Nashville Stitch N Bitch

safety pin-a-long

Can we have a Safety Pin Party? I'm not talking a never mind the bullocks style safety pin party, I'm saying everyone comes over to my house and we all sit on the floor and pin baste this big ass quilt! Sound fun? It's no blood and vomit Sid Vicious thing, but there will be safety pins and booze (and no matter what your mom told you, yes, safety pins and booze do mix).

After an hour (and seriously, I mean an hour) of pressing the front and back, this is how the pinning went:

8pm - kids in bed*

8:10 - I begin taping the backing to my living room floor with packing tape

8:15 - Truman up to go to the bathroom

8:17 -when I come back in the room, both dogs have made a little happy place to sleep - on my quilt backing

8:18 - I run the batting through the dryer to "relax" it (tip from paula reid)

8:20 - Turn on wild at heart, part 3 in my Attempt To Appreciate David Lynch (I have watched season 1 of twin peaks, blue velvet and now Wild at Heart and last night Dave and I agreed to part ways)

8:30 - Truman up to go to the bathroom again (he's new at this whole potty thing and still hasn't gotten nighttime worked out yet), I watch Diane Ladd smear red lipstick all over her face in what? An act of lurid melodrama? A symbol of her inner turmoil? Self satire? Absolute brilliance? The silliest direction chioce I've ever seen? I can't tell anymore.

8:40 - I attempt to get the batting straight on top of the backing

8:45 - There's Truman again

9:00 - I put the top on the quilt and realize that there is no way to pin this thing other than to just sit on it, hope for the best, and smooth as I go from the center out

10:30 - I have pin basted about 1/4 of it, Truman has been to the bathroom 4 more times, the dogs have taken up residence on one corner of the quilt and I don't care, and David Lynch and I have broken up.

10:45 - Screw this. I need ice cream.

Realizing I can't leave the thing in the floor because the kids will wake up in the morning and just want to tap dance on it (just tap dance if I'm lucky) I just pull the tape up, roll it up and stash it and I guess I'll pull it out tonight, straighten it, retape it and start pinning again. I have a gazillion safety pins, but I'm estimating this will take several hundred.

Meanwhile the afghan was finished for my stepniece's wedding present. It's very airy for a throw, but she had the fab idea of maybe using it as a table cloth. The poor girl will have to block it because anything larger than, well, something little, cannot be blocked in this household (see "dogs on quilt" above").

Safety pin-along tonight at my place!

xo

P.S. - I'm extra lucky that I live across the street from an 800 acre wooded park full of hiking trails and creeks and wildlife and such. When I drop the kids off on their school days, I make a run for it to the park so I can hike. It's 70 and beautiful here today, the wildflowers are crazy beautiful on the trails and the green in the spring here is so miraculous that you just want to absorb it through your skin and let it inhabit your body and let its green gorgeousness shoot out through your fingertips. I feel better now - like I have the will to go on with the pinning, and like I might even give eraserhead a try.

*a loose term which means they will be asking for something to drink, to go to the bathroom, for me to read or sing or fetch some thing for them for the next hour or more before actual bed time occurs. Not to be confused with actual sleeping.

Posted by Angela at April 9, 2006 03:31 PM