Wednesday, March 12, 2008

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

I have a lot more respect for women who quilt their ginormous quilts on their home sewing machines. Why? you ask. Well, I will tell you.

As you know, my nephew Colton is in the ICU at the hospital. We decided that it would be fun to make him a blanket that he can have when they move him downstairs to a room. I went and bought some cute fleece fabric, and Angel asked me if I would quilt some words onto it so that it would stay together before she tied it.

I took the fabric and put it on the Gammil. The Gammil did not like the fabric and flat out refused to work with me. How rude! Determined to quilt this fabric, I took it home, basted it, pinned it, chalked out the words, and set out to sew it up on my home machine. Now, I have a Janome...it's really quite little. I have a hard time sewing binding on quilts with this thing it is so little. What was I thinking?!

This blanket, although not very large, was HUGE on my machine. Fortunately, my denim needle worked really well and I didn't have any sewing problems....just issues getting the letters to look like letters. haha


This is a picture of my workspace right now. Yes, it is my dining room table. Yes, I don't have a lot of space. Yes, that is the blanket sitting in a massive pile of fabric next to my sewing machine.
This is the room, or lack thereof, that I have to work with on my sewing machine. Let's just say it's a miracle the blanket turned out as good as it did because there was a lot of fabric shoved in that tiny space! This is why I have a lot of respect for those home quilters. Holy cow! How do they do it?? Way to go ladies! You are truly awesome!

This is the cute print I picked out. Colton was bit by a black bear several summers ago, so we thought this bear print camo fabric was very appropriate. The back is a solid forest green fleece. I used tan thread on the top to help the words stand out better, and a dark green on the bottom. I wrote the words "Bear Bait", "Sumo Colton" and "Don't poke your EYE out" on the blanket. Each phrase represents something that has happened to Col during his life. I hope he enjoys this blanket for many years to come.

2 comments:

Nanette Merrill said...

good job, now you know how i feel

Jillybean said...

This is why I don't make quilts.

Cute idea to sew the sayings on the quilt.