First Needlepoint Pillow Completed

All done!

Blocking Needlepoint

It's been a few years since I've made a needlepoint pillow.  I actually had several partially finished kits in my possession that I abandoned years ago, and just now decided to complete them before starting my next quilting project.  However, the canvases were stretched out like parallelograms and I needed them to be square before sewing the backing onto the needlepoint canvas.  The instructions told me to "block" the canvas, but didn't elaborate.  Thank goodness for the Internet.  I learned that I needed some cork board and pins or tacks.

We found a large cork bulletin board at our local hardware store for about $30 and I was able to block two needlepoint canvases at once.  You pin the canvas up, spray it with water, and then pull and pin until you shape it into a square.  Then you let it dry, and if it needs additional re-shaping, you do it again.  You are supposed to test the yarns for colorfastness, meaning that you take a piece of each color yarn, lay it on a paper towel, and wet it down.  If it bleeds, you have to dry block the canvas.  I never got that far, because I figured that with dogs in the house, the yarns had better be colorfast because I'm going to be washing these pillows constantly, and if they bleed, so be it.

The pleasure is in the process, right?  Who cares if the pillow actually lasts.  Here is a picture of the blocking process...

I had put the lip cord around the edge of the bigger canvas and pinned the backing on only to realize that the canvas was warped.  Pinning the cord was a pain, so I left it attached while doing the blocking.  The smaller canvas on the right isn't done.  I just wanted to re-shape it better while I was in the needlepoint phase, and it was a good thing, because it turned out that some of the weave was so smashed together that I completely missed a section I thought had been completed.

The bulletin board should come in handy for many more projects, such as pinning quilt blocks together and viewing them from a distance.  I used to hang a blanket on the wall and use static electricity to hold the fabric blocks up, but got tired of people asking me why I have a plain sand colored blanket hanging on my wall.  After a while I just told them we needed the extra insulation.

Done!

Unfortunately, because I took umpteen years to embroider this tablecloth, we no longer own a table that it will fit on.  Oh well.  I guess I will just wash it, iron it, and fold it up to keep on a shelf with all the other handmade crafts inherited from deceased relatives.  The pleasure is in the process, not the product, and embroidering this tablecloth has brought me many hours of relaxation.

Embroidered Table Cloth

My husband bought this table cloth kit for me to embroider a long, long, long time ago.  I think our kids were in grade school back then and now one has her Master's Degree while the other is a few weeks away from getting his Bachelor's Degree.  I actually did start working on the table cloth back then and have been working on it from time to time ever since.  I've made a greater effort recently to put in at least an hour a day on the project, and I'm not allowing myself to start any new craft projects until it is done.

Storm at Sea Quilt: 2008 - 2013

It only took me five years to complete this king-sized bed quilt!  The problem?  It didn't fit on my quilting rack, so I had to hand-quilt it in a quilting hoop.  Also, between 2008 and 2010 I was working 80 hours a week, between 2010 and 2011 I was busy writing a novel, between 2011 and 2012 I tried to sell two houses and moved, sold, donated, or threw out a lifetime of belongings collected by five different family members including myself, and between 2012 and 2013 I'd been battling a slew of bad luck.

After a series of health related scares, I promised myself I would make finishing this quilt a priority.  I suppose that makes completing the quilt all the sweeter, but ironically, we now live in one of the hottest states in America and no longer need quilts for our bed.  I started such a huge project because the bed quilt given to us as a wedding gift was deteriorating beyond repair, and we were freezing during the winter months despite having the fireplace going, having the heater cranked up, wearing multiple layers of clothes, and laying under several layers of blankets.  I didn't care for the dimensions of the king-sized quilts available through stores, so I decided to make my own and make it generous enough to cover our chins and our toes and each other all at the same time.

Historically, whenever I get down to the last few inches of a major project, something goes very wrong and those last few inches take me hours to complete.  So, when I got down to the last few inches on this quilt and realized that I was feeling shaky between being hungry, being tired, and needing to go to the bathroom, I decided to take a break rather than to push it.  Once refreshed, I returned to the quilt to sew the last three inches of the final seam on the border, and I ran out of thread.  Typical.  But... I could deal with it, because I had already taken care of my body by resting and eating.  You can't change history or bad luck, but you can change the way you deal with it.

With that said, here are pictures of the final product:

The reverse side is supposed to be more traditional waves...

I had a hard time keeping the dogs off it each time I spread it out somewhere to work on it.

I ran out of blue fabric, so I used a fabric with seashells in sand to represent the beach...

It seems I'm always running out of something when it comes to quilting, but I view it as just one more opportunity to come up with a creative idea to substitute something else for what I need.

Done!

I finally finished my brother's Grateful Dead quilt. Here's the front...

And the back...

I tend to just use whatever material I have available to make the backing, and since I was short on time, this backing is very simple.

My long-arm quilting machine gave me fits with changing tension each time I had to swap out the bobbin thread, so there were some places where the stitching was loose and messy. I tried going over those spots with my reliable Singer Heavy Duty short arm machine, but found that without having the quilt on the rack, I couldn't create circles. Instead I just hand-stitched in the places that needed repair. Now I'm off to find a box to ship the quilt in.

My Life Story

See that bobbin sitting on my quilt?  That's how close I was to the end of this quilting project before the bobbin thread ran out.  Oh, I don't mind winding the bobbin with fresh thread, but I hate having to spend what feels like hours adjusting and readjusting the top and bottom thread tension once I put a new, full bobbin into the machine.  Had the old thread held out until the end of the project, I could have been done quilting in literally two minutes.  Instead it took me two hours to get through this last row and a half of stitches.  That's my life story.  I'm the runner who trips over her own shoelaces just seconds before she's about the cross the finish line.

To make matters worse, when I did finally finish those two rows, I accidentally stitched the quilt to the leader fabric on the quilt rack, so now I get to spend hours ripping out the last row to free my quilt from the rack, and then I will have to re-sew the last row off the rack on another machine.  The last few steps are always the hardest, even though you have all that experience behind you.  Oh well, at least I will be able to dismantle my quilt rack soon and put it back in its box.   I know that if I were retired or a professional quilter, I'd be doing this activity more often and be more aware of the potential hazards, and therefore be able avoid such pitfalls, but so is life.

Struggles with Machine Quilting

I decided to try to hurry and sandwich together my brother's quilt, machine sew it, and mail it off to him before I move out of state. I wanted to use the quilt rack one last time before tearing it down.

I managed to recall how to connect everything from memory. Usually, when a few years pass between quilts, I have to view the tutorial tape, which is on VHS, and our tape player is broken.

I forgot how fussy my Brother quilting machine can be. The only thing about it that is easy is winding the bobbin. However trying to pick up the bobbin thread is another deal. It usually takes several attempts of readjusting the location of the bobbin thread tail before the top thread can pick it up.

Then when you start quilting, there is always this deep thump, thump, thump, which is a telltale sign that the thread is getting bunched up underneath the quilt. You have to rip everything out, pull all the excess thread off the bobbin, and start over.

I spend a good half hour just adjusting and readjusting the thread tension on both the bobbin case and the machine before I can get a decent stitch. Unfortunately, because half of my backing is black and half of my backing is white, and I'm using black thread, I couldn't see that the tension was way too loose until I looked underneath the quilt rack at the black on white thread.

Now I remember why I've been spending the past year hand-quilting my Storm at Sea quilt, because I hate using that machine.  I also know why it takes a whole village to sew an extra large bed quilt.  I just hope I finish the hand-quilting project before I die.

My brother's quilt is a complete mess, but because I have to tear down the quilt rack and box it up to move, I don't have the time to rip all the thread out, buy a new spool and start over. My brother is not picky. I'll just apologize for my lack of talent, I guess. It's the thought that counts, right?  When it comes to quilting, I'm just happy if I can complete a single project.

Brian's Grateful Dead Quilt

Years ago I found some fabric that slightly resembled the logos of the band The Grateful Dead. My brother Brian was a loyal groupie of the band and still occasionally goes to concerts of cover bands that imitate The Grateful Dead.  I bought the fabric with the intention of using it to design a bed quilt for my brother, however life got a hold of me and the fabric just sat in a basket for years on end. 

Upon rediscovering the fabric, I designed a quilt using ElectricQuilt5 software.  Because the featured prints were so large, I had to include sizable window blocks.  I used the smaller prints, which displayed dancing skeletons and skulls, for borders.  Last weekend I picked up a white calico fabric for the inner border and a black musical note fabric for the outside border.

I was really proud of myself because I managed to sew the entire top together over a period of three days.  I think my motive was that I need to tear down my quilt rack to move, and wanted to finish this quilt before doing so.  Now I just need to cut the right size piece of batting and put something together for a backing, and I can attach the layers to my quilt rack and quilt it all together.

I'm hoping to have the entire project done by next weekend so that I can ship it off to Brian.  It would have been nice if I finished it before winter or for his birthday, which is in winter, but we can't always get what we want.

At Least Someone is Making Use of the Quilt

Since the king-sized Storm at Sea quilt was too big to machine quilt on my rack, I've been hand-quilting it in a hoop.  Scrappy likes to burrow under the hoop and snooze.