Several hours crawling around on your hands and knees can really make your butt hurt. Who knew?
So I spent most of Sunday pin-basting one of the Strippers of the Orient quilts. "Finally!" I'm sure you're saying to yourself.
First I finished piecing the backing and marked the center with safety pins (on the right side). Then I taped it to the floor wrong side up.
Then I had to redo it a couple times to get all the wrinkles you see there out. Then I smoothed the batting down over that.
Then I had to spend another 10 minutes smoothing wrinkles out of that. Then after marking the center of the top with safety pins, I put it down to form the top of the sandwich, feeling for the safety pins marking the center of the back and snuggling those up together.
Once I was happy with that, I started pinning. And pinning. And pinning. And maybe some more pinning.
And once all the pinning was done, I checked the back for tucks (and for accidentally being attached to the rug as well), and then went back and closed all the pins w/ my Kwik Clip, which geeky as it looks actually saves your fingers a lot of agony.
Then I rested. And occasionally knitted. Just one kitchener seam away from finishing the first of the Rhinebeck socks...
Now to find some time to sit down with that quilt sandwich at the sewing machine and REALLY get to work....
Posted by Duff at October 30, 2006
Uh HELLO! Claudia's heel and SILVIA's picot cuff!!!!!
Your quilt is amazing and a revelation in the glute workout regimen. You, of course, rock.
Posted by: Sil at October 30, 2006 11:18 PM
Your quilt is lookin' good and I think you're pretty lucky to have gotten a workout out of it! There's only so much "forearm strengthening" that I can justify with my knitting. Hope your sandwich sews up nicely!
Posted by: molly at October 30, 2006 11:51 PM
Holy smokes, that's a lot of pinning! It's a good thing you've got the floor-space for it. That's going to be such a fabulous quilt -- I love those fabrics.
Posted by: alison at October 31, 2006 12:18 AM
Gosh all that smoothing and pinning must have taken forever. But it looks ace!
Posted by: jen at October 31, 2006 01:44 AM
Goodness what a lot of pins. And you did all that without throwing things? You are a strong zen-goddess!
Posted by: marrije at October 31, 2006 02:26 AM
Nice Work!!!!!
I am *almost* finished my lit review...... help! :)
Posted by: clare eats at October 31, 2006 05:04 AM
Look at that sock! YEAH!
Of course, seeing a second sock started will be even more impressive. ;-)
Posted by: claudia at October 31, 2006 08:21 AM
I knew!! lol
That sure was a productive weekend. Phew.
Posted by: Jan at October 31, 2006 08:33 AM
oooh--I like! Both quilt and sock. mmm...quilt sandwich....
Posted by: alice at October 31, 2006 08:37 AM
I like the square patch in the center of the back.
Must look into the Kwik Clip.
Posted by: melanie at October 31, 2006 09:03 AM
I look at those pin and start humming "In The Hall of the Mountain King." Am I alone?
Posted by: Michelle at October 31, 2006 09:14 AM
Taping the quilt top to the floor is Pure Genius. I love it.
Love the quilt too--it looks fantastic.
Posted by: Stephanie at October 31, 2006 10:35 AM
Well hello miss productive.
Posted by: Mariko at October 31, 2006 01:17 PM
god, that looks like hell to do, but beautiful otherwise.
and the sock -- the yarn, is that trekking? just wondering.
Posted by: maryse at October 31, 2006 01:20 PM
I am always somewhat surprised when I start to lay out a quilt at how freaking long it takes. Smoothing and crawling and smoothing and fixing and then the batting scooches everything around for more smoothing and crawling. A definite NOT FUN part of quilting. Since I am really into the colors, fabrics and tops and not so much into the actual quilting, I have solved the problem by sending my quilts out to be quilted. Total cheating, I know-but you can't do everything, can you?
Great socks! Totally Claudia.
Posted by: Teresa C at October 31, 2006 06:54 PM
Holy cow! That looks like so much work. Do you need to tiptoe onto it to smooth out from the center?
And socks too, someones been a busy little bee!
Posted by: myra at October 31, 2006 07:42 PM
Um, Wow! That's all I can say to that. I've just started playing with some quilting and can't imagine getting to that point. And the sock is great in all it's orangeness.
Posted by: sarah b. at October 31, 2006 08:24 PM
Can't wait to see that quilt.
Posted by: Jeanine at November 8, 2006 01:12 PM