Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Snowball Night: Week 6

Wohoo! I managed to do Snowball Night posts two weeks in a row. That, in itself, is an achievement.


From last week to this, I've come up with a plan for finishing the first of the two quilts. My sister's wedding shower is coming up next week, so I've decided to get this finished right away so I can have a nice gift for her. I'll do the vests next week. Deciding how to proceed was a big step in this case because free-motion machine quilting a whole quilt is one of those doing-something-I've-never-done-before things that scares me a bit.

I practiced a bit of free-motion quilting today. I'm still pretty craptastic. I'm not planning anything fancy for this quilt, just a small stipple {or some people call it a meander} but my curves are all kind of squarish. I'm much better at a loops-and-swirls sort of free-motion, but I really have a tight stipple pictured in my head for this quilt. I briefly considered doing these pretty loopy flowers, but I think that might be a bit ambitious for my first free-motion quilt. Suggestions? I really wish I had the time {and money} to take it to my favorite machine quilters here in town. I'm afraid that doing the machine quilting myself will make this one of those homemade = cheap kind of projects. Homemade, when it is done right, outstrips any other kind of gift. But when the skills are lacking, it gives homemade a bad name. I know you all know what I mean.

Besides coming up with a plan of attack, I got the bias binding ready for both quilts {I love to do bias binding} and managed to get all those little bitty corners I saved-and-sewed-and-pressed-and-then-sewed-together-with-three-other-corners-to-make-baby-snowballs sewn together into pairs. If you use your imagination and squint a bit, they are starting to look like baby snowballs, right? They're a bit wonky, but they're going on the back along the seam where I sew my two pieces of fabric together. I'm going to add the label in the strip of baby snowballs as well. I had hoped to already have the back finished and ready to go, but everything seems to take me longer than I think. I wonder if it is because I stop and admire my work too much?

Next week, I hope to have a whole snowball quilt to show. The shower is a week from today, so I'd better get busy.

2 comments:

Shay said...

I have decided Elizabeth to use the word craptastic at least 10 times a day for the next week because I like it so much. I wil of course, give you full credit.

I cannot wait to see this finished quilt of yours.

Still think you're a sicko for liking binding so much but I like eveything else about you.

pinksuedeshoe said...

I agree with you on the homemade = cheap problem. My mom used to say that there is a difference between homemade sewing projects and handmade sewing projects. And you know, the handmade one's were what your 7th grader could have done. Love the colors in your quilt! It's going to look nice and springy!