Wednesday, February 28, 2007

WIP Wednesday: Top Finished


So far this week has still been slow, and it will continue to be slow for quilting until next week when things quiet down a bit at work. I did manage to finish my Single Wedding Ring quilt top, though. I mitered the corners -- my first attempt at mitering borders. Sewing on the first borders and mitering the first corner took me about an hour, but the second went faster. Here is the result of my labor.

I actually finished this top a few days ago, and I was planning to post about how mitering was easier than I thought it would be -- three of my four miters have the points matching exactly where they should be. However, in the meantime, I have ironed the top and laid it out on the bed to take a picture, and lo and behold, it is not very flat at all! Of course, part of the problem is that I haven't straightened it too well, but even on the floor, it is not as flat as it should be. The problem isn't only in the borders, but my mitering probably did not help. The borders have some serious puffs. It is very disappointing. My second insight: this is one gigantic quilt! It covers the entire top of my king size bed! It is going to be quite the experience to quilt this on my home sewing machine.

The other thing I have worked on in the last week (unsuccessfully!) is extending my home computer network. I have a router with wireless, but the master bedroom signal is unreliable, so I want to add another access point. I bought a router/access point, but although I can get it set up as a router, it is not working as an access point! Since I am still in meetings, I don't have time to get it sorted out. Hopefully I will end up with reliable wireless access sometime soon.

Sunday, February 25, 2007

A Slow Week

I have been so busy with work this week that I have not managed to get much quilting done at all. I managed to miter two of the corners on my Single Wedding Ring quilt. It was my first time mitering corners, and I think they turned out okay. I was going to take a picture, but I realize they need to be pressed first. Instead I will show what I have been doing when I haven't been quilting -- doodling! I intend to use freehand Victorian feathers on this quilt, so I have been practicing them on every available surface. Here are some of the results. All the pages are filled on both sides.

At this point, I think I am ready to start using them on my quilt. At least by the end of this quilt, I should be pretty comfortable with them!

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Not Today

I had every intention of finishing the center portion of my single wedding ring quilt today, but it does not look like it is going to happen. I have put a good amount of time into quilting today, but I ended up doing more ripping out than I had expected. When you have to join up two pieced blocks, there are a lot of HSTs coming together, and it did not always go smoothly. I also could never quite figure out how to press the blocks so the seams would interlock. I always ended up with some I needed to flip, and that made it hard to keep things accurate when putting everything together. For one pair of blocks, I first just did a really inadequate job of sewing them together and decided to rip it out. I am not usually too fussy, but this would not have passed the "riding on horseback at 50 yards" test. Then I redid it, and was happy to see that I had hit almost all the points in the right spots, only to find that I had sewed right side to wrong side...on the third try I finally got it right. But I had too many of those kinds of errors, and now the quilt is only partially sewn together and I am exhausted. I still have some time tomorrow morning, but after that I will probably have almost no time to sew for about 2 weeks because of meetings and people staying at my house. Maybe I will try again later tonight.

Sally thought I was spending entirely too much time at my sewing machine, too. She decided to take up this position to see if she could get me to change my mind. She kept leaning her head against the foot pedal. I would move it, and she would move just a bit closer. Silly dog, that won't stop me!

What are you looking at? I'm not doing anything!