February 26, 2006
square headed
I'm no longer a Square 1 person. I am a Square 2 person. What's the difference between Square 1 and Square 2? Why, gobs! An absolute Grand Canyon's worth of difference if you are me and feel as if you slowly may be unraveling what with all of the aligned edges and the everlovin' squareness of it all.
Kid 1 (not to be confused with Square 1), now a worldy and cosmopolitan 4 (almost 5) year old spent the night at Grammy's house this weekend and something about the, the.... freedom of it all gave way to a quilt-a-thon on Friday night in which I got more done in several hours than I get done in several DAYS around here. It turned out to be an awesome thing because I ended up getting sick first thing Saturday morning and haven't gotten shinola done since.
Here are the steps for a square:
1. Wash fabric - I am a fabric washer. The quilting world is divided into 2 camps - those who wash, and those who don't and never shall the two meet. It's like Liberals and Conservatives - it's tough to find a true moderate, and usually when you do, he overthinks it all and can't make up his mind about anything anyway.
2. Press it. And press and press and press....
3. Stack it up. Right now I'm stacking all of my prints together because I have 7 of those and all of my solids because I have 9 of those.
4. Cut. Cut, being very careful to know which part of the square you are cutting . So in this case, I cut, I walk over to my dining room table and put it in the correct position and label it. Bor. Ing.
5. Sew. Then press. Then sew. Then press again. And so on, and so on and so on until you have run out of fabric.
6. Repeat for next square.
If I am anything it is a person who likes to see results from my crafting.. it certainly ain't about the journey around these parts so will someone please remind me to never ever do a king sized ANYTHING ever again? Just the name suggests that it is a bad idea whether it's Burger King or the ambitious square quilt project for our bedroom.
And other considerations - who is going to quilt this? Certainly not my sad little machine. It has done its part for other quilt projects, but none of those were 108" across. It's a feisty little beast, but not one that will allow such girth to be pushed through it's tiny work area. I was listening to Annie's quilting podcast the other day and the whole show was on hiring someone to quilt your project and honestly, it just made me nervous. I fear I may have quilted (or not quilted as the case may be) myself into a corner.
A sidenote for you Olympians: my hat is off to you. It's been fun to read around the blogs both from those who have actually pulled off their intended amount of knitting and those who felt the agony of defeat. I didn't even set myself up for failure since I'm in that non-committal phase that follows a project in which I start and stop 8 projects before getting really frustrated and pissed off. Mostly it has to do with February, and thank God that ends on Tuesday.
xo
Posted by Angela at February 26, 2006 04:39 PMHonestly you should have prepared me for the Shock of Square Two.
I mean really. So new and different. I'm blinded and blinking. Loving the colors and the Denysishly judicious use of prints. That reddish brown is awesome with the other colors. You're onto something.
Can't you just invite all the gals over, put on some music, and sashiko that thang together in one marathon night???? If you do it in April, I'm IN. Sure,you'll get some lame newbies like me, but is it any worse than sending it off to God knows where for who knows what??? xoxo Kay
Posted by: Kay at February 26, 2006 10:02 PMHey, I have one of those big wooden circles that you use to section off the fabric for hand quilting. You are welcome to borrow it if you want to risk going stark raving mad. :) Don't you have a birthday coming up? I think the husband needs to give you a new sewing machine that will eat up and spit out that king size quilt for breakfast.
Posted by: chelle at February 27, 2006 06:59 AMOh dear. There is a big dilemma here, and I cannot solve it for you. But it looks to me like Square 2 involves starting with bigger middle squares, and that sounds/looks like a step in the right direction.
And re: Agony of defeat, I haven't admitted it yet. I mean I sort of did admit it, but it's like how our HR director quit all sudden-like last week and I still haven't quite accepted that (even though I have and it's fine, really). I'm just ever so slightly detached. Watch for a breakdown by the weekend. I can't wait.
Posted by: Daphne at February 27, 2006 06:52 PMI love all your handwork! I love to come here and see what you have been up to. I am never disappointed.
One of the girls that I knit with every Wednesday night has an "At Home Machine Quilting Business" She is quite professional and I have seen her work...AMAZING! She has a huge free arm machine that takes up a whole large room in her house. We met there to knit one night because we were all dying to see what it was all about. I have a link to her website and specifically where you can link to see the quilts of others that she has quilted. I am not in business with her but I have known Sandy for over a year now ans she is a quality person. So...if you decide to send "your baby" away for quilting you could do no better than my friend Sandy. I think her price is based on the size of the job and the complexity of quilting desired. If you are interested check with her because I could be way off base....Here is the link. If nothing else there are some gorgeous quilts to see there.
http://www.heirloomoriginal.com/Quilt%20Gallery.htm
Happy Quilting, Knitting and Crafting
Posted by: emmy at February 27, 2006 10:49 PMI love all your squares...so bright and cute! ^_^
Posted by: Lana at February 28, 2006 07:24 AM