Tuesday, September 21, 2010

George's got back

I am remembering once again why I dislike making quilt backings so very, very much. I had several pieces of George's batiks left over and I figured out that I could cut them into the perfect size for flying geese that would be exactly the width of two of my HST blocks. Making the geese was the easy part.


I decided that there would be a vertical row of the flying geese, offset to the right of center, and a horizontal row of the leftover HSTs, placed below center, and the rest just the same white Kona cotton I used in the HST blocks. This involved math. Math, and cutting several hundred yards of fabric into pieces just the right size. I have not yet figured out a good way to cut a length of yardage that must end up being longer than my ruler or my cutting table, and the best I have come up with so far is to incrementally stretch it across the ruler until I have roughly the length I need, plus a few extra feet for safety, and then tear it. My sister's promise that a good fabric will tear straight along the grain line seems to be pretty much true, and so I've been able to get rough estimates of what I actually need, but as I said, I add extra just in case, and then after I sew it there's several inches more on one piece than the other. Do I tear that? It's still longer than the cutting table. Do I absolutely have to make the back perfectly square? Shouldn't I get extra points from the longarmer since the back is actually twice as big as the front even if there are no straight lines at the edges?

And of course I calculated that I would need approximately 867 yards of the Kona, and it turns out I actually need 873. I wonder if I could by stock in Robert Kaufman Fabrics? They could at least send me a coupon or something, for singlehandedly keeping them in business.

Harper feels that her quilt needs have been ignored long enough, and I have been charged with making both a Halloween quilt and a Christmas quilt. I had an old Halloween-themed jelly roll lying about, and I bought that Christmas layer cake in Nashville, so it will be impossible to claim fabric poverty. A friend wants me to make her a Kindle cover, and I need to make a gift for Devon's former daycare provider. I want to make something for David's brother and sister-in-law, for their hospitality when we were in Kentucky, plus I have long had plans for quilts for each of them, plus ones for each of their daughters. I have a quilt for Devon that I started quilting myself that needs to be finished. I decided that my Plane Ticket Benefactor's quilt is much too small, and I'm trying to figure out how to save it. I am rich in projects and poor in time. Which is better than the other way around, I suppose.

4 comments:

Chelley said...

I'm right there with ya! I can't wait to see George finished. I've got about a bazillion projects in the works as well and a big batch of fabric arrived while I was gone this weekend. Gotta love my hubby. He didn't bitch one bit when *6* packages of fabric came in the mail while I was gone. :)

helen-mary said...

You are very considerate to think about your longarm quilter and the massive size of the backing. She will thank you. Hopefully her cutting table is bigger than yours.

Sarah Craig said...

I can completely and totally commiserate with being rich in projects and poor in time - but I agree that it's better than the other way around! I so love quilting, even though I'm fairly new to it, and can't imagine what it would be like not to have a stack of projects to do! George looks awesome, and your back is going to be perfect! Keep up the good work!!

KateKwiltz said...

So get to work!

You have a lot on your plate, I must say. Usually in the fall I have a list longer than my left leg, and end up painting t-shirts the week before Christmas.

Good luck!