Thursday, September 8, 2011

Update on the quilt progress

I stapled fabric on the 8 foot pine boards. I love using a staple gun!
Setting the quilt up on the frames in the garage was easier with fabric boards. I could pin the fabric to the boards instead of using thumb tacks that I can't push in the boards straight or otherwise. Jeff and I are sharing the garage. He agreed to park the Jeep outside while I had the quilt up long enough to pin the layers together. There are pins about 3 inches the length and width of the quilt. Living as close to the school as we do and with school starting, I could not leave it put all the while I quilted it. I was going to buy a small 2 person pvc pipe frames to use after it was pinned.
close up on the pins.
The back of the quilt was bigger than the frame so I just let it hang.
The batting was also too short so I had to sew on extra batting.
My visiting teacher, Linda Gale, came and helped me start pinning. We got about 1/3 of the quilt done and I started to notice wrinkles.
I was frustrated so I googled putting quilts on a frame. There were several videos. The one that helped me the most showed laying the quilt out on the floor, stapling the ends to the boards and rolling them equally toward the middle so you could start there. It made total sense to me so that is what I did. I didn't staple the quilt to the boards though. I just pinned it to the fabric. I took out all the pins we had already done and started over in the middle. I am so glad it was just pins and not quilting.
It even looked good on the bottom.
Barcelona Hills is now part Capo district school and part charter school, Oxford Prepartory Academy. Last Thursday, a week before school was to start, there were a ton of cars parked all along the street. There were desks and tables and chairs outside the school. There was a lot of parents and children working around too. I knew it was time to get the quilt out of the garage. Jeff also thought if I had 4 foot boards that it would fit in my sewing room. I went and got a board and had it cut in half, came home and put the fabric on it. While he was gone to the movie, Monday night, I straightened and rearranged the sewing room. When he got home, Jeff helped me get the quilt upstairs still on the long boards. This is what it looks like.I found that I am not skilled enough to quilt forward and backward. I need a chair on both sides of the quilt. That works too. I do have to go under the quilt though to change chairs. Oh well.

This is the squares I finished the first night. It was late but I was curious to see how it would look. I wanted to see if I could do it with the things I had here. It worked and I think it looks pretty cute. The thimble and the needle puller are essential when doing this quilt.
The under side even looks good too. I am glad to have such a good start. Now I will just have to work on it often. I will also blog about it more often too. Happy Quilting!

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Wow mom that looks really good!