A Quilt

I have been spending too much time doing nothing.  It seems I injured my sacroiliac joint and was having muscle spasms.  Muscle relaxants work for that, but then I get so relaxed I go read a book and get nothing accomplished.  One thing I can do is work on my quilt.  And obsess over it.

I discovered why people get simple, extra wide fabric for the back of a quilt.  I had thought of doing that and then found some really cool fabric online that was covered in airplanes.  That sounded perfect for my FedEx quilt.  Naturally it wasn't wide enough to cover the quilt, so I had to buy 3 yards so that I could cut it and piece it.  THAT'S where the problems came in.

 

Fabric isn't always printed in perfect alignment with the warp and woof of the threads.  And when I pieced the back of the quilt, I would have a hard time making sure all the lines of airplanes matched up.

 

My Fons and Porter quilting book had a suggestion that sounded good to me. 

 

I could put in a contrasting inset strip to make the back more interesting.  But I still wanted the lines to work.

 

The problem is made especially difficult when trying to make a quilt sandwich.  This is where you place the back of the quilt face down, add the batting for the middle and then lay the pieced front on top.  Next you baste or pin it all together and then stitch all over the top to make it one cohesive piece.

This meant I couldn't see how the little rows of airplanes would line up on the back.  I flipped the fabric up and down and back and forth to see how I was doing and finally I gave up.  My friend Jackie had told me days ago that no one was going to see the back anyway.  Good point.  But I still wanted it to be right even if I didn't see how I was going to do that.  And THIS is why I like to take a class for each quilt.  You have somebody standing right there to ask, in a whiny voice, " NOW what do I do?"

This was also the first time I had pin basted a quilt all by myself and not at the library.  The library has a bunch of tables you can place side by side to lay out the quilt at  a height that doesn't hurt to pin.  This meant I did all the work on the floor where there was some carpet to hold the fabric in place.  Not as good as taping it to the tables in the library.  And then I had to crawl around on the floor to place the pins in the smoothed out "sandwich".  I can't crawl on my knees so I sat and twisted sideways.  Oops.  That hurts.  So I lay down on my stomach.

 

At one point Lee came to see what I was doing.  He suggested I take a break.  I thought about it and then realized the cats and dog would love to play with my quilt. I kept going and told him, " You do realize that this is the only gift you are getting for Valentine's Day, right?"

 

I trimmed the whole thing to get it ready for the quilting.  I KNOW the back isn't even.  But you can't tell while riding past it on a fast horse, right?  And this is going to be hung on a wall, so no one will see the back anyway.  I could have use an old sheet.

 

At least that is what I keep telling myself when I am OBSESSING over getting it wrong.