The only thing I really dislike about quilting...

...is quilting.

Bear with me - I love picking out fabrics, I love choosing patterns and cutting out and piecing - I even like hand-sewing the back of the binding.  Unfortunately there's another quite important part of quilting, and that's layering up your backing, batting and quilt top and then sewing them together, and it's that part that makes me groan.

Ella's Doll Quilt is FINALLY at the stage where I can begin quilting it, but I'm not at all sure what sort of pattern to use.  I wanted to free-motion quilt it with some cheerful stars and hearts, so I thought I'd have a practice on my kaleidoscope scrappy quilt.

I set up my beautiful machine very carefully, quilting table and all:

What could possibly go wrong?

I had a quick practice on a spare bit of batting and some of the backing fabric I was using.  I decided to do a nice, simple, quatrefoil motif to sit in the middle of the diamond shapes.  I drew it out in white pencil, took a deep breath, and got stuck in.

But unfortunately, free-motion quilting is not my friend.

...oh, my.

So I spent a jolly hour or two cursing and unpicking all those horrible wonky stitches, vowed not to be beaten, and quilted the entire thing with GOOD, SENSIBLE STRAIGHT LINES.

*phew*

It doesn't have the binding on yet since I wanted to crack on with Ella's quilt, but now you see the dilemma I am in.  I have finished the top, pieced the back, and pin-basted Ella's very carefully, but December is hurtling onwards and it MUST, MUST be finished by Christmas.  Any thoughts?

Pins in, time to get stitching.  Um.

Almost back to normal...

HELLO.  Remember me?  I am a dreadful blogger; one post a month was not what I was aiming for when I started this thing up.

However life does tend to get in the way, and this past fortnight has included various ups and downs.

Among the ups were a trip to Windsor to celebrate with my Aunt after she was presented with a CBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours List, which was terribly posh but a nice chance to catch up with my widely-flung family.  Then Bike Husband and I went to Liverpool to see one of our favourite bands, Thao and the Get Down Stay Down, at a teeny weeny gig that was absolutely brilliant.  Plus, we stayed in a hotel afterwards - bliss.  And then on the Saturday we went to Thought Bubble 2013 in Leeds, and that was brilliant too!  Lots of fascinating comics were purchased and much fun was had.

Less fun was Train Boy getting sick and having to have time off school (he's fine now, don't worry), and my computer breaking.  That last bit is why it's taken me a while to get back up to speed here - although we do have a spare one that I borrowed, it runs like an elderly dog and I couldn't work out how to do my photos on it.  Not that they're quite right even now, since I can't find my photo editing software and they're all a bit dark and out of focus... look...

Scrappy Kaleidoscopes!

Although I am quite pleased with how the quilt looks in real life.  This one will probably go to the shop once it's actually quilted up.  And I'm even more pleased with this one:

Hopefully Ella will like it too...

All it needs now is something nice and light for the borders and backing, which I've ordered online, and I shall be on my way to finishing it in time for Christmas - phew.

Now I need to get back to work.  See you next week - honest!

When good stitches go bad

Well, I know I said I was going to get on with that big Denyse Schmidt quilt for this week, but wouldn't you know, the scrappy quilting bug has bitten me good and proper.  I finished off that boy's quilt and got stuck into a girlier one straight away - it's too much fun watching all those little squares tuck up neatly against one another!

Isn't it pretty?  So far so good, eh?  Except... look a bit closer...

Yeah.  That stitch.  For some reason, when I came to quilting the rotten thing, my machine decided not to play.  I fiddled around with needle size, tension, thread weight, cleaned out the bobbin case - still no dice.  I had the same issue with the boy's quilt but didn't notice until I was already finished, and none of the skips on that one are too big - look:

There on the yellow flag is about as bad as they get (sorry, that photo is terribly out of focus...)

So the boy quilt can go in the shop, at a discount, and the girlier one is sitting waiting to be unpicked, and for the Sewing Machine engineer to call me back.  Ohhh the frustration!