It's Been a Hard Day's Night

Welcome to my portion of the Twisting to the 60's with Batiks blog hop.

First of all a huge hug, and many thanks to Madame Samm for hosting at Sew We Quilt and another great big hug and thanks to Mary for being the head cheerleader.  Also a ginormous thanks to our sponsor Island Batik.

I was born in the mid 60's.  My mom and I lived in San Mateo just south of San Francisco when I was small.  I don't remember much about it.  What I do know about the 60's is mostly from the music of the time.  I was born in 1964.  The Beatles had the top song that week- I Want to Hold Your Hand.  I love the music of the 60's and The Beatles were my go to group when I played the piano when I was younger.  I think I know every lyric to every Beatles song.  Don't fret there are other great groups, Come on go with me on a Magic Carpet Ride. 

Normally I can execute a project with little or no trouble.  I start with plenty of time, I do not procrastinate and I can move on to something else.  I have to do this with my crazy work schedule.  Let's just say that I understand a Hard Day's Night after this past few days with work.    Enter this project, a small quilted throw for our couch so that DH and I could snuggle under it during the winter while watching TV. So "With a Little Help From My Friends" and understanding, cause we are all friends here. 

My Magic Carpet Ride:  A simple strip quilt made from Snow Day Batiks and 4 other 1/2 yard cuts of fabrics cut into 2 1/2 inch strips. I chose some Robert Kaufman fusions to go with it.  When I first saw this line it reminded me of winter, and of he song Norwegian Wood. Maybe it was the fabric with the winter looking tree branches, and the colors reminded me of winter.   I found the tutorial here at Happy Quilting.  The top went together like a breeze and two weeks ago,  I decided I wanted to back it with some minkee or cuddle fabric.  With a 50% coupon in hand I went to Joann's.  The "minkee" they had just was not very soft, and I am not a big fan of the dimples, I didn't want just plain fleece.  Then I found the cuddle fleece, there was a gray, and a blue, and the gray was definitely not enough.  Blue it was, I took it up to the cutting table and what the heck?!?! There was a tiny bit over 2 yards on the bolt, and about 1 yard cut off in another segment.  I needed about 80 inches so 2 1/2 yards for the length.  According to the label on the bolt it was supposed to be 65 inches wide (maybe that should have been my sign) which was just a bit larger than the width of my quilt,  so I thought well with the extra yard in case I need it maybe I can use some of the scraps to help enlarge the backing a bit and it will fit.  

I went home and squared up all my little HST from my strips and created a 5 inch strip to go across which with the 78 inches of fabric even after my seams of adding in my strip should be plenty big.

I then read several articles on using cuddle, or minkee for quilting, you could use it with batting if you wanted a very heavy quilt, or without .   Rule of thumb they said to spray baste, don't stretch the fabric, and pin, pin, pin. Then baste around the edge, which I did all of the above. 

I spent a couple of hours in the barn, using the banquet tables trying to get it to lay just right. Nice and flat, all even, then I spray basted, smoothed and pinned.  Took it into the house to begin the quilting.  I was going to do my 'go to' quilting method the squiggle stitch on my sewing machine. 

  I used a Mettler Silk finished variegated blue for the top thread, and a medium gray for the bottom.  I quilted a couple of lines, no problem.  Then my thread broke.  I tore out that line, and started again, again my thread broke.  I had not changed anything on my machine.  I tore out the line a 2nd time, pulled up the throat plate on the machine, made sure it was all clear, checked my needle it was brand new I had just put it in when I started to quilt.  I would get another line or two sewn then again the thread would break. I decided to quit tearing out the lines and just power through.  Then it happened the dreaded wrinkle, one that I could not just live with.  Which meant I had 7 lines to tear out by the time I found it, and while tearing it out I also managed to disassemble the strip in the back for about 10 inches. 

This is just a small sample of the amount of thread I tore out.  I started again, and then realized that no matter what even with my walking foot, the backing was stretching, and getting distorted.  I pulled out the basting stitches, and saw that I have one side of my quilt which needs about another 3 inches of backing, and the other side the inset strip needs to be redone to make it smaller so it is not cut off in the middle of the HST.  Either the fabric was not truly 65 inches wide or I need to learn how to read a tape measure better.  It is not squared up in any shape or form, the top is square, the bottom is square, one side is nice but one side is wonky, and we are now at late afternoon on Monday and my post is due tomorrow at 12 am.  I decided I am not going to get this done, since I have to work tonight, and the post has to be done before I leave at 6 pm.

I now know where UFO's come from.  What should be a simple quilt I have spent 7 days, 4 full days trying to get the backing made, and it quilted, any other time I would have had it done with out a hitch.  I decided to just stop while I was ahead, and get my post ready, with nothing really finished.  :(   But I will finish this and it will be used by DH and I this winter.  Come back later this week I will show you it finished!

On a bit of a happier note.  I also made two table runners from batiks in my stash.  Both with the same pattern.

 This one is for my Bestie, she is having a big birthday coming up real soon.  I thought, mistakenly, I would have this all done and in the mail by Saturday, but the Magic Carpet above, got in my way. 

This one is for me.  Pumpkin and Sunflower Batiks.  I will get this one done this week too after the quilt and the table runner for my friend are finished. 

 Go check out the other wonderful quilters today.

Grandmama's Stories

Pumpkin Patch Quilter

Kathy's Quilts

And the rest of the gang

October 3

Hill Valley Quilter

Cherry Blossoms Quilting Studio

Sew and Sow Farm

Color My World

Secretly Stitching.

InGa

October 4

My Quilting Journey

More Stars in Comanche

sarah did it!

Read, Quilt, Cook, Pray...

Bquiltin Studio

Sew We Quilt

Oh and by the by I am not totally devastated.  When I used to work in the computer programming business anything that was executed with a mistake (didn't work the way it was supposed to) was a "feature", and a learning experience. I have a feature of some curvy quilting lines, and one edge that is between 2-3 inches off, and I have learned that the next time I try to use the cuddle or minkee or anything different I think I am going to use some lingerie fusible interfacing, it is light, and supple, but will give a bit more of a stability for the backing. Also I have a secret, don't tell Ringo, Paul, or George, but my favorite version of "With a Little Help from My Friends" is by Joe Cocker!

Thanks for stopping by and enjoy the rest of the hop!