The Everlasting Quilt Project

Okay, well you know there was nothing going on here yesterday except free motion quilting. By day's end, I had the edges cut off the quilt, and now it's ready for binding. Let's review, shall we?

First, I'd been thinking about how to connect the motif I wanted to use in the final border. If you look at what I'd done the day before...

You can see that it starts and ends at the same place there on the left. And so the question becomes: How do I move that motif across a border from left to right? So, after giving it about two seconds of thought (all I'm up for these days), I decided to go with a sort of loopty-loo thing. Also, I could turn the flower itself in different directions and come up from the top or bottom. So, here we go...swirl, petals, echo, echo, loopty loo...

Wait a minute...Loopty-loo? Do you hear what I hear?

For just a minute there, I thought I heard my mother's voice singing this little song to me. Tangential, as always. So anyway...yes, I think that will work for the quilting, and I started on my merry way across the bottom border.

Checking the back, I like what I see.

So, on I went until I got this close to being finished...

And I ran out of bobbin thread. Of course, I did. You'd be disappointed if I didn't, wouldn't you? So, I paused there for about ten minutes to wind another bobbin, clean lint out of the machine, lubricate the machine...okay, and then it took about 30 seconds to finish the quilting.

So, I yanked it off the machine and took it downstairs to the living room where I can lay it out next to the windows for the best light. It's looking a little rumpled after being wadded up on the machine for several days.

Here's a section of the back...

And then I took it downstairs to my sewing room to cut off the edges and get it ready for sewing on the binding. Oh, but wait...there might be a short delay...

Squaring it up and trimming the edges was a bit more difficult than I thought it would be.

The more I encouraged him to sit elsewhere, the more he wanted to stay where he was. What's that law of physics related to "objects at rest"?

Finally, I plied him with some of the green stuff...

but that only worked temporarily. Then I tried moving him to his final resting position, holding down my sewing chair.

When I turned back around...

Oy boy. Well, that took some time, but I finally got it all trimmed up and the binding strips cut. And that's where I left it for the day.

Only, later in the afternoon, I decided to take a look at the embellishments. This is the other part of the project that has me gnashing my teeth. There are hundreds of beads, embroidery floss, twine for the clothesline, and clothespins that will have to be applied after I have the binding finished. The beads will mostly go in the centers of flowers, and there are a few for some of the birds' eyes. There's also floss for applying whiskers to the kittens and antennae to the butterflies.

Oh, but then I came across some pieces that still need to be applied...and stitched down...and there I was thinking I was finished.

Looking at the pictures of the finished quilt, I was thinking this chickadee on a branch might go here...

But then I uncovered yet another branch and some more flowers, and I started thinking it probably should go here where this disembodied piece of branch and greenery appear.

To explain, the sections of this quilt can be made to be smaller wall-hangings with their own borders. Since I made the whole quilt, the instructions were a little different, and there are seams where there might have been borders if I'd only made a single section. And since I started this quilt in August of 2013 (yes, you read that right), my memory of how this was all supposed to go together has faded.

Also, I found a few envelopes, dutifully marked, with pieces inside. Do you think I can remember where this stuff was supposed to go? Of course not.

It's going to mean getting out the instructions for the blocks and re-reading them, along with their corrections, and corrections to the corrections.

Also, I'll need to hang the clothesline and couch it into place. Then I'll need to glue on the clothespins so that I can "hang" the clothes...

and this little quilt. This is an actual quilt, with backing and batting.

I'll need to quilt it by stitching down the appliques here too.

So, you can see that I have miles to go before I sleep. (Apologies to Robert Frost.)

But let's just not think about that for now, okay? If I've learned anything from these McKenna Ryan projects is is this: One step at a time. Do not look ahead. Do not become discouraged.

Today I'll get the binding sewn on, and then I'll do the hand-sewing before I worry about all this embellishing business. I might also go ahead and finish off the little quilt. I can do that on my domestic sewing machine. It was a little disheartening to find all of those pieces yesterday afternoon, but there is still plenty of time in the month to get it all finished. There are times I wish I'd never started this quilt, but I know I'm going to love it when it's all finished.