Crafty Tuesday: Trial and Error Quilting

It's Crafty Tuesday and I am pleased to report that as a part of my debrief from a week with Slugger, I spent most of the weekend sewing, or thinking about it!

For all crafty types I'll cut to the chase and show you what I've done.

Yes, it looks familiar! It is my 'Annie' quilt from two years ago. That is how long it has been sitting, pinned together and waiting for me to have the confidence, or the nerve, to attempt the job of 'stitch in the ditch' quilting it together. I have to tell you it took me most of the weekend and a huge amount of quick unpicking and bicep work to get the thing to this stage.

I would hate to have been making a double quilt because trying to get this thing rolled up and under my sewing machine, was not fun!

I had wanted to be fancy with the quilting pattern,


but a few misplaced twiddly bits ( and the quick unpick) taught me to 'keep it simple' and, as you can see, I have.

I was surprised (and frustrated) by how difficult it was to keep the thing from puckering. I gave up in the end , after pulling out a few key rows and doing them again with differing tensions. Seemed to make NO difference at all! If any of you are quilters, I'd love to know your secrets.

Next up is the binding but it may be after Christmas before I get to that, for reasons I am about to explain. I am about to ramble now, so if you are here mostly to see craft you can probably click back over to Carrie's and check out the talent!

The other sewing project I've started is a dress for the BA's next Formal. She has been asked to partner an old friend's brother and the date is fast approaching. She has very definite ideas about what she wants to wear nowadays (no! really?????) and had her heart set on
a) something Grecian and
b) something black.
Needless to say, mother (moi) did not approve.

I've got to admit I feel sad when I see lovely young gals draped in black. They are so beautiful, they can wear any colour, why do they feel the need to widow themselves prematurely? Anyhoo, to this end I encouraged the BA to try on this dress when we went out browsing the other day.

She was mildly receptive and it was kind of within the price range (ok...there isn't really a price range and the tag on this one would pay my Teacher's Registration but hey....better than some!) but we both had to agree that the top did not fit well and was not overly flattering.

Thus we found ourselves in Spotlight searching out glamour material and a suitable pattern. There were a number of contenders but sizing and availability conspired against us; and then when we had finally chosen a pattern, we realised that it could only be done in extremely wide fabric (140cm+) and the fabric we'd chosen only came in a 114cm roll. :-( We eventually left in disgust but, as I had to return for more quilting thread, I did a bit more searching and made a unilateral decision.

She had identifed a few things she 'required' from her dress. It had to be long, it had to be slightly draped, it had to have a feature back. This one
fit the bill but didn't lend itself to the chosen fabric so I picked another one. Just like that. Well, the dance is in three weeks!

So we have a midnight blue satin jersey with a smoke grey chiffon to do that central version (in black and white). The BA echoes my own concern, which is that some of these patterns don't look like the drawings, but as we finally agreed, we can't afford a flash dress for this one. At least it will be unique. I have to say I am a little nervous about it but at approx $70 all up vs the $300 for the one she tried on in the shop......it's all about perspective.

And as a last comment on 'craftiness', which I interpret more and more liberally nowadays, here is one of the three holes I have to fill in our front room since the electrician came.
Anyone want to take a sweep on when I'll get them done?