Finishing the Quilt [Continued from 11.10.13]
>>> Last Friday was very frustrating. Just as I am creeping up on competence in free-motion quilting, the damn sewing machine cops a 'tude and goes all pouty on me. I want to trade her in on a new model, but since that can't magically happen in an instant, looks like she will be required to finish this project, come hell or high water.
>>> Saturday: apparently my machine has an attitude adjustment over night and performs perfectly. And I notice that my arms and hands are also no longer seized up with tension. After a couple more hours my free-motion quilting is thank-God done.
>>> Suddenly, I can stop studying the free-motion quilting videos and have to figure out how to finish the edges. I lay the quilt out on my work table to square it up and cut off the excess batting and backing around the perimeter. No denying that the quilt is mildly askew in various directions. I try to trim it to give it the best chance of looking balanced. The result isn't bad.
>>> I start researching how to make the bias tape to bind the edges. Cutting fabric on the bias puts more thread on the edges and protects against wear. I may have gone off the deep end with my quilting, but now I'm back in my comfort zone of exactitude and full control. We run up to the Webster Jo-Ann and buy half a yard of blue-on-blue print for the edges. With my rotary cutter and my 36" x 24" cutting mat, making bias tape is a breeze (and there are lots of videos on YouTube showing how to get it done fast).
>>> My quilting stitches make me look crazy, in kind of a tight, manic way. But my edge binding is serene perfection, finished with a zigzag that neatly spans the quilt border and the bias tape. Ahh...
>>> With a couple of weeks of pushing and pulling and trying to force seams to match up, a few little imperfections showed up, where some seams have frayed. Quarter inch here, half inch there. My dad was in the paint business and called these "holidays" -- touch-ups required. I find my machine has a decorative stitch in the same square spiral as my quilting design, so I just run them across the frayed seams. They are barely noticeable. But if someone does notice them, they say, "Yeah, I'm a patch. Bite me."
>>> The back looks kinda cool too. The wonky lines are my handwriting.
>>> Final analysis: it's me. I went to great length to have all the right tools and learn all the correct techniques. And then I wandered off on my own.
11.13.2013
