Got ahead of myself again...

I'll be honest - I'm not a fan of sashing. It's a lot of extra effort for not much extra, and also, if feels a lot like binding.

Still, it can make a simple design a bit more interesting. Make a sashed 9 patch, and then make it dissappear, with a bit of extra sashing, and you've got a very lazy leadlight style quilt, unless you use white for the sashing, in which case it doesn't look like leadlight at all.

By my standards, it's big. 165cm each way, which I know isn't that big by other people's standards, but it's still too big to quilt doing wavy lines on my little old machine. It was on my finish list, but I'm actually seriously considering getting it properly quilted. If I could free motion I'd do that, but for that I'd need to send my machine off to get serviced, and, you know, learn how to free motion, and then get confident enought to do a big project, so maybe I'll just pay the lady at Stitch and Knit $90 and tell her to do whatever. I'd be happy with a stipple really.

It felt like I was achieving a lot, but...

So my much anticipated (okay, only by me) attempts at free motion quilting occurred today. And, unsurprisingly, the reality didn't quite meet expectation. Hardly surprising on an almost fifty year old machine, but hey. I can move the fabric smoothly, or I can keep my needle speed constant, but I can't seem to do both. Also, the tension was totally weird, but it is in need of a service at some point in the near future.

As a result, I've reverted to wavy stitch for today's quilting. Both mini Stairways to Heaven quilts have been quilted, and I might bind them tomorrow or I might leave them to sit unbound for a bit. Progress is progress though, binding or no.

I've decided I'm gunna try get half of the unfinished quilts done, so that's at least eight finishes. These two are a good start, and the black one has been basted so that shouldn't be too much actual work, though I still have to decide exactly how I'm gunna quilt it. And remember the Yellow and Brown Quilt from the first tutorial? That's still unquilted, and now the NAB Cup's finished the actual footy season is upon us, so I'll be getting onto that too. Then it's the retro twist quilt, the newsprint mingle twist quilt, Helen's birthday present quilt and the blue, green and purple disappearing nine-patch that made the cut, so they'll be getting done at some point fairly soon.

I've gotta do the purple quilt at some point too. But I'm in denial about that one and it's multitude of points just now. La la la la la not listening.

Aaaaand relax...

It's quarter to three in the morning, and I've finally finished the back for the rainbow steps quilt.

I know it's a weird-arse angle, but all of my non-blurry straight on photos had white spots.

One day I'm gunna properly write up about the effort that I go to to piece backs - it always feels like more work than doing the top. This one involved piecing long strips (ergh) and then cutting them into diagonals with scissors (bigger ergh) and then filling the gaps by putting some fabric over the top, and cutting around it (really big ergh)

The tiny white spot on the edge is outside the size of the actual quilt top, now with borders.

I'm a bit worried that you can kinda see the batting through the fabric, but I figure it will go away once it's all wrinkly.

Tomorrow I have work (another ergh) but it's only for 3 hours (so it's a short ergh) and then I have an engagement party to attend, which isn't an ergh in itself, but does mean that I wont be spending the afternoon working on free motioning some cushion covers I'm making for the practice.

I'm looking at setting some big plans in motion too, but they'll require some big research/planning.

P.S. I had planned on going around and commenting on the FTF posts tonight, but I hadn't planned on it being 3am by the time I got to my laptop, so I'll have to go against my natural instincts, and comment the day after (duh duh duuunnn)

And a real post too...

I did some free motion tests. They didn't go well. If I had to pinpoint a reason, I would say the foot does not go down far enough to get a good hold, making my movements super jerky. If there was more loft, this wouldn't be a problem, but it is.

Also put the walking foot back on, and I'm not a huge fan of that either. I just don't see the point, when my pull feed method works fine for me, it's way less bulky and I don't strain a muscle lifting the foot up. But my second test makes me fairly sure I'm going to wavy line straight quilt the blue/green quilt. I did an around and around with the regular foot and it bunched up a bit at the tight corners, but on the top, not the bottom, which was annoying, as it would mean quilting upside down for a nice finish. So monodirectional it is, and real binding also.

But not tonight. Despite my day off, and lack of any real achievement (basted and tests done, when I was hoping to have at least started to quilt) I'm beat. I did get an entire book read today, as well as about 20 CDs copied for my father though, so it's been a big day mentally, if not physically.

Time for bed... was 2 hours ago...

It's nearly 4 am and I have run out of pins, halfway through my basting. I'm sure I've got another magnet full of them somewhere, but I do believe it's time to call it a night.

I did a cute bit of piecing for the back - the fabric is a (mainly) green with a (little bit of) blue stripe which I've put going up and down. I did 3 little lines across about 20cm from the bottom about 5 cm high each, 2 cut horizontal strips of the blue section of the stripes on top and below a strip of the fabric I'm using for the binding, and then one column about 25cm wide with the lines going horizontal instead of vertical and 4 short strips of the binding fabric in it.

I took a picture, but the camera is on the other side of the room, and I'm half in bed.

I also downloaded the Fat Quarterly today, that online magazine thingie that varies in price every time, because even though I get the impression that it's Australian, it's sold in US dollars. Weird. But anyway, they were talking about beginning free motioning, and said pretty much exactly what I said last night - that you need to do it on an actual project otherwise you wont try and it'll look terrible and you'll give up. So, after I sleep, and get up, and find my pins, and finish basting, I'll be rolling the quilt back up again, and re-discovering my laptop sleeves. They were what I quilted before I quilted quilts, but I did them with wool wadding, and in straight lines. I still have some cuts of wool wadding, and even though it feels very different to the bamboo, (it's stiffer, and the bamboo has way more static cling) it's a good place to start.