I have been working with a friend, through texting and on the phone, to help her make a quilt for herself. She’s done a few, three I think, baby quilts made from a QIAD book for an Irish Chain pattern. which makes her an experienced newbie. She finished her top, it was a kit from Connecting Threads, and bought a backing to match, packed it up and sent it to me to quilt for her. We decided to use wool batting, to keep it light weight and fluffy. I realized I only had queen size batts, Amazon to the rescue, and I have a twin size. This quilt top measures 64″ x 77″, large throw size, it is the first quilt that I have quilted, that I didn’t make. I’m a bit nervous, and hope it works out, as its not as square and ah, flat, as I’d like.

I got it all set up on the frame. What I decided to do was baste the edges, top and sides. That first basting line across the top was rough. There is a bit of ruffling in the outer border. I then stretched the quilt top to the left and right to try to get the sides as straight as possible. Finding the average middle-ish spot with out causing too much bias wrinkles. I basted the edges down, they are sort of, on average, straight-ish. The Panto I’m using has sea shells and bubbles, I made it 15 inches high and to the width of the quilt top. I stitched out the first row, and surprisingly, it looks okay. There are a few tiny wrinkles, but it’s flat all in all. I think the next row will really show me how this quilt is going to go. I also want to be sure to start the row on the right side, and continue to alternate starting sides as I work towards the bottom. I mounted the quilt with the longest side perpendicular to the frame, so longer rows, but less of them.

I have started packing up my DS’ stuff to move it out on our deck. I have the luxury of doing this because it most likely will not rain here until September. Plus there is a sliding door to the outside in the room which will facilitate this. My sewing room is directly across the hall way from this room, there will be a lot of “sliding” things on mats and towels. I want to paint the room before I move my things in. Knowing that once I move everything in there, it won’t happen. I have a gallon or two of the white I used in living area of my house, so that should be enough to start. The ceiling needs to be done as well, yuck, bought the paint for that, maybe I’ll start cutting in today.

I finished my MKAL shawl. It turned out really pretty, I enjoyed knitting it. I also used two skins of stash yarn, the navy blue was bought for this project though. It was a calming part of my day, there is a certain rhythm to knitting that quilting just doesn’t “get”. I guess you could try to find it with chain piecing or hand quilting, or even long arming (background fills anyone?). But for me it is knitting.

Be Kind