked, the label was applied, and it was ready to begin its international trip to the Moonbase.

The backing.

Am I completely satisfied with it? No. I think it's a lovely quilt, and I learned a lot while making it, but there were many things that were left by the wayside in order to make sure I finished it in time. I am however extremely proud of myself for the execution of the idea with the limitations I had as a quilter and time wise. In the course of making this quilt, I:
  • Mastered the art of sewing on a binding by hand and machine.
  • Kicked butt while sewing curves.
  • Adapted a pattern as needed to fill all the space.
  • Expanded my comfort zone in quilting patterns.
  • Sewed my first mini-border.
So I've made a number of huge steps forward as a quilter thanks to this quilt. Yes, there were many things I would do differently if given the chance, but all in all I am proud of my accomplishment, and hope that it will raise a lot of money for DB.


Yes, I am a proud Desert Bus crafter. :D Will I do it again next year? Almost certainly. Maybe I'll even finish it before the deadline!

Whew. So that's what I've been up to quilting wise. Next post (which I am going to write today and post tomorrow) will be about my new quilting space in the townhome. Hint: it's amazing.

Love you all! Stay dry, and please don't be mad if the next post doesn't go up when I said it will--I might have lost power in the middle!

Comments

  1. I think my favorite shot is your rumpled hair on the final quilt pix. It's like, "I practically killed myself, but it's finally done!"

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