finish the quilt i started

Pay special attention to the NEWLY REFINISHED WOOD FLOOR that lurked beneath that old carpeting.

I am hoping that while you are distracted by the wood floor, you won’t notice that MANY of the points don’t meet and even more obvious, that much of the fabric doesn’t technically “match.”

Still I’m quite pleased with how it’s turned out so far. I think I’m going to use interlocking circles for the quilting. I wanted some curves to offset the rigid geometry of the squares.

Comments appreciated (especially gentle, constructive ones—this is my first, possibly ONLY quilt afterall.)

Pay special attention to the UGLY beige carpeting.

I got the batten and the backing several weeks ago, but I stalled because i really didn’t love the backing material. Mib7 says her grandma would just use a simple cotton sheet for her quilts. Then, the other day I picked up some plain white / unbleached denim (to make a sack to keep light away from my fermenting beer… Sunlight makes hops go “skunky…) and when I got it home I realized that I loved this fabric. It’s strong, won’t overwhelm the quilt pattern with some weirdo design of its own and it’s 100% cotton. I hacked off enough yardage for the quilt back and I’ll still have enough for a beer carboy cover. This afternoon the fabric went through the wash, I think it ended up at 4 times so it’s nice and soft. Sandwich layer, here I come.

I finished piecing together the top on Tuesday and boy does it look …ah, better than I expected. I estimate 80 -90% of the corners are well, at least close to each other and the ones that aren’t don’t seem to detract from the overall pattern. The thing looks so much better than even when I laid out the patches side by side.

On to the sandwich stage, right?

Maybe I’ll post a picture.

So last January I put on my favorite shirt and my partner suggested that I probably wouldn’t want to leave the house wearing it. I told her there was no way I was going to send it to the Salvation Army and she said she doubted the Sally Ann would accept it. I looked at the shirt again and since there was NO WAY I could admit she was right, I came up with an alternative use for it and some other of my beloved garments. These were largely work shirts and khakis that had started to fray along the seams. The fabric is still very sound, more sturdy than the gingham most folks use for quilt tops. I cut the garments up, sliced them to strips with one of those cool rotary cutters (This is truly the ONLY tool I could imagine using for this project) and started sewing. My partner came in at one point and asked if I always sewed like that… evidentally I was feeding everything through on the wrong side of the needle. Come to find out her way works even better (But don’t tell her, OK?) I got as far as making all of the blocks for a twin sized “Single Irish Chain” style quilt before … well, before my quilting inspiration fizzled. I really really want to finish it because it’ll be very kick butt. My grandma made quilts up until her death (and she lived into her 90’s) so I’d be carrying on a family tradition. And I love the idea of taking scraps of something and making something else. Like soup!