Crackpot Quilters’ Blog

So, it’s all basted and now it’s quilting time! I’m just doing a simple diagonal grid allover, using a varigated red-yellow-green-blue thread. Hopefully it won’t be too bright and take away from the piecing. I like the subtle look of the clear monofilament best, but it’s very slippery and my maching tends to come unthreaded without my noticing it, which is really annoying when you’re quilting very long rows. I’ve done a few rows so far. The quilting is not hard, but it is time-consuming to get it positioned under the machine and deal with all the quilt bulk. I’m trying to do a little bit every day so it gets done reasonably soon. This is both because Andrew really wants to sleep under it and because I want to start new projects but am trying to be reasonably disciplined and get this done first.

I’ve found a side benefit of NaBloPoMo – I’ve been posting more frequently so I can actually remember how to upload a photo and put it in my post without referring to the instructions every time. 🙂

Not only is a futon a nice place off of the floor for grandparents to sleep when they visit, but it doubles as a location for basting a quilt. How versatile! Here’s the backing with the batting spread out on top of it:

And here’s the quilt top on it, with the proud owner as well.

Unfortunately, as I had it all spread out, I noticed that I had forgotten to fix the upside-down side border. Aaargh! You may be able to see it if you look closely in the picture. The good part is that I did notice before I basted it. So, it could have been worse! I ripped that out, re-sewed it the right way, and got the basting done last night. Now, on to machine quilting…

Just Doing My Part for NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month)…

Here’s the applique pillowcase I made for our couch pillows which are wearing out. I’m still working on the second one, but it’s more than half done by now. It’s getting a lot of use by two small people, so maybe hand applique wasn’t the best choice – maybe I should have picked something less delicate – but so far it’s holding up fine.

It would have been much simpler just to piece a regular backing, but where’s the crackpottiness in that? Actually, I did it out of necessity because I didn’t have much left of the solid fabrics to put around the big train print in the center of the backing. What I did have was in small pieces, so this was the only way to go. It took longer, which is hard on the impatient Andrew, but I think the result is good!

Here’s a close-up: