Many moons ago I pieced this top, and originally had some different plans for the applique. It sat for awhile, and then I made some decisions, started fusing and cutting and wound up with the flowers and leaves you see. I started stitching, but got sidetracked. Recently, I pulled it back out of the pile and when I had a few minutes, I would bang out some more applique. I’d link to earlier posts about the quilt, but my Internet connection is really crappy again this morning, and it’s more trouble than it’s worth at the moment.
The stitching was made difficult by the fact that my Bernina start acting goofy, and the needle position stopped working. It’s zag has lost it’s zag. Hard to do blanket-stitch when the needle won’t move back and forth.
The Bernina dealers are not close, and I simply haven’t had the opportunity to take mine to the Bernina doctor, so I stole borrowed my old Bernina from Mom, and have continued to get to it when I can. I knew I wanted some words on it, but I waited until the flowers were done before I decided on this quote from Lady Bird Johnson.
There was NO musical rehearsal last night (hallelujah) so I managed to get the rest of the stitching on the words done. I probably should have chosen sleep over sewing, but…sewing ended up winning.
Rather than use a stabilizer, I actually layered the quilt top up with a layer of batting and did the machine applique through that. Yes, it’s kind of a pain, but…it works for me.
Before anyone asks, no, I have no interest in trying to do my machine applique on the longarm. My applique won’t win any awards but I’m happy with it the way it is, so please don’t offer to tell me how I could do it differently. Thank you.
What I really want to do, right this very minute, is throw it on the quiting machine with another layer of batting and quilt the background, because after THAT I want to start beading and embroidery. However, my backlog of customer quilts suggests to me that before I go to New Jersey next weekend, what I really need to do is spend every waking moment quilting…
Speaking of which…I’ve run out of time to babble today. Tonight, no rehearsal: our Football team is in the playoffs and has a big game. They are undefeated, and 9 out of 11 games have been shutouts.
Several updates:
1. Yesterday’s matinee went reasonably well. Minor glitches, nothing major. If the kids could have 1 more week of rehearsal to polish, the show would be pretty spectacular. Will and Joe saw the matinee and enjoyed it. They did comment that none of the soloists looked like they were having any fun.
2. The safe location for my glasses turned out to be the floor underneath my longarm table. Your guess is as good as mine on that one.
3. I’m still trying to finish the applique quilt in yesterday’s post.
4. The musical is wreaking havoc on my no-nail-biting triumph. I’ll have to start over. On Monday.
5. Be glad you are not near me at the moment. I’m liable to break into random bits of song and drive you bananas. Just ask my family.
