A Blessing and a Dilemma
Life gets busy. My new dishwasher arrived Monday, and Steven set out to install it that evening. It didn't seem too difficult until we decided to replace the copper water line leading from the wall to the dishwasher. The one we had was old, not very flexible and not very convenient to have taking up space under the sink. The problem came in finding an adapter to attach the new (flexible) line to the pipe coming out of the wall. It took several trips to the store, and sawing off part of the copper tube to get the screw part off the end off to take to the store, to get the right piece that would fit both the pipe and the hose. What a pain! Anyway, the dishwasher is now hooked up and working wonderfully. It seems to have a lot of space. It gets the dishes clean. It doesn't stop running in the middle of the night. What more could I ask for?
I finally finished piecing the top of my quilt. I sewed the borders on Tuesday. Yesterday I pieced together the back. Now I just have to put the thing together, but that's more easily said than done. Ideally, I would have a huge hard surface where I could lay it out to put the sandwich (back, batting, top) together, tape down the corners so they don't move around, and pin or baste it together. I can spread it out on my living room floor, but the surface isn't hard, and I tend to get wrinkles in it that I don't want. My kitchen table isn't big enough. I wish I had a basement. Would it be abusing the privilege if I used my key to the church building to go in and use the big tables in the gym?
After the quilt sandwich is basted or pinned together, it will be time to quilt it. Some of my quilts have been tied on a borrowed quilt frame. I don't really want to tie this one. A couple of my quilts I tried to machine quilt, stitching in the ditch, or making straight lines. They turned out okay, but they would have been better if I had a walking foot on my sewing machine, and I'm not sure that the expense is worth while right now. I did search online yesterday for them, and they are about $30-$50. What I'd really like to do with this quilt, however, is use wavy lines to emphasize the watery feeling I was trying to make with the colors and pattern. I'd need to practice a lot before I attempt free motion quilting. This involves putting the feet down and moving the quilt around manually to produce the pattern. I do have the machine foot necessary to do this. It is awkward enough to sew straight lines with a big bulky quilt on a small machine, but trying to move it around at an even pace to sew curvy patterns is going to take a lot of practice. Another option that some quilters do is send their quilts to be professionally quilted. That is definitely easier, but very expensive. They charge by the square inch, and since my quilt is over 6,500 square inches, the least expensive I found would do it for a little over $50. Most were closer to $100. I guess I'll have to think about it.
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I finally finished piecing the top of my quilt. I sewed the borders on Tuesday. Yesterday I pieced together the back. Now I just have to put the thing together, but that's more easily said than done. Ideally, I would have a huge hard surface where I could lay it out to put the sandwich (back, batting, top) together, tape down the corners so they don't move around, and pin or baste it together. I can spread it out on my living room floor, but the surface isn't hard, and I tend to get wrinkles in it that I don't want. My kitchen table isn't big enough. I wish I had a basement. Would it be abusing the privilege if I used my key to the church building to go in and use the big tables in the gym?
After the quilt sandwich is basted or pinned together, it will be time to quilt it. Some of my quilts have been tied on a borrowed quilt frame. I don't really want to tie this one. A couple of my quilts I tried to machine quilt, stitching in the ditch, or making straight lines. They turned out okay, but they would have been better if I had a walking foot on my sewing machine, and I'm not sure that the expense is worth while right now. I did search online yesterday for them, and they are about $30-$50. What I'd really like to do with this quilt, however, is use wavy lines to emphasize the watery feeling I was trying to make with the colors and pattern. I'd need to practice a lot before I attempt free motion quilting. This involves putting the feet down and moving the quilt around manually to produce the pattern. I do have the machine foot necessary to do this. It is awkward enough to sew straight lines with a big bulky quilt on a small machine, but trying to move it around at an even pace to sew curvy patterns is going to take a lot of practice. Another option that some quilters do is send their quilts to be professionally quilted. That is definitely easier, but very expensive. They charge by the square inch, and since my quilt is over 6,500 square inches, the least expensive I found would do it for a little over $50. Most were closer to $100. I guess I'll have to think about it.
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