Sunday, December 11, 2011

the December crunch

I spent 7 hours working on this quilt on Thursday, from basting to attaching the binding.  I tried to take some pics along the way and thought I'd share my process. (I had really wanted to write this post Thursday, but once I started working, I didn't want to stop to post, and then once the quilt was at a good stopping point, my arms were too tired to post, haha).

I timed myself during the basting and binding, and found that it took just about an hour to baste, and then only another 60 minutes to cut, join, press, pin and attach the binding. 




At the end of the night I took the quilt down to the living room to show C, shook it out and said, "Ta da!" hoping he would be as impressed with my progress as I was. 
Me: "Look, I did all this today"
Him: (not really phased) "how long does it usually take you?"
Me:  "For the amount of work I did just today?  About 8 naps."


I would have liked to take more pics of the quilting and squaring up, but it was already dark and I knew they wouldn't come out that great.  I did snap this one of my improv binding holder-- usually I wind binding around a piece of cardboard as I press it so it's more manageable to attach to the quilt.  Well, I cleaned the sewing room last month and couldn't find a piece of cardboard anywhere.  But, george had been playing with his train set in the sewing room earlier, so I grabbed one of the track pieces and.. it worked perfectly.
Part of me thought I should just push on through and hand stitch the binding like a mad woman so it could be done for a Friday Finish.. but that didn't happen.  Guess there's always next week..

16 comments:

  1. Love your log cabin - isn't it great to have vast expanses of time to work on a project? There is a reason I stopped quilting when my daughter came along - hats off to you for managing it all! P.S. I finished the stars on my first EPP project - will be posting as soon as I get my photos uploaded!

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  2. I love how the way you've oriented the colors in the log cabin turn it into something else too! And that's a neat trick with taping the backing down to the floor - must try it myself.

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  3. Wow! You're inspiring me to just take a day and get 'er done! I have several quilts to quilt, and do need to do this. Your quilt is gorgeous, and I love your wavy lines quilting. Also, I'm going to use your idea of winding the binding on a train track. I know there's one of those around here somewhere. Thanks!

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  4. next thing you know, we'll be asking quilt shops to carry train track pieces.. they'll probably charge $10 per link too.

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  5. Jess your quilt is beautiful! I love the colors and the way you laid out the blocks. Really great. Glad you had the whole day to work on it.

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  6. I'm very interested in the way you quilted this. It appears you used the walking foot but I can also see circular stitching. Did you also freemotion stitch after the wavy lines of stitching were applied? Apologies if you've covered this previously; I'm new to this blog.

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  7. Sooooooooooo nice! Love the bright and happy colors!

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  8. Congratulations on all your hard work, busy day! The fact that you counted the nap times is hilarious!! So funny! I often plan things according to naps and it's fun to see how far I can get. The quilt looks great and I'm totally stealing that train track idea, I've ran out of cardboard reels!!

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  9. That is a very happy looking quilt. I like the big red squares in the middle. I'm thinking about doing a log cabin with quilt as you go method. One of my many ideas...

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  10. It's lovely. So bright and cheery. The more scrappy quilts I see the more I love them - especially yours. You always have a great collection of scraps in your quilts.

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  11. I'm duly impressed!! And of course love the quilt...gorgeous! Log cabins are so dynamic. Nicely done :)

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  12. Awesome work! It's always satisfying (and tiring) to get so much done in a day! I love the quilting! Beautiful!

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  13. Beautiful! I love that you also use a Kwik Klip. I <3 mine!

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