The quilting = The done!

Woot! Woot!! I FINISHED QUILTING my quilt!!! The clouds have parted and the angels have sung! All is right in the world! However... I wasn't sure I'd make it! One of my Facebook status messages while I was quilting yesterday was something along the lines of: "If my sewing machine was a person I would stab it". All was hunky dory until it ran out of bobbin thread. That seems to send Sadie (my sewing machine) into conniptions and it takes some finagling to get her back on track! Here's proof:

And.. here is more proof:

(and yes, that was two separate times.. this happened no less than 4 times)

After much seam ripping and cursing, I finally got the train back on the tracks! All I had left was free motion quilting over the borders. Holy crappola... that's a lot of landscape to cover. Have I mentioned that free motion quilting is a bit of a workout?! I kept telling myself, "I think I can, I think, I can" and kept swirling away! I finally finished (praise God!!) and then it was down to the floor to trim it up!

Can you say done? D O N E! Yippeeee!

I personally think the back looks almost as cool as the front!

Now that I'm done with the quilting, it's on to the binding!! I cut my strips, sewed them together, then had to iron them.

That is as far as I got (that ^ picture) before babies woke up!

 A pretty darn tootin' successful sewing day!!

Stripping, sewing, cursing, sewing (again), smiling....

NOOO, not *that* kind of stripping! Get your head out of the gutter! Ha! For today's naptime sewing and craft time I brought back out Benjamin's Love U quilt. Must get that sucker done.. mostly so I can say I finished a sort-of-large project! I cut all of the border strips I will need for this one and for Brooke's as well! So, yay for killing two birds with one stone!

After all of the strip cutting it was time to sew them on! Remember how I said I was making the top and bottom borders a smidge thinner than the sides? Well, I am. So, this means I have strips of two different widths (on this quilt, not on Brooke's). Well.. I bet you can see where this is going.. Uh yeah. I sewed the skinny border on the side that I wanted the fatter border. And, when did I make this discovery, you ask? AFTER. I. HAD. SEWED. THE. WHOLE. DANG. THING. ON.

See that wider piece to the right?....  yeah, oops. No, make that an OOPS!!

Enter Mr. Seam Ripper.

I have a love/hate relationship with this tool. I am NEVER happy when I have to use it. Sure, it is a life saver and fabric saver, etc. But it SERIOUSLY impedes progress and wastes valuable time! The shape of it makes me think of a finger. So, it's like flipping the bird at my sewing project and laughing at me. Meanie.

 

Moving on....

I finally got it all ripped apart and got the cursing done in my head (mostly) and started sewing on the correct piece! Whew.. on back on the saddle and cruising along. Or not.

See that ^ ? It's like a snag or a run or something I don't know what is called in fabric world b/c really I'm just a visitor here. Commence more whirty dirds.. Do I stop (was about 12" into re-sewing)? Do I say screw it and go on, hoping that when I quilt over it, it is fine and won't affect the integrity of the quilt? If I do that will it bother me and nag at me b/c I will know there is a snag and boo boo in the material?... I chose to say screw it and go on. Time is ticking people!! (I also realized that I didn't have another strip to use anyway).

Quilt borders: check!

Benjamin's Love U quilt top: DONE!

Next up: making the quilt sandwich of batting and the back!

Started Borders for Benjamin's Love U Quilt

So.. remember how I said I have SADD?.... Yeah well I started a quilt for Brooke a little while ago (my first quilt ever). It is a disappearing 9 patch. It  a good quilt for a beginner, I think. It has a great "wow" factor and really isn't very complicatd! Well, I had to set it aside to fill some orders and make some things for a friends party (she sold stuff for me.. thanks Kelli!!). Then we went on vacation. Well, I finally came back to it and go the quilt top done, or so I thought. I have decided to add one more row horizontally and vertically to make it bigger, so it's *almost* done.

I still have to add borders and then make the sandwich w/ the batting and the back (will have to piece it), quilt it, and then make the binding and bind it! LOTS of work ahead of me with that! Since the amount of work ahead of me on that is a little mind boggling I decided to start working on yet another project.. a quilt for Benjamin! Hahah! This one is a little easier though b/c it is made out of a panel.

Both Ben and Brooke's quilts are made from material in Moda's Love U line. LOVE IT!

Today I cut the strips for the white binding on both quilts. HELLO.. this is NOT fun!

Then I sewed the strips on to the panel. The top and bottom strips are a little thinner since this panel is longer and I don't want the quilt to be too long and skinny.

For all you quilters out there.. you are saying, yeah, bit whoop! But, this is my FIRST border and I am quite proud! :)

Next up is to add a wider blue (or green?) border. I got the blue material out and Benjamin decided to wake up. Brooke slept for another 30 minutes, but when she woke up she had fun doing this:

See you tomorrow! :)