A Finished Top

Today I sewed the two borders on the Intel Underneath quilt. I'm so glad to have this top finished. It's a large top at 90 x 90 inches, and so it was hard to get a very good picture of it. I didn't have enough room to spread the whole thing out, but I think you can get a pretty good idea of what it looks like here.

Here's a closer image so that you can see the printed circuit board fabric. I had this fabric in my stash for a long time before I chose a pattern for it.

After wrestling this large quilt all afternoon, I kind of gave up the idea of having it as my first solo long-arm project. I still want to learn the machines at my LQS, but I think I'll choose a less celebratory quilt for my first project. I've decided to give this one to my excellent long arm quilter, Erin Davis. Erin has quilted some quilts for me in the past, and she always does beautiful work. 

Also, there seemed no amount of figuring that was going to produce a large enough back from the fabric I had. I conveniently forgot that I needed to add some length for the long arm machine, and I drew and figured, and drew and figured, but I could not stretch my fabric large enough. I ended up just ordering enough Kona solid black for the back. I think the quilting design I have chosen will look great on a solid black with green thread. This is a quilt for Matthew's graduation, and Matthew is partial to green and black.

It has been snowing almost nonstop today. Mike was brave and took one of the ATVs (outfitted with large snow tires) up to the top of the hill where he found three-foot drifts. He measured an area in our field that seemed relatively sheltered from the wind and found the snow to be a foot deep. It's hard to measure because it is piled up in drifts in most places. Even the kitty door was blocked by snow drifts this morning.

Poor Smitty is bored silly in this terrible weather. He ventured two steps out into the snow, leaped over a snow drift, then leaped back and came inside again. That was enough for him. He'll just have to be content to chase the red dot for now. Gracie thinks it's just fine, thank you. Just keep that fireplace stoked, and she's happy. Stoking is easy when you have a gas fireplace, so we're all staying contentedly warm. And with that, it's time to clean up the mess in the sewing room.