Am I Done Quilting QS#2?

The problem with this whole QuiltStorm thing is that, even though the quilts are supposed to be fast fast fast, I keep thinking about quality control. Well, I guess that's a good thing, since it's supposed to be a skill-builder.

I've got a question for you. On QS#2, here, I made roughly parallel meandering lines widthwise across the quilt at about 2" intervals. Does that look like enough to you?


Functionally, it's fine. I found a thin wool blanket to use as batting (per Libby's idea), and the backing is a high-quality surplus bedsheet, so this sucker is going to be both warm and comfy. But, I've wondered whether it would look sharper if I doubled up the quilting, either by adding new lines between the existing quilt lines, or by adding lengthwise lines to make a kind of meandering grid.

Or, should I just declare victory and bind that sucker? What do you think?


(To get Mrs.5000's fancy camera to photograph the back of the quilt, I had to put the book on the quilt to give it something to focus on. Undifferentiated olive green was blowing its little camera mind.)

One Good Reason to Quilt

In the spirit of Jovali's post about Quilts in Their Native Habitat, here is an almost perfect picture from the today's inbox showing our new friend Baby Roy resting on his quilt.

(The quilt is the one I did the walkthrough on earlier this year.)

I Second That Free-Motion

In the end, Rebel only beat me to meander quilting by about a week. I finally bit the bullet and did free-motion quilting over an entire quilt surface. I used QuiltStorm #4, and here's what it looks like:

And on the flip side....

Fairly crude, plenty of mistakes if you know what you are looking for, but all in all a great learning experience, and that's what these StormQuilts are for after all. It still needs a binding, of course.

For QS#4, I used some kind of synthetic knit back and a flannel sheet for batting. It quilted easily but is, predictably enough, a bit limp and very light -- a summer quilt, perhaps. Meanwhile, I've got QS#2 and QS#1 pinned up and ready to quilt next. I used a thin old wool blanket for batt in one, and a mattress pad in the other, with cotton sheet for backing on both; I think they are going to be both warmer and a bit more snuggly when they are done.

Lazy Man's Stashbuilding

It was supposed to be a quilting-free week, so how did I end up spending so much time with fabric?

My mom is paring down some of her stuff, and showed up at my doorstep on Monday with four large shopping bags packed with fabric. A tactical error on her part; she could have waited a few months and called it a generous birthday present.

I spent much of Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday evenings preshrinking and pressing, until I had the loot separated out like so:


For those of you keeping score, that is (left to right) two piles of non-quilting weight fabric, some suitable for the QuiltStorm project as backing; one big pile of quilting fabrics of at least a full yard length, one pile of quarters, halves, and such, one pile of big scraps, and one pile of small scraps. And all of this stuff is premium grade. What a bonzanza!

Saturday morning, within minutes of having sorted out all of the above, Mrs.5000 suggested we walk down to the Sunnyside Neighborhood Useful Goods Swap. Well, you see where this is going...


One small stack regular fabric scraps, one stack of flannels and torn but highly salvageable flannel bedding, and a small stack of childrens' denim clothing from the throwaway pile. The latter aren't considered wearable, so I'll add to my stack of 6" denim squares.

I may never have to actually ~buy~ fabric again. I'm just going to let it come to me.