Know when to stop.

I'm putting this post up in the spirit of honesty, it's about when quilting or my attitude to quilting, goes horribly wrong.

I was tired and hand't slept well the night before, this should've been a warning that measuring wasn't going to go my way. Being me I thought "bugger it" and did anyway. I'm on a bit of a kick to get ALL of my wip's all done before January and frankly this just added to the "I can do it!" attitude.

I measured the quilt top.

I missed 10" 

And I don't know how.

Needless to say the twin wadding I bought based on the measurement didn't fit. I had to zig-zag wadding bits together. I should've stopped here and bought a bigger sized wadding the next day in hindsight. 

The loft floor, while I hadn't measured it, was also too small to baste a quilt this large on.

I rolled it and basted it - that was a first & possibly a last on the floor. 

I couldn't find pins so I spray basted it, a whole can of 505. We'll see how well that holds! 

Finally onto the quilting :D 

I thought about FMQ Chrysanthemums, I even tried two of them and promptly decided they involved way too much starting and stopping for something this big. Meandering quilting it was then, I know most people don't love this type of quilting but I really like the texture it creates and on Tana Lawn I think it will be amazing! 

So half an hour into meandering around the quilt top I hear a noise coming from the needle plate, something didn't sound quite right. 

My tension had gone on holiday and left this mess behind.

The words I said at this point weren't "Oh Darn it" 

This is the point I knew it was time to stop. 

It's still sitting up there in the loft waiting to be unpicked.

Any thoughts about FMQ on the Horizon 7700? It's been fine then all of a sudden this happens, for no reason that I can see.

I'm waiting until I've had a good nights sleep before I head up to the loft to unpick this mess! 

I hope your sewing is more productive and a lot less stressful than mine has been :D 

Bow ties for Christmas!

A while back over on Instagram (IG) I came across a quilt top sale held by the lovely Jess of Milkyrobot. Now knowing my Little Madam loves all things black, purple and pink how could I leave this one sitting there? Well I couldn't, so it came to live with me ready to be turned into a Christmas gift :)

Yes that is my camera bag in the backgound of these photos and yes I STILL used my iPhone! I am one heck of a lazy lady! 

I figured if I added a border it would be the perfect size for her to snuggle up with while watching dvd's at Christmas time, so the grey dot fabric came out again and I added a 5" border.

Spray basting is the way forward, I had this basted flat as a pancake in 15 mins! Backed in another eye watering linen check print. 

 The checks aren't as hard on the eye in real life (I am so pleased about that!) and it's only writing this blog post I've realised I do rather like these checked prints for backing quilts.

Thats when things started to go a bit wrong.

Can someone tell my machine I don't like small fragments of metal pinging off my glasses frames at high speed. 2 universals down I decided to pull out the big guns and used a jeans needle! 

Then thought bugger it and had a break.

While I didn't eat all of the chocolate I did drink all of the Bulmers and it was Lovely! 

Thank you to him in doors for seeing I needed chocolate at 9pm and going to the shop without me asking :) 

Post chocolate I headed back to get the quilting finished.

I used to really enjoy FMQ but my stitch length has been known to be a bit iffy so when I'm making quilts for the shop I either straight line quilt them or stipple/meander as I know I wont mess them up...but I really wanted to try something different with this one. 

I've had Rachel at Stitched in Color Chrysanthemum quilting tutorial earmarked for ages and thought why not! 

As with all FMQ that I do it started off shaky and I thought I'd made a huge mistake, then I got a little better and by the last one I was almost happy with how the chrysanthemums were turning out. 

I did have a little rippling around the edges of the quilt but I can live with it.

The last thing I did was to audition binding fabrics, it has been narrowed down to these two and I think looking at them today I'll end up going with the black dots to tie in with the Echino glasses. 

I'll let you know how it turns out! 

As a parting question does anyone have any thoughts on how to quilt The Great Wave off Kanagawa? What a random question that is!

 You can just see it hanging in the background of the first two photos. I have plans to turn it into a wall hanging but I'm not sure how...yet.

Fowl Issues!

I am no goose farmer! 

As of the beginning of the week this was my paltry flock

Aaaand I've been working on these since August.

So yesterday afternoon, instead of Christmas shopping, I had a sneaky sewing day!

I got myself all prepped with a load of pattern pieces blind sewn and ready to go and a stack of pre cut fabric geese. A few hours, and more cups of tea, later this blindingly bright bunch were ready to rock n' roll their way into my Geese in the Forest quilt :)

I think I might leave all of the papers in until I've sewn all the units and I'm ready to sew them together at some point next Spring. If anyone out there has an opinion on this I'd welcome it as to be honest I'm not too sure about the mammoth paper ripping session once they are all made or the possible fraying and needing to iron them all again if I take the papers out. 

If anyone reading fancies having a go at making this quilt (and demolishing their scrap pile in the process!) The Flickr group is Here I do think I'm rattling around there on my own at the moment so I know I'd welcome the company! 

P.S.       Please be aware there will be many many (bad) geese puns during the making and blogging of this quilt  Sorry! :D