Merry Christmas Again!

I had planned on waiting till the wee small hours as per usual but I've made it home safe and my chips are in the deep fryer, and I have a few spare minutes.

 

Unfortunately, these photos are terrible. Hanging on the line photos really only work if you've just taken the quilt off the bed, because the wrinkles really show. But Kelsey, the recipient, my cousin and follower of this blog, has it now, and maybe it will appear on her blog. Which I can't find, because blogger wont let me backtrack unless she comments. So instead of directing you there to read her story, I'll have to sum it up here.

Kelsey has been in and out of hospital for a while now with anorexia. We worry about her because she's so beautiful and funny and we don't want to lose her. She's been to crafternooons and working on a tickertape quilt and making felt food with Helen. She's been in hospital this week and Casey decided last weekend that we should all get together and try and film a concert like we used to do when we were kids to send up because we thought she might be stuck in hospital over Christmas, but I was working every afternoon so I wouldn't have been able to be involved. That's why I decided on Monday to make a quilt for her, and the fabric couldn't have been more perfect. Not only am I a stupid huge fan of the retro, but even the name is perfect. When we think of flourish we tend to think of the noun (from google dictionary: A bold or extravagant gesture or action, made esp. to attract the attention of others) but actually, there's a verb too: (of a person, animal, or other living organism) To grow or develop in a healthy or vigorous way, esp. as the result of a particularly favourable environment.

Honestly, I can't think of a better way to sum up what all of us want for Kelsey. For her to be happy and healthy. And if the favourable environment was in Adelaide, I bought an overnight post bag to send it. But it was at home, and hopefully, that's even better.

3 days. Or late nights rather...

Either a day late, or a day early, depending on which way you look at it, the quilt is in the wash.

First, quickly, let me reiterate, I hate binding. It shits me. But I did the best kind of binding I know (which only really works if you echo quilt all the seams), where you make it so the binding extends about 7mm further on the back than it's sewn line on the front. You fold your binding under and pin it all down, and sew the first line using a zipper foot from the top, right up against it, then you flip it over, reverse the side your needle is on (it doesn't bunch with the zipper foot, I don't know why) and sew from the back. If it's less than the width of the foot, you go in a bit, if it's more you can either keep level with your last seam or drift out a bit. It doesn't really matter, and you can be guaranteed that you wont have any missed spots. From the front it looks like the echo seam of all the other blocks, from the back it's a nicely double stitched wide binding.

Still, it took me as long to bind it than it did to piece the entire top. So, hatred.

Anyway, I don't start work till 4.30 tomorrow, so as well as taking plenty of pretty photos for everyone to get to look at on Christmas day, if I can find some eyes I'll have a go at Bob and Esther's JellyBabyBears, and maybe also make myself a case for my tablet.

That is very good news...

Well, I'm not as far along as I had planned, but since I had planned on being finished, that's not a surprise. Thankfully, some good news I got today means I no longer need to be finished by 2pm tomorrow, so I rode the wave of backing angst instead of freaking out and rushing into something I could very well now be regretting.

When I got home from work I laid it all out on the floor and thought that it was kinda boring. I love all the fabrics individually (the main fabric, even though it's not a great tie in with the others, will be re-bought on boxing day so I can keep some of it's retro-ey goodness) but together they didn't seem to mesh, and a single pieced diagonal line seems a bit dull compared to all of the fancy stuff I've done. So I got out a couple of other fabrics and laid them out on top, and how I had them laid out looked really nice. But nothing like this:

Which is just some rainbow shapes on a pale blue background. But my idea was that I could just do wide strips of different lengths and widths, laid out on a bit of a diagonal, and the stuff that got pushed out over the edge when I put in the coloured bits I could use to make up the width needed for the backing. But I got all angsty about it, and decided to go have a shower to think it over, and when I came back to it, I decided that even though it was really cool, I wasn't sure how well I could fill out the missing space, if I would need to use lots of little messy bits, and that it was better just to go with the original plan. Which of course took ages anyway, so instead of the quilt being in the washing machine ready to put in a post office box tomorrow, it's basted ready to be quilted tomorrow.

A handy little bit of math (4 large blocks, 6 lines of quilting in each, each way) tells me there's technically only 48 lines of quilting to be done. And binding of course - I thought today how excellent it would be if I could fob it off on Helen but then I remembered I'm quilting either side of the ditch, so it will look best with the second row of stitching on the back of the binding. And then I thought, "Oh no, I don't have enough binding fabric" but that's okay, because I have time to get more tomorrow now.

Phew.

Yay...awn...

For those of you considering taking up spontaneous quilting, beware. It's not for the faint of heart, or those who like getting to bed early.

Nonetheless, spontaneous quilt top is finished. I cut the neat 16ths before work and did the rest in a bit over two hours, so I'm feeling good about that, especially since it's about 120x145cm (I haven't done an actual measurement, but that's what the math says) No photos sorry till I've done some in-depth research into the IP addresses of you readers, because it's a Christmas present, and I'm not sure who's lurking. But the good news for the rest of you is, you only have to wait 4 days for photos.

Lots to do tomorrow before I start my 8 hour shift, and then even more after.