Today we went to Jerry’s True Value across the street and got an 85 inch long aluminum tube to hang the quilt.

Ty decided he’d help. He brought up the ladder from storage, and even measured everything out.

Yesterday I cut a piece of the backing, pinned a two inch tube, and stitched it closed with a basting stitch that didn’t cut through the top layer of the quilt.

Another final shot!

We used two of those 5 lb picture hooks. Ty bent the hook out so it could accommodate the tube. The quilt and tube was 7.2 lbs total.

It is really nice having it up. I knew the walls in this place were pretty tall, but now they feel even taller.

While the rest of the world leaves the office to have a beer at 4PM CDT, I continue to work. Yesterday, I was put the finishing touches on my crazy quilt.

OK OK, full disclosure here, after Ty and I went swimming and had a picnic lunch at Beaverfork Lake yesterday, I came home and finished the quilt. (This is probably why I look so tired and shoulder-tastic in the the pictures.) Every day for the past week, I woke up and said, “Today is the day that quilt is getting finished.” Other things kept coming up. My mother visited, a new computer, laundry day, you know how it goes.

Work for this quilt started in 2003 when I began cutting up old pieces of clothing to try out a bargello technique. I started working on it again in 2005, and then the crazies fell in in 2008. Yes, they may call it a crazy quilt because it looks crazy, but after completing this one, I can now confidently say you may actually have to be crazy to start one.

In showing the quilt to a couple of folks, number one question is, “Where did you learn to do that?” As with most things, I didn’t really learn directly. When I was in elementary school, every Saturday, the local PBS station would have a show, “Sewing with Nancy”. She did a bargello show once where you take these long strips of fabric, sew them all together, and then cut them the other way and stagger them in a wave. When she cut them into equal pieces and staggered them at equal lengths, the show was pretty boring, but then she must have had a few cocktails and started cutting at willy-nilly widths and sewing at irregular intervals. It was compelling TV.

As for the the rest of the sewing and quilting, I used the book Denyse Schmidt Quilts: 30 Colorful Quilt and Patchwork Projects.

The book is very helpful, but leaves a lot to the imagination. A few pictures or diagrams of the actual quilting stitches would have flattened the learning curve more. I am still clueless about machine quilting and walking foot quilting. Guess I am going to have to google it. The part on basting/pinning the quilt sandwich and starting stitching from the center was very helpful. I also stitched this quilt much more than I had to, but I really like the results.

In other news, I’m really excited about the new Naughty Secretary Club book coming out:

The Naughty Secretary Club: The Working Girl’s Guide to Handmade JewelryNew book link if your reader blocks it. The Naughty Secretary Club is an awesome jewelry maker out of Austin, Texas. For years, she has been coming up with inventive jewelry, mostly made out of recycled bits of paper or plastic mixed with clear epoxy. Recently though, they’ve been on the bleeding edge of the “revamped vintage” trend. Bookmark this site for great hand made gifts. The book comes out in August, and I’ll be waiting with my toxic epoxy and resin chemicals and molds to figure out how to do this stuff the “correct” way!

Spent the past couple weeks intently working on the crazy quilt. Getting better at the rocking stitch now that my hands no longer hold up the hoop.

Here’s my new setup:

I’ve got about a quarter quilted. Looking forward to quilting through the debates and super Tuesday coverage.

No, I do not have a rock band, but I do need three hands.  Used the latest crazy quilt to experiment with my actual quilting technique.  Got everything basted last night and took a stab at it.

I’ve got three different thimbles, and none of them really work properly.  I’ve got 6 different sizes of sharp needle.  I think I’m trying to make too many stitches with the smallest size, but I really enjoy the control and the stitch detail and the large size of stitch with the larger needle.  Yes, I know this flies in the face of coveted quilting technique.

This is also the crazy part: I’m freeform quliting.  I have a few simple rules, and I just try to follow the lines I have already made.

The good news is that I seem to have mastered the “pulling the single knot through the top” process.  It allows the knot to get stuck inbetween the top layer of fabric and the badding, hiding it.  I completely rock at it.

I need three hands, because one hand holds and guides the needle, one hand scrunches and sandwiches the quilt, and the third hand holds the hoop. May just have to poke a hole through a TV tray or something.  If only I had the AWESOME rig the old ladies at the Methodist church used to have. That’s OK.  It would take up too much space anyway.

Pictures later!

This weekend turned up the heat on quilting progress. Watched the Nevada/South Carolina presidential returns while piecing together the outer strips. At this point the quilt measures 84” x 84”, and any kind of border could possibly increase the size to measure queen size.

purchased the badding and the backing with a gift certificate I got for CRAFTSMAS from my friend Katie. We met at the quilt store and checked out a bunch of fabrics. The Calico House is such a treasure!

Here is the progress picture:

Here is the awesome sorta 70s floral print for the backing:

Actually considered getting this awesom organic cotton flannel. It was very expensive ($22/yd), but it felt soooooooo nice.

For the past several Tuesdays, I’ve been watching election results and quilting.  I’m hoping to make a queen-sized crazy quilt, but to get the 84×94 size, but I think I only have 60×80 size.  At first it was a bargello quilt, but then I went crazy.

Got a gift certificate from The Calico House, which I’m going to use for organic cotton batting and backing.

I know I’ve got a problem with the quilt surface not being completely flat, but getting it properly tied should take care of that.  I worked on extending the quilt last night, but I just end up making foot x foot pre-bargelloed blocks  and lengths of crazy blocks.  I could do that for an extra long time.  The pieces have become more square over time.

Every so often, the quilting bug bites me again. This is an update from this post.

This weekend, I made a few more irregular-shaped blocks, and tried to hand sew them together, and to the existing portion of the blanket.

Here is my second attempt at the feather stitch, and a little bit of herringbone stitch on the side.

Here is just a regular stitch in pink.

Tomorrow, I’ll have some more blanket stitching, chain stitching, and the elusive wheatear stitch.