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.