Laundering a big quilt!

As I had marked up the patterns I wanted to stitch with white washable and blue washable pens, I knew I would have to wash the whole quilt - there was just soooo much drawing on it!

 Well, firstly 'would it go in my machine?' or 'would I have to take it to the launderette?'  best to try it and see.......it fitted my machine so there it stayed with three colour catchers just in case - ('cos I am one of those who never washes fabric first - I think it makes it harder to cut accurately and sew evenly if you have washed the stuffing out of it - and who wants to spend loads of time spraying starch while ironing it any way? - I want to start my quilt 'NOW') The catchers were hardly marked - but better safe than sorry.

I washed it on the lowest heat setting on my machine 30c - the woolies wash! and hung it in the garden to dry.  It hadn't dried by bedtime so I brought it in and humg it over the clothes airer..........big mistake!  OK - it was dry in the morning but when we spread it out on the bed it had five bumps in the middle!! I have an airer that has 'shelves' on it and the supports for the shelves have 'shoulders' .......if I hadn't been so tired I would have realised that it would cause problems! So I had to dampen it down again and rehang it in the garden........all day again!  It was still damp when I brought it in again, but this time I folded it carefully and hung it over the back of the conservatory sofa beside the large radiator and left it till the morning!   Perfect job! when laid out on the bed it was bump free.

I e-mailed my daughter to tell her it was finished and she came over expecting to take it home with her - I told her I wanted to hang on to it for another couple of weeks - she can have it at the begining of November! WHY? she asked?  I wish to take it for 'Show and Tell' at http://www.thamesidequilters.co.uk/ on Monday evening and I also want to take to a quilting day with my friends over in Yateley at the end of this month.

I have been 'lost' since I have finished this biggie.......I need to start something else - something I can hand sew on the days I go to meetings and something I can machine sew for when I am at home.   I have a lot of projects waiting to start but don't know which one's I want to do now.......I keep going into my workroom and standing and looking and coming out none the wiser!  Perhaps to dya I will be able to make up my mind.

Finished at last

Here are pictures of the finished quilt - it is 100" square - that is smaller than the original top was made at.....someone didn't want it that long after all - after I had made it and marked the quilting patterns! so I took a whole pattern block off the bottom, after detaching the borders ..........I was not a happy bunny!  It has affected how I felt about the quilt and I am sure I have not made as good a job of it  as I would have done.

Now the younger daughter has asked me for a new quilt for her bed (another kingsize) I don't know if I want to do another one yet.  She already has a blue and white one I made for her many years ago but now she is changing her colour scheme and wants a pink and white one!  Perhaps I will htink about it in the New Year .

Catching up

Gosh what a long time since I last posted! I haven't been away again - just busy at home.

I have been working on the kingsize Double Irish Chain quilt (Quilt in a day Eleanor? I don't think so! it took two days just to mark up the quilting designs!), and it is nearly finished......the rest of the binding is being sewn down today - then I shall take pictures.......

I have also had two lovely days at lacedays with my friends, so my table cloth edging is growing , slowly - unfortunately there are no more until the begining of Feb 2010, so unless I make a commitment to myself to make lace at least once a week, nothing else will be done till then!

My middle granddaughter came over one week end and spent the time going through my stash of fabric and chosing colours for the ninepatch quilt top she is making - it was going to be just red and dark blue - but- other colours are creaping in as she discovered fat quarters of gorgeous yellows and greens and purples......."oooh can I have some of that Granny?"  A lovely weekend of sewing with her left me exhausted - not just through raking through boxes and cutting 3" squares for her, (I have yet to allow her to use the rotary cutter!)  but because she never stops talking! She's worse than me!!

Thamesider Quilt group ( http://www.Thamesidequilters.co.uk/index.html ) have thrown us a challenge - we provide a block - any size , any style - for the center of a quilt and then pick an envelope from the box which will tell us what first border to put on.  We will have two months to make that border then we will pick another envelope.....till our borders measure 20".  Sounds like fun so I am going to join in......will I regret it - we will see..........