Tuesday, April 14, 2009

THREAD - BIGGEST project to date!

I've accomplished the biggest project so far as a housewife. First off - no I am not pregnant - I'm talking crafts here - not procreation. It is a quilt and I made the whole thing myself. Even took a class. The class was me and a bunch of old single ladies - I do say - I fit in well with the spinsters.

The final product measures ~4.5 feet of pure sweat and tears beauty. I honestly shed blood over this quilt. Somehow - every time I moved my arm when hand quilting (so about 10,0000 times) I would scrape it across a row of pins. It looked like I got in a fight with a cat and lost - huge red scratches up and down my forearms.

I have no idea who this is for or what I am going to do with it but I find these projects are the best - there is a lot of pressure when making something for someone else - it is fantastic to just play around and be surprised by the final product.

things I learned and key accomplishments -
how to use a ruler - a fancy quilting ruler
how to cut a straight line (measure twice - cut once!)
needles are sharp
I cannot sit still for 3 hours (I pretended I had to go to bathroom just to shake my sillies out during my class)
pins are sharp
how to make bias strips and attach binding
hand quilting does make for a nicer/cleaner finish but it sure is a looooooooooooooong (pain in the ass) process
working with stripes is dangerous - you cannot hide any errors with them - they blow your cover with their straightness and symmetry - bastards

Like a mom with an ugly kid - I will always treasure this slightly wonky quilt as my first BIG project. Lots of time and effort went into it and I learned so much about sewing and determination and I now have a huge respect for people who undertake these sorts of projects. It was also a real lesson in patience for me too - I have lots of fantastic fabric and books and a big list of projects (nice, fast, cute, easy projects) that I was aching to get started on but I really stuck to my guns and would not start anything new until I conquered the beast. The green floral and pink polka dot beast.


Final words of wisdom - quilting is like a home renovation - assume it will take twice as long and twice as much money to complete as you originally planned.

Cheers!

B.L.E.

1 comment:

Sara said...

dude, that is so awesome! congrats :)